Eye Candy: Tokyo Subway posters

Brilliantly terrific Tokyo subway posters from Pink Tentacle. Wish NYC subway posters were they eye-catching and cool.

RIP: Harvey Pekar

We are sad that our favorite curmudgeon comic-book writer Harvey Pekar died earlier this week. He will be remember for his genius of making the everyday man the central character in his many wonderful autobiographical graphic novels. He showed us that comics don't have to be about fictious superheros. That heroes could live in Cleveland, work as a file clerk and survive cancer. We'll miss you Harvey.

Another Reason to Love Chris Ware

Chris Ware is one of our favorite artist here at Pica + Pixel. Our love for him has only grown after seeing his rejected cover for Fortune's 500 issue. Ware captured all the messiness and dishonesty of capitalism going on in our country today. The closeups show Guantanamo Bay, the government bailing out the wealthy, the horrible housing market and much more. To check out more of the closeups, check out this slideshow.





[via Huffington Post]

Google does Pac-Man

It is Friday and if you want to waste a little time today, head over to Google. Today is the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man and to celebrate Google made their logo a playable version of Pac-Man. It has all the bells and whistles of the original game and it even lets you do 2 player (just click insert coin twice). Pretty awesome.

Blog: All Things Kawaii

My husband and I just returned from a two week trip to Japan and while we were there I absorbed as much "kawaii" that I could possibly stand. Kawaii is Japanese for "cuteness" and it invades all aspects of Japanese life. While we were there, I saw adorable dog-shaped battery chargers, banana-shaped smiley face sponges and cute anime mascots for everything from cellphone offers to subway lines. Everywhere I looked I was surrounded by amazing, cute and awesome kawaii figures. Luckly, I can get my kawaii fix back here by checking out the All Things Kawaii blog. So much cuteness I might burst!

©opyright

It's spring and that means copyright infringement time!!!

Here is one article about what happens when one guy doesn't respect a single artist's copyright. (here's the link. the comments are the important part. Start with comment 3 and keep going for a bit.)

And here is what happens when a multi-billion dollar company doesn't respect a bunch of artists' copyrights.

The S from Hell trailer

Sometimes logos scar you for life. "The S from Hell" is a 9-minute long documentary about how a simple logo freaked out a generation of children.

For the Love of the Fail Whale

[1. 3D Fail Whale, 2. Fail Wallpaper, 3. Man, why do I keep getting this error?, 4. Fail Whale, 5. Fail Whale Mobile, 6. Fail Whale o' Lantern, 7. Pumpkin Carving Gathering, 8. fail whale!, 9. Fail Whale Easter Egg]

A whole web site has been dedicated to the iconic Fail Whale, the friendly little message visitors receive when Twitter's servers get overloaded. The artwork was originally created by Australian designer, Yiying Lu.

Now that I've seen Yiying in her Fail Whale dress, I like the illustration even more. Where can I get the dress?

[Photo credit: Nick Cubbin - Australian award winning photographer.]

More info: Yiying Lu's Flickr, How Fail Whale became a hit, What is Fail Whale, Fail Whale Merchandise

Travis Cain and BFF comes to Kidrobot

Pica + Pixel's good friend and graphic designer extraordinaire Travis Cain just released his BFF line through Kidrobot where 9 cute and twisted 3-Inch Mini Figures show that true love is all about pain.

Niemann Legos N.Y.

Today, I received 3 emails all pointing to the terrifically smart and New York centric Lego musings of illustrator Christoph Niemann and I couldn't resist posting it. Niemann took Legos and created familiar, ordinary sites that any New Yorker would recognize. Now, I'm hoping someone takes inspiration from Niemann and does one for Chicago. Maybe Coudal could tackle it?

Change comes to whitehouse.gov

At noon today even before Obama took his oath, whitehouse.gov switched from being Bush-ruled to Obama-centric. The new site incorporates much of the interactive and web savviness displayed on Obama campaign website. The site is all about functionality and clear design. It lets everyone find Obama's stance on everything from farms to the economy to healthcare in one click while allowing the American public to read his blog.

