Drop Dead Gorgeous June

The monthly fashion clubnight in San José at Fahrenheit is here again!

Retro Love

I have some oldies for you to enjoy again, that is, if you enjoy oldies music. Most of the songs below can also be found on the The Boat That Rocked soundtrack.

The first one is a single by the Isley Brothers called "This Old Heart Of Mine". The Isley Brothers are a legendary R&B/Soul group that was founded as early as the 1950s and has been a prolific group ever since. Over the past 5 decades they have spanned two generations of Isley siblings. Whether I agree with their music and image they display these days, I'm unsure. But I can't deny the quality of this tune.


Secondly "Lucy In Disguise" by John Fred & His Playboy Band. A spoof on the Beatles tune "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds". A truly catchy upbeat song by an interesting band hailing from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Unfortunately John Fred is not with us anymore, but he's left us with this fun tune.


Tommy James & The Shondell's song "Crimson & Clover" is one of those songs that has always been in my head, but never found out who the artist or the name of the song was until a few years ago. I blame my dad who had a simply awesome 60s and 70s record collection, and probably exposed me to all this greatness as a toddler in the 80s. Tommy James & The Shondells have a lot of great music, also check out "I Think We're Alone Now". The vocal effect toward the end of Crimson & Clover is both equally legendary as delicious.


Fourth tune is "With A Girl Like You" by The Troggs. All I need to say is "Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba". This is another song that's been in my head since way longer than I can remember. The Troggs are most famous for their song "Wild Thing" more or less famously covered by Jimi Hendrix. As for the Troggs, I really like the vocal sound of their lead singer Reg Presley.


Finally. A band most of you will have heard of called Mungo Jerry. I would be selling them way short by posting "In The Summertime". Their huge, huge hit in the early 1970s. Fact is, they've created a lot more great songs. I'm not even going to post another one of their old songs. I was surprised to find out that they're still recording great music, and so I'll be posting one of their new songs. A great feel-good song "Going Up The River"


Alright, fine. Here's In The Summertime:


More Retro Love another time!

Ziggo cable television

Television commercial of Dutch cable tv provider Ziggo. At this moment, there are two different versions, each with a famous Dutch personality discribing his or her favorite tv night. In this one Leo Beenhakker (world famous football/soccer coatch) talks about his favorite night watching "a good war movie, some tennis, and Animal Planet. Great concept! Enjoy!

Electric cars. Prius? Not really...

Respect to Tesla, who have displayed a wonderfully smart piece of market insight. Toyota started the trend with the horribly ugly Prius and quickly the ostentatious rich and famous jumped the parade showing their undoubtedly sincere environmental concern and, well, fashionability.

But despite the self fulfilling nature of owning a Prius, a Toyota is not really a car for the rich and/or famous. It's not even a Lexus...

Enter the Tesla Motors company with their first model, an all electric sports roadster, surprisingly named "Roadster". Which is not bad looking at all, especially considering the looks of the Prius. Not a cheap car by miles, going at close to $100.000. Speeding up to 100km/h (60mph) in just 4 seconds, which means it can measure up to a whole bunch of roadsters and sports cars out there which are in the same price range. The same goes for the even better looking Model S as it is named, which is a real looker if you ask me. Going at around $50.000 and racing up to 100km/h in just 6 seconds.

Anyways, time to make my point. Tesla very smartly saw that the people who were likely to buy these trendsetting vehicles, at least in this point of time, will be the financially prosperous. Those whose mode of transportation will be documented in tabloids and that need conversation topics when they're at their country club. And face it, it'll be a whole lot more fun to show off your Roadster or Model S than your Prius.

Haha

see more pwn and owned pictures

Bat Country

Design I did a while ago, thought it would be interesting to post it with the cut from Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas with Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro. Still not sure about the title, call it "Can't Stop" or just "Bat Country" haha.



And some Death Kennedys from the soundtrack with shots from the movie:

Twitterfeed

Trying out Twitterfeed because I never have anything much to share in mini-blogs on Twitter, figured it would be useful to have something that automatically links my blog posts on Twitter. So consider this just a test to see if it works.

Clique May

Another Clique event! If you're in San José, go check it out!

Had some fun with this one in particular. Tried to emulate one of the first designs I ever did that (in my opinion) led up to my usual "style" I have these days.

Argh!

Blogspot is pissing me off lately. When uploading images you can choose if you want a medium, small or large version in your post. Sometimes when I select large, it is shrunk down to maybe 100 pixels wide, then at other times when also selecting large it appears so large it even goes behind the boundaries of the blog.

I wish I could figure Wordpress out, but I'm a complete html-and-other-web-stuff-o-phobe

Eric Carl

Beautiful design by Eric Carl. I only just found out about his work, but it's very inspiring. Have a look at his website!

Football Crest

Durign the 60s and 70s some football clubs featured beautiful crests. Some of these crests still survive today, while sadly, others have been replaced.

One example, which is not that famous is from a Portuguese lower division club Academica:



I might dig around and try find some more to make it more interesting.

Big Bang

Another event in San José. Big Bang at B4 Twelve. As always, check it out if you're out there! Bit of a retro comic book superhero/villain look on this one.

Visual Fixation

Design for the Visual Fixation event at Fahreheit Ultralounge in San José, CA. If you're in the area, check it out!

One day out drinking, 1 digital camera + a few minutes of photoshop

Queensday and Queensnight in the Netherlands is a great event. This year's celebration was overshadowed by a frustrated person trying to drive his car into the Queen, failing and instead killing 8 innocent spectators to the Queen's parade.

Self portraits are so self indulgent.

Hmmm... Beatles

Soulwax

Just two Soulwax remixes. These Belgian guys also know as 2 Many DJ's are one of my favorite remixers/dj's out there. It's insane what they can do to pretty much any kind of music. Enjoy!

The Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want (Soulwax Remix)


MGMT - Kids (Soulwax Remix)

Buy our car insurance pt2

After complaining about bad television commercials, I thought it's only fair to show at least one commercial that does everything right. In my opinion at least.

The company is Allsecur, a Dutch car insurance company (yes, car insurance again, just like the link above) that I actually DID have my insurance with. This commercial aired in Holland a few weeks ago and I love it. It's a simple, clear yet creative concept. It builds anticipation and has an appropriate climax. This is what I meant with "staying true to the product or feeling you are trying to sell."

Something to think about

"If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish."

Jonas Salk

Buy our car insurance...

Today I ran into a commercial on the Dutch national TV trying to get me to buy a car insurance. Who comes up with these ideas and what the point is is lost on me... I can't find the commercial right now. But the synopsis:

An employee of the insurance company is shown working overtime, coming up with great ideas of new types of insurances. Then there's a shot with a baby and a voice over saying that a father's role in a family is easily replaced. The next thing you see is the family parrot raising the baby because the father, the employee of the insurance company works overtime so much... I mean, really? Is this supposed to make me want to buy a car insurance from them?

There have been great creative commercials in the past that kept it simple, they stayed true to the product or feeling they are trying to sell. Creative ideas are fantastic, that's what it's all about. But lately more and more of these concepts seem to go way over the top. They just loose the point for the sake of being "funny"...

Update: I found the commercial, it's in Dutch but with the above synopsis you should be able to make out my point. Here it is:

The BPA

Leave it up to Norman Cook, aka his most famous alias Fatboy Slim, but in this case named The BPA (Brighton Port Authority) to make videos with unique concepts. Have a look at "He's Frank" featuring nobody else than Iggy Pop! Great video, and a pretty sweet tune as well!! Such a hilarious idea... and the face on the Iggy Pop doll!

Clique April

This month's Clique event in San José, CA. Check it out if you're out there!

Good commercial, bad spoof

An example of a very good commercial and a bitter competitor wanting to do better. The Heineken beer commercial called "Walk In Fridge" and the Bavaria beer spoof on the same concept.

I honestly have to say I saw the Bavaria one first, which naturally makes no sense at all without knowing the Heineken original. Which is on it's own a bad thing, making a commercial that makes no sense...

A little background information, as the commercials are in Dutch. They're both housewarming parties where the male and female show their friends around the house.

The Heineken original:


The Bavaria spoof:


Judge for yourself :)

Welcome to Psychedelia

I was doing some research for an upcoming design, and figured I'd share part of that research here. Enjoy, some of my favorite psychedelic designs all found at pooterland.com, some insane color combo's!

Joker Shirt

I didn't make it, so if you dig it as much as I do, I can't point you to where you can get it. If you do know how to get it, then PLEASE let me know... It's bad ass!

Just Like... shirts

Not a lot of updates since I'm in the Caribbean from the beginning of March till the beginning of April.. skipping the last part of winter :)

Last November I posted a draft of a shirt I did for Foot Traffik, a store that'll open in Boston this coming Saturday. They'll sell exclusive Nike's and their own line of shirts as far as I know, probably more.

Now we know the final look of the shirts. The color of the print and shirt may vary depending on their judgement, as well as which of the two prints will be used... they might both get used, I'm not sure.

Go check them out if you're in Boston this Saturday! They're supposed to have a pretty cool grand opening!

3 times David Letterman

I would like to think that Joaquin Phoenix is just pulling one huge elaborate prank on us that extends way beyond his appearance on David Letterman. But it turns out he was only one part in a series of 3? This just can't be unplanned... I know I'm setting up a big "duh" here, but I just had to post them. It's so funny.

What The Fuck #1: Joaquin Phoenix


What The Fuck #2: Crispin Clover


What The Fuck #3: Andy Kaufman

The Wrestler

Saw one of the most touching movies I've ever seen last week. Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler with one of my all-time favorite actors Mickey Rourke.

The movie is based on such a simple story, but that brings out the quality displayed by the director and especially Rourke so much more. This movie has made it into my top 3 movies of all time for sure. Pretty good poster too I have to say. Displays the mood and content of the movie very well.


It also features a kickass 80s based soundtrack as a backflash to The Ram's glory days as a world famous wrestler. A small selection:

guns n roses - sweet child o mine


scorpions - animal magnetism


bruce springsteen - the wrestler (written for the movie)

Great movie poster "Enter The Void"

Enter the Void is the new movie by Irréversible director Gaspart Noé due to be released sometime 2009. But more importantly is it's stunning movie poster. It's a mix between abstract, neon and classic architecture. Which figures since the movie is set in Tokyo. It's about a Western drug dealer doing his business in Japan. Have a look at the poster below:

Playing the bongo

Came across this video on the interwebs. I think it is somhow related to the Diesel fashion brand but the link is vague and distant... Still it doesn't make it any less funny. Have a look!

Don't worry it's suitable for minors..


Diesel's SFW XXX Party Clip

I shall call him...

Something I found on "the internets". I know this is old news, and that it's most likely not even true mostly because I think McCain had some pretty different views on a lot of things than G.W. had, but it's still friggin' funny.

The new Apple laptop!

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Haha, this is great. I honestly do not understand the fascination a lot of people have with Apple computers.

Splatters!

You know, there's a right and a wrong way to use splatters... taken from the Photoshop Disasters blog.

Best movieposters

Movieposters are such a fascinating medium to me. They combine two things I love the most, identities and posters. Obviously a movie poster should communicate the content of the movie it represents, but to me it's also important that it does this as to the point as possible. Above are some of my favorite ones.