While in Japan, my husband and I fell in love with the Japanese version of the ad campaign for Clash of the Titans. The campaign had the usual posters from the American campaign, but it also had these totally rad anime posters highlighting the best parts of Clash of the Titans story. We lamented that we didn't get as awesome or imaginative posters in America. Learn more about the posters go here.
How Japan saw Clash of the Titans:
How America saw Clash of the Titans:
Typophile Film Festival 5 Opening Titles from Brent Barson on Vimeo
Brilliant opening sequence for the 5th Annual Typophile Film Festival created by Brent Barson and design students and faculty from BYU.Created entirely using traditional filming techniques with the five senses being the theme for the film. Letters were cut from Plexiglass, wood, aluminum, foam, ham, potatoes, jell-o, squash, Kool-Aid, clay and incense cones. Watch the video. Four minutes, very well spent.
Art & Copy is now showing in Kansas City, Atlanta, Irvine, Milwaukee and Brunswick, ME.
Previously on Pica + Pixel, we posted about Steven Hill's movie title archive - a down-and-dirty archive of film titles from the 1900s to the present.
Thanks to the keen eye of a co-worker, we now know of another resource for spiffy film title graphics: Christian Annyas' film still collection. This site is super easy to navigate and easier to scroll though a bunch of images at once. Starting with films from the 1920s, it also feaures film stills of the titles and when you roll over the still, it ill also show "The End" when available.
Movieline, the late 20th century newsstand tome of Hollywood madness, has been reborn as an online onslaught of celebrity gossip, film news and an insiders look at the Hollywood machine. Led by former Gawker editors and dressed-to-kill by the mad skills of House of Pretty, this is the go-to site for the goings-on in entertainment industry.
One of the most magical childhood favorites has been turned into a film with the help of such luminaries as Spike Jonze, Dave Eggers, Tom Hanks and Forest Whitacker.
While watching Mamma Mia last night, I had to pause the movie to seek out the creator of the amazing textiles featured in the film. It turns out they are the work of Swedish designer, Josef Frank, who created more than 200 patterns between 1909 and 1950. He also designed furniture, glassware, lighting and metal. Svenskt Tenn continues to offer a selection of his original designs.
Showoff Films ad campaign, "Showoff because there are already enough ways to kill your idea," is a lovely play on familiar film and culture references of bad ends coming to the good from Jaws to the Big Bad Wolf.
The concept was developed by Fuel Lisbon, Portugal, by creative director/art director Pedro Bexiga, creative director/copywriter Marcelo Lourenço, with illustrator Scott C. Retouching was done at SniperShot.
See all the ads in the series at The Inspiration Room.
(Shout out to Shoebox's John Smith for the tip!)
[Clockwise from top: Oktapodi, Lavatory (Lovestory), La Masion en Petits Cubes, Presto and This Way Up.]
Tonight my husband and I checked out all the Oscar nominated short animated films at IFC Center in Manhattan. We watched all five nominated films along with four other acclaimed shorts. All the Oscar nominated films turned out to be captivating, smart and well-done. Some where funny like Oktapodi, Lavatory (Lovestory), This Way Up (small snippet here) or Presto by Pixar. While La Masion en Petits Cubes was soul-searching, introspective and bittersweet (small snippet here). I think La Masion en Petits Cubes should win while my husband voted for Presto. Another winner for us was Bill Plympton's Hot Dog which wasn't nominated, but we loved it anyways.
Pop over to Gizmodo to see an exclusive trailer for the new film Objectified by Gary Hustwit, the creator of the film Helvetica. Objectified is a documentary look at industrial design and the impact of design in everyday object in our lives. Looks like it will be a great film!
Just thought I'd let everyone in the Kansas City area know, KCPT will be airing the film Helvetica on the Independent Lens series on Tuesday, Jan 6 at 10PM. It will also be simulcast on the HD channel. Set your DVR now!
With just a little less than a week left on my turn in the lettering department at work, my onslaught of all things typography will probably ebb a bit and more illustration, photography and design will surface again. I have to get a couple more posts up before then though.
[In Ed Wood the font Chicago is set in 3D letters on a sign!]
Mark Simonson published a series of typographic anachronisms, Typecasting: The Use and (Mis)Use of Period Typography in Movies. It is filled with the kind of typographic minutia only a designer could love. He includes stills from the films and a rating system for the level of attention paid to typographic detail. The post was so popular, he has created a follow-up, Son of Typecasting, where he goes into detail about the good (and bad) use of type in film and television. What fun!
Tomorrow, AIGA KC hosts a premiere showing of the film, Beautiful Losers at the Tivoli Theater in Westport at 8pm. The film features artists like Ed Templeton, Shepard Fairey, Harmony Korinne, Margaret Kilgallen, Barry McGee and many other artists who got started in art doing grafitti, skateboard graphics and the DIY creative culture.
A cocktail party hosted by the Ad Club and AIGA KC will be held before the screening at The Foundry (424 Westport Rd between Riot Room and McCoy's) from 5:30 to 7:30. For ticket information and more details, check out the AIGA site. For more info on the film, visit the Beautiful Losers site.
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. As an honored family tradition, we always see a Bond film over the holiday weekend and this year was no exception. In the twenty-second installment in the Bond series, Quantum of Solace was action-packed albeit a little jiggly-cam. The great joy was seeing that the opening title sequence was created by Kansas City hometown faves, MK12. There is something truly mesmerizing about the technique they used for the type.
MK12 creators, Ben Radatz and Tim Fisher discuss the Quantum of Solace title sequence in this video at the official 007 web site.
More info about the title sequence and MK12 is available at Record Preserve Share.
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.
Chicago film studio Kartemcquin is working on a new documentary film called TypeFace about the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. The Hamilton Printing Factory, once a bustling center for printing and wood type, now hosts monthly woodtype letterpress printing workshops that bring artisans and designers from across the midwest. The film and its creators hope to show the convergent place between historical type and printing, rural American life and our contemporary, digital-driven world (I'm paraphrasing a bit here, please read their full About the Film section for a more poetic description.) I want to see this film!!!
Pica + Pixel are huge fans of the animator/director/writter Hayao Miyazaki films so we are excited to find a trailer to his new movie, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, that was released in Japan this past July. The story is about goldfish who wants to be a human and it will hopefully come to America in 2009.
Gary Hustwit, the mastermind filmmaker behind Helvetica, has a new design-centric documentary slated for early 2009 called Objectified. The documentary will focus on industrial design and how we interact with mass-produced products and how they influence our lives. Heavy hitters such as IDEO, Marc Newson and Karim Rashid all show up in the film, but I am most excited to hear from design master Dieter Rams and whismical, smart Hella Jongerius. (Rams was behind much of the gorgeous design that came out of Braun from the 60s through the 90s and Jongerius makes some of my favorite industrial objects today.)
[via Hoefler & Frere-Jones blog]
If you haven't had a chance to see Pixar's new film Wall-E, call in sick and go see it today. While you're waiting for the theater to open, check out the limited edition retro-styled posters available at Acme Archives Direct. These are giclee prints on archival paper. Sweet!
PS: The posters were designed by Eric Tan. Thanks to Monoscope for the reminder!
