Lunch Bag Art

This Dad, draws on his kid's lunch bags every day on his lunch break. A new bag each day. How adorable is that?

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Deck the Halls with Vinyl and Leather

Today at Hero - 3-inch Reindeer Dunny from Chuckboy - This doe-eyed deviant rewards nice kids with his removable bull whip and vinyl antlers, and naughty ones with two badass chases.

Stray Shopping Carts

Featured in today's "Daily Heller" from Print Magazine's Steven Heller; a friend of Hero's and Buffalo's own, Julian Montague...

"Julian Montague, a designer in Buffalo, New York, is obsessed with shopping carts.

He writes on his website, "Over the last several decades, the stray shopping cart has quietly become an integral part of the urban and suburban landscapes of the industrialized world. To the average person, the stray shopping cart is most often thought of as a signifier of urban blight or as an indicator of a consumer society gone too far. Unfortunately, the acceptance of these oversimplified designations has discouraged any serious examination of the stray shopping cart phenomenon."

He has made it his mission to categorize "stray shopping carts" according to an intricate identification system (here). Enter at your own risk, his notions are addictive.

Starting on November 21 through December 18, two pieces from "The Stray Shopping Cart Project" will be in a group show, "Sign / Age: Lost in the Supermarket" at Armand Bartos Fine Art in New York, including William Eggleston, Martha Friedman, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, and more. "It seems crazy that my work is in a show with all these huge artists," says Montague, "I'm hoping the gallery people won't change their minds about me before the opening."

His project is also featured in The Design Entrepreneur by Lita Talarico and me."

Upper Playground Housewares & Accessories Now at Hero

Magnetic Chalkboard Coasters

How great are these old school green chalkboard magnetic coasters? I saw them over at Apartment Therapy and thought they were great. They are even magnetic so you can store them on your fridge, and at $15 for a set of 4 how can you go wrong? They would be perfect for entertaining, you could make little name cards for each guest.

The Art of the Modern Movie Poster

Yes, I would like this book please. Thank you.

Munny on the Run!

MUNNY on the Run! from Kidrobot on Vimeo.

Stop by Hero and pickup up Munny in two different sizes or the new mini-Munny DIY Ornament.

Hamburger Dress

Just came across this Hamburger Dress and it made me giggle.

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DenHaus - Designer Dog Crate Furniture

DenHaus are designer pet crates that blend nicely into your own decor and can double as side tables. Our Derby is far too spoiled to be in a crate, besides when she is here at the studio with us sleeping in an actual dog bed, she can usually be found on the couch or the bed at home. However, if you have a dog that you crate or that likes his own little spot in the house, these are perfect and won't turn whatever room the dog stays in into UGLY.

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Great stocking stuffers at Hero

We have lots of great gift giving items, both big and small. So keep a look out for more lists for holiday gift ideas, and stop by and get those "must have" gift items before they are gone.

And if you are just gift shopping for yourself, thats OK too, we totally support and encourage that! Considering I went out gift shopping while in Pittsburgh this past weekend and somehow spent it all on me :)

Most influential designers of our time...

Who has influenced how we think about design now? Who will influence it in the next few years? Make your own top five list and check out what other people think. Do you agree with who is on the list? Is there anyone missing? Check out the list here.

Sneak peek at the Matisyahu Tour Poster Series

We're in the home stretch now - well past the halfway point on the 38 posters for Matisyahu's entire tour. So meanwhile - here is a sneak peek of the posters so far. The tour ends December 18 so we will have the posters for sale after that - until then, check out Matisyahu on tour on one of his remaining dates.

Make your own monster

Last week I featured the Muppet Whatnot Workshop - from FAO Schwarz and now I just came across this other DIY build your own site from FAO - Make-Your-Own Monster. Purchase the Make-My-Own-Monster Custom Design Kit for just $249 and make all those imaginary monsters come to life. The perfect gift for the creative kid or really any artist that loves creating their own monsters.

Check out some of the monsters that have already been made and upload yours here when you are done to have it featured. How stinken cute are these?

Hardformat - Reaching for the sublime in music design.

Hardformat - a super fabulous website featuring outstanding music-related design - more specifically really elaborate packaging, which if you are anything like us, is something to really geek out about.

From their "About" page:

It seems like everybody’s talking about the end of physical music media. Who knows whether they’re right or not, but Hard Format is a little place we’ve set up to celebrate our love of brilliant music-related design. That means we’re going to focus on records, CDs, cassettes and their like. However, Hard Format isn’t intended to become a dusty museum devoted exclusively to past glories, though there’ll certainly be some of that, we also want to highlight the brilliant new design work being produced right now. In fact, we’re not setting ourselves up to supply a canon of classic design - this is a place where we record stuff we like, if you want yet another reproduction of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band there are enough ‘Greatest album covers of all time’ books out there already.

Oh and who knows, perhaps at some point in the future we may even need to set up a parallel site to celebrate brilliant virtual design…

Iron and Wine poster now available

Our poster for Iron and Wine's show Friday night in Buffalo is now available for purchase here. I didn't get to go to the show, since I was in Pittsburgh for the weekend, but both Mark and Patrick went, (and apparently the rest of Buffalo) and they said the show was great!

Also available for purchase is an artprint version: