Köln, Germany

Lars Henkel is a talented illustrator/collagist whose work I stumbled across today… view many more of his meticulously crafted works here.

Braga, Portugal

My designer/climber friend Toze (Antonio Coelho) has shared a great little collection of Portuguese book cover designs from the 1920s through 1970s (in a Facebook gallery) here.

There‘s a truism, a maxim, and at least a couple of proverbs in there…

(belated thanks to Pieter Bruegel the Elder for the illustration)

Berlin, Germany

Sigrid Albert, MGDC, is a Canadian designer colleague who is spending 3 months in Berlin. She does beautiful “urban sketches” and has set up an interesting blog to share her experiences, impressions, and visual expressions with her family and friends…

“I was born and grew up in Germany as a child and teenager, so obviously I speak the language, which helps. I have rented a bachelor apartment in a rapidly gentrifying former East Berlin neighbourhood and brought my laptop and client work along so I can afford this… I am mainly interested in the art and culture here, plus I will be pursuing my new passion of “urban sketching” from here as much as possible… Berlin is an amazing city and very inspiring for creatives.”

View Sigrid’s blog here (to view larger images than shown above as well as to read about them) and see an online gallery of her “urban sketches” here.

Seattle, Washington

Modern Dog is a design firm in Seattle that was founded in 1987 by friends of mine, Robynne Raye and Michael Strassburger. In 2008, they published a very cool book entitled Modern Dog: 20 Years of Poster Art. For the end-papers of that book, they illustrated a bunch of “dogs we know” and another bunch of “dogs we don’t know” (clever, right?). The book was a relative success… then fast forward to 2011, when they heard from someone that had seen a Disney™-branded T-shirt for sale at a Target™ store that appeared to feature “their dogs!” Here’s a little video that explains what happened next (watch video).

So, Modern Dog did what you would expect proud and proper dog-owner-artists to do… they complained that their work (and the likenesses of their own dear pooches) had been stolen, and then filed a lawsuit “against the Target Corporation, The Walt Disney Company and a few of their subsidiaries who sold the T-shirts” as is explained in this Huffington Post article (read the article).

Thing is, it’s “allegedly” quite well known that Disney et al “allegedly” employ a very large number of lawyers to dissuade little folks like Modern Dog whose work has “allegedly” been ripped off from successfully suing the large corporations for exploitative profits and resulting damages — because hey, that could set a disturbing precedent of “creators” like Modern Dog actually being able to protect their very own creations(!).

In June of this year, Modern Dog felt they had no choice but to sell their dear Greenwood studio home (the most valuable thing they owned) to relieve some of the growing financial burden of the stretched-out legal proceedings. That’s a damn gutsy thing to do, to protect the rights of “the little guy.” But that wasn’t enough (law suits in the USA are damn expensive), so Modern Dog has also launched a crowd-funding effort (visit it here). As Christopher Simmons puts it succinctly in a piece he wrote, “If they win, we all win. Modern Dog’s stand against copyright infringement benefits all designers and anyone who makes a living by creating.”

So, now there’s just over two weeks left until the Friends of Modern Dog online fundraiser wraps up, and they’re still in need of $15,000. That’s where you and I come in. Please consider making a donation (even $5 helps, and it sends a very clear signal to Disney, Target, et al…). Please also share this story of these brave “little dogs”  and their loving caregivers who won’t back down from doing the right thing—even in the face of teeth-baring hegemonic corporate behemoths.

Thanks in advance!

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Above, you see the end-papers of the book with the original doggie illustrations. Below, you can see the dogs that appear on the T-shirt… need more proof? Take a look at this comparative video.

Dublin, Ireland

A week ago, Ireland’s creative community got together to release a lot of pent up anger and sadness through the medium of the A3 poster, all in aid of Temple Street Children’s Hospital. Ad creatives, designers, animators, directors, illustrators and more have taken time out to dress up their favourite “worst feedback from clients,” transforming quotes that would normally give you a twitch, into a diverse collection of posters.

Very cathartic, methinks. See more posters here.

(thanks to David Coates of Ion for the link)

Vienna, Austria

PEZ was created in 1927 by Austrian health-fanatic Edward Haas III, using oil of peppermint (at that time, only available from chemists) to create a candy for adults. The name “PEZ” comes from the German word for peppermint… PfeffeErminZ. Initially sold in tin containers (much like Altoids), PEZ were marketed as a luxury breath freshener. In 1949, PEZ came out with a pocket-sized dispenser, resembling the shape of a cigarette lighter—and began to be marketed as a sophisticated alternative to smoking. “The lighter-shaped dispenser was not only a trick to play on smokers asking for a light, but it was hygienic, allowing PEZ users to give the candy to friends without touching it.” The company’s motto in 1949 was “No smoking—PEZing allowed.”

The real marketing break-through for PEZ came by means of a graphic artist named Gerhard Brause, whose sexy depiction of the PEZ girl helped spread the brand around the world (PEZ was introduced in the USA in 1952, but marketing was soon focused on children instead, primarily through the use of dispensers featuring “character” heads). Nowadays PEZ is available in over 80 countries with 65 million dispensers and 4.2 billion PEZ candies consumed every year.

I grew up in Frankfurt, Germany, and I remember acquiring my first PEZ pocket dispenser while in Kindergarten in 1958—at that time, we would buy PEZ refills from wall-mounted coin-operated vending machines. Shown above are some of the PEZ Girl illustrations created by Gerhard Brause.

From the 1930s… many more here.

(Thanks to my friend JuanMa Sepulvida in Madrid for the link).

Some examples from a century ago, in England…

(source)