Art

On the Web

• Behind the Scenes of Layer Tennis: Chris Glass details his side of the Layer Tennis match he played with Naz Hamid.
• The Pothole: My first guest contribution to The Superest!
• The Superest: A wonderful new site from Kevin Cornell and Matt Sutter, determined to determine who is the superest of them all.
• Radio Orphan Annie’s Secret Decoder Badges: A brief history of the decoder pins used by Radio Orphan Annie’s Secret Society… See more →

On the Web

• Cassette MP3 Player: If I ever get around to installing Windows, I will so own one of these.
• My Team Vs. Your Team: Sutter Vs. Cornell Vs. Cornell in an epic, illustrated battle of superhero one-upmanship. See another match here.
• Photoshop Layer Tennis: The triumphant return of my favorite Friday afternoon design nerd diversion!
• Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8: An Onion article that is not so farfetched.
• A Brief Message: A new site dedicated… See more →

I killed my own summer. I took on more work than I should have, and hopefully I suffered the consequences more than my clients did. The summer is drawing to a close, though, and with its end, my schedule is finally becoming kind of manageable again. Today was the first day in ages that I was able to leave the house for something that didn’t resemble work.

In the early afternoon, I took in the… See more →

On the Web

• Siggi Eggertsson: Eye-popping geometric impressionism.
• Isaac Tobin: An outstanding graphic design portfolio. I’m particularly fond of his book covers.
• I Love Typography: A new blog whose title says it all.
• Everyone’s a Design Critic: Stan and I are cooking up a presentation for next year’s SXSW, and we’d love to have your vote.
• Turkey: Kevin Cornell’s submission for a comics contest in Philadelphia’s City Paper. I am of the strong opinion that you… See more →

On the Web

• Back Porch Video: An impressively varied collection of both underground and mainstream music videos from a 1980s public access show hosted by Detroit teens.
• Paper Art Gadgets: Tiny, incredibly detailed replicas of consumer electronics (including packaging) made entirely of paper.
• Vintage Vanguard: Covers and liner notes scanned from hundreds of Blue Note records. Enviable, to say the least.
• Rob Weychert from Happy Cog Studios: Design Interviews puts me under the microscope.
• Living… See more →

On the Web

• Thomas Allen: This photographer’s Pulp Fiction series adds an ingenious third dimension to book cover illustrations.
• The Digit: Photos of an amputee with an inspiring sense of humor.
• Fear(s) of the Dark: This French animated anthology looks very promising.
• Band to Band: Trace the musical family tree of your favorite band.
• Spinal Tap to Reunite for Live Earth Concert: Behind the scenes with Nigel, David, and Derek.
• Moustache May: You owe it… See more →

On the Web

• “The Conqueror Worm” Letterpress Print: Coudal Partners’ Swap Meat is selling (or trading) a print Stan and I did late last year. If the walls of your study are looking a bit too cheery, here’s your chance to do something about it!
• R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut: You opened my eyes in ways no other writer could. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. You will be missed.
• Why the Overwhelming Numbers of Design Flops?… See more →

On the Web

• Refill 7: Fucking sick laser-engraved skate decks.
• Happy Cog Philadelphia Is Hiring: We’re looking for a standards-savvy front-end web developer that is nothing short of amazing.
• Letterhead Fonts Embraces DRM: The suggested alternative to embedding fonts in PDFs? Convert to outlines. Welcome back to the 20th century! I’m all for protecting your products from theft, but this ain’t the way to do it.
• The Super Stunt: The full story behind the biggest… See more →

On the Web

• Sanna Annukka: Very flat, very beautiful illustrations with a great sense of color and shape.
• Matt Hammill: Loose n’ dirty illustrations to make you smile. Don’t miss his awesome Psychedelish animation!
• Creating Inspired Design, Part 1: I Am the Walrus: Introduction to what promises to be a great series from Andy Clarke.
• The Design Disease: A handy guide to the inside of a designer’s head.
• Le Grande Content: Interesting ruminations on life… See more →

On the Web

• Cover Letters from Hell: Some amazing examples of how not to get a job.
• The White Stripes on “The Simpsons”: A really funny parody of Michel Gondry’s video for “The Hardest Button to Button.”
• George Washington: The true story of the first American hero.
• Peter Callesen: Extraordinary sculptures made with cut paper in two and three dimensions.
• Red, White, and Black: Roger Black’s fancy new web site.