According to a Reuters article, the public can also has five days to comment on all executive orders and proclamations, as well as all non-emergency legislation, published on the website before Obama signs them. All that and a slide show about past presidential pets makes this one rockin' Whitehouse website.

[Thanks to my husband who pointed this out to me and showed me the AWESOME pet slideshow]

Snap up your Obama now!

If you are like us here at Pica + Pixel, we know you love Shepard Fairey's Obama Hope poster as much as we do. Sad you missed the first one? Now you can get your hands on a lovely limited edition Obama inauguration poster done by Shepard Fairey. Snap it up now for just $20.

Also a follow up our earlier post about the Smithsonian trying to acquire the original Fairey Obama Hope poster. They Smithsonian has obtained it and plans to display it soon.

Bento Art

Pica + Pixel love all things dealing with Miyazaki and Nintendo so we were excited to find a Anna The Red's bento factory blog detailing how to make cute, intricate bento boxes with Yoshi, Mario mushrooms, Totoro and numerous other characters. We thought you would like to see them too so check out this flickr set of Anna's bento boxes and find some fun inspiration hidden amongst the rice, seaweed and quail eggs.

Chris Capuozzo storms Fifth Avenue

We just want to congratulation our good friend Chris Capuozzo who got to see his illustrations come to life in holiday windows at the Saks Fifth Avenue here in NYC. The windows were based off the children's book, A Flake Like Mike, that Chris illustrated. The windows will be up a bit longer so head over and fill up on holiday cheer.

Silkscreen poster documentary

The trailer for Died Young, Stayed Pretty, a documentary about silkscreen posters artist and the community around them. I saw part of the film on Friday night and it was a bit disjointed, but if you are a poster fan like I am, you'll be excited to see and hear from Art Chantry, Jay Ryan, Brian Chippendale and a bunch more.

Where did the Golden Arches go?

McDonalds' has created one of the recognizable brands in the world, but that doesn't seem to matter in their two new Quarter Pounder stores in Tokyo. The stores, packaging, and advertising are all devoid of the classic golden arches and red-headed Ronald. The menu only has two choices: Quarter Pounder with Cheese Set or a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Set. And check out the packaging! I have to say that I kinda like the generic constructivist feel.

[Via InvestorSpot]

Extra! Extra! Yes We Can!

The Newseum site does a great job of showing over 700 front newspaper pages from 66 countries on this historic day. Pretty amazing to see so many places around the world to be just as excited as America.

Documenting History

[Photo submitted by Kimble from Castle Rock, CO.]

So the election is finally here. And the New York Times and the AIGA is looking to you the American public to help contribute and create the largest online collection of photographs of the American voting process. First, grab your camera, take pictures of your polling place and your voting experience and finally, upload them to the NY Times site. Be sure to look around the gallery to see what is going on in the rest of America.

Banksy's Strange Petstore

Last night, I trekked over to the West Village here in NYC to check out a special pet store called The Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill. It's windows glowed with spectacular arrays of wild-life from CCTV chicks to a rabbit beautifying itself to chicken nuggets slurping their fill of bbq sauce. It wasn't a crazy dream, but instead a small store front crammed with amazing, thought provoking pieces making up the latest Banksy art exhibition (but his name appears nowhere so only whispering people in the know will let you know). Through out the exhibit I caught myself questioning my relationship with animals, food and American consumption, but never without a sense of humor.

For those of you in NYC or coming for a visit, please go see it at 89 Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village. It runs everyday from 10am - midnight through October 31. For everyone else who can't see it in person, you can check out videos online to see what you are missing.

The Girl Effect

A beautiful, typographic video about the worldwide social and economy changes that can be effected when an emphasis is placed on helping girls in developing countries. For more information, visit The Girl Effect.

[Found in the archives at Swiss Miss]