Skywalkers - Scion Art Basel 2006 from FriendsWithYou on Vimeo.
(Video is a little over six minutes)
With sponsorship from Scion, Friends With You created a parade/procession of large-scale helium balloons along the beach in Miami. Total, whimsical fun!
P+P favorite, Tad Carpenter, created a Dunny for KidRobot's newest Endangered Species Dunny Series. His figure is an owl with glow-in-the-dark eyes. The set includes 15 designs by 13 artists including Amanda Visell, Aya Kakeda, Elizabeth Berdann, Chuckboy, Frank Kozik, Jeremyville, Joe Ledbetter, Kronk, Michelle Valigura, Mr. Shane Jessup, Sket One, Triclops Studio, Touma and our pal Tad! Each figure sells for $8.95 each in blind box and KidRobot is completely sold out so you'll have to check with your local vinyl toy shop or the evil-bay to find one of your own!
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. 
Mattel and Nickelodeon have attempted to update the look of Dora the Explorer, a staple for the preschool and elementary school crowd. The new Dora is targeted for the tween market, recreating her as a 10-year-old girl. The preliminary sketches were released to overwhelming outrage from parents. Lylah Alphonse at Boston.com made a good point about it being okay for kids to "graduate" to new toys and interests.
Outside of the outrage, I don't think the tween Dora looks all sexy and slutty like the media is painting her. She doesn't look like a Bratz girl, that's for sure. Opinions?
[From Typenuts]
I realize that each and every one of you is fully capable of making a gorgeous, engaging, well-typeset iphone wallpapers (And don't think I don't challenge you to do it too, but...). Sometimes, its nice to be inspired by someone else's work. Its cool. Its pretty. Its your favorite freakin' font. Whatever the reason, two web sites have popped up on our radar, both extolling the virtues of a well turned-out iPhone.
Typenuts features free typographically-focussed iPhone & desktop wallpapers.
Huge Type is an an experiment using found type and your iphone camera. Take a picture of a glyph in the world, upload it to the HugeType Flickr Pool. Then access the HugeType site via the iphone and browse the glyphs. If you have enough type nerd friends with iphones, you can even spell out a word. You'll probably have to wait for an AIGA event or the HOW conference before you can spell "antidisestabishmentarianism". (If you do, please send us a picture!)
[Fun with HugeType]
I got a little sneak peek at the Alexander Girard collection when Andy Cruz was at Hallmark giving a presentation. I was burning to tell-all but promised to keep my big trap shut until it was released.
So, now I can speak freely!
House Industries has tackled yet another exhaustive typographic retrospective. This time, they've taken on one of the most influential artists of mid-century design, Alexander Girard. He was a textile designer for the Herman Miller company through the 50s and 60s -- what many think of as the glory days of comtemporary design and created many of the images and patterns associated with the design of the time. House Industries dove into the archives of Vitra and Herman Miller to collect typographic and design elements to build their Girard collection.
Four fonts were created for the collection: Girard Script (based on Girard's signature), Girard Slab, Girard Sky (based on characters originally created for Braniff Airlines), and Girard Sansusie (a casual, playful face).
[Girard Sky]
[Girard Sansusie]
[Girard Slab] 
[Girard Script]
Gallery hanahou opened a fabulous and fun show today in Manhattan called Luv-able and Hug-able which showcases amazing and adorable plushes from over 30 artists from around the world. All the plushes are for sale and if you can't get to the gallery, you can always check out their shop online and snap one or two of the cute little critters.
In conjunction with the show, gallery hanahou is offering two hands-on workshops where you can learn the ins-and-outs of plush creation. The first is December 5th with the Ossu! Syugeibu design team from Tokyo where for $20 during your lunch hour you can churn out a little buddy. The second event is on December 13 where you can make a holiday plush with plush artist Jenny Harada. Email the gallery to RSVP for either event.
Chicago toy shop Rotofugi turns the table on collecting in this awesome little video. Which reminds me, I need more toys!
