There must be something special about the water those Belgians are drinking... cause there are way too many talented designers coming out of that little country. The ashamedly Belgian-born Jerry Frissen claims that it may just be the dreaded sense of gloom and boredom that gets the more creatively-inclined Belgians to tinker with things. Whatever it is, it's sure got Kristof Saelen to create a very impressive line of pixel personalities called VIPs (Very Important Pixels). Stand-outs for me are the 80s heroes and Michael Jacksons. Rest In Peace, El Rey of Pop... but seeing Saelen's many incarnations reminds me of Kanye West's "Slow Jams" song: "She got a light skinned friend look like Michael Jackson, Got a dark skinned friend look like Michael Jackson". Some of the others (like James Bonds and Blondes) are a bit too subtle to get most people excited (which sort of bums me out because I was raised by my dad on James Bond films!). More can be found at the original blog site. I hope he continues to update it frequently!

When you partner strong design with visionary artists, the initial design gets pushed, pulled, and prodded in interesting ways. One of the finest examples of this is the original blue and red Spider-man costume. Steve Ditko's original sinister design struck a pop culture chord. But it was John Romita's more approachable interpretation of the costume that resonates to this day as the definitive interpretation of Spider-man. Here's a small sampling of how Spider-man has looked over the years. The covers included below are shown in the following order (by Artist name): Steve Ditko, John Romita, Gil Kane, John Romita Jr., Todd McFarlane, J Scott Campbell.

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A few days ago Shepard Fairey (the Giant Obey/Obama Hope Poster dude) was on the Charlie Rose Show to promote his upcoming Boston Art Gallery Show (debuting tomorrow). It's pretty funny seeing Mr. Rose try his best to understand what Fairey does. Charlie Rose comes across as super awkward... but Shepard Fairey does an excellent job of breaking things down for the old man! I still don't think Charlie gets it. :-)

I am still amazed at how instrumental Fairey's contribution has been to the Obama Presidential Campaign. Over time, the Obey Giant "posse" has become an efficient street distribution system. Instead of drugs, Fairey's used it to perpetuate his artistic/political agenda. Mad respect.

Thank goodness, the uber-conservative Right didn't have a good grasp of Art History. Shepard Fairey's criminal record (a result of his firm commitment to Street Art) and his Soviet Communism Propaganda inspired art style could have potentially weakened the Obama campaign by reaffirming unfounded fears of Barack Obama.

Instead we have a merging of Art and Politics on a Mainstream scale that embraces merit over shortcomings.

NeoGAF message board posters were sick and tired of the crappy videogame print ads being used. They collectively decided to flex their creative muscles to muster up some prints ads of their own. Who would of thought that their fan made ads would be so damned good?

Even though these fake ads were done purely for fun and will never be officially used by the Game makers... they are profound examples of clever videogame advertising. The cool thing is Publishers have taken notice! The Capcom Blog did a post about NeoGAF's Megaman 9 ads. MadWorld developers Platinum Games loved the NeoGAF ads so much that they printed some of their favorite ads and posted them up to their office whiteboard (as can be seen on their Facebook Page)!

Thus far, the NeoGAF community has done mock ads for MegaMan 9, Team Fortress 2, Braid, Mirror's Edge, Persona 4, MadWorld and Street Fighter IV. I've included some my favorite ad designs below.

Click HERE for the NeoGAF Flikr Page.

Click HERE for the NeoGAF Ad Discussion Thread.

First off, Happy New Years! I hope 2009 is a marvelous year for you and yours.

I came across this amazing blog/resource collecting the histories behind the design of various rock band/musician logos. We associate band and musician logos to music as much as (and in some cases even more so) the artists who make the music. So it's really fun to see the back stories to these iconic sigils.

Check out the BAND LOGOS BLOG BY CLICKING HERE.

I just saw this on Vinyl Pulse. Carlos Gonzales just killed it with this one! His Darkron sculpt towers at over 14 feet tall. It's super cool to see Kaiju represented so imaginatively at the Art Basel event in Florida. We're big fans of Carlos. Anyone who's clever enough to create a Vagina monster is a-okay in my book!