Option-G Tree War T-Shirt

Had the opportunity to meet Cole Girst from Option-G in Las Vegas at the Magic High Five Campground. His mix of graphic illustration and clever storytelling result in some of the best independent label shirts out there. From an illustrated homage to Han Solo's blaster to the comment on tree clearing and lake pollution, Option-G makes a statement in style. Also of note: the nice posters and graphic design work in the studio section.

Tags: tshirt, design, illustration

U.S. $10 Redesign

The new $10 note, which is the third denomination to be redesigned in the series, includes subtle shades of orange, yellow and red along with images of the Statue of Liberty's torch and the words "We the People" from the United States Constitution. The new $10 note will enter circulation in early 2006. Every 7-10 years, the US Government plans to redesign the the US Currency.

Security Features:

Color-Shifting Ink: Tilt your ten to check that the numeral "10" in the lower right-hand corner on the face of the note changes color from copper to green.

Watermark: Hold your ten up to the light to see if a faint image of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton appears to the right of his large portrait.

Security Thread: Hold your ten up to the light and make sure there's a small strip embedded in the paper. The words "USA TEN" and a small flag are visible in tiny print.

New Design Features:

Symbols (torch carried by the Statue of Liberty)
Color (background colors of orange, yellow and red, small yellow 10s)
Microprinting (to thwart counterfitters)
Larger numerals (readability)
Serial Numbers (new system)

Mister Shape Suggestions:

Lose half the crap. The new bill looks like it won the contest for the most clip art we could fit on a bill.

Make each currency a different color. This way you can peek in your wallet and at a glance know how much you have without taking the bills out and identifying the numbers on them.

Be consistent. There are various type styles and point sizes on each bill.

Tags: design, money

Hokey Spokes

Hokey Spokes takes Shape of the Week honors. These simple snap on lights create circular light arrangements that keep you safe and in style.

Tags: bicycle, shapes, lights

Sasha Hall T-Shirt Designer

Sasha Hall is a T-Shirt designer and illustrator for Old Navy and Tommy Hilfiger. We love the hand rendered graphic style and especially the type.

[Link via Drawn]

Tags: tshirts, illustration, type

Rick Chapman Circles

Rick Chapman has a great collection of circle photography.

Thanks to Chris for the tip!

Tags: shapes, photography

Saturday Shape Round-Up

A great blog with a nice name..."The Shape of Days"

Shape puzzles for the kids...

And here we thought Mister Shape was the original Gangster of Shapes...Bambaataa himself was a Black Spade Gangster...

The latest from the Flickr Shape Cluster...

How do you say shape in your language? Formar, 使成形, Formi, Muotoutua, Muovata, Formen, Formacar....

Mosaics

Artist Vladimir Sierra has been dreaming up Mosaics since his 2000 trip to Spain. The depth he's able to achieve with color, patterns and shapes is impressive.

[Link via JP at Parkhaus]

Tags: shapes, mosaics, design

12 Sided Calendar

It's Friday! Here's a weekend fun tip from your favorite shape cowboy, Mister Shape. Witness the Pentagon Dodecahedron Calendar. Make one and send in your pics.

[Link via Lifehack.org]

Tags: shapes, calendar

Think Like a Shape

Linear thinking:
"Will Americans and the citizens of other countries learn to avoid linear thinking and adopt a cyclical point of view? It's a good question, but can only be answered by the youngest readers of this piece some 50 to 70 years from now."

Circular thinking:
"Human designers need to learn to think in circles—to expand their planning to include reclaiming the product at the end of its life and finding ways of redirecting industrial by-products to useful purposes."

Triangular thinking:
"Triangular thinking (is) directly focused on bottom-line business results. It involves doing three things together: picturing a step-change, building knowhow, and using creative thinking - all focused on achieving breakthrough, real-world results."

Elliptical thinking:
"Haiku revels in this kind of elliptical thinking, challenging its readers to reflect beyond the literal meaning of its words."

