Sake bottles and traditional calligraphic styles of Japan

Neat new article on PingMag about assorted calligraphic styles on sake bottles

Mene One

Tony vs Paul

A little off topic for our blog, but I think you'll be happily entertained all-the-same...

Tony vs Paul.

Stupid style

Monday Morning Links

Happy Monday. Mesk sent over some dope little links. Check em.

Deffintion of Ill.

Dope archive of some Philly Styles.

Model Railroad Madness.

Pretty detailed model making and some sick mini style pieces. This guy obviosuly has a passion for more than just the rails.

Toward Design Literacy

Plug #2:

Just posted a new article up on Tokyo's PingMag about essential reading for designers outside of the usual design monographs and shitty how-to books.

Shameless Plug

Two new Wordshape fonts:

Inversion- a revival of 1910 German decorative lettering suitable for obscure Brazilian death metal bands, Christmas cards, title pages and anything else that might need either a sinister or decorative typographic flair.

Vorgang Grotesk- Adapted from an anonymous German student alphabet made from cut paper. The letterforms of this alphabet were also utilized by Letraset's Fred Lambert to create the typeface Compacta. Vorganger Grotesk is an authentic representation of the originator's graphic intention, as represented in the aforementioned 1952 Hoffmans Schriftatlas by Alfred Finsterer.
Nerd shit? Nerd shit.

Getting over just got harder

You kids better have eyes in the back of your heads, cause Big Brother is watching you.

Article Here.

(Damn! Who does the graphic design for the vandal squad? That poster is Fly!!!)

Ceasr

Seattle Scripts!!! Ceasr showing off those one-liners...

Claw

A lot of acitivity at the studio these days. Mad visits. Claw dropped by the other day, and left us with this.



Sh'es got a new book coming out soon.

BOMBSHELL

Some new books worth a look

Just in time for my birthday. In case you haven't gotten me anything yet ;)

Wallwriting

Cityscapes

Non-letterform-related

Another non-letterform-related post. Did this interview recently with Sean Tejaratchi of Crap Hound zine. Crap Hound is a collection of line art past and present compiled thematically into black and white volumes for c-h-e-a-p.
Why bother posting? The kicker: Sean gave me a few high-res files of the actual collection that you can download and use. Spice up your shitz with some vintage images of poison (pictured), scissors, or telefonos.

Tester 401K

Harmen Liemburg interview

Just posted this extensive interview with Harmen Liemburg- a sick Dutch designer who has recently done some collaborative work with Ed Fella.
Linkage: http://www.pingmag.jp/2007/01/12/things-i-know-about-harmen-liemburg/

"Corrugated Cuts & Collages 2"

Solid show at The Reed Space last night for SP's show. Psyched to see a bunch of people I haven't had the chance to meet up with in a while. The place was so packed I couln't even flick the art so you'll have to swing by and peep it yourself if you're in town.

This picture is INSIDE of the gallery. The corrugated wall was a collage he had made almost 10 feet long.

Of course the Zoo York Crew were in attendance. Grotesk repping the current lineup with some noteworthy alums.



I'm saying. it was packed.

No one told me this was the hard looking picture. Smiling like a herb.


Seattle represent. This kids got style hidden up his sleeve. I promise you that.

You know that weird gas smell everyone blamed on New Jersey a couple of days ago? I heard 5Boro took credit for that.

Did you see the SP/Zered Basset colab piece?

AKA were holding it down.

Impermanence

Yope. Here's the dope.



Graffiti, unless in the context of impermanence, can not really be called Graffiti - as defined by the modern movement begun in New York City in the 1970's. This proposal seeks to recreate that vital impermanence relationship through the use of recreating art work that can not truly be owned in its complete form but rather only in part, with some of its constituent whole disappearing. Much like the foundation works on New York City subways that gave birth to the original movement, and for which none of these subway "pieces" are still around yet still revered as the origin masterpieces only preserved in photo, this installation recreates the idea that the artwork's purity can be found in its fleeting nature to varying degrees. Without some element of this impermanence, the value that comes from rarity and the willingness to part with some element of the whole leaving only artifacts of the original, such as photos are today to the early pieces of the movement, there can be no true attainment of temporal value and transcendence above work in stasis, and no living evolving aspect to the pieces as they can only be viewed in whole for a brief moment - with some of the piece disappearing from the gallery walls and the rest of it being able to be owned as memories only of the complete rarified experience.


This art installation series is conceptual as well as contextual, in that it relies completely on it being placed on and in surroundings that will actually become "inhabited" with the art itself and form the chain linking the pieces together as a whole, inevitably to be broken at disassembly and sale of only some of the selected parts. It's "Hyper-Gestalt" in that not only do the sum of the parts equal more than the whole, but even more so in that the sum of only part of the "parts" equal a greater quantity than the whole. The "golden" concept of Impermanence is only realized at this point where only some of the parts are available for preservation and appreciation, whilst the other parts which were painted onto the display space itself are rendered impermanent and unavailable for sale or ownership. This perfectly duplicates the relationship of Graffiti in the real world and thus recreates the action and greater fleeting value of a representation of Graffiti in a presentation space, to be owned as relics and artifacts of an experience not just a painting. Without impermanence there can be no link to the past of this movement and therefore no through-line from the present to the future. With the most dynamic and "progressed" styles to date illustrated by its most "professional" practitioners today this concept is fully realized and embodied within the installation piece.

Peace

MESH

“Corrugated Cuts and Collages”

SP ONE, is rocking a solo show at the Reed Space in NYC Thursday night. The exhibit, “Corrugated Cuts and Collages” will feature some of his newest bold lettered and vibrantly colored collage work and celebrate the launch of a Zoo York/ Staple Design collaboration. He created an exclusive deck and T-shirt that will be available in select shops in NY, LA, and SF and in limited quantities at the exhibit.

RSVP required! mrreed@stapledesign.com

http://www.thereedspace.com/newyork/
http://www.greglamarche.com/

Never on Schedule...

Always on time.
Truck by UPS. Adornment by Tester and Mene.

ABZ

Just before the holiday I came across some great old bodega/department store/boardwalk-thrill-ride letters (Helvetica italic? The "O" looks customized or from a seperated font) at the shop of a recently retired Brooklyn sign maker. They're plexi and sheet metal. And most of them had an interesting interrior lighting structure. Tubes but not neon.

Here is my 2 year old, Finley, giving you a tour of some of the wonders we collected.