WPA Posters - Selling America on Leisure Time, Health, and War
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics | No Comments
Today on WNYC radio, Leonard Lopate spoke with Nick Taylor about his fascinating new book American-Made about Great Depression era Works and Progress Administration (WPA).
Listen to the segment online or download MP3 at WNYC.org
The WPA built roads, addressed public health issues, facilitated industry, spearheaded healthy recreation activities, and promoted tourism. Towards the end of its existence the WPA also played an important role in educating Americans about their place in the war effort (WWII)
It seems some fondly look back at the WPA as an all-purpose advocate for the common man, while others see it as the showcase example of wasteful government spending.
Franklin Roosevelt founded the WPA and I’ve noticed a number of historians and commentators forward to the Obama administration for a similarly efficient and wide-reaching program to pull us out of our current economic doldrums and to get Americans back to work. Perhaps this time they will build turbines and solar farms!
Nick Taylor mentioned how the WPA was officialy decommissioned during WWII. Take a look at this selection of WPA poster I found online at Library Of Congress site. Interesting how the content shifts from public service/recreation information to war propaganda.
Harley Davidson: V-Rod Muscle, Industrial Design as Artform, Marissa Miller Superbabe
Sunday, December 14th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions | No Comments
I had the pleasure of attending a Harley Davidson event showcasing their 2009 V-Rod Muscle. I was doing some event design for the good people at Double Cross Vodka who provided cocktails (in moderation) for the evening’s festivities and had a chance to peruse the exhibit which also featured loads of cool concept sketches and working models for a variety of Harley bikes.
Basically, Harley Davidson transformed a gutted and vacant Liz Claiborne store at the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan into a pop-up museum. It should be up still, definitely worth checking out if you are in the neighborhood.
My favorite piece (shown here) was a “rapid prototype” of a Harley oil tank. Architects and engineers model their buildings and parts in 3D using a computer and “print” them out to scale using a machine that uses a plaster powder and epoxy. An everyday object like an oil tank manifested in this white translucent material transforms into a weird dinosaur bone looking artifact.
Sometimes I wonder if such high-tech processes effectively murder the creative aspect of sketching - so it was a relief to discover that Harely’s designers still employ good old-fashion pen and ink. Technology, no matter how advanced or primitive, is a tool that sits useless until a creative person activates it.
Evidently, after I left for the evening, Harley’s resident supermodel Marisa Miller showed up. Nevertheless, I did get to chat about the Harley Davidson design laboratory in Milwaukee, WI with an ultra friendly Bill Davidson. Yes, I shamelessly slipped him a business card.
-Tonky
Belvedere Vodka: “Luxury Reborn” - As Two Disgusting Pig Hacks
Saturday, December 6th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions | 1 Comment
Seasons Greetings,
Anyone know what advertising geniuses conceived of Belvedere Vodka’s new and atrocious holiday marketing push? The images shown here appear in the Broadway Lafayette “F” subway stop.
Talentless hack, Vincent Gallo, would-be actor, director, and compulsive masterbator along with his pal Terry Richardson, the guy who built a career on photographing himself getting fellated, appear with a cadre of doe eyed coke mavens in order to sell booze.
Their current slogan is:
Belvedere Vodka: Luxury Reborn
Instead their slogan should be:
Belvedere Vodka: Drink It You Uncultured Rube
or
Beledere Vodka: The Apotheosis of Shallowness
So disrespectful.
-Tonky
Tonky Wall Stickers at A&G MERCH (Brooklyn, NY)
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 | Tonky Graphic Design | No Comments
Let it be known: The fine people at A&G Merch have made Tonky Wall Stickers avaialable to the wandering hipsters of Williamsburg Brooklyn.
They offer a variety of wonderful wares ranging from contemporary furniture to pig-shaped wooden bowls to $3 stamped vinyl placemats to barnyard animal printed throw pillows. (pictures OF barnyard animals / not made BY barnyard animals)
Convenient location / Accessible prices / funky design
SPEND YOUR EUROS and YUAN WISELY!
