Fantastic Mr. Fox

Here's a trailer for the upcoming Wes Anderson film Fantastic Mr. Fox starring the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Owen Wilson and Bill Murray.

Kimiaki Yaegashi

I'm loving the resurgence of all things 3D. Most animations are now coming out in 3D and graphic design work is starting to reflect this style much more as well. Here are a few selections of Kimiaki Yaegashi's work with the 3D style.

New Ravers On The Block - C-Ch-Cha Mixtape

NROTB - C-Ch-Cha Mixtape

Tracklisting:

Miike Snow - Animal (Fake Blood Remix)
CLP - Homecourt feat Kovas
Fagget Fairys - Roll The Dice (B.Rich Remix)
Rye Rye - Bang (Buraka Som Sistema Remix)
Major Lazer - Pon The Floor
Chuckie - Moombah (Afrojack Remix)
Alvaro - Ultimate Rise feat Luxx (Seductive Remix)
Momma's Boy - Give it Up
Harvard Bass - Caked
DJ Gant Man - Juke Dat Girl
Pony Pony Run Run - Hey You (NROTB Official Remix)
N.A.S.A. - Whachadoin (NROTB Remix)
NROTB - Miam Miam
Chuckie - Let the Bass Kick
Diplo & Laidback Luke - Hey
SonicC - Stickin'
Rampage - Loving U is Easy (Heavyfeet Remix)
Drums of Death - Breathe (Curses Remix)
B.Rich - Bump feat. Sue Cho & Whiskey Pete
Rico Tubbs - It Gets No Better (Udachi Remix)
Nero - Act Like You Know - Dubstep mix
Rusko - Sound Guy Is My Target

(via SyntheticRocks)

Skateboard to Stools

Skateboards these days are amazing examples of graphic design, and some are practically objets d’art - what a shame that they should to go to a landfill after the boards have lost their pop! Thankfully, Pennsylvania-based Deckstools is here to keep art from the trash heap and to add style to your pad with their striking line of furniture made from reclaimed skateboards.

Via Inhabitant

Picture Journal: Cheeming Boey

Possibly one of the greatest things I've ever found on the internet is Cheeming Boey's Picture Journal. He has the comedic touch of Guy Delisle crossed with a little bit of Adrian Tomine's Asian-American angst.

A great read for when you're killing time, Boey's ongoing hatred of living in Irving, California will pang at any heart who's had the misfortune of living in a place they didn't want to live in, and how eventual madness turns hilarious.

Boey also draws a mean styrofoam cup:



To start reading the Picture Journal from the beginning, click here.
For more on Boey, click here.

Mag: Monika

There's a new kid in Magazine Town, and she goes by the name of Monika. You won't be catching her wearing any 8 3/8" X 10 3/4" ads to class; Monika is the smoking-pot-while-painting-under-the-bleachers type o gal.

Curious? Read more here.

Gregoire Alexandre

http://www.gregoirealexandre.com

Shawn Kuruneru

Shawn Kuruneru

The Bloody Beetroots ft. Cool Kids "Awesome"

Italian mask wearing producers, The Bloody Beetroots are dropping their long-awaited debut album Romborama on September 8th. Putting out banger after banger in the past year, the album includes Butter, Rombo, and the Steve Aoki assisted Warp 1.9. In addition to Aoki, the album also boasts guest appearances by The Cool Kids, Justin Pearson (The Locust, Head Wound City), Ed Banger artist Vicarious Bliss, and many more.

The first single “Awesome,” which features rap duo The Cool Kids is now available for download here.

Via High Snobiety.

Empire of the Sun - Songs from the Eclipse Broadcast

When I went down to Australia in February I went to a house party. I was at the place for about 2 hours and heard Empire of the Sun's "Walking On a Dream" no less than 5 times. Aussie's love this band. This video justifies the overplay.

Darren Booth

www.darrenbooth.com

Peeler

One of our ongoing side projects here at TA2 is the Mammontastic admetal band Burn Back. The driving musical force behind these anthems is hard-rock outfit Peeler. Frontman and songwriter Craig Peeling has been working with us on (yet another) comeback single for Burn Back, and the demo sounds amazingly evil! Peeler just released their debut album Evils Of The Modern Pleasure Dance. Check it out on iTunes.

David Shrigley

Two David Shrigley things came to my attention this morning. I know all good things come in three's, so please hold tight for the last to present itself.

First are these fantastic salt and pepper shakers:



Second is a David Shrigley playlist. Brought to us by our friends at DazedDigital.com

And here's a couple of Shrigley cartoons for an LOL.

Starbucks: Debranding

In an effort to go back to their original company manifesto of being a funky indie coffeeshop, Starbucks is set to open one of three unbranded stores in the chain's birthplace of Seattle. The first - to be called 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea - will serve alcohol, stock unbranded coffee and have space for running poetry evenings and open mic nights.

All is an experiment by head office to debrand and deglobalize... the question is why.

Pedestrian traffic has been down for Starbucks since the recession hit, and consumer tastes are changing to be more receptive to something that supports both the local community and the environment instead of a tie in with Chapters Indigo.