"I like to call spherical thinking where the balance is not merely a see-saw between two extremes, but an exercise in looking a topic from as many points of view as is humanly possible."

Tags: shapes, thinking, strategy

Walker Art Center Redesign

Walker Expanded is Eric Olsen's new graphic identity for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, lots of shapes and repeating patterns.

Tags: museums, graphic design, shapes

Art of Suiseki (Shapes in Nature)

Some of the best shapes you find are naturally formed. Suiseki (Sui = water, Seki = stone) is the study and enjoyment of naturally formed stones as objects of beauty. The art of Suiseki involves the collection, preparation and appreciation of unaltered naturally formed stones. These stones are found in mountain streams, on windblown deserts, along ocean beaches - anywhere that nature may have deposited or shaped them.

Tags: rocks, shapes, suiseki

Shape of the Universe

Is the universe flat? The Earth was once, remember? Some say it still is. Or did they finally fall off the edge? Point A to point B, a straight line, right? It's certainly linear thinking and science tends to be that way. Now NASA agrees (with the cool sounding caveat that their findings are, of course, "within the limits of instrument error"). Armed with new data from WMAP, the concensus is we are set along a flat plane.

The shape of the universe:

The amount of dark matter and energy in the universe plays a crucial role in determining the geometry of space. If the density of matter and energy in the universe is less than the critical density, then space is open and negatively curved like the surface of a saddle. If the density exactly equals the critical density, then space is flat like a sheet of paper. If the density is greater than critical density, then space is closed and positively curved like the surface of a sphere. In this latter case, this implies that initially parallel photon paths converge slowly, eventually cross, and return back to their starting point (if the universe lasts long enough). The Inflationary Theory, an extension of the Big Bang theory, predicts that density is very close to the critical density, producing a flat universe, like a sheet of paper. WMAP has determined, within the limits of instrument error, that the universe is flat.

Tags: shapes, universe

Mini Watch

DesignworksUSA, purchased by BMW as a California based design office away from Munich, has an impressive array of design for everyday living. This Mini-inspired watch is but a glimpse of the phones, computers, airplanes, trains, snowboards, office chairs, and even medical equipment that has been crafted there.

Tags: design, watches

Nintendo Revolution Controller

Straight up innovation. Passion to make something different, better and unique. Nintendo is the Apple Computer of the Video Game industry, they are what 37signals is to the exploding Web Application universe. Each have no problem setting the trend. They have no problem frankly stating they see things differently and would like to prove it to you.



Case in point. The new Nintendo Revolution. More specifically, the controller. Just point the Revolution controller at your screen and move and tilt it to move characters, cursors or objects around the TV with pinpoint precision.



An additional controller plugs in to the main wireless piece to offer dual hand control, in what master game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto terms "nunchuck" style. The controller uses motion-detecting hardware. It can pinpoint its distance from the screen, location in the room, and even pitch and yaw. Imagine the gameplay possibilities when physical location and movement in a room is a factor. We're anticipating some serious real-life swordplay with Link in a future Legend of Zelda installment. Word has it, first-person shooting series, Metroid Prime will have a 3rd installment ready to go when the Revolution is released.



Will it catch on? Will developers work with this new form of game play? Probably, but it doesn't really matter. Just like Apple and the Signals, Nintendo's true strength lies in it's software design and user interface. The Nintendo authored titles will get the most out of the new hardware and we'll probably see Sony and Microsoft knockoffs this time next year. Welcome to the future.

Tags: nintendo, video games, innovation, design

Rubik's Cube Art

No Photoshop, no 8-bit Nintendo. Same pixel look, from our favorite plastic cube. Check out the gallery of Rubik's Cube Art.

Box Doodle Project

Shape of the Week honors go to a group of artists what are making people out of shapes...the Box Doodle Project. "The rules are quite simple: rearrange a box to make any kind of figure or object. Make the most of least."

