I love alt-art, but I love parodies even more. Recently, a friend showed me oldredjalopy.com – a site that specializes in alt-art posters for our favorite films. What’s more, many of these alternatives are parodies of some of the more iconic posters from years past. For example, the fantastic Star Wars Episode IV poster, shown above, is actually a parody of the poster from Stanley Kubrick’s classic Full Metal Jacket. I’ve went ahead and thrown a few more Star Wars posters below, but you really need to check out their site. They have everything from Superman II to more recent works like Oldboy – and best yet, you can actually order prints for some of these while supplies last. Read more…
I’m not entirely sure it was Keita Takahashi’s intent to revolutionize the game industry when he created Katamari Damacy, but somehow a concept as simple as rolling a ball managed to do just that. In fact, many often label his work as art — contrary to what Roger Ebert would have us believe — so it doesn’t surprise me that others would take notice. Having parted with his former employer, Namco Bandai, Takahashi has been forced move on to bigger and better things. Whether or not we see another title on par with Katamari’s success remains to be seen, but until then, Takahashi will be hard at work creating something a little bit different. Read more…
I actually didn’t think anyone would ever take the time to build a 1:1 scale replica of Star Trek’s Enterprise 1701-D, but it looks as though someone decided to go for it. The video above depicts his attempt thus far, using the Minecraft development tools available here. It’s hard not to point out how enormous the vessel truly is — which seems like it would be obvious, but seeing it on television and seeing it from this perspective can be quite different. It blows my mind that he’s managed to get this far on his own, but I’m sure the process might speed up considerably once he has more people assisting him with the project. If you’re interested, he’s left details on the video’s YouTube page in case you want to contact him and offer your support. Read more…
Editor’s Gold Award Pick: As much as I love toys I live with the guilt that so many of them are filling the landfills of the world with toxic plastics and who knows what else. So when I met the robot shown above it was love at first sight. Now what’s interesting about this robot is that most of the parts that you see aren’t included! In fact 90% of what you’re looking at in this toy is made out of recycled items that we throw away every day — which is what makes this hobby kit so ingenious. The Makedo Find & Make a Robot Kit includes a easy-to-use cutting device to hack cardboard and a series of fasteners to hold objects together — and thus by applying the age old toy concepts that you see in Tinker Toys or Lego combined with the idea of recycling you get an amazingly creative activity for your kids. Read more…
Editor’s Silver Award Pick: When I was first shown this crafts kit I have to admit that on the face of it I was unimpressed — it was just a collection of beads on a string made into a bracelet. But that’s what makes this crafts kit so brilliant! It turns out that every bead in this kit is assigned a secret letter — so kids can put secret messages on the bracelets to give to their friends who can then decode them. Essentially this is a crafters version of a Little Orphan Annie decoder ring! In a show filled with slick gimmicks and dazzling packaging I was impressed with how something so simple could be so engaging. And thus the Bead the Message crafts kit earns my silver award for Toy Fait 2010. Read more…
As someone who went to art school it’s very easy to find creative toys for kids, but there are certain categories of playthings like dollhouses that always seem so old fashioned. So it was with joy that I discovered the brinca dada line at this year’s Toy Fair: They have an amazing line of modernist dollhouses and matching furniture! Their toy furniture line looks like a miniature version of what you might see in the windows of Design Within Reach — and better yet the dollhouse solar panels to power the lights inside: Read more…
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…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 18, 2009 in Cinema, Design
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…
