This Ain’t No Disco is a great site for interior design lovers, and for anyone interested in checking out the hippest agency workspaces on the planet — like this image of Victoria, Australia’s Sputnik Agency.

This Ain’t No Disco

Labels: blog, graphic design, interior design, workspaces

Featured Art is up-and-running again after last week’s power failure. To learn more about the mixed-media piece, cipher [5726], visit the link below.

Featured Art : September 25

Labels: artist, cipher, Featured Art, fine art, studiotwentysix2, Tom Davie

*** Civic Duty Alert ***

This is a friendly reminder that voter registration deadlines are fast approaching; make sure your voice is heard.

Rock The Vote

Labels: vote

I came across this story in the Palo Alto Daily News, and just had to acknowledge it.

Katie Chabolla, a California high school senior, creates joy through art. She volunteers at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and brings happiness to hospital-bound kids by painting them custom designed Vans slip-ons.

Great job, Katie.

Katie Chabolla

Labels: article, artist, Katie Chabolla, shoes

The Kansas City Artists Coalition offers a nice collection of art related links, with categories for: funding, grants and grant writing, residencies, publishing and general art resources.

KCAC artist links

Labels: fine art, resource

Juvenile, amateurish and cliché...you bet. But how many other sites allow you to sprinkle pixie-dust on a smoking Chihuahua, under a disco ball? Yep, that’s what I thought.

Blingee

Labels: Blingee, humor

Be sure to check out the paintings and drawings of Nicola Verlato — these works have some of the most impressively-complex compositions that I’ve seen in quite some time; the amount of detail is phenomenal as well.

Nicola Verlato

Labels: artist, fine art, Nicola Verlato

I was organizing a few of my bookmarks today, and came across some resource links that I have found helpful, and thought were worth sharing.

#1) Wikipedia web colors: provides a simple, easy to understand breakdown of a variety of web colors and their corresponding code names. I especially like the X11 color chart because of the color swatch organization, and hex and decimal code equivalents.

Wikipedia web colors

#2) CSSType: a great CSS test site for quickly viewing web safe typography. I am pretty much CSS incompetent, so this site is aces for me. CSSType allows you to type in some sample text, adjust the font, size, letter and word spacing, and it will generate the finished CSS code for you.

CSSType

#3) EmailMeForm: the site isn’t the prettiest to look at, but the product is first-rate. This is the only html web form that I was able to find that did not force you to pay a $20 monthly service fee, or required you to plaster the provider’s logo all over your site. Great resource for anyone with a web site or blog, as the service allows you to provide email and newsletter sign-ups for your site visitors. They offer five free forms per individual — good stuff.

EmailMeForm.com

#4) Google Analytics: really cool service provided by Google that allows you to track visits to your site or blog. It records detailed visitor information, and lets you know which posts are the most popular. For instance, I know that when I do a post about pin-up illustrations, it will gather more interest than say, a post about random web resources. It also informed me that this blog is most popular in Ohio, California and Kentucky, and outside of the United States, it tends to be France, United Kingdom and Canada. In addition to being a fun resource, it helps keep me motivated.

Google Analytics

#5) How Much Is Your Blog Worth: the totally depressing business applet, which informed me that my blog has a street value of just under $565. Bollocks, I say.

How Much Is Your Blog Worth

Feel free to share any other worthwhile sites in the comments section, as I’m always on the lookout for more.

Labels: interactive design, resource, site design

The city of Cincinnati and its power-lines took a beating last week due to Hurricane Ike. A majority of the city’s residents, including yours truly, were without electricity for the better part of five days — and even today, there are a few still left in the dark.

Anyway, my thoughts are with those in Texas who took the brunt of the hurricane. Cincinnati’s inconvenience is nothing compared with the devastation in Texas. I wish you a speedy recovery.

Labels: update

Wow.

Labels: humor, video

This week’s Featured Art has been uploaded on the studiotwentysix2 site. To learn more about the mixed-media piece, cipher [6248], visit the link below.

