‘a nice typo series by talented recent SVA grad Zipeng Zhu’

Timely messages for a bunch of people in my life – including the redneck in the large white truck.

Found via Jessica Walsh

Last week I attended TYPO in San Francisco and noticed that my notebook was full. No room for notes.

My solution was the #typo13 hashtag, Twitter, plus big fingers and cranky iPhone. Everything I attended I tweeted, autocorrect had other ideas, TYPO ended up meaning typo.

Typically if I go on a tweeeeting binge like this, I lose ‘followers’ and get bitched out a bit. Instead I ended up meeting some cool people from around the planet.

Sol Kawage lives in South Tyrol, a ‘german speaking region in northern Italy.’ Her tagline on her Twitter account states: ‘Annoying people since 1980.’

Pics are from her blog, cool holdings of a small Museum of Modern Art in the City of Rovereto. More here and here.

‘David A. Smith is a traditional sign-writer/designer specialising in high-quality ornamental hand-crafted reverse glass signs and decorative silvered and gilded mirrors. David recently produced a wonderful turn-of-the-century, trade-card styled album cover for popular American singer/songwriter John Mayer.’

More on David A. Smith here.

‘The whole point of animation to me is to tell a story, make a joke, express an idea. The technique itself doesn’t really matter. Whatever works is the thing to use.’

Terry Gilliam on animation. From 1974.

Found via Cartoon Brew

‘The very first rock and roll Music Video. A stop motion film of the Beatles singing ‘I Feel Fine’ drawn by Stephen Verona and hand colored by Verona and John Lennon’

‘Voiced by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her, Pillars Of The Earth) Typesetter Blues is written in the nonsense poetry tradition of Edward Lear and Shel Silverstein’

Crafted by Toronto-based TOGETHER – part of their silly rhymes series Beastly Bards.

Andrea Stinga and Federico Gonzalez’s The ABC of Architects.

Visit their architectural tumblr here.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years. –Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

Years ago I knew a head general counsel who worked for a legal department for a rather large corporation.

When it came to lawsuits, he explained to me that their approach was they ‘never settled’ and ‘would use all of our resources – millions of dollars at our disposal’ to fight any suit that came in. Whether they were right or wrong. “If they’re going to go up against us, that’s what they’re going to get.’

Years later I sat in on a ‘business ethics’ class where this ethic was explained in detail: ‘it is okay to destroy the competition. That’s good business ethics.’ And throw in that businesses today operate to ‘keep shareholders happy’ over everything else – we live in a very frightening world. One that squashes innovation and creativity in favor of ‘good competition.’

Good competition is fantastic – when the tables are ‘fair and balanced,’ a term – even today – that’s not used for what it actually means. There’s a lot we CAN be doing as a race – in terms of social, political and humanitarian causes – but we don’t. There’s a great scene in An Inconvenient Truth where Al Gore points to an illustration of a pot of gold. It’s our motivation. It’s what we live for. A pot of gold. A shiny pot of gold we can hide from others, shower with, rub on our bodies if it makes us feel better.

the battle
Right now there’s a David v. Goliath lawsuit going on. It seems simple open and shut: Large corporations profit from stolen artwork. So artists who created artwork get a lawyer and take on the corporations.

In this situation, the corporations are our darlings: The fantastically wonderful Disney and the ‘god I love what they do for design’ Target. And I spent an afternoon recently going thru the case files – which are posted at Friends of Modern Dog – and to me it seems it’s another bury the little guy response.

You’d think it would be Urban Outfitters doing this – it IS their modis operandi – but no. It appeares Disney and Target are poised to destroy Seattle’s very own Modern Dog.

Ashamed is not a word I use much. Though I think it applies here: BOTH Disney and Target should be ashamed. They are BOTH corporations that benefit from creative innovation. BOTH should be working WITH Modern Dog, not – as this lawsuit seems to be doing – putting them out of business  . . . 

Friends of Modern Dog website – donations are wholehartedly accepted, even a few bucks will help. Donate here.

bias
I will admit – I am a huge fan of Modern Dog. I can actually remember the first time I ran across their work – back in the early 1990s. I was flipping through a graphic design magazine and saw that there was this cool company in Seattle – tied to Seattle’s burgeoning music scene – that had not one, two or three BUT an entire tabletop covered with LOGOS. They are a creative juggernaut – one innovative piece after another. And in my view one of Seattle’s greatest design resources. I’ll even go so far as to say, they put Seattle on the map for me. I spent my honeymoon in 1995 in Seattle – not because of Modern Dog per se – but because I knew Seattle was cool.

the suit
So if one takes it apart: What it looks like is someone working for Disney thought it would be cool to lift images from Modern Dog’s 20 Years of Poster Art. They used it in a retail piece, a tee-shirt to promote an Ashley Tisdale film. Flip the images, no one will notice (see video up top). Well, someone did notice. And Modern Dog found itself defending their handdrawn illustrations of their own dogs.