In the Stereo

• TV on… See more →

On the Web

• Bill Watterson’s Rarest: Some rare gems from the career of the Calvin & Hobbes creator.
• My Hatch Show Print: Behind the scenes at the legendary Nashville letterpress shop.
• A Brief, Incomplete Story of Touch and Go Records at Twenty-Five Years Old: A short documentary on the admirable Touch and Go legacy.
• UCLA Extension: Master Graphic Designer Series: An impressive collection of very influential designers presents dozens of varied solutions to the same… See more →

Through an act of either charity or desperation, Born Magazine allowed me to contribute to its Summer 2006 issue, which launched recently. Having been a great admirer of Born for several years, I was honored to participate.

In its own words, “Born Magazine is an experimental venue marrying literary arts and interactive media. Original projects are brought to life every three months through creative collaboration between writers and artists.” I have always found their use… See more →

On the Web

• World’s Largest Photo: Created using a decomissioned air hangar as a camera obscura!
• Moleskine Solvent Transfers: A gorgeous sketchbook on Flickr.
• Meat Is Murder. Tasty, Tasty Murder: With the vegetarian and vegan cults claiming record numbers of victims, this shirt is more imporant now than ever.
• Hands On: Possibly my favorite Savage Chickens cartoon.
• Our Futurist Past: Marian Bantjes’s review of the V&A’s “Modernism: Designing a New World 1914–1939” exhibition.

In the… See more →

I was born on 3 June 1976. Today, I am thirty years old.

I share 1976 with some important stuff. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak formed Apple Computer, which would inadvertently revolutionize creative technology and desktop computing. Seminal releases from the Ramones and the Damned—and a legendary television appearance by the Sex Pistols—brought punk rock’s disaffected bite into the public consciousness. We said goodbye to luminaries like Alexander Calder, Max Ernst, and Howard… See more →

On the Web

• 2006 Yale GDMFA Show: A Flicker photo set of a breathtaking exhibition.
• Aesthetic Apparatus Presentation: Video of a talk given by the renowned poster designers from last September, courtesy of the Alberta North chapter of the Graphic Designers of Canada.
• Wikipedia Design Overhaul 2006: I usually thumb my nose at the whole “let’s get free design work for our company by holding a contest!” thing, but a donation-based community site with actual… See more →

On the Web

• The Worst President in History?: Even with two and a half years still left in his presidency, many historians agree that George W. Bush is well on his way.
• Finland Squirms as Its Latest Export Steps Into Spotlight: A whole lot of fuss over a heavy metal band in monster makeup.
• Randy Glass: Portfolio site of the incredible Wall Street Journal portrait artist.
• Illuminated Books: A collection of illuminated and illustrated books… See more →

On the Web

• Deadguy138’s YouTube Channel: A growing collection of rare live video footage from some great underground bands: noise, punk, metal, jazz, and more.
• Lawsuit Over Brokeback Mountain Reveals Unease Over Pay for “Arthouse” Films: Are major film studios’ “independent” divisions lowballing creative talent and then cashing in on awards buzz? Yes.
• Time to Redesign: Someone has finally taken notice of how much I “suCkSS.”
• Best Fight Scene of All Time: A truly inspiring… See more →

On the Web

• Microsoft Designs the iPod Package: This amusing little video demonstrates perfectly why designers typically prefer Apple.
• Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey: An insider’s anthropological documentary examination of the much-maligned musical subculture.
• Dev2.0: Band-sanctioned, kid-friendly versions of Devo classics on Walt Disney Records. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
• Lotte Klaver: A beautiful watercolor sketch blog from Amsterdam.
• Netdisaster: Wreak harmless havoc on the web site of your choice. A neat idea,… See more →

On the Web

• Titles Designed by Saul Bass: Complete list of the films Bass worked on, with lots of information and images.
• Lazy Sunday: SNL rap video extolling the decadent joys of cupcakes and Narnia.
• Art Chantry: Pearls Are a Nuisance: Video from this fall’s massive exhibition at the Philip Slein Gallery in St. Louis.
• Superdickery: Absurd and hilarious comic book covers of yesteryear.
• The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web: Robert Bringhurst’s indispensible… See more →