A & G Merch
111 N. 6th Street (at Berry)
Brooklyn, NY
<MAP>
(718) 388-1779
Nikon Coolpix S60 VCAM: Tonky Finger Fantasy
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions, Tonky Graphic Design | 1 Comment
Arr me hearties,
My same sweet previous After Effects build with an alternative track of video behind it. I present my hand dancing.
Would you be kind to Tonky and follow the link below to CURRENT’s website? And VOTE “YEA” for Tonky?
http://current.com/items/89542725/nikon_vcam_finger_fantasy.htm
-Tonky
CURRENT TV: Nikon Coolpix S60 VCAM
Monday, November 17th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions, Tonky Graphic Design | 1 Comment
Greetings,
I just wrapped up a commercial for the Nikon Coolpix S60 camera as part of CURRENT TV’s VCAM (Viewer Created Ad Message) contest where viewers produce commercials on spec in the hopes of winning $2500 cash. I hate doing free work, but I think I’ve got a shot. What do you think?
It can be found along with the other submissions on CURRENT’s site:
http://current.com/items/89538074/nikon_s60_vcam_what_do_you_photograph.htm
Please click through, register a CURRENT user name, and vote the spot up, so I win the contest and thus afford those botox treatments.
CURRENT TV is the revolutionary viewer created content channel that Al Gore founded. It is a truly awesome project that represents the future of broadcast TV and I encourage you to check them out online or on cable (NYC- Time Warner Channel 103)
This forray into open-source found footage editing and motion graphics animation is set to a banjo & fiddle rendition of “Turkey in the Straw.”
All imagery and music is open source.
enjoy,
-Tonky
New York Times Hoax: The YES MEN See Our Future
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 | Contemporary Art, Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics, Public Art/Interventions | No Comments
Thankfully I got my hands on a hard copy of the document at the center of the elaborate hoax reported to have been staged by The Yes Men today in NYC and apparently across the county.
According to Steve Lambert -who responded to my email query addressed to the hoax website’s owner registration on the WhoIs- told me that other groups involved in planning include: the Anti-Advertising Agency, CODEPINK, United for Peace and Justice, Not An Alternative, May First/People Link, Improv Everywhere, Evil Twin Publications, and Cultures of Resistance.
The Pranksters handed out thousand of fake New York Times in subway stations across the city and over 1.2 million copies nationwide.
The Yes Men is a group of performance artists that stages interventions of the mainstream media in order to expose and elucidate topics pertinent to social justice. Or in their words, the Yes Men takes pride in, “Impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else.”
The Yes Men’s fake NYtimes “special edition” is dated Saturday, July 4th, 2009 and features such headlines as IRAQ WAR ENDS and advertisements such as the one from Exxon Mobil that takes responsibility for the Iraq War. The issue is printed on genuine newsprint and it is remarkably detailed and well crafted.
For those who didn’t get to see the analog version of the hoax, I have scanned the whole damn thing for your viewing pleasure. There are hidden gems throughout.
View gallery by clicking below.
or
Download 14 page Hi-Res PDF (12 MB) <CLICK HERE>
also
Visit the NYtimes Hoax Website Here
&
Read more about the prank here at nytimes.com City Room Blog
READ more in WIRED’s Blog
In 2006, The Yes Men famously duped the BBC into airing a live interview of their fictional Dow Chemical Representative. They did so with this hoax website: http://dowethics.com/
Dow Chemical owns Union Carbide, the company responsible for the chemical spill in Bhopal, India that killed 8,000 people and has since sickened tens of thousands more. So, the Yes Men went on air with their fictional PR wonk from Dow Chemical proclaiming they would liquidate Union Carbide in order to :
-pay for reparations
-clean up the disaster site
-provide medical care for those effected
This prank sparked a world wide plunge of Dow Chemical stock and in turn forced an embarrassed Dow Chemical to issue an official press release stating in effect: We do not accept responsibility, we will not clean up the spill, we will not provide medical attention, we will not compensate the victims.
Let’s hope some day they will. The Human Element my ass.
See video below. Pure genius.
Professor Edwardo Alvarado: NYC Transit Performer
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 | The American Diorama | No Comments
I like this guy. I was hussling around Manhattan yesterday and took a moment to watch Professor Edwardo Alvarado cut the keys. He had these great dancing figures accompanying him. Yes, I gave him a dollar as do I for anyone offering the gift of song.
