If you enjoy drooling over walls of pixelated arcade typography as much as I do, this internet "museum" of fonts used in Namco's arcade games from the 70's to the 80's is your cup of tea. Alas, all descriptive text is in Japanese so it's a bit tricky figuring out exactly where these fonts were used, but the dipslay of them all together is overwhelming and colorful nonetheless.
Thanks Brandonnn!
I can only assume that artist Rihards Rozans wanted to know what it would it would look like to create a bust out of Tetris-shaped blocks, which must be why he came up with this 3D-mosiac-like creation. I have to admit it would look a little more exciting if the blocks were colored proper, but still, a neat concept.
Designer Kristof Saelen creates a quirky bunch of pixelated celebrities every week on his site VIPs (aka Very Important Pixels.) So far there are only a handful, including some Star Wars friends, the various incarnates of James Bond, and a set of famous directors (which even includes a sour looking rendition of David Lynch). His quintuplet of Michael Jacksons (shown above) is my favorite set so far.
Creative Review announced this morning that MTV has paired up alongside UK-based studio Universal Everything to refresh the company's brand. Using the mantra "pop x 1,000%", Universal Everything tackles MTV's branding with colorful, luscious, and playful design. The only thing that I can see souring this eventually is MTV's content, as it's hard to envision how Daisy of Love or Tool Academy fits into the alternate reality of chocolate gold sunsets and Mister Furry (my favorite, below). But before things get spoiled, check out the videos and bask in jewels and oils and the like.
MTV International / Mister Furry from Universal Everything on Vimeo.
MTV International / Sweetheart from Universal Everything on Vimeo.
Seen via today and tomorrow & notcot
Congratulations everyone, we made it to Friday! Since (according to my Daytum) I haven't done any drawings in a month, today I'll be sharing a couple of inspirational artists that I've discovered between my Tumblr, today and tomorrow, and FFFFOUND!
The art collective over at Cinco have plenty of fun, colorful works to stroll through on their site. I have to say I'm partial to their wall sculptures (one of which is displayed above), but I also really appreciate their manifesto (primero, en Español):
Queremos que en cada proyecto se sientan las personas que lo realizaron. Creemos y confiamos en lla idea de que nuestros trabajos sean imperfectamente perfectos. Humanos.
(...and now in English)
We want each of our projects to reflect the people behind it. We believe and trust the idea of our work as something imperfectly perfect. Just human.
Next up are the works of Bott Scarry over at Sacred Mtn. I see a lot of similar motifs in his drawings and line work as some of my more recent works, but naturally his stuff goes above and beyond to the next level. Some of the booklets he's put together are jam-packed with all sorts of good stuff. Makes me want to make one myself.
At least once every few months or so I slip into the world of ye olde forgotten adventure games (at this point, even Google's wonder wheel can see this coming). This last week the adventure bug's bite has gone pretty deep. If you check my "Games Recently Played" Daytum you'll notice a significant increase in the Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate pie piece, which altogether lead me to getting knee deep in ATMachine's House of LucasArts and Sierra Oddities once again.
This step back into nostalgia-land hasn't been an entirely fruitless adventure mind you. Between old Loom and Monkey Island screenshots, I was inspired to collaborate with my good buddy Brilliam on Text Adventure, a blog that archives some neat videogame typography from over the decades. It's on its first legs, but we've assembled a pretty decent collection so far. Suggestions for improvement and submissions for the site are happily taken!
Meanwhile, I got a real kick out of reading Douglas Crockford's article "The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion for the Nintendo Entertainment System" (also found via ATMachine). Crockford, who managed Maniac Mansion's port for the NES, outlines the various changes that were required to make the game appropriate for a younger NES audience. Suggestive dialogue, mummy playmate posters, and other content was removed from the original version, but I thought this tidbit was the most interesting:
Howie Rubin of Jaleco (the company that was going to publish the game under license) advised us the that the baddest bad word is Kill. The central activity in most Nintendo games is killing things. The image and the act are good, but the word is bad, even if the word does not suggest the image or the act.
