Music

A fowl Monday morning mood will not be cured by Elliott Smith.

How have the Misfits been one of my all-time favorite bands for years and years, and yet I STILL own no Samhain? No more!

annoying @jasonsantamaria by singing Michael Jackson's "Black or White" in an ode to our Macbooks' diversity.

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 →

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

• My Favorite Font: Some writers of renown reveal the typefaces they use for composition. It pleased me to see that the abundance of Courier and Times owes as much to a reverence for the art of typesetting (“Although it’s a thrill to see my words printed in such elegant fonts, I’d never actually write in them.”) as it owes to the legacy of typewriters and word processors.
• Camp Naked Terror 6 Photos… 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

• The Jerry Springer Episode Debacle: The Lost Film Fest’s Scott Beibin tells the full, outrageous story of faking his way onto the Springer show, complete with clips from the episode.
• swfIR: A new standards-friendly, whiz-bang image replacement technique that harnesses the power of Flash.
• Great (Chalk) Album Covers: Coudal Partners’ and 37 Signals’ bathroom chalkboard is put to very good use.
• Looking to Cash in on a Punk Rock Youth: Apparently there… See more →

One doesn’t often have the opportunity to work on a project that strengthens his skills in multiple disciplines and helps him reevaluate his connection to his heritage. I have been fortunate to have just such an opportunity, and after months of hard work, that project is now available for public consumption.

In late August of last year, a handful of Happy Cogs flew out to Dublin to meet with some of the cheerful folks who… 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

• NRA’s Secret Graphic Novel Revealed!: Right-wing propaganda just got a serious face-lift.
• The Most Dangerous Roads in the World: Yowza! Just like the title says.

In the Stereo

• Crooked Fingers: Reservoir Songs
• Afghan Whigs: Going to Town
• The Hold Steady: Boys and Girls in America
• Deerhoof: +81
• Dmitri Shostakovich: The Symphonies
• Scott Walker: The Drift
• The Knife: Silent Shout
• The Simpsons: Songs in the Key of Springfield

On the Web

• A Rumsfeld Rememberance: Hilarious manipulation of Donald Rumsfeld press conference footage.
• Mr. City Men: Cute, mute CG characters seamlessly animated into handheld video footage. I defy anyone to watch Mr. Fortune without cracking a smile.
• FontBook: Now in its fourth edition, this massive tome compiles 32,000 type samples on 1,760 pages!

In the Stereo

• Philip Lynott: Solo in Soho
• Celtic Frost: Into the Pandemonium

On the Silver Screen

• The Hamiltons
• The Abandoned… See more →

On the Web

• Web Design Is 95% Typography: Hear, hear!
• When Animals Attack!: Just in time for Halloween, Posterwire unleashes a great collection of classic creature feature posters.
• Mark Gervais: Exemplary vector illustration with bold, rich colors, a polished line, and a keen design sense.
• The Origins of Letterforms: U&lc Magazine constructs hypotheses for the origins of the Roman alphabet“s letterforms, numerals, and punctuation.
• The David Zucker Albright Ad: An unused GOP propaganda video from… 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 →

On the Web

• The Fall Guy: An action shot of one of my several failed attempts to mount a tallbike. (Eventually, I succeeded.)
• FreeJack: All of the Flash source files from the current season of the animated Canadian series “Odd Job Jack” are being made available to the public. Wow!
• A Way to Set the Limit of Font Scaling in One Dimension: An excellent demonstration of why non-uniform type scaling is a bad idea.
• Transformers =… 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 →

It was the beginning of a new millennium. School was in my past, a magazine production job in Manhattan was in my future, and limbo consisted of waiting tables in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It may as well have been Mars. I knew no one, and my ghetto neighborhood, animosity for hostile Jersey traffic, and underdeveloped sense of direction prevented me from venturing out much (to say nothing of the dearth of places worth visiting).… 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

• My Week as a Waiter: A New York food critic tries out the other side of the table.
• “Walker: Texas Ranger” Clips on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”: Almost makes me wish I still watched TV.
• Kung Fu Fuck You: The martial art of flipping the bird.
• Burninating Three Candles: Happy Birthday, Trogdor!
• Speak Up: Recommended Reading: A large collection of quality books on graphic design.
• Buddy Rich, the Person: Expletive-rich (no… 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 →