[Link from Swiss Miss, again. Makes me wonder why I bother blogging at all.]
Taking the joy of papercraft to the observation deck, Wurlington Brothers Press offers dozens of buildings and landmarks from our beloved city as postcards that can be constructed into your own paper models at Build Your Own Chicago. Designed and drawn by Matt Bergstrom, the attention to detail shows how much these folks love the Windy City. Each postcard is available for $1.50
Build Your Own Chicago is a series of postcards published by Wurlington Brothers Press which can be cut and assembled into miniature paper models of prominent Chicago landmarks. We look for some of the spirit, if not the complexity, of the beautiful "Micromodels" designed by Geoffrey Heighway in the 1950s. All postcards are designed and drawn by Matt Bergstrom.
Wurlington Brothers have also started Build Your Own New York for those who prefer the Big Apple.
In a classic case of serendipity, I received two separate emails about creations made from Lego. In Italy, Jan Vormann filled in cracks and gouges in walls with a colorful array of blocks.
At Brick Gun, true-to-life models of modern weaponry can built out of Lego. Brick Gun sells kits of blocks and CDs with instructions to build the models shown on the site.
[Link for Lego Brick Wall from Boing Boing, compliments of Bob.]
One of my favorite illustrators, Michael Fleming (who goes by the moniker Tweedlebop) has spent the better part of year creating individual illustrations for the Star Wars Alpahbet. These are meticulously crafted and rely on more obscure characters from the Star Wars world like K-3P0 and Admiral Akbar. Great fun for the geeks among us.
He's also just released a vinyl toy called Putrid Pal based on a comic book series he's been publishing. Quite the multi-talented fellow!
Mightygodking posted a huge treasure trove of Atari game covers that they picked up at a local garage sale. So much great fodder for inspiration. The post inspired me so much that I might scan in all my Odyssey game covers and post them.
Anna Chambers creates cute, lovable illustrations that just make me want to hug her and all the characters she creates. Besides making yummy illustrations, Anna also creates cozy plush woodchucks and even makes cute turd plushes. 
Photographer Elizabeth Soule creates poignant portraits of toys with soft focus and vignettes around the edges. I think they may be Polaroid SX-70 images. The images are dreamy and ethereal. Some of her work is currently on display at Stumptown Coffee Roasters in Portland. You can also purchase a print for about $25 on Etsy.
Enjoy. Happy Easter!
Flickr favorite, Juliana Pedemonte AKA Colorblok is working with Zune to create Valentine's Day themed background patterns, posters and graphics. Deliciously fun and I'm pretty sure they will fit on an iphone – don't tell!
For more about Colorblok, visit the official site.
For us over here at Pica + Pixel, we have a weakness for small fuzzy animals such as squirrels and bunnies so we were super excited to see super cute DIY felt animal kits on reprodepot. Our favorites are the squirrel, bunny and monkey kits.
[iPhone Gelaskin by Jeremiah Ketner]
Gelaskins offers a way to apply custom graphics to your iPhone, iPod and laptop (as well as several other devices). The artwork available is from contemporary artists Jeremiah Ketner, Bob Dob, Audrey Kawasaki and Nate Williams as well as archival images by Kandinsky, Botticelli and Van Gogh. Its a great way to get some fabulous artwork and protect your precious electronics from scratches.
[Laptop skin by Bob Dob]
[iPod Nano Gelaskin by Aaron Kraten]
Teaser ad for the New Baby Treeson toys from Crazy Label Toys. I just adore the combination of illustration and photography.
Just in time for holiday shopping, gallery hanahou has a great gallery show where you can buy cool plushes by artists such as Heidi Kenney, Betz White, Anna Chambers and 9 cutting-edge Japanese plush artists. The show opens here in NYC on Thursday, November 8th. But don't fret if you aren't anywhere near NYC cuz everything will be for sale in their online store starting Friday, November 9th.
What a treat! Eleanor Grosch of PushMePullYou is offering some of her seasonal illustrations as desktop patterns. Gorgeuos!
