From the LA Weekly via The Wooster Collective

In the early morning hours in mid-December, an amazing masterpiece of epic pink proportions appeared above the Melrose strip. Not MOCA’s Murakami billboard itself, but rather a young curator’s fantasy art show: “Murakami/AUGER/REVOK.” The spectacle lasted two days, and then it was gone. For most of us who missed it entirely, the billboard became art-opening gossip - already a mythic achievement - and yet another coup pulled off by a couple of L.A.’s most prolific and talented AWR/MSK writers. Luckily, REVOK carried his camera that day, and L.A. Weekly received the photo; we were wowed. So, it turns out, was Murakami, whose Kaikai Kiki studio found the evidence via the Internet and had the billboard surreptitiously removed. Murakami buffing billboards all the way from Japan? On the contrary, according to his representatives, he found it “so wonderful, he had to have it for his collection.” Our billboard is now on its way to Tokyo.

[also via]

The North American Handmade Bike Show has been helf for 2008 and as to be expected, there was more bike porn than a bike porn junkie would know what to do with.

If you are into bikes, or just into insane craftsmanship the NAHBS is the thing for you. The above is a detail of a frame made by Engin Cycles and sort of sums up what you will find at the show.

For a full rundown, pics and vids, check out the coverage over at mtbr.com. Worth the effort… if you are so inclined.

Jack Black voices ‘Kung Fu Panda’ for Dreamworks.

Really nice animation style on this one, could be a winner (has to be if JB is voicing!).

Check out the trailer here.

If you have not heard of it, NewWebPick.com is a website that has been running out of Hong Kong for some years now.

Originally it started as a site that used to highlight cool websites from around the globe each week. In the past year or so, they branched out to produce a series of downloadable Flash based magazines about graphics, arts and other creative areas, from professional to part timer. Thy sell this for a putsy USD$1.99 an issue. Value plus considering the content and each ish is around 2-300 pages!

Latley they have branched the concept out more to showcase artists and designers from various countries, and have just started a series that does the same for universities.

Check it out if you have not already, it’s well worth it.

They built the ‘Mach 5′ for a movie!

Enough said really.

Today we were looking over some prototypes that we have been privy to the development of over the last year or so. In the course of the discussions, it came up that an iconic piece of design in the coffee world has been redesigned. It was while looking at the ‘new’ design that we kept asking the question: “Was that worth the effort?”. Read the rest of this entry »