On the Web

• Talking with Jason Santa Maria: An Event Apart, #04: AIGA interrogates Stan.
• Find 74 Bands: And say goodbye to the rest of your day.
• Pixelworthy Is Looking for an Account Executive: Your chance to work with a great team in Philadelphia.
• AT&T Says Bye-Bye to Saul Bass: Another classic logo bites the dust. And how.
• Design Online: Every issue of Design Magazine, from 1965 through 1974, transcribed and scanned for your reading… See more →

On the Web

• Weychert Gone Wild: Sometimes, you just need to dance. Well, I do, anyway.
• Stan & Rob: Champions of Multimedia Design: Bandy provides an intimate glimpse into the lives of Stan and me.
• Occupied: A Jeffrey Stockbridge photo series documenting interiors of dilapidated Philadelphia residences. Some of these are right around the corner from me.
• Dawn of the Knitted Dead: George Romero’s classic characters rendered in yarn.
• Fire Destroys Wallace and Gromit Warehouse… See more →

On the Web

• Download My Store: Is e-commerce moving backwards?
• Shining: A trailer for The Shining, if it were a warm-hearted family comedy.
• Egg Song: A superbly animated Flash cartoon with a catchy little tune about eggs.
• MST3K Movie Poster Index: A collection of posters from every single movie featured on “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”
• A Not-To-Do-List: A big ol’ list of things not to do.
• Pentagram: Hillman Curtis profiles one of the world’s most… See more →

UK designer/illustrator/animator Brian Taylor (best known for his epic Rustboy) has launched a new site called Candykiller, “a collection of illustrations, design ideas, and assorted visual ramblings.” His mastery of a wide variety of styles is pretty astonishing, and there is abundant influence evident from the toys and illustrations of Gary Baseman, the noir comics of Charles Burns, and plenty of yesteryear’s pulp and kitsch.

The only disappointment here is that Taylor’s incredible talent has… See more →

On the Web

• ZombieWalk Vancouver: The undead answer to Critical Mass. What a completely fantastic idea!
• Hollowed-Out Human Head: Frivolous product design ruffles my feathers.
• Remastered: A fellow Rock Snob laments the age of digital music.
• A List Apart 4.0: A great site made even greater.
• “Imagine five of the top voiceover artists in our country all in one car—mine!”: Hilarious trailer for the 26th Annual Key Art Awards.
• P.E.A.R.T.: A drum machine that plays actual… See more →

On the Web

• Guitar Shred Show: Learn the way of the exploding solo and become the shredder you have always dreamed of being!
• Picnic Mtn. Book 1: Thirty-two pages of perplexingly hilarious comics for $5.00.
• Live: Shellac: I have passed up a few opportunities to see Shellac. I am stupid.
• The Bearskinrug Store: Kevin Cornell is now selling prints and posters. Buy now—this stuff is gonna go fast!
• Glyphs: Dave Shea examines the awesome power… See more →

Lately I’ve been very aware of the fact that the art forms I’d like to participate in vastly outnumber my own creative capabilities. There is just too much stuff I want to do. It’s gotten me thinking about how, in its own way, the digital age compares to the Renaissance. During the Renaissance, it wasn’t enough for an artist to be a master painter or sculptor or architect. Notoriety was reserved for people who managed… See more →

On the Web

• Punk Rock Purity: Video of legendary graphic designer Art Chantry talking about his work for Sub Pop Records. Read plenty more of the story here.
• Le Building: A French animated short with a refreshingly simple concept and breathtaking execution. Also, don’t miss the making-of video!
• Nike Campaign “Borrows” Album Art: This is fucking ridiculous. I hope Dischord manages to put a stop to it.
• The Hills Are Alive: My first post for Noteworthy tackles… See more →

On the Web

• 10 Years of Zeldman: One of the most (deservedly) influential figures in web design celebrates a milestone.
• Even Better Than the Real Thing: Imrov Everywhere opens for U2… as U2.
• Goth, Metalhead Overcome Subcultural Differences to Find Love: “What’s gonna happen at their wedding when Danielle starts playing Sisters of Mercy or some shit like that?”
• Jeff Louella: Relaunches with his personal account of the Browser Wars.
• Week 5: The fifth installment… See more →

