Posted by Tim Sheehy on Mar 20, 2012 in Design, Fandom
I have more t-shirts than any other type of clothing, and though I ultimately blame myself for being terrible with money, the internet isn’t helping matters. Sites like Threadless, TeeFury, Red Bubble, and so many more keep letting artists design these amazing graphic tees, and my bank account takes hit after hit. To make matters worse, Threadless is currently in the midst of a 48-hour sale, with almost every shirt marked down to $9.99 — they usually retail for twice that. Read more…
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 10, 2012 in Design, Fandom
Olly Moss has been one of my most-watched artists recently. Very few people have the consistently excellent output he’s had. You’ve probably seen his work floating throughout the ‘net at some point, especially his popular posters he’s done with Mondo. Just recently, he released four prints at once, the three original starter Pokémon and Pikachu, which sold out almost instantly. So why not take a look at some of his other work? Read more…
If I’m going to buy overpriced Japanese t-shirts, there’s only one retailer I really trust — Uniqlo. Stylish, well-crafted, and comfortable to wear, their t-shirts will often catch your eye with with quirky prints or bright colors. In Japan, the retailer teamed up with Konami to release a line of Metal Gear-themed shirts celebrating the series’ 25th anniversary. I’d probably kill for a few of these designs, but seeing as their shirts usually retail for around $45 a piece at conventions, I’m not sure if I have the cash to spare. The shirts will be available this April, but I have no idea if you’ll be able to find them in any of the three Manhattan locations located in the US. You might have better luck at major anime conventions later this summer — otherwise, a trip to Japan might be your best bet. Check out more photos after the break. Read more…
Next week marks the release of Mass Effect 3, Bioware’s high-anticipated finale to the on-going adventures of Commander Shepard and his crew as they attempt to save humanity, and the known universe, from its greatest threat yet. Personally, I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy, but until then, I’m left looking elsewhere for my Mass Effect fix. Introducing The Art of the Mass Effect Universe. This full-sized coffee table book comes packed with over 180 pages of art, featuring everything from character studies to weaponry and more. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Feb 28, 2012 in Design, Tech
Some of us use it for work, others just to craft memes for their favorite image boards, but one thing is for certain, Adobe Photoshop has easily become a staple of internet culture. Until recently iOS users have been forced to contend with Adobe’s Photoshop Express which, as I’m sure many of you know from their browser-based version, comes with an extremely limited toolset, missing features like multiple layers, advanced adjustments, filters and more. The complaints haven’t gone unnoticed. To provide a tablet alternative, Adobe recently released Photoshop Touch. Read more…
Here’s some of the coolest wedding invitations I’ve ever seen. Artist and graphic designer Larry Quach recently crafted these one-of-a-kind invitations for his friend’s wedding. Seeing as the entire wedding was Super Mario Brothers-themed, he went out of his way to include everything from the actual invitations to the party favors and even threw together a custom seating chart for the occasion. I’m incredibly impressed with the amount of work that must have went into it, but Larry did a bang up job, and it really shows.
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Oct 4, 2011 in Design, Fandom
A few months back, Chronicle Books published The MAD Fold-In Collection: 1964-2010, a collection of Al Jaffee’s award-winning fold-ins featured on the back of MAD Magazine over the past four decades. For those of us who grew up reading MAD, this special collection is an absolute must-buy. Though I haven’t personally subscribed to the publication in recent years, I have fond memories of purchasing issues and immediately flipping them over to see what Jaffee had in store for us. His brilliant designs are not only humorous and satirical, but constantly remain topical and are often thought-provoking.
I love Star Wars as much as anyone, but I’ve never really given much thought to the actual work that went into building its universe. I know the films like the back of my hand, but I really couldn’t tell you how to construct your own droid or build a sand palace. I simply wouldn’t know where to start. That’s where a copy of Star Wars: The Blueprints comes in hand. Literally 336 pages of content with over 500 photos, and illustrations detailing over 250 designs unique to the Star Wars universe. With a limited run of only 5000 copies at $500 a pop — the first 125 actually come signed and hand-numbered for $1000 each — I probably won’t be able to score a copy for myself but serious collectors will want to take note. The book itself comes hand-crafted with a special dyed-cloth case, along with the certificate of authenticity included as well. I can’t imagine many of you wanting invest in a copy, but if you’re crazy enough to buy one, here’s a link to the order form.
