As defined by Niel Muelman: Graffiti is simply defined as getting your (pseudo) name up in the urban environment. Calligraphy is the art of writing and has many forms (such as Japanese ancient brush characters, Arabic pictorial scripts, illuminated mediaeval books or swirly quill writing). In the particular case of Calligraffiti, Niel Muelman is getting his name “Shoe” up in the urban environment in an unexpected way.

I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of graffiti, but I’ve always been a fan of calligraphy. There is something wonderful about Niel “Shoe” Meulman’s calligraffiti, the fusion of the two art forms. The elegance and beauty in surprising places.

To learn more about Niel “Shoe” Meulman and his calligraffiti movement, check out his site (Shoe tells surface and medium for each image, pretty cool). You can also purchase Calligraffiti – The Graphic Art of Niel SHOE Muelman book here.

(via faye + co)

Elena Kalis is a conceptual underwater photographer living and working in the Bahamas. Her work is so breathtaking and magical, not to mention her models are so talented at conveying emotion in their faces while underwater. And most of them are KIDS! Her body of work is just stunning. Be sure to check out her Alice in Wonderland series as well.

Read more here.

(via fastcompany.com)

I came across this earlier in the summer and just saw it again in Steve Jobs’ live conference. Enjoy. See more at tarpsurfing.com

To create something original in the current digital world is rare. I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything quite like this.

The Wilderness Downtown, set to Arcade Fire’s song “We Used To Wait,” is an interactive music video that takes over your browser like nothing I’ve seen before.

Choreographed windows, interactive flocking, custom rendered maps, real-time compositing, procedural drawing, 3D canvas rendering… this Chrome Experiment has them all. “The Wilderness Downtown” is an interactive interpretation of Arcade Fire’s song “We Used To Wait” and was built entirely with the latest open web technologies, including HTML5 video, audio, and canvas.

Nothing I post here can remotely do this justice, you just need to experience it. Using a modern browser* visit www.thewildernessdowntown.com.

This video/movie/whatever uses modern web technology such as HTML5. There is no Flash involved in this. For more insight into the technologies used, visit www.chromeexperiments.com/arcadefire.

*(Safari or Google Chrome, no idea if Firefox works, if you’re using Internet Explorer bookmark it for later)

Umm, how sexy are these? TSOVET Time Instruments, or watches to the lay person, are inspired by vintage industrial gauges and avionic instrumentation. The inspiration is apparent, and makes for some nice looking watches.

Feel free to pick up the all-black SVT-AT76 for my birthday. Find your favorite at www.tsovet.com.

Oxxford Clothes, out of Chicago, is the only place in the United States that still tailors suits entirely by hand. This beautifully made video shows a glimpse into their painstaking process, all by hand, stitch by stitch, that they’ve been doing since 1916. The workmanship is astounding.

I’m sure these are far out of my price range, but I can appreciate the craftsmanship.

(via Coudal)

One of my favorite sites to visit for inspiration is StartupQuote.com. It’s a simple site, just quotes posted by people who run successful startups. Great words of wisdom.

Go and follow them: www.startupquote.com.

“The work you find yourself doing while you’re procrastinating is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.”
—Jessica Hische

Friend of the site Mig Reyes has been making some great short interviews with respected designers.

Humble Pied is a collection of creative professional advice in an on-going project where the formula is quite simple: one awesome creative type sharing one simple and inspirational tip. All over iChat.

“Rip something off.”
—Jim Coudal

“Great designers are never content, struggling with a design is okay. ”
—Nick Campbell

There are plenty more where these came from. Go & be inspired: www.humblepied.com.

Who doesn’t love a beautiful hand painted sign? Even if that’s just me, its hard to deny that these signs by New Bohemia Signs aren’t gorgeous. Just check out the before and after for Mike’s Liquor. What a transformation!

Located in San Francisco, New Bohemia has been hand painting signs since 1933. They recreate art provided to them, but also provide custom designs (all images shown are custom).

Check out more of their work on their site and their recent work on flickr.

(via faye + co)

Last Friday I received an email from your friend and mine Cee Lo Green (of Goodie Mob & Gnalrles Barkley Fame) simply titled “F You”. He shared the video for his new song F**k You from his upcoming album “Lady Killer.”

Within a matter of seconds the video was everywhere from Facebook to Twitter. It was even posted on my grandmothers blog and if you search for it on Youtube you’ll come across an astonishing amount of covers, remixes and sing-alongs.

Honestly I’m just glad to see the masses gaining such respect for good motion graphics and typography (set in Knockout by H&FJ). The times they are a-changing.

French Artist Licoti has created an amazingly detailed piece of art depicting our solar system. The file, which you can download for free here, is 30,000 pixels wide and weighs in at a whopping 18megs. It’s more than worth the download, and makes for some impressive desktop backgrounds at the very least.

Here is the entire thing at 600 pixels wide, and a selection at 100%, to really understand the scale.

( via Forgetomori )

Here’s a great talk by Cameron Moll on inspiration, and his experience with good vs. great design. It’s long, so listen to it in the background. I’ve watched it 4 or 5 times in the past week and it’s really lit a bit of a fire under my butt. Highly recommended.

His blog is also worth following: cameronmoll.tumblr.com.

(via SwissMiss)

Design is History is a great resource for a glimpse at the history of graphic design. The site is a great collection of the major players, sorted by design era, going all the way back to the beginnings in the 1400s.

The design of the site is well done (it’d have to be!), a credit to designer Dominic Flask, who started the site as a thesis project. Each page shares relevant information on the web, related books and videos for more information. Well done.

Go and poke around www.designishistory.com.

Kevin Rose posted a great video about the design ethos of Dieter Rams, to show where much of the inspiration for designer Jony Ive comes from.

To Apple fanboys/girls Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive, is a god. But where does Jony draw his inspiration? Meet german industrial designer, Dieter Rams:

Jony Ive, as you probably know, is the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple, responsible for much of the design to come out of the company since the late 90’s. Behind Steve Jobs, he is probably the most important mind at the company.

(Above: Braun designer, Dieter Rams. Below: Apple’s Jony Ive)

The video touches on Rams’ famous ten principals to “good design.”

Good design:

is innovative
makes a product useful
is aesthetic
makes a product understandable
is unobtrusive
is honest
is long-lasting
is thorough down to the last detail
is environmentally friendly
is as little design as possible

(photo & post via Kevin Rose)

When I stumbled upon John Vogl, aka the Bungaloo, I was an instant fan. He makes these great silkscreen posters and art prints in his small studio in St. Louis, MO. When I emailed John to ask where he gets his inspiration from, he simply stated

I think most of my inspiration comes from the music I listen to for posters, as well as a wandering mind coupled with a pretty boring day job.

Love it! Make sure to check out more of the Bungaloo’s work here, and you can purchase prints from his Etsy shop too.

8 Bit Memory is an Etsy shop selling external hard drives mounted inside old Nintendo and Super Nintendo game cartridges. The drives range from 500GB to 1TB and run off the power of the USB (so no power cord needed).

Head over to their Etsy shop and pick one up.

(via Coudal)

It’s nearing the end of August, and before we know it, it’ll be winter. Sorry for pointing out that cruel fact.

One annoyance of cold weather is using a touch-screen phone in the elements. Taking my gloves off to make a call, or jam out a text can get annoying quickly.

Check out Dots Gloves, gloves with conductive material woven seamlessly into the thumb, index and middle fingertips which provide usage of the iPhone touchscreen with entirely warm, gloved hands — all with skin-like responsiveness. They are constructed out of high-warmth 100% Merino wool and produced entirely in the USA.

Pre-order yours (under $20) at www.dotsgloves.com to get them before it gets cold.

Staying organized has never been so epic.

EPICWIN is an iPhone app that combines a to-do list with a streamlined RPG, so you’re rewarded for completing your real-world tasks with XP, loot and levelling-up.

The trailer sold me. It seems completely ridiculous, in the awesome way.

More videos, downloads and the app itself at www.epicwinapp.com.

I stumbled across this yesterday and wished my friends and I had this chart in high school. It may have prevented a number of social headaches.

…there are, as I reckon, about three levels of relations that should be considered when deciding who you can date: “personal,” “professional,” and “other.” Of course a lot of that “other” is going to be concerned with instances, like, say you’re at a kegger and you meet a Japanese foreign exchange student and you’re both really drunk.

Check out the full sized chart and the hilarious article at The Morning News.

The cartoon Simon’s Cat perfectly illustrates the life of cat ownership. The newest video demonstrates cats’ abilities to be entertained by nothing and completely destroy anything it wants.

There are more of these videos, and they’re pretty funny. More of Simon’s Cat should appear at the end of this video, or check them out at simonscat.com/films.

I’m such a sucker for cute patterns and simple illustrations. Luckily for my bank account, Minimega currently only ships to countries in Europe. Otherwise my nieces and nephews would give me plenty of excuse to stock up on items from their shop!

More about this adorable Danish design studio here, items in the shop, and find inspiration on their blog.

(via lox papers)

I don’t know what it is about calendars, but I’ve always loved them…and I also seem to collect them (I currently have 3 different calendars surrounding my desk at work). When I saw this perpetual calendar by Nora Whynot Press with its charming little illustrations based off of old wives tales, it made its way almost instantaneously onto my wish list.

Handmade in Queensland, Australia with recycled materials by Nora Whynot Press, you can purchase your very own here.

(via pink shirts and car wrecks)