What happened next was unexpected, the defendants fired back. Detailed legal jargon is the response. With a huge legal price tag. Modern Dog owners Robynne Raye and Michael Strassburger so far have sold their house to pay for things. Good press is on their side. Robert L. Peters has a great overview here. Though at this point, a settlement doesn’t seem to be in the picture.

the obvious solution
Years ago the Head General Counsel I knew also explained one more thing about business ethics to me: if someone fucks up, they should be responsible. Whoever did this – in whatever relationship to Disney and/or Target – is the plagarist. THEY caused this lawsuit to take place, THEY stole the work. Disney and Target – should do the right thing:

FIRE the plagarist, go after them for legal fees – and SETTLE with Modern Dog.

Disney and Target: It’s the RIGHT THING to do. Pretty sure you can afford this.

You guys are supposed to be doing the RIGHT THING. I remember a whole LOAD of Disney films thrown at me just about this very concept. Why is your legal department thinking otherwise? Especially after such a good PR month where you (Disney) now own STAR WARS because George Lucas thinks you guys are on the up and up. And he turned around and donated your money to education.

how to actually steal from modern dog
So I train graphic designers – on the fine art of inspiration over stealing. It’s a simple concept: using someone else’s artwork without permission is stealing. Getting inspired by others and bringing something new to the table: NOT stealing. Inspiration. In this case, Disney’s artist should have DRAWN THEIR OWN DAMN DOGS. It’s that simple.

Modern Dog inspired something I did recently: a simple logotype (above) for an animal shelter just south east of Seattle (opens January 2013). Since, for me, Seattle/Washington State is Modern Dog territory (a dog reference, of course) I decided to thumb thru Modern Dog’s wares to inspire me on how to approach the ‘dog/cat’ cartoon creature I came up with. Is it a direct copy from them? No. It’s my own thing. Simple, with a touch of empathy that I believe animal shelters need – beyond the ‘heart/paw’ thing most are doing. (And the type is modified Sutro, Jim Parkinson’s wonderful humanist slab serif.)

Dogs are cool. Modern Dog is cool. Be inspired by them. And help them – they need a few bucks. Donate here.

‘Cieślewicz always compared himself to a journalist; but he referred to himself as a visual journalist. So Graphic designer, as a profession, is very close to that of journalism; except that it is about articulating clear ideas through the justaposition of imagery and layout – it’s a question of wanting to say something.’ –Professor Andrezej Klimowski, Royal College of Art

Above, a BBC overview of the work of Roman Cieślewicz (1930–96), which was part of a retrospective this summer at the Royal College of Art in London.

Click image to view video/jump.

Found via BBC News

Exquisite lettering by Luca Barcellona and Francesca Biasetton for ELITA, Milan.

Found via Cátedra Bardelás

‘Inventive costume project – created for Anne Boleyn.’

Found via Alice Smalley

Simone Massoni’s Chicks & Types calendar, still available here.

The work of photographer Aleksey Kozlov and designer Marina Khiebnikova.

Found via No Ones Nemesis

The work of Michael Shapcott.

The work of Heather Perry.

Found via All the World Will be Grand

‘Edouard Vuillard, Woman with a Cup of Coffee, 1895.’

Found via FLoM

‘The project was inspired by the opening line in Jay Chou’s song, ‘Secret/不能说的秘密.’ It is inspired by the opening sentence, about lifting up a coffee cup off the saucer, “冷咖啡离开了杯垫” and the ending of the song about autumn leaves and fragmented pieces, ‘飘落后才发现 这幸福的碎片, 要我怎么捡?”

The work of Red Hong.

Found via Ms. Anthropology

From 1985.

Found via tout ceci est magnifique

The work of Christian Marclay. Monograph here.

Found via This Blog Rules

‘You may have visited Fools Foundation, Liz’s gallery and music venue, had your hair done by Sarah at Honey Salon, or seen their band Screature play around town. Liz and Sarah dabble in various mediums and collage is just one of many outlets for these two.’

I loved Fools Foundation – it was in the basement of a building in Sacramento’s midtown and a regular stop whenever I was in the area.

And opening this weekend is Permabond: New work by Liz Donner and Sarah Scherer at Sacramento’s Bows & Arrows.

Details and interview here.

‘Blurring the lines between street art and fine art’

The work of London-based Alex Daw – currently on exhibit as part of Rook & Raven’s Nostalgia.

Website here, blog here, interview here.

Show runs thru February 23, 2012.

The graffiti of Jerm IX.

Found via LOUDreams

Geo. Watkins’ Anchovy Sauce. Illustration by Hwa Young Jung.

Flickr here, website here.

The work of Pavel Guzenko.

Found via Tutt’ART

Found via Artsomething

In-camera photograph by Ren Rox.

Found via Laura Serra

Change to Win’s animate of ‘The End of the American Dream?’ – done in the style of RSA Animate.

Found via Occupy San Francisco

‘Give a Wall Street banker enough rope and he will hang himself’

The work of Miami-based street artist Above. Video by Peter Vahan and Hermes, location provided via Primary Flight and White Walls Gallery. Article here.

‘The Largest Magazine Ever Produced by Guinness World Record. No shit!’

