Sorry for the delay, we managed to exceed our bandwidth limit for the month and went down temporarily. The good news is the site is back to normal, the bad news is that it has loaded an older backup. We’ve lost some posts – but I will rewrite and repost them as soon as possible.

Thanks for standing by, we are good to carry on now.

Okay so you must all be getting sick of your vintage 80′s Casio by now. But have you noticed how hard it is to find yourself a unique timepiece? Pretty much everything out there is some form of Nixon, Fossil or Diesel watch. And yeah – pretty much every man and his douche has one.

Enter LIP watches.  The French brand LIP has been around 150 years but have been hard to obtain anywhere outside Europe.  Now, under the watchful eye of Lip’s new design director Prisca Briquet they have now reissued some of their most important models from a modern collection that remains as visionary today as when first launched 35 years ago.

Although some of these designs are distictly seventies, the rounded corners – square faces and general boldness echoes the designs of mid-century modern era.

The 142 year old French watch brand LIP is reintroducing some of their most important wristwatches – a series from the early 1970s that remains as visionary today as when first unveiled almost four decades ago. These timepieces were created from a melting pot of Pan European industrial, architectural, interior and graphic designers, all given carte blanche by LIP to create some of the most original watches ever produced.

Of the seven original designers between 1969 and 1976, Roger Tallon has made the most lasting impact. A true renaissance man of the mid-century. Tallon’s contributions to the Modern era include the Teleavia, the earliest portable television, the world’s first Helicoid staircase (part of the Museum of Modern Art collection), and the ultra modern French high speed TGV trains. His asymmetric Mach 2000 series has since become an icon for LIP with their unmistakable primary colored spherical pushers and crowns.

Under the watchful eye of Lip’s new design director Prisca Briquet are now being reissued, along with several other classic styles that have received updates.

Watchismo is the main online retailer – they stock a pretty large collection.
Including all the models we are displaying below. And yes, thank god, they ship internationally.

Yeah, Kanye comes across as a douche and he’s gotta learn to stop using caps lock and all but maybe the problem isn’t Kanye. I mean he’s made some decent tunes. He’s had Spike Jonze do a clip for him. He’s shagging a very fashionab and sexy, albeit in an androgenous way, model. Factor all this together and you start to think that surely he can’t be all that bad. Maybe the problem is us, the great unwashed non-Kanyes out there.

You see us non-Kanyes can’t even begin to understand the fabulousness of the life this man lives. How can we? The concept of waking up surrounded by Louis Vuitton, bathing in Veuve and then having to decide which lambo to drive which bank stuffed with our milions is so far removed from our frame of reference that we don’t stand a hope in hell of ever understanding what Kanye has to go through every day just to be Kanye. Asking us to understand Kanye is just too hard and arduous a task.

Or at least we thought so. Like every seemingly insurmountable problem, the solution is but a mere google search away. And the internet gods have smiled upon our plight once more and delivered unto us mere mortal non-Kanyes the tool which we’ve been waiting for – Kanye Vision for your browser.

The talented individuals at F.A.T have created a simple Kanye Vision button that you can simply drag and drop into your browser window. Now you can start to gain a valuable insight into what it means to be Kanye by examining real world events through the eyes of Kanye.

Get yours here. What you telling me you don’t have 3 minutes that need killing?

Supposedly this great period of financial turmoil will be a boon to the arts and self expression as  we all try to make sense of this new paradigm into which we’ve been plunged. Can’t remember where I read that but I’m pretty sure that was the gist of one of the many ‘it won’t be so bad’ things the NYT, SMH, Guardian, et al. put out from time to time.

I imagine Cards of Change is exactly the type of thing they imagine popping up all over the place. A project started by a group of laid off TBWA/Chiat/Day employees the idea is that you take your business card from your freshly former place of employment, scratch out the now obviously extraneous shit, add a new personal email and pop in a story ‘of positive change’ with a view to being connected to new opportunities.

Kinda cool, and you gotta give them props for the upbeat attitude, especially since the creative expression I’ve seen emanate from most of my newly laid off buddies has been limited to marathon Monday night drinking sessions and contemplating the allure of rent free living with mum and dad. I guess someone has to fly the flag and show the world some can do spirit.

Add your name to the rogues gallery or just go for a laugh at some of the job titles. (Creative Strategy Advocate? Seriously? and you thought that was going to be a stable position?)

Via AdFreak

One of our favourite contemporary artists, Audrey Kawasaki is having her first solo show in Japan.

You’d think, as famous as she is and a name like Kawasaki – she’d already been having shows there. But alas, she is based in L.A.
Her show is going to be at Space Yui in Aoyama, Tokyo.