Fresco Helicopter T-Shirt

Another great shirt line we met in Las Vegas, Fresco has some wonderful T's that usually have a story to be told within them. The Pink Helicopter shirt is our favorite.

Geometry 101

Despite the affection for shapes, Geometry wasn't one of our better classes in school. Maybe because it was not as fun as the Shape Surveyor Geometry Game!

Blue Sun T-Shirt

Blue Sun is the Coca-Cola of the Firefly universe. As seen on food cans and advertisements throughout the series, Blue Sun's reach is everywhere, much to the dismay of River Tam.

"There it is, there it is. It's always there if you look for it. Everybody sees and nobody sees it..." She says as she tears food labels with the Blue Sun logo on it. And who do you think gave Jayne that cut across his Blue Sun T-Shirt?

Blue Sun logos within the Firefly universe seem to change in different episodes and different locations. On Jayne's T-shirt, "Blue Sun" is "qing ri", but in logo signs, it's "lan ri". "Qing" and "lan" refer to different hues of blue (sky blue vs. indigo). This could possibly be like "New Coke" vs. Classic Coke. Or presumably Blue Sun has been around for a while and has undergone corporate branding changes over the years.

If you need to acquire a Blue Sun T-Shirt, there are many options on the net, with both logo applications. You just need to know where to look, look, look.

Not familiar with the Firefly universe? Want to cut to the chase? The cliff notes version is about to drop - check out the feature film, Serenity, it's in theaters in 17 days.

Firefly fan already? Check out the R. Tam, Session 416, Second Excerpt and other clips here! Creeepy. View them in order of release - starting with Session 416, Second Excerpt.

Still skeptical? A few reviews..PlasticBag, IOFilm, Londonist and a fat IMDB rating.

Tags: Firefly, Serenity, Blue Sun, t-shirts, tshirts

Summer Triangle

Get the weekend started off right with a little stargazing. Find the Summer Triangle.



The first magnitude stars of the setting Summer Triangle are all seen in context: Vega of Lyra, Deneb of Cygnus and Altair of Aquila.

Tags: shapes, astronomy, stars

Regrowth T-Shirt

Over at Threadless, there's a great Katrina relief effort 'growing' on. Over 26k already raised. You pay $10 for this nice Tee, they turn around and kick $20 to Katrina Relief efforts. Threadless' new designer, Ross Zietz who hails from Louisiana, is the designer behind the shirt and SkinnyCorp is the company behind Threadless and the donation. Nice work.

Tags: Katrina, T-shirts

Meet the Shapes DVD

Letters? Numbers? As early as 15 months your brain-child can identify what's really important, the shapes.

Tags: shapes, family, kids, DVD

Nano Pod

What we like best about Apple is that they always innovate. They have the top selling iPod, the Mini, and they go out of their way to repalce it with something twice as cool (and half as thick!). The iPod nano. Shape of the Week, no question.

Oh yeah, there's the new iTunes phone..the Motorola ROKR if you have Cingular Wireless in the U.S.

Tags: shapes, ipod, innovation

Desert Living Tip #2: Carefree Sundial

When visiting Arizona, take the trip to the largest sundial in the western hemisphere (there is a larger one in India). It is located in Carefree, AZ.

Thanks to AD for the tip and photo!

Tags: sundial, shapes, desert, arizona

Moongirl

Moongirl hails from San Francisco. They have some really interesting hand bags, and this view of some sweet Vans is our favorite tee. They have a wide variety of designs, also check out some cool MAGIC photos on their Flickr gallery.

Poketo

Wow. I met Poketo at the MAGIC High Five Campground. You have to see these wallets in person to appreciate the quality. Love this illustration by Mark Mulroney inspired by SubPop's Postal Service album Give Up - one of our fav albums.

Doug Holst

The work of Milwaukee artist Doug Holst described in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

"The combinations of colors range from the bright palette of laundry detergent boxes to quasi-natural."