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Jun 28, 2011 in Cinema, Design
The other week I stumbled across the works of Damon Bard. While many of you might not recognize his name, you’ll definitely recognize his work. Damon’s been involved with a number of Hollywood productions over the course of his career, with his sculptures and character designs having graced such films Revenge of the Sith, How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek 2, and more. While his website might seem a tad unassuming, his online portfolio is filled with a plethora of beautiful sculptures, Marquettes and models he’s crafted over the years. While he might not be responsible for bringing these models to life on the big screen, Bards creations have likely fueled the creativity of animators who have. To find out more about Damon and his craft, check out his official website, portfolio and blog.
Posted by Tim Sheehy on May 12, 2011 in Design, Fandom
While many of you may recognize some of her work from around the net, you probably don’t know the name behind some of these nerdy Art Nouveau-inspired character portraits. Her name is Megan Lara, a 22 year-old aspiring artist and self-proclaimed fangirl and her art’s been turning quite a few heads as of late. Her art isn’t limited to these portraits either. Megan’s portfolio also includes fine art, general prints, and more. Currently, a large portion of her works are available on t-shirts via Level Up Studios, but her designs can be found everywhere from RedBubble to, most recently, ThinkGeek. If you’d like to check out more of her work, you can visit her official site or browse on over to her Deviant Art.
Beautiful isn’t it? This deadly insect was crafted by English designer, and steampunk enthusiast Tom Hardwidge. It’s one of many he’s created over the years — an interesting hobby to say the least. The components he uses to craft these wonders are merely used parts from pocket watches, a nut, bolt, or a piece of copper here and there — oh, and old ammunition. I’m sure something could be said for creating art so beautiful from something so deadly.
I’m not sure why it bothers me so much to see those vans with those family decals stuck on their rear-view windows. Something about having to advertise the fact that your family shares a mini-van just seems a little much. If, on the other hand, your family owns the Millennium Falcon, I think I’d be okay with it. That’s why I love this design by artist Steve Thomas. I don’t think you’ll be able to find the sticker, but you can head over to TeeFury and pick up this nifty design on a custom tee of your own. Like every other design that gets featured on the site, it’ll only be available for 24 hours, or until it sells out — whichever comes first. Read more…
Check out this fantastic little mash-up by writer & graphic designer Ben Huber. Anyone who’s a fan of Baccano! will recognize the characters but the image is quite clearly paying homage to a certain poster from Christopher Nolan’s box office hit, Inception. On top of that, you’ll really appreciate the attention to detail, as while you may be unable to see the text without enlarging the image, those credits are completely accurate. It sort of blows my mind that he had time to do that, but it’s certainly cool that he did.
It’s never easy crafting your own props, let alone attempting to recreate one from scratch. That said, artist Josh Jay did a fantastic job sculpting his very own Brotherhood of Steel power helmet from Fallout 3. That much is impressive, but what’s more is that he actually took the time to document the process through photos, posting several galleries detailing the techniques he used while constructing it. Had he actually taken the time to write out some instructions along with his photos, they’d make a fantastic visual aid. For more photos check out his galleries here and here.
I love alt-art, but I love parodies even more. Recently, a friend showed me oldredjalopy.com — a site that specializes in alt-art posters for our favorite films. What’s more, many of these alternatives are parodies of some of the more iconic posters from years past. For example, the fantastic Star Wars Episode IV poster, shown above, is actually a parody of the poster from Stanley Kubrick’s classic Full Metal Jacket. I’ve went ahead and thrown a few more Star Wars posters below, but you really need to check out their site. They have everything from Superman II to more recent works like Oldboy — and best yet, you can actually order prints for some of these while supplies last. Read more…
I’m not entirely sure it was Keita Takahashi’s intent to revolutionize the game industry when he created Katamari Damacy, but somehow a concept as simple as rolling a ball managed to do just that. In fact, many often label his work as art — contrary to what Roger Ebert would have us believe — so it doesn’t surprise me that others would take notice. Having parted with his former employer, Namco Bandai, Takahashi has been forced move on to bigger and better things. Whether or not we see another title on par with Katamari’s success remains to be seen, but until then, Takahashi will be hard at work creating something a little bit different. Read more…
I actually didn’t think anyone would ever take the time to build a 1:1 scale replica of Star Trek‘s Enterprise 1701-D, but it looks as though someone decided to go for it. The video above depicts his attempt thus far, using the Minecraft development tools available here. It’s hard not to point out how enormous the vessel truly is — which seems like it would be obvious, but seeing it on television and seeing it from this perspective can be quite different. It blows my mind that he’s managed to get this far on his own, but I’m sure the process might speed up considerably once he has more people assisting him with the project. If you’re interested, he’s left details on the video’s YouTube page in case you want to contact him and offer your support. Read more…
Editor’s Gold Award Pick: As much as I love toys I live with the guilt that so many of them are filling the landfills of the world with toxic plastics and who knows what else. So when I met the robot shown above it was love at first sight. Now what’s interesting about this robot is that most of the parts that you see aren’t included! In fact 90% of what you’re looking at in this toy is made out of recycled items that we throw away every day — which is what makes this hobby kit so ingenious. The Makedo Find & Make a Robot Kit includes a easy-to-use cutting device to hack cardboard and a series of fasteners to hold objects together — and thus by applying the age old toy concepts that you see in Tinker Toys or Lego combined with the idea of recycling you get an amazingly creative activity for your kids. Read more…
Editor’s Silver Award Pick: When I was first shown this crafts kit I have to admit that on the face of it I was unimpressed — it was just a collection of beads on a string made into a bracelet. But that’s what makes this crafts kit so brilliant! It turns out that every bead in this kit is assigned a secret letter — so kids can put secret messages on the bracelets to give to their friends who can then decode them. Essentially this is a crafters version of a Little Orphan Annie decoder ring! In a show filled with slick gimmicks and dazzling packaging I was impressed with how something so simple could be so engaging. And thus the Bead the Message crafts kit earns my silver award for Toy Fait 2010. Read more…
As someone who went to art school it’s very easy to find creative toys for kids, but there are certain categories of playthings like dollhouses that always seem so old fashioned. So it was with joy that I discovered the brinca dada line at this year’s Toy Fair: They have an amazing line of modernist dollhouses and matching furniture! Their toy furniture line looks like a miniature version of what you might see in the windows of Design Within Reach — and better yet the dollhouse solar panels to power the lights inside: Read more…
We’ve all grown up with the Bazooka Joe gimmick: Half the fun of opening the single package of gun was to read the comic tucked inside. And of course the Cracker Jacks version is to give you a secret surprise inside the box — a technique that cereal companies turned into a fine art (not to forget McDonald’s Happy Meals as well). However today I leaned a twist on this old marketing hook thanks to an imported Japanese pack of Doraemon gum. Upon opening my gum I discovered that each individual wrapper had a unique design based on the well known anime cat: Read more…
I had such high hopes for the Meiji Poporon Strawberry Cookie but alas even with my sweet tooth I couldn’t eat more than just a few of these bite sized saccharine treats. They have puffy wheat outside and a super sweet strawberry filling on the inside as shown in the packaging. And as for the packaging it was slick, but I was a bit let down at the lack of cute illustrations that would have given it that extra something: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 18, 2009 in Cinema, Design
On this day in 1933 visual futurist Syd Mead was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He started his career in 1959 working for Ford Motor Company, but for us fanboys our love affair with his work really starts 70s when he started to make the jump from slick looking industrial design to science fiction. His early film work in Hollywood includes credits on the film Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 2010, Tron, Aliens and even the comedy Short Circuit (yes that was his robot design!). However his triumph for me was his preproduction work on Blade Runner: Read more…
