Just Stay at Home

Designer and artist Idan Friedman of Israel's Reddish Studio has created a series of portraits embossed on aluminum foil pans. All the people featured in "Ordinary People and Disposable Objects" are part of his everyday life, ranging from close friends to passers-by.







As viewed when exhibited:



all images courtesy of the artist

Special thanks to Annals of America for bringing these to my attention

Reddish Studio

above: the 100$ bill redesigned by Sean Fermoyle

Make Your Franklin is an online community art project devised by French designers Vincent Desdoigts, Martin Joubert and Etienne Lecorre, that allows anyone to design their own version of the United States 100$ bill. They are asking for you to recreate the money with a symbol of modern society.


above: my own lame contribution to the project, Luche Ben (mask courtesy of Mask Maniac)

All you have to do is download the template (a gigantic jpeg of the C-note) and start designing. Then you can upload your finished Benjamin to their online gallery. They simply ask that it be no larger than 7300 x 3000 pixels and no smaller than 1000 x 411 pixels.

Some people have gone all out and created viable and beautiful alternatives to the paper currency, while others (myself included) just had some fun defacing ol' Mr. Franklin with icons and imagery reflective of trendy and popular culture (e.g Disney, Mona Lisa, KISS, etc).



above: bills with popular iconography like Paul Stanley's KISS make-up and Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa, by Molle William and Loic Bel respectively, were amongst the designs submitted

The site has clearly been very popular given that their server was predominantly down yesterday because of traffic.

Here's a few of the bill redesigns from their online gallery, selected at the time this post was written. I'm sure many more terrific designs have since been submitted.

First, some seriously beautiful redesigns of the $100 bill:

Alexandre Manet Pikartzo:

Christelle Mozzati:

Julien Benayt:

Hugo Lecrux:

Arinin Evgeny:


And some funny money:

Two versions of Mickey Money by Didier Gerardin:


Paul Schuler gave it a complete Khadafi overhaul:
A Pink Floyd reference from Thomas Fontaine:

An homage to Darth Vader by Sylvain Weiss:

Agathe Teubner brings the American Eagle to life:

Some colorful currency from Martin Joubert:

Cedric Bariou asks Why So Serious? with his joker version:
Dekker Dryer's Monopoly Money:

Superhero C-note from Arlam:

Wasted Rita's take on a song we all know:

Vivien Cormier's illustrated version:

Fabio Maiorana cleverly gave Ben some time off:

and Cabanes' toxic money:

Bouton Bleue punks it up:

and a lovely minimal take on it from Burkhardthauke:



Give it a try or just view the gallery of submitted designs at Make your Franklin.

You know how when you read a traditional newspaper, the ink tends to get all over your fingers? Well, here's a way to take stylish advantage of that text transfer... turn it into a manicure!

How to do it:
You'll need scissors, nail polish base coat, a pale nail polish color, any newspaper, alcohol (such as vodka or other clear spirits) and a top coat.



Applying a base coat and two coats of color varnish.
Pour the alcohol in a glass.
Cut small pieces of newspaper large enough to cover your nails.
When your nails are dry, soak them in the alcohol.



Cover your nails with small pieces of newspaper.
Remove small pieces of newsprint slowly. The ink will be left on the nail surface.
Let dry and apply a layer of top coat.
And Voila!



Thanks to Zuzu at Passion Nail Art for the info and images (where the same information can be found in French)

above Google Art Doodle by Laura Sweet

This is the first installment in a series of posts which will highlight various homepage versions of the Google logo since they began. Referred to as Google Doodles, I gathered my personal favorites since their inception in 1998 and will be sharing them with you over the next few weeks.

The Google Doodle during their beta phase in 1998:




First, a brief history.
The Google Doodle has come a long way since their first in August of 1998 when Google founders Larry and Sergey played with the corporate logo to indicate their attendance at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert.

The very first Google Doodle:


The crudely drawn homepage doodle was hardly impressive. During the years following, namely 1998-2008, the homepage Google Doodles were very simple, and hardly blogworthy, iterations where in most cases one of the letters was replaced by an object or a small drawing was added to the logo.

The 2004 Leap Year Google Doodle was typical of the logos during 2002-2008:


Occasionally series of Doodles were created. Changing daily but honoring the same theme as in the case of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, The World Cup, Dilbert cartoons and a few other examples. But these, too, were largely unimpressive.

As the years passed, the Google Doodles became more inventive and more imaginative. Some were even interactive, some animated and some so intensely illustrated, it was hard to make out the word Google.

The Happy Holidays Google Doodle in 2010:


Today, in the first post of this ongoing series, are the best of the Google Doodles honoring artists, designers and architects since 1998. They are listed in alphabetical order by surname. Some ran in selected countries only, so you may not recognize all of them, but they are all worth a look.

The Best Google Doodles - Part I Artists, Architects and Designers

Karen Appel, Netherlands:

James Audubon, world renowned nature artist:

Arthur Boyd, Australian painter:

Constantin Brancusi, Romanian sculptor:

Mary Cassatt, American painter:

Paul Cezanne, French painter:

Marc Chagall, Russian-French painter and stained glass artist:

Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian painter, writer and inventor:

Will Eisner, American comic writer and artist:

M.C. Escher, Dutch illustrator and graphic designer:

Josef Frank, Austrian architect and artist:

Walter Gropius, German architect:

Hokusai, Japanese wood cut artist:

Robert Indiana (for Valentine's Day), American painter:

Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter:

Peder Severin Krøyer, Norwegian-Danish painter:

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scottish architect and designer:

Rene Magritte, Belgian painter:

Michelangelo, Italian sculptor and painter:

Piet Mondrian, Dutch painter:

Claude Monet, French Impressionist painter:

Alphonse Mucha, Czech Art Nouveau painter and artist:

Isamu Noguchi, Japanese-American sculptor, painter, architect and designer:

Taro Okamoto, Japanese painter and sculptor:

Nam June Paik, Korean video artist:

Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and sculptor:

Jackson Pollock, American painter:

Ilya Repin, Russian painter:

Norman Rockwell. American illustrator and painter:

Mimar Sinan, Turkish architect:

Wayne Thiebaud (for Google's 10th birthday), American painter:

Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter:

Diego Velasquez, Spanish Painter:

Andy Warhol, American artist:

Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect:

Zhang Daqian, Asian painter:


The Doodle team, which consists of Marissa Mayer, Dennis Hwang, Mike Dutton, Susie Sahim, and Jenifer Hom has created over 300 doodles for Google.com in the United States. In addition, over 700 have been designed internationally and submissions by guest doodlers, Google Doodle contest winners and the general public have also been produced.

Meet The Doodlers (video):


Want to take a whack at designing your own Google Doodle? Go ahead, you can submit your own to proposals@google.com

My next post on Google Doodles will feature the best of Inventions & Discoveries, don't miss it!