Head office's turn back to the funk is proving to be a hilarious Office Space esque quest for "flare". An excerpt from the Seattle Times:

'Sebastian Simsch, co-owner of Seattle Coffee Works near Pike Place Market, became frustrated last year after large groups of Starbucks employees kept crowding into his 300-square-foot store to look around. "I thought it was funny," he said. "We're this little store, and I thought Starbucks didn't need to learn from me."

During the third group's visit, Simsch let them know what he thought. "I said, 'If you want to buy something that's great, but just to look, that's not cool,' " he recounted. "I called the PR department and said, 'Never again.' " They did not come back, even after he moved into a much larger store next door.

Victrola Coffee Roasters saw the Starbucks people a lot more often. "They spent the last 12 months in our store up on 15th [Avenue] with these obnoxious folders that said, 'Observation,' " said Victrola owner Dan Ollis.

He thinks it's interesting that they spent all that time in his shop, which serves wine and beer, then applied for a liquor license to sell wine and beer at 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea.'

How's about leaving the local business to the local businesses and spending the debranding money and research on improving the existing brand instead? Consumers are well aware of being marketed to. If you want to appear more environmentally friendly, Starbucks, then let's try and do it properly. Have you heard of these?



Let's get them in your stores. I assure you that the public will be much more receptive to this than a weekly poetry reading.

And on the poetry reading rant, why don't we lift up our sleeves and move some chairs and use those funky chalkboards in your existing spaces to do so? Did we really need to print up "Observation binders" to think of this?

I am fully supportive of the debranding if it leads to more environmentally friendly rebranding of all Starbucks. For that, I say debrand away. Unfortunately, I don't believe the heart in this scenerio. Debranding in order to rebrand as being quirky and independent is only a scheme to be making more money and paving the way to exactly the same corporate trap they found themselves fall into in the first place. It's the Britney Spears syndrome. They won't be able to help themselves.


To see the Seattle Times article, click here.
Also, a great article from Marketing Mag here.

Escif in Valencia and Barcelona

Via Wooster Collective

Pharrell Williams and Takashi Murakami

Twenty six thousand stones, that’s diamonds and gold, an Ice-Cream Sneaker, pink Johnson and Johnson baby lotion, a Magnolia Bakery cupcake, Heinz Ketchup, a can of Pepsi, a condom, and a bag of Doritos. All inside the mouth of the Takashi Murakami character Mr. Dob - high on mushrooms (seriously that’s part of the concept.) That’s the collaborative effort, in simple terms, between artists and entrepreneurs Virginia born Pharrell Williams and Tokyo born Takashi Murakami. This year’s Art Basel (AB #40, 2009) played host to this wild creation which just sold for more than $2 Million Dollars.

The artwork titled “Simple Things” was manufactured by Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd in collaboration with Jacob & Co. (aka Jacob the Jeweler). It was started some time early 2007, taking two years to come to complete fruition.






via World Famous Design Junkies

Film Contest: Crunch needs your shorts

It's worth entering just for the blurred crotch graphic. You have to see that in full action here.

Crunch Gym is looking for their Gym Shorts! The infamous no-judgments gym is holding a contest for 3 minute films all on the brief [hoo!] of - you guessed it - "No Judgments". For a $10,000 prize, I'll hug the above graphic on camera.

Of course, this contest is only open to our American friends, and...

I'm judging us not being able to enter.

Good luck, Americanos!

What to do with your wall of stank

With the City of Toronto finally reaching an agreement on the four week, 36 day garbage strike, as of next week Torontonians can kick it to the curbside once more.

Unfortunately, rumors are that part of the agreement is for households to only put out one garbage bin at a time, so additional recycling goods and garbage stores that have already become a treasured part of your Stank Family across the last month could still remain a house guest for at least another 3 weeks, yippee!

The question is what to do with your wall of stank...

Lucky for us we have Paris resident and sculpteur du papier extraordinaire JUNIOR JACQUET, who likes to transform left over toilet paper rolls into sculptures of faces:



Perhaps one could create a porch full of angry toilet paper roll faces for when the eventual collection does occur??
Just sayin'...

More on Junior Jacquet here.

Emma Kelly

Emma Kelly is a commercial Illustrator. Lives and works in London, UK.





Photos via http://www.iliketodrawthings.com/

N.A.S.A. feat. M.I.A., Spank Rock, Santogold & Nick Zinner – Whachadoin?

I haven't been a massive fan of the whole NASA thing. But they've packed their album with guest stars, so I always come back to it and try. Either way, I'm in love with the dancing cellphones.

Snowing Ice Cream: The Cloud Project

I am still very confused by this very yummy process and will do my best in trying to explain it.

This is an icecream truck:



It likes to shoot liquid nitrogen particles out to the sky that are flavored like icecream in order to produce icecream flavored clouds, which [according to some beautiful, heavenly plan] will start to snow icecream:



My understanding stops here, but I am more than prepared to give all my tax money to support this project.
For the rest, I hand you to the scientists. I'm off to get some icecream.
For more info, click here.

Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre

I've been pretty fond of the work that Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre has been doing. Now I just found out that they are selling the works as t-shirts, framed, etc.





via NOT COT