-Tonky
See short video I shot:
and another random one from youtube:
Al Franken Senate Victory in Sight for MN Race
Saturday, November 8th, 2008 | Power & Politics | No Comments
On November 4th, 2008 nearly 3 million Minnesotan voters cast ballots in the race for Senate between Al Franken (D) and incumbent Norm Coleman (R). After all precincts reported their tallies, Coleman lead Franken by 725 votes.
By Thursday morning after districts had checked their reporting and corrected some typographical errors Coleman’s lead dwindled to a mere 438. ( one official improperly recorded Franken’s vote at his polling station effectively shorting him a full 100 votes )
Currently officials are struggling to assure that each vote cast has been counted. There are irregularities being reported in a number of districts including urban Minneapolis (heavily leaning Democratic district) Apparently stations there ran out of Minnesota’s same-day registration forms and voters ostensibly cast provisional ballot pending confirmation of their eligibility to vote.
Once these votes are counted it can reasonibly be inferred that Al Franken will overtake Coleman and emerge the victor rendering Norm Coleman a lame duck Senator.
In the face of this news, the desperate Norm Coleman is calling for Franken to concede. Franken simply prefers to let the voters decide.
SOURCE:
SNEAK PEAK: HBO’s Ricky Gervais: Out of England – The Stand-up Special
Friday, November 7th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions, Under The Patina of Knowledge | 1 Comment
Last night I had the pleasure of attending the World Premiere of HBO’s Ricky Gervais: Out of England – The Stand-up Special at The Paley Center For Media in NYC. The evening was part of the Paley Center’s fall programming series Paley After Dark. After the 1 hour screening, Ricky sat down with Time.com’s editor Josh Tyrangiel for a quick Q&A.
The HBO special is a riot and if you aren’t an HBO subscriber yet, get the DVD when it is released. Apparently Ricky honed the act over the course of several weeks by performing it in front of audiences at small clubs who bought tickets that were quietly released over the internet. The final filmed performance took place this summer in New York City.
I laughed my arse off at Ricky’s astute flights of fancy that nimbly dissect such contentious subjects as illness/mortality in cancer stricken children, the sexual behavior of gay men in a era of AIDS awareness, and the oft overlooked morals hidden inside nursery rhymes.
I won’t make the mistake of paraphrasing comedy, but during one particularly poignant bit, Ricky reflects upon the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty and is appalled that society would teach its children a moral that says “Don’t sit a wall if you are an egg.” Flabergasted, Ricky progresses to assert “certainly don’t send horses to fix an egg, maybe a surgeon or a faberge expert but not a horse! I couldn’t think of a more perfect implement to crush an egg than a hoof.”
I laughed hard at Ricky’s 1-hour HBO special but not to the point of nearly dislodging my esophagus as I’ve done with some of his more spacious projects like the Ricky Gervais Podcast (Guinness World Record Holder for “Most Internet Downloads”) The reason is that we love to be in on the joke, we love to see the process. And most importantly we love to hear Ricky’s ear splitting cackle once a gag had come to fruition.
Even though past Gervais and Stephen Merchant projects like EXTRAS or The Office are edited to a sheen, we know from viewing the outtakes that each scene is just one Gervais snort away from an all-cast crack up. It looks like so much fun and we get giddy to be part of it. So while Gervais looks to be having a hoot during his stand-up act, he doesn’t appear to be getting the jokes for the first time. There is inherently more artifice involved with a filmed stand up bit and so Gervais’s freshness and impromptu nature are marginally muted. I wonder how Gervais plans to maintain his edge, process, and style as forthcoming movies and projects increase in budget and scope and thus in refinement.
During the Q&A after the screening, I was delighted to see that Ricky has stayed human during all his deserved success. Even as he fielded questions from the most awkwardly earnest of audience members he maintained the utmost respect and forthrightness with his answers.