Gaga, photographed by Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin for Visionaire 61 – the ‘Larger Than Life’ issue.

Found via art8amby

In 1977, this poster hung on my bedroom closet door – and was eventually eaten up by use of that same door.

It came as an extra large ‘freebie’ in the Star Wars soundtrack, which I bought thinking it was this album. It wasn’t. It was the symphonic score; for me, an introduction to classical music. What I learned from the free poster – as a young impressionable creative – is abstraction, when done right, looks great.

It was painted by artist John Berkey – who used quick brush strokes that up close were a gloopy mess, but at a distance create energy and implied motion.

Berkey’s work influences me to this day.

And for my iTunes-loaded tracks of the Star Wars radio program, I’m using some of his art as my ‘album covers,’ below.

As for Star Wars’ ‘terrible lizards,’ these are them.

Poster found via KlaatuCarpenter

Illustration by the great Bob Peak. From 1972.

Found via Martin Klasch

‘The range moniker pays homage to The Third Mind, a 1978 book and concept by William Burroughs and Brian Gysin, which showcased the ‘cut ups’ technique originating from the Surrealists – a form also adapted to film making by Kenneth Anger and Maya Deren. In this mode, unrelated texts and images where literally cut up and rearranged to form radical narratives and vistas.’

Abbey Lee Kershaw, shot by Elle Muliarchyk for ManiaMania. Info here.

Found via Fashionising

The mixed media work of Danny O’Connor, a.k.a. DOC.

Found via Doug Home

One of my favorite bands from the 1980s is Yes. And former Yes guitarist/vocalist Trevor Rabin has a solo album about to drop, cover painted by Hannah Hooper.

Hooper is in Grouplove with Trevor’s son Ryan. Below, video for Grouplove’s Colours.

Every person I encounter named ‘Chelsea’ turns out to be incredibly cool.

Sacramento’s Chelsea Wolfe is now in LA – and here’s the video for Mer, from her new album Ἀποκάλυψις.

Below, photographed by Anna Dobos for Interview magazine.

Interview here, tees here.

‘Drop caps not bombs’

An anonymously-created stencil interpretation of myself – spotted last quarter on the wall at the Art Institute of California Sacramento.

(Okay, I know which student made it, but I ain’t tellin)

‘He just sold this painting of a burning Chase bank branch on eBay for a cool $25,000   . . .   It helped that he got a shitload of publicity, from two(!) police investigations.’

The work of Alex Schaefer.

Articles here and here. Alex’s blog here (he’s now ‘symbolically’ burning other buildings as part of the Occupy movement).

Found via Gawker

The work of Robin Rhode.

Below, image from Rhode’s Variants.

‘This is just me fucking about trying to make a secret font’

The work of London-based Kevin Winter. Album covers, fabric collage, printmaking and more. Blog here.

Handlettered type for GAMA-GO by the great Ray Fenwick.

Ray is the author of one of my favorite typographic comic panels, Hall of Best Knowledge – now available in convenient book form.

‘Imagine what it must have been like for those living in America’s eastern cities to hear tales from the Western Frontier  . . .  Images created by Ben Walker tell tales of mystery and excitement that make the ladies squeal with fear and delight as their men quietly slip away to buy passage to The West.’

It all started with a bear and a gun – which was the most dangerous thing Walker would set out to draw. These became icons for Walker, who went on to become an Illustrator of The Great West, spending time on the Ponderosa and a long haul in Sacramenty.

Ben Walker is now based out of San Francisco.

Check out his website here, art and prints available here. Snake Oil Clothing here.

The work of London based-Sandra Dieckmann.

Website here, blog here, shops here and here.

‘For a decade, Danny created art for musicians – album covers, event posters, and logos, among others. Now those artists are paying tribute to Danny with a free, downloadable 35-song album titled ‘DJG Was Here.”

Danny J. Gibson’s been a friend for years – and he’s one of the most prolific, experimental artist/designers I know. In a few days Quietly Contributing – Poster Art of DJG Design will open at the 1819 Event Space + Gallery in Kansas City.

More details here. Snag the free album here (please use the tip jar).

Article here. And visit Danny’s site here.

The work of Hannah Höch, Tailor’s Flower, 1920.

Yan Saquet: Les Djinns (Trentemøller Remix)

Found via Venetian Red

‘I am interested in the female form and the objectification and dismemberment of women. I try to make sense of this dismemberment by the very act of dismembering  . . .  more often than not, the artworks manifest themselves through the female gaze.’

The mixed media work of Thelma van Rensburg.

Poster for No Limit (1931) – featuring original ‘It Girl’ Clara Bow.

The Shocking Blue: Venus (Alex Dias Remix)

The work of Charles Loupot, advertisement for Coty, 1938.

The Burning Hotels: Stuck in the Middle (Baron Von Luxxury Controls Everything Remix)

Art Nouveau meets Russian Constructivism. Motion design by Matt Duplessie.

Superman, as portrayed in Mark Millar’s Red Son (2003).

Motion comic here.

Found via Raving Toy Maniac