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…
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…
At my local Korean food mart I came across these devastatingly sour and sweet candies from Japan called Shigekikkusu (シゲキックス) which are produced by UHA Mikakuto. I picked up two flavors, the first (shown above) was soda flavored and the second was cola flavored (shown below). The candies were small but packed a punch — the outside was coated with a light dusting of super sour dust, after a few seconds this wears off and you can taste the very sweet inside of of jelly like candy. Read more…
Recently I was wandering through a Korean food mart and I came across this very cute package design for Japanese animal crackers: Aside from the captivating colorful characters the first thing that blew me away was that the crackers are actually teaching kids to understand English, not Japanese! I started to suspect that this was something just done for the American market, but the package actually comes from Japan (produced by Ginbis). The back of the box even had a cute mini-dictionary of animal names (my favorite touch are the cartoons of each creature next to the name): Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 14, 2009 in Animation, Design
Saint Paul Police Detectives and Their Work was a public service color stop motion cartoon produced in 1940. The quality of the animation is itself quite crude and done on tabletop, although the design of each scene which represents a criminal activity is fascinating as each screen is well designed and uses everyday objects. The added touch of the art deco lettering gives you a Dick Tracy feeling offset by an almost surreal sounding soundtrack: Read more…
Editor’s Note: As a creative person I’ve been watching the urban toys scene in awe — and the first question that pops into my head is always “What’s the process of making these cool art objects into reality?” Long time artist David Foox has just introduced a line of toys called Organ Donors, so I asked him as a favor to write up an article giving his start-to-finish experience as a first time creative tackling the world of designer toys.
Step #1 Concept
The most important aspect of any custom vinyl toy is CONCEPT. “If your concept is solid, your toy is a success.” – Erick Scarecrow, friend. While this is the first step of the project, it is actually the most important step – and the one that is most often neglected. People are typically in a hurry to get to the other steps and fail to adequately delve into the concept that is being developed. In order to best develop a concept, I would advise people to first create an inhabitable environment, world, universe, or cause. Read more…
Back at Comic Con in 2008 Ralph Bakshi gave an amazing interview on how to survive in tough times. As a creative working person this inspires me a great deal, so I’d like to share some of my take away points from Bakshi’s insights. Read more…
This is THE best unintentional anti-drug commercial I’ve ever seen hands down! In this clip Andy Warhol interviews Steven Spielberg while Bianca Jagger pretends that everything is “just normal”. What’s odd is that Spielberg seems so off the wall — this must have been what it was like to hang out at Studio 54 back in the day: Read more…
In my never ending hunt for cool and unblogged about pop culture in Japan, I found this mysterious item at the convenience store:
What sold me was it apparently went fast enough or was powerful enough to shatter it’s own UPC code. My first impression was that it had something to do with racing given what I thought was a speedometer or cyclometer. Then there is the fake signs of scraping and damage printed on. Read more…
About a week ago I was very saddened to hear about the passing away of Lou Dorfsman. While Lou didn’t design the famous CBS eye (that was William Golden) from the 60s until the 80s he put the tiffany in the tiffany network. The CBS of today is but a shadow of what it was during that era, but back then it was one of three corporations that dominated American media and Lou gave them their signature look.
In my last year of art school my father purchased a copy of the book Dorfsman & CBS for me which showcased the entire career of Lou Dorfsman and it inspires me to this day. The first thing that you’ll notice is that most of what Lou does is in fact print design, and while he did do his share of animated titles and set designs it’s the medium at which he excelled. What I love about his work is that it’s not just about pretty pictures, but about using words and typography in clever ways to communicate his message. The other thing to keep in mind that as a creative director Lou was a manager, so what you’re seeing here is the word of many other talented people including typographers, photographers, illustrators and even printers.
The first time I viewed this ad was in a course on the history of graphic design, and I was blown away! It’s a newspaper ad from 1962 showcasing the CBS News coverage of the John Glenn space flight. What makes it brilliant is that Dorfsman has taken the graphic convention of the american flag and by turning it 90 degrees and adding a rocket made it represent the hopes and aspirations of the space program. Simply put this is conceptual graphic design at its best.
