Remember those adorable “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters? They were like WPA posters, but more minimalist and had that certain British flair that we all know and love when it’s not connected with mad cow disease.
Well, them days are over. The parodies have come and not only have they come with a vengeance, they now come in different flavors to suit your hipster needs!
Holiday Flavor
Indie Rocker Flavor
Tinnovator Flavor
Snark Flavor
Well hey, it’s November already! It’s National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known as NaNoWriMo to the cool kids. Thirty days and thirty nights of literary abandon. Heck yeah!
Akin to a literary marathon for couch potatoes, the goal isn’t so much to write a novel that will change the world, it’s just to hobble across the finish line (50,000 words) after having walked a fair portion of the race. A for effort, kids! Also, much like a marathon, it sounds like something you definitely want to try…only next year. When there’s less going on, and you’ve trained for it and stuff. On the plus side it’s nearly as rewarding the cheer on the participants. Go team!
‘Tis the season for space heaters and scarves. Wool coats and whinging about how cold it is and how this is only the beginning, it’s all downhill from here and you’ll never be truly warm again until May, and in California it’s 92 degrees and why was it again you ever moved to this god forsaken state with its four seasons and trees that change colors?
Gigposters.com, that repository of awesome design, has a just the stuff to get you in the mood for autumn…or at least fun stuff to look at while you’re huddled inside trying to convince yourself that mittens are perfectly acceptable for 50 degree weather.
...designed by Dan McCarthy
...designed by Jon Johnson
...designed by Weapons Of Mass Design
...designed by Alan Hynes
Font selection is usually something only graphic designers get excited about. It’s one of those instances when even the hippest hipster lets their inner dork out for an extended rant on Papyrus or Comic Sans. (But then again, having an inner dork is of course a prerequisite for being a cooler-than-thou hipster in the first place).
Generally, I find it all a little meh. Sure, I tried to get in on the action. I watched Helvetica (snooze-a-thon). These fonts created by Vladamir Koncar, however, are something even I can get behind.
Brilliant marketing on the part of the Frito-Lay. They’ve found a way to make chips and pretzels eco-friendly without all that inconspicuous solar power and biodegradable bags they use with their Sun Chips. Plus, in so doing, they’ve managed to turn the youth of this fine nation into walking advertisements. As if they weren’t already.
Frito-Lay has partnered with TerraCycle to make school supplies (pencil bags, folders and the like) out of recycled bags of chips, pretzels and Capri Suns.
I have to say, aside from the obvious sell-out factor and the fact that your favorite chip brand isn’t exactly aspirational, it’s pretty cool. In related news, I also saw this in the hippie school supplies section of my local Target, a most hilarious message on the greatest pencil case in the history of pencil cases. I hope it’s brilliance is not lost on the “youngins.”
Having grown up watching Captain Planet and the Planeteers (amazingly created by Ted Turner of all people), I’m actually a little jealous that I have no need for a recycled pencil bag emblazoned with the word “LAYS POTATO CHIPS.” This new green movement is so much cooler than the one that happened in the 90s, although it’s sorely lacking on the animation front.
Captain Planet Theme Song…take a lesson neo-hippies, THIS Is how it’s done:
Most ridiculous yet awesome premise for a cartoon EVER…
Best. Idea. Ever! Threadless, purveyor of awesome t-shirts, is running a contest wherein people who are much cooler than I could ever hope to be recreate the designs on Threadless shirts in cake form. CAKE, people. CAKE. It is, indeed, crazy delicious.
I have long voiced my displeasure at podcasts that do not meet a minimum length requirement of 30 minutes, but in the case of TED talks, I suppose I have to make an exception. According to Wikipedia “TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an academic organization owned by The Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation.” The extent of my knowledge of TED hitherto was an episode of My Life of the D List where Rosie O’Donnell begged Kathy Griffin to have Steve Wozniack hook her up with tickets to TED’s annual conference. Three degrees of Woz. Very exciting.
TED talks is a free podcast via iTunes or the TED Web site with many of the presentations from these conferences. Fascinating, hard core information that’s usually presented in a fairly engrossing manner (usually).
Habits of Happiness, a talk given by former biochemist and current Buddhist monk, Matthieu Ricard, is one of my favorites.
Mental Floss is the preeminent magazine for people who love knowledge. Wired and Print are for a particular type of geek, but Mental Floss is pretty much your catch all for liberal arts nerds. Their blog is thoroughly entertaining and educational which is both wonderful and rare on the internet.
The Mental Floss blog recently ran a post about grammar. Not your boring grammar rules, mind you, more like the history of grammar. Which is awesome, because who ever even considered that there was a history of grammar. It’s just something that exists, like the sense of smell.
Fascinating stuff and double super secret bonus points for their amazing blog post title.
Big to do a few weeks ago about the whole moon landing hitting the big 4-0. Perhaps it was because I don’t have cable anymore and thus missed out on what I’m sure was some exciting programming from the Discovery Channel, but I was pretty meh about the whole anniversary. I think space in general is getting a little passe for us post-cold war kids. Maybe it has something to do with the moon being old news, mars being so far away, and the Internet being so much more tangible and exciting. There’s also the chance that the very idea that defunct boy band member Lance Bass might engage in space travel made the whole thing seem a lot less cool. Although, to be fair, I’m sure a lot of people were very excited about the prospect of Lance Bass leaving the Earth’s atmosphere.
What has not fallen out of favor after all this time, is awesome space art. I’m not talking about your tacky sci-fi book cover illustrations, I’m talking about matchbook artwork. Yes! Somehow that too has declined in popularity amongst my generation. Go figure.
I randomly came across these amazing Russian (or was it the USSR back then, I have no idea) matchbooks celebrating space. I like to imagine that if the WPA had changed their minds about the whole let’s focus on rebuilding America thing and focused on jetpacks and satellites this is what it would have looked like. On second thought, maybe that’s exactly what the space program needs. Beautifully designed propaganda posters advertising the tomorrowland of the final frontier. See the Milky Way! Loose lips sink space ships! We can do it…in space!