-Tonky
ps: Has anyone found a leaked version of the HBO special? info [at] tonkydesigns.com
[UPDATE]
Thanks to Perry Garvin | perrygarvin.net for the heads up on the leaked video torrent. Apparently it is from an LA performance, the HBO special was filmed in NYC. Same routine, different night
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4298903/Ricky_Gervais_-_Out_of_England_LA-VBR-2008-88
RUN RITE MECHANICAL [ Brooklyn, NY ] - Logo Design
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 | Tonky Graphic Design | No Comments
I recently completed a corporate identity project for RUN RITE MECHANICAL the Brooklyn based HVAC company.
In preparing a concept for their logo, my research led me to some old books at the Brooklyn Public Library which featured these HVAC ventilation diagrams (see gallery below).
We started with a number of logo sketches that borrowed the visual language of these diagrams. After an intense refinement process we integrated the ventilation duct with the “double R” into a set of logos that could be utilized across all of RUN RITE’s collateral including work vans, website (coming soon), business cards, and apparel.
RUN RITE MECHANICAL does commercial and residential work and offers free estimates.
E: runritemechanical@yahoo.com
T: (718) 369-0518
C: (917) 335-9936
F: (718) 499-8066
-Tonky
R.I.P. Michael Crichton
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions | No Comments
Michael Crichton passed away today after a private battle with cancer. I grew up with his writing starting with Jurassic Park and on through Andromeda Strain, Congo, Sphere, Rising Sun, Lost World, Timeline, and Prey. Most of these were turned into movies, all of which are pretty sweet.
I’ve always been impressed by his ability to combine in-depth research with exciting plots, natural dialogue and compelling character psychology.
I wonder if Crichton was aware and pleased that Obama won the presidency or if his passing was a coincidence. I detected some odd white-male-centric undertones in his later works. Nevertheless, his work is great and there is no chance he was as big a douche as Tom Clancey.
-Tonky
BARACK OBAMA President Elect - Webpage Roundup
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics | No Comments
Check out this gallery of webpages as of last night. Al Jazeera’s arabic site is pretty interesting and also notice the advertisements on each page.
I like BBC’s (shown above) “Whiter Whites” ad for some laundry detergent (Tide? Clorox?) , a perfect partner for a lead story about America’s first black president. hee hee. Roland Barthes has some interesting thoughts about Laundry Detergents in his collection of essays Mythologies. In one essay Barthes uses psychoanalysis to break apart the methods that soap companies use to sell detergents. His writing is wonderfully dense, here is a excerp:
“Persil Whiteness,” for instance, bases its prestige on the evidence of the result; it calls into play vanity, a social concern with appearances, by offering for comparison two objects, one of which is whiter than the other. Advertisements for Omo also indicate the effect of the product (and in superlative fashion, incidentally), but they chiefly reveal its mode of action; in doing so, they involve the consumer in a kind of direct experience of the substance, make him the accomplice of a liberation rather than the mere beneficiary of a result; matter here is endowed with value-bearing states.
Anyhow, how are all you election addicts handling the withdrawl? I sat around all day tinkering with the website, drinking coffee and listening to WNYC. Amazing how quickly these news agencies shift gears. Most are focusing on Obama’s plan for transition of power. FOX NEWS on the other hand seems to be ALREADY setting up Obama for failure during his first 100 days in office. This win is the best thing to ever happen for Sean Hannnity’s career.
VOTE for OBAMA Today: Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 | Pop Culture Notions, Power & Politics | No Comments
Here is a sweet retro VOTE poster designed by Shepard Fairey the mastermind of OBEY.
Enter your street address to find your voting location here:
http://www.barackobama.com/splash/findvotinglocation_2.html
Also take a look at this gallery of vintage voting imagery, cartoons, and photographs I found on the Library of Congress online database. Some of these are a bit weird and some evoke in me pride to be part of our great democratic tradition.
Now get your ass to the polls and cast one for the good guy.
-Tonky
HAPPY HALLOWEEN: M&I Bank Bans Robbers
Friday, October 31st, 2008 | Under The Patina of Knowledge | 1 Comment
Hah!
I’m back in the midwest for yet another wedding and my mother pointed out that M&I bank posted this delightful orange memo to all customers, trick-or-treaters, and would be robbers:
“For your safety, please remove all masks and hats when entering our bank lobby.”
-Tonky