If you aren’t already a fan – you’ve most probably at least seen her distinctive paintings of girls on wood (no pun intended) floating around the interweb. She’s considered a rising star in LA’s art scene but more importantly she is internationally famous due to the great reaches of the interweb.

According to Wikipedia; she is known as a painter and erotic artist, known for her distinctive, erotically charged portrayals of young, adolescent girls. Her works are oil paintings painted directly onto wood panels, and her style has been described as a fusion of Art Nouveau and Japanese manga.

Anyway she’s done a whole bunch of new work for the show – and some of it is STUNNING.

Here are my favourite picks:

See the rest of the images on Audrey’s blog and on Space Yui’s Webstore

Broken skateboards are a byproduct of our culture usually destined for the landfill. The deckstool recycles this waste into a unique and interesting bits of furniture. It seems you can turn skateboards into pretty much anything these days.

There is a funny little bit on their site explaining, how you use the deckstool:

The deckstool may be used as an occasional stool or side table and is ideal for a young person’s bedroom, dorm room, apartment, or anywhere additional seating may be needed for playing video games, accommodating guests, or playing music. The compact size of the deckstool makes it especially versatile for use in rooms where floor space is limited.

Uhh.. okay. Well it does look very nice, and would be a great talking piece in a living room. The scrapes and scars add a lot of character, and you know that each piece is unique. I also kinda think it would make a great looking drum stool for a live performance of a punk rock band.

At USD$150 you might think it’s a little expensive – but if you think of it as a handmade unique bit of art, it’s a bargain.

Oh they also do custom ones (a little cheaper, in fact). You just have to send in your broken deck.

link deckstools

It’s smaller, better, faster stronger… oh wait.

Blah blah blah, it’s latest little gimmick is that it uses VoiceOver technology, which enables the Shuffle to speak your song titles, artists and playlist names. Albeit in a Apple Robot voice. Screen? Who needs a screen?

And seriously, they managed to make it freaking tiny. I mean this thing is the size of the remote that used to hang off the earphones of my MiniDisc player. Oh wait, they even did move the controls this new iPod to be on the earphones like my old MiniDisc player. Apple is crazy though, they are updating their product line like there is no tomorrow. New models annouced pretty much monthly now. If you snooze too long on this one, there will be an even smaller one out  – probably by Friday week.

I totally don’t need one, but I kinda want one.

Just making some design changes. It’s going to look really weird and some things will not work for a bit.

Please bear with us for a short while.

Khoda is a short film by Reza Dolatabadi. A graduation film that has so far won sixteen awards and is creating waves across the net.

The film was produced over two years and 6000 paintings were painstakingly produced during to create this five minute animated piece. “Khoda is a psychological thriller; a student project which was seen as a ‘mission impossible’ by many people but eventually proved possible”.

Truly amazing work. Just the thought of painting each of the frames is enough to give you serious RSI.

link Reza Art

Happy (belated) Chinese New Year.

Our favorite press photo site, Boston.com Big Picture, as usual brings us some really pretty photos.

I love Chine New Year. The mooncakes. The lion dance. The firecrackers. The fireworks. And did I mention the firecrackers? I love firecrackers.

And apparently: The OX year is a conservative year, one of traditions and values. This is not a year to be outrageous. A slow but steady year. This OX year will bring stability and growth where patience and diligence pays off. This is a year of Harvest – when we reap what we have sown. Take care of business this year, do not let things slide.

Well – you heard the zodiac dude. Get off your ass and get workin, this year.

Video of the fireworks craziness, after the jump.

See Photos

I promised myself I’d stop checking out agency Christmas cards but then I stumbled across this comprehensive list at Bannerblog and promptly lost a few hours of my life. So in the interests of making this week a wee bit bearable for those stuck at the office and in desperate need for a rabbit hole to disappear down for a while.

There’s over 120 agency and brand Christmas cards to check out. If you’re super keen feel free to browse them all and send us your best of digest.  A particular favourite of mine was the Rare Exports Inc film you can see above. Put together by Woodpecker Film, it’s worth clicking through and watching in HD.

For pure tech novelty value, I really like the use of Augmented Reality by Special Moves. Check the video below to see how it works.

Special Moves Augmented Reality Xmas Card from Iain Tait on Vimeo.

A testament to having too much time on one’s hands, it makes you wonder why it is we have failed to cure cancer when we have the nous to create masterpieces like this. Enjoy.

I love info graphics, and I’ve always had a soft spot for Korn – since it’s one of the bands I grew up with. This video features both, in a amusing way. The music video was directed by Dave Meyers, who filmed the band’s previous videos (“Did My Time” and “Twisted Transistor”). The video features Korn’s temporary live drummer Joey Jordison (Slipknot, Murderdolls), and discusses the topic of devolution in a pseudo-scientific, comical fashion.

Oh yeah – the song is called evolution and it was from their untitled album which came out last year.