Prometheus

The Space Jockey's Horseshoe Juggernaut, which will finally roll all over our my brain this weekend.

Have a great one!

Art by Walter Simonson, from Heavy Metal presents: Alien, The Illustrated Story (1979)

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In space no one can hear you quilt.

Vintage Moebius, Heavy Metal, Promethean Sci Fi printed fabric, selectively quilted into the puffy third dimension by a boy's mom circa 1979.
I remember the yard sale where we got this, and how the now-grown-up boy was wearing a "You Are Here --->" outer space t-shirt, and seemed to be longing for his home planet himself. I loved this art, and that his mother made it for him. I remember really going on about it, which made him and his two sisters happy. We even used it and its technique as the basis for the quilted Pucci fabric jewelry box project in our book, where I tell the same story. But as much as I'd like to have it for light years, it's time for someone else to enjoy it, so it's in our awesome FAB.com sale, here.


Related, and fantastically similar, the Prometheus spacescape:



which is itself amazingly similar to the Alien trailer, notably the scream/ping/whistles:




can't wait!

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Wary Meyers City Posters

The first four posters from a total of 12 cities which I drew earlier this year for a travel series. As alluded to in the last post, we're super excited about these, in particular all the logotypes. Typography is a big love of ours, and when we can incorporate it into a project we're all the happier. So here are the first four. Coming soon are SF, LA, DC, and Dallas.

The posters are 19" x 24", printed on 100lb. smooth Bristol paper, signed. $55 each, in our shop

The New York poster owes a lot to the work of Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast, with a little Tadanori Yokoo thrown in at the bottom. It started out as Massimo Vignelli Subway lines coming worm-like out of the apple, forming the frame, but later I changed the bottom lines to lox coming out of the bagel. But then we changed the line colors, since , although kind of funny, all-salmony didn't look that great as a border. And a lot of food worked its way in, mostly after drawing the bagel, then we had to represent the hot dog and pretzel, and all the eggplants and ugly tomatoes.

Miami's logotype is based on Ettore Sottsass' Superbox wardrobes. No relation to Miami, but it was the shortest city name and I the boxes would be nice and bold. Plus I've always wanted to make my own Superbox, modified into a monogram. The view is an artistic-licensed South Beach, with a couple Stilt houses in Biscayne Bay, the Bacardi buildings, a little Mondrian, and the ubiquitous rooftop cranes. The two curved graphics at the corners of MIAMI represent the sun, while the two at the bottom are tanned boobs, in a blue cutaway-bikini-top.

Seattle is overall a little more sci-fi/Moebius influenced. We wanted the logotype to be sort of rock n roll, and I was listening to a lot of Paul McCartney and Wings at the time (and still) which may have influenced the design.  Coincidentally Wings' big US Rock Show kicked off at the Seattle SuperDome. On the right is a giant Peep looming behind two towering onions. Probably the most accurate rendering of anything in Seattle is the outline of Mt. Rainier in the background.

London is my favorite. I love the red telephone booth type, and yet another Beatles reference in the Yellow Submarine spreading its colour along the Thames.

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Coil Pots

Working on some coil pots lately (above, in the drying stage)

We have a collection of these (below) but we only ever find a good one once in a blue moon, so we thought "why not just make our own and then we'll have all the pots we'll ever need."
And of course we don't need that many, so they'll be for sale too...
(coming soon)

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Real Life

Albert Brooks with the Ettnauer 226XL from Real Life (1979), his prophetic foray into the world of reality filmmaking, and a hilarious send-up of PBS's An American Family (1971), which happens to now be showing in its anniversary edition (check your local listings!)

Thanks Kim for the heads up!

related: Austrian Futurist Walter Pichler's TV Helmets (small living rooms) of 1967.

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Heavy Metal 1977-81

Five years of Moebius' best.

From Ebay.
AAAAA+++++!

Related: Bowie at the Beeb:

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Braun Aromaster KF 20

Without a doubt the best designed coffee maker ever made.
Designed by Florian Seiffert for Braun in 1972, it was immediately a classic of design and technology, with its vertical automatic drip system, dual heaters, and stunning aesthetics. We bought ours from a man who bought it new at Zabar's in 1972, made 2 pots of coffee and then felt that it was too nice to keep using, and kept it as a design object instead. When he told us that I said, "That's exactly what we were going to do with it!" We made one pot of perfect coffee and then cleaned it up and put it back in its box. Occasionally it'll come out for an admiration, usually after (or during) watching Alien (it was the spaceship Nostromo's coffee maker).

Braun design links:
http://radio.gort.dk/braun/
http://www.braun.com/global/world-of-braun/braun-collection.html
http://www.braun.com/global/world-of-braun/braun-design.html
http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future

Alien (1979) trailer:

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