blog GAMIL: an insider look at design » art series

Skateboard Cowboys by Paul Friedrich

beth — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:13:15 +0000

Last month (June 6), Endless Grind and FM Goods of Raleigh had a collaborative show and benefit called “Drawing Blanks.” A bunch of blank skateboard decks were painted by local artists, and then they were all silent auctioned on the First Friday in June. The auction benefitted The Disabled American Veterans of NC.

The show was great and packed! but the audience was more into the scene than owning any of the decks. Lucky for me, cause I scored these 3 Paul Friedrich cowboys for a nice price! Picked ‘em up today and just had to share.

Pinball Artwork: Capturing Pop Culture

beth — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:14:32 +0000

You can study history and cultural anthropology in any number of different ways. One incredible area of historical documentation: pinball machines! From movies and tv shows to music to popular games of each era like bingo, pinoccle or space invaders, pinball themes capture it all.

We ran into this little artistic gem over the weekend and had to have it. It will be displayed prominently in a large kitchen window!

If you want a little slice of history in the form of some pretty extreme artwork (and usually not too expensive), check out some pinball machine back glass of the era. You can find a lot of options at any given time on eBay. And here’s a coupla other sites to peruse:
The Pinball Gallery
Internet Pinball Database

Captain Fantastic – look at those shoes! Apparently, the first run of this artwork had a few of the big-breasted women in the crowd actually unclad. Bally didn’t recognize that until some machines were already in use, and had to go back to the smirking artist for a correction.

The Game Show, Bally

Baywatch, Sega

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Gottlieb

“Another Poster for Peace” for Free

beth — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:28:45 +0000

Ran across this site the other day and thought it a very interesting open-source project. According to the Another Poster for Peace website, it is “a group of citizens committed to elevating the level of public engagement in the peace movement through design. Our goal is to help create a grassroots “anti-campaign” to counter the brilliant marketing the U.S. administration is currently running to promote its war agenda.”

I love the fact that the art (close to 30 different posters) is completely copyright-free and designed to be used in the public domain. You can pick whatever poster(s) strikes you, and print them out or download and take them somewhere to be professionally printed as posters or postcards. A really engaging grass roots campaign…

local spotlight: Casey Porn’s cute creatures

beth — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 23:56:25 +0000

Check out Casey’s latest work, featured in a show at The Morning Times in Raleigh this month. Opening night is tonight! She’s been a favorite artist of mine for the past few years, and Designbox has had a number of very successful shows with her. Casey started painting Chihuahuas but has since developed her creature collection, adding other dogs, does, dinosaurs and even squids!

She is also one of the artists in our Mila Art Jackets Collection
(Paul Friedrich did the cowboy. We’ll be bloggin ’bout him later) .

To see more of her work, go here.

Gary Baseman Does it Again

aly — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:06:52 +0000

You may know his stuff from Cranium – but that’s just scratching the surface of Gary Baseman’s brain. He’s painting, creating and merching- and it keeps getting better. Check out the new White HotChaChaCha!

SHINY SHINY blog features Mila