On the Web

• Chris Harding Animation Concern: Wonderfully designed cartoons reminiscent of Gene Deitch-era Terrytoons.
• A Whole New Internet?: Jason Kottke assesses the State of the Web Union
• Guess the Google: A fun Flash quiz game using Google Image Search
• 54 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena
• Amusement Park in Decay: Three pages of lovely photos (1, 2, 3)
• Five Simple Steps to Better Typography: Sound advice from Mark Boulton.
• Singles Night at Wal*Mart: I think I… See more →

Since Pittsburgh is the other big city in Pennsylvania, and I had never been there, I decided to check it out with Merritt this past weekend. The chosen weekend was timely; The Animation Show (which isn’t scheduled to visit Philadelphia) was screening in Pittsburgh, and since I wasn’t going to Ottawa this year, this was a good excuse to drive several hours to see some animation, and see whatever else Pittsburgh had to offer while… See more →

I remain too distracted to produce contemplative opuses detailing my recent experiences, so here is some brusque vagueness about my tremendous weekend and some recent adventures in cinema:

Kevin Cornell’s bachelor party meant food, booze, billiards, and video games all night at Dave & Buster’s on Friday. The Table’s opening reception for the Land Lines exhibition meant beautiful photographs from Nicki Stager and Micah Danges on Saturday. The Incomparables’ second annual warehouse party meant rock… See more →

There has been plenty going on, but I haven’t had much to say about any of it. Lightning Bolt, Hangedup, Battles, and Lost in Translation are all great and were all taken in last week. Over the weekend, I saw a bumper sticker that said “Abortion Causes Breast Cancer,” watched my dear friend Mary get married, and cheered as some friends’ 48-hour film submission took 2nd place in the 2003 CAmm Slamm in Baltimore. At… See more →

Kevin Cornell recently launched Bearskinrug version 4; it is as delicious as might be expected.

Lots of shows lately: The Raveonettes, Luna, Stinking Lizaveta, Mogwai, Andrew W.K. Some scattered moments: Meathead Group A on the TLA floor uses cell phones to call Meathead Group B in the balcony to alert Group B to being given the finger by Group A. “E-A-G-L-E-S!” chants abound. The Troc house lights don’t go up until Luna has played not… See more →

Some Kutztown arts news:

The PIMA Group will be performing its improvisational “Paper, Rock, Scissors” tonight and tomorrow night at The Table in conjunction with the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

Josh Rickenbaugh has some new and affordable “Art Under $20” available from his “War Series” and “Manna Series” over at Knewseen.

Support these creative people, won’t you?

The summer technically ends on September 22 (as anyone eagerly anticipating the redesign of this site should note), but most people pack up their lawn sprinklers and sun dresses after Labor Day, moribundly lumping the whole of September into the Autumn category. Apparently Mother Nature’s embitterment toward this trend compelled her to adjust the calendar herself; it was 65º and raining in Philadelphia this afternoon. The crap weather seems to have followed me back here… See more →

Why am I always the last to know about these things? I have just recently been made aware of Flügtag (“flying day”), a “sport” co-opted by Red Bull in which very silly people launch very silly homemade flying machines off a very high ramp into an unsuspecting body of water. Clearly, this is something I need to participate in; alas, the closest the Flügtag tour is coming to Philadelphia is NYC on October 5, and… See more →

My friends and fellow Kutztown alumni in the Table Collective opened a small exhibition with a variety of work in their co-op gallery in North Philly last night. My favorite piece was an untitled sound sculpture comprised of textures contributed by (I think) every artist in the show, which were mixed randomly through two channels. I believe the show will be up through next weekend, when a performance is scheduled for Friday night, but unfortunately… See more →

I was going to begin this long-overdue post with a verbose description of the difficulties of keeping a weblog like this: the busier a person is, the less time he has to write, and the larger the pile of experiences to write about becomes. I have opted instead for the succinct description you have just read, which still has not prevented this from being my longest post to date. There’s tons to talk about, and… See more →

So a bunch of stuff happened in the last week.