Featured Art : September 11

Labels: cipher, Featured Art, fine art, studiotwentysix2, Tom Davie

Sia just racked-up 4000 cool points by covering the “legendary” Britney Spears dance phenomenon, Gimme More.

OMG...Itz Britney, Bitch! LOL ;)

Labels: Britney Spears, music, Sia, video

It turns out that lawyers and the Federal Trade Commission don’t like it when you make lots of money while misleading your consumers.

Airborne Health Inc., has agreed to pay $30 million for making false health-benefit claims about their Airborne product. The Consumerist states, Airborne falsely represented its product as a “miracle cold buster,” by citing a study done by a research firm that ABCNews describes as “a two-man operation started up just to do the Airborne study. There was no clinic, no scientists and no doctors.”

Here’s the kicker...while $30 million seems like a substantial settlement, the company claims to sell $300 million worth of the Airborne product each year.

So in summary:
Lie + pretty box + filthy rich = slap on the wrist. Yep, that seems about right.

Airborne False Advertising

Labels: ad campaign, Airborne, article

I once heard that the best things are life are free — while I’m not convinced my life is now better for having found them; these fonts are undoubtedly free. Click on the link below, and download the Free Font Pack in either Macintosh Postscript or PC Truetype by scrolling to the bottom of the Prop Fonts web page.

HPLHS Prop Fonts

Labels: graphic design, resource

This week’s Featured Art has been uploaded on the studiotwentysix2 site. To learn more about the print, Getta Mega Meal, visit the link below.

Featured Art : September 04

Labels: Featured Art, fine art, studiotwentysix2, Tom Davie

Well it’s good to be a geek
It’s good to be a creep
It’s good to draw my pictures
that no one will ever see.
It’s good to be a geek
It’s good to be unknown
It’s good I’m never waiting
right beside the telephone
Cuz no one ever...

I play dungeons and dragons
I got a 13th level halfling fighter thief
got seven hit die on my backstab
sometimes you know it’s good to be a geek.
It’s good to be a geek
It’s good to play the freak
It’s good to comb my mullet
once every other week
As far as I can see
It’s good to play the Wii
Then stay up painting miniatures ‘til 2 or 3
Cuz no one ever...

Chorus:
Someday I’ll learn to play guitar
Start up a band and be a star
And when you wind up pumping gas
Just fill ‘er up and kiss my a$$...

~ Deaf Pedestrians

Geek Tattoos

Labels: article, tattoo

Here is a nice collection of Alice in Wonderland concept paintings, by Disney legend Mary Blair. The work is quite remarkable, but the images were gathered from various sources, so the size and quality tend to vary.

Alice in Wonderland

Labels: artist, fine art, illustration, Mary Blair, Walt Disney

Nashville’s Smallest Art Gallery, is not your typical brick-and-mortar establishment — in fact, it’s not really an establishment at all. The gallery consists entirely of a formerly neglected, graffiti-covered display case that now showcases “exhibitions” featuring small works of art.

I like the concept, seems like a clever appropriation of that which has been forgotten and abandoned.

Nashville’s Smallest Art Gallery

Labels: gallery, Nashville’s Smallest Art Gallery

Be sure to check out the news page over on the studiotwentysix2 main site, as I’ve just added a few new items, including: three desktop downloads, and the logo for Southern California-based Venue Gurus.

studiotwentysix2 news

Labels: graphic design, studiotwentysix2, Tom Davie

I find it strange that the one day a year that’s dedicated to work, everybody has the day off. Shouldn’t Labor Day be the day that everyone goes to work and shows a little pride, or at the very least, pretends to actually care about their job?

If the government wants to give us an extra day off from work, why not call it: Lazy Day, or Hang Out With Your Family Day, or Sit On The Couch And Eat Ice Cream Day…mmmm, chocolate chip cookie dough. Anyway, here’s a nice WPA poster that shows the wonderful options a vocation in math can offer.

Labels: poster, WPA poster