Sales benefit Free Press.

Just had a new mini-notebook design released from the Tenth & Grant line of paper goods. It’s a 32-page lined notebook with rounded corners and a fluorescent pattern inspired by Japanese Modern 50s graphics on the cover. See/order here. 100% recycled paper and printed with soy inks.

I am amped to announce a number of new eco-friendly paper goods I designed for Pinall Publishing's Tenth & Grant line of paper goods. A few new notecards are out, as well as a Moleskine-esque gridded sketchbook with a pattern inspired by Japanese Modern 50s graphics.

Details on the sketchbook:
A handsome dark green on light green web pattern spans the entire front and back cover of this chipboard notebook. Perfect bound with a handy hinge-score, and 144 interior white pages. 100% recycled paper! Printed with soy inks! Perfect bound with a handy hinge-score, and 144 interior white pages. Forest and Avocado - 5"x6.75" - gridded interior.

More HERE. 

Also, Tenth & Grant is attending the National Stationery Show in NY for the first time as of tomorrow. If you are in the Big Apple, swing on by Booth #1847 at the Javits Convention Center in NYC on May 18th–21st! 

Tonight: A celebration of ten years of LOST, L.A.'s primero graffiti magazine, celebrating the anniversary and the release of the new LOST book. 

The book contains highlights of the past decade editor/designer EyeOne has spent documenting LA writing. Includes imagery by Atlas (if you haven't caught the documentary on his work, watch it now!), Pale, Cab, Haeler, and more. Screenprinted board covers, numbered limited edition of 2000.

Even if you are not a graffiti fan per se, the LOSt book is a musthave for folks interested in Angeleno culture. More about LOST here. 

LOST is a picture-perfect example of designer as author. 

Well, the first print run of Parallel Strokes is almost gone. To help move the last 200 copies, I printed up some fancy 2 color gradated canvas tote bags. Buy 2 books and get a tote free. Be nice and a poster'll get thrown in there, too.  Bags printed by Sweatshop Union, Osaka's raddest screenprinter. Well, Japan's raddest screenprinter, to be honest.

Thursday, May 1 the CalArts graphic design T-Shirt Show. T-shirts designed by design students, faculty, and alumni will be sold to raise money for the CalArts AIGA student group, for workshops, shows, and other events for the students.

Where: CalArts, Tatum coffee shop
When: May 1st, 7:30pm - 11pm

The shirts are always super-rad at this event. Go early to score new designs from famous alumni!

CalArts' graduating graphic design MFA class  is selling sets of the visiting artist posters on ebay. There are a few sets of all 24 posters and several sets of 6. The auctions will be going up throughout the week, so check back often.

They are selling them to raise money for a class trip and for the AIGA student group.

Own a piece of history. 

My book, Parallel Strokes, is available now via the book website.

Click to read more ...

 

One of my favorite labels these days is Creation Centre, an experimental electronic label run by Trevor Sias of Music Related. About the label in his own words:

 "Creation Centre was created as a platform to get music to people faster than traditional record pressing and distribution. Creation Centre believes that artists' creativity can be held back by slow release schedules, distribution delays and other hassles. Plus, Creation Centre is an exploration of a new distribution idea, already in use by software manufacturers. All releases on creation centre are free. Though if you like, you can give the artist a donation, as much or as little as you choose. If anything at all. Creation Centre keeps none of the money. All of the donation goes completely to the artist. Please tell your friends, post links, and enjoy Creation Centre."

There is some really amazing music available. In particular, the Marxy EP, Mesomeso EP, and Sias' alter-ego Pandatone's EP. All are worth checking out. 

Sias moonlights as a motion graphics designer and animator. To he and those who create content outside of the workplace, I salute you!

Tentacles, Horns, and Scales
April 19th Thrash Out in Koenji, Tokyo.
Artshow, toy release, sneak  attack.
Featuring all new works by Koji Harmon , Bwana Spoons, and Martin Ontiveros.
Sponsored by Dekline footwear.

 Come join us for good times, art, toys, prizes, and a few big suprises.
Thrash Out is the Flagship store and gallery of mind bending vinyl pioneers Gargamel.

Gargamel makes toys that look like Jolly Rancher coated diamonds.

Koji, Bwana, and Martin make art and toys that explode with color, depth, and endless imagination.

Collector and fan Takaomi Fujiki put it best when he said “Happy Beam Discharge!”

For more info as it becomes available,

Click to read more ...

I had the extreme pleasure the other night of visiting Robundo with Chris Palmieri and Eiko Nagase of AQ along with Christian Schwartz the night before last.

Robundo is a hybrid Japanese digital type foundry, type reseller, publisher, and manufacturer of really exquisite small tabletop letterpresses in the vein of old hobby presses. Riso's Print Gocco home screen printing kit is rad, but Robundo's Adana 21J is the next level tool for printing type properly at home.

Katashio Jiro, the owner of the company, is a really amazing fellow who is a treasure trove of Japanese and Western typographic knowledge. He brought out Japan's single oldest type specimen for us to check out (shown below) - a national treasure which he pulled out just for for us!

 

 

Thanks very much to Katashio-san for inviting us to come visit Robundo and for hosting Christian's great talk on he and Paul Barnes' design of the Guardian family of typefaces. The lecture was great, and meeting so many distinguished Japanese typographers was a really huge treat!!

Through 20 interviews with 29 key figures in the Tokyo art world and 6 essays by art specialists, Art Space Tokyo fleshes out a thorough exploration of the Tokyo art world and the issues that revolve around these spaces.

The guide is lavishly ornamented with over 50 beautiful pen and ink illustrations by Nobumasa Takahashi, bringing readers intimately close to the voices and spaces within.

Topics include:

- Japan's position within the rise of the Asian art scene
- Takashi Murakami and the relationship between contemporary art and manga/anime
changes in the Ginza area's position in the Tokyo art world
- an account of connecting with the Tokyo art world as a foreign curator
- converting subway luggage lockers into galleries
- 100 artists renovating a 160 year old warehouse
- contemporary Japanese architecture and urban regeneration in Tokyo
- the current state of Japanese art publishing and art criticism
- international art fairs in Tokyo
- the collecting of artwork and the history of Japanese auction houses
- art and performance in Tokyo's public spaces
- graffiti in Tokyo

This month over at Néojaponisme: a micro/macro look at Harajuku's place in the fashion landscape globally and locally; two analyses of what it really means to be an otaku; and Tokyo's first contemporary art fair. All this and our editor-in-chief is also having a kid!

Kiosk and Hong Kong.

Death by Audio is a small effect pedal company / venue based out of Brooklyn, NY. We specialize in making one of a kind custom fuzz, overdrive, distortion, noise makers, oscillators, filters, white/pink noise generators, vocal delay, octavia, ring modulation, feedback inducers, sub bass boosters, interference, wah, anti-wah, modulation, light control, splitters, couplers, true bypass loops, loops with boosters, simple samplers, drum modules, tremelo, rotary sound simulator pedals, and will try to make anything you need to make your music sound the way you want it to. We also have a line of effect pedals that offer a unique approach to sound sculpting and manipulation. Go to the site and check it out. deathbyaudio.net (discription taken from DBAMYSPACE) DBA also has shows!!