Puppetmania on Monday turned out to be the best of the animated shorts program at this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival, offering such gems as Jesse Rosensweet’s The Stone of Folly and Patrick Bouchard’s Brainwashers, both of which I missed at Ottawa last fall. On Friday night, the ultra-low budget kung-fu musical Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter entertained me far beyond my low expectations. On Saturday night,… See more →

The newest addition to the Projects section is entitled Snowfall; it’s a series of photos I took in the aftermath of last week’s blizzard.

Also, I have been spending a lot of time on Designologue, which is one of the best graphic design community sites I’ve come across. As stated on the site’s homepage, “A designologue is a conversation between two designers in the medium they understand best—design. Comparisons can be made to Coudal’s Photoshop… See more →

Peter and I took a trip up to New York yesterday. The early afternoon was occupied by sifting through galleries in Chelsea, the highlights of which were the Tim Gardner and Michael Craig-Martin exhibitions, held (respectively) at 303 Gallery and Gagosian Gallery. The late afternoon was spent being herded around NBC Studios in Rockefeller Center, waiting to see Interpol perform on “Last Call with Carson Daly”. The vast majority of the audience was Interpol fans,… See more →

Sonata for the Unaware, the new k10k issue by carbonatedjazz, is the best issue I’ve seen in a long time. There are three simultaneous video clips of public places in Philadelphia; the candid movements of the random people who appear in the clips generate varying bass notes, percussion, and tone frequencies. The 4MB download might scare off the dialup crowd, but it’s totally worth the wait.

I guess it’s been pretty quiet around here. In the last month: I braved the Philadelphia blizzard fallout to get to the sold-out Interpol show at Gasoline and was rewarded with a terrific performance. I caught the final two Andrew W.K. club dates of the year and even got kicked out of one of them (apparently the Chameleon Club in Lancaster has recently found reason not to tolerate members of the audience getting up on… See more →

While I’m sure all (3) of my regular readers are enjoying my media critic pretensions, the About section does say something about the intentions of this site aimed at keeping people informed of what I’m up to creatively, so I think some relevant news is in order.

Lately most of my time has been been spent working on version 2 of the BREDSTIK Entertainment site, including a brand-new design and a bunch of new content.… See more →

Today we trekked south to Kilkenny, primarily to see Kilkenny Castle, but I was also keen to check out the Design Centre and Butler Gallery of Contemporary Art. Unfortunately the gallery was closed while they assembled an installation. the Castle and Design Centre were open, however, and worth a visit.

I’ll say that Kilkenny Castle was my least favorite of the castles we’ve seen over the last week, mostly because its restoration was so thorough… See more →

A quick link before I’m off: my illustrator friend Jim Horwat launched his site today. He has a slick style all his own; go check it out.

I hadn’t been to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in a year or so, so I went on Saturday. Primary points of interest were the massive Barnett Newman exhibition and Out of the Box: 20th Century Print Portfolios, including works by Man Ray, El Lissitzky, Andy Warhol and more. I was also happy to stumble upon a room I somehow never saw before, which was full of turn-of-the-century magazine covers (Harper’s, Lippincott’s, etc) by such… See more →

Yesterday I escaped the unseasonable sweltering heat for a couple hours with a visit to the Philadelphia ICA. The Photogenic exhibition was especially slick, including a number of works that applied photographic principles to other media, such as relief sculpture. Shoot the Singer: Music on Video was slightly disappointing, but still well worth seeing. Particularly noteworthy was a video piece with footage from a 1982 Minor Threat show woven with an interview with a 20-year… See more →

Last night was a fund-raising party at the Heaven Gallery in Wicker Park for the upcoming Version02 Festival (which I’m really sad I’m going to miss). Despite huge potential for overhipness, it was a genuinely great time, and I met a bunch of really nice people. I was also familiarized with the very slick SELECT zine.

Thanks to Kelly and her FluX Core pals for showing me a good time.

My generous hosts and I got back a couple hours ago from seeing a gorgeous digitally remastered 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Music Box Theatre. Wow.

This afternoon I paid my inaugural visit to the inside of The Art Institute of Chicago (I took some fabulous photos of my sock monkey around the exterior last spring). Lots of cool stuff in there, including a number of Lautrec and Renoir paintings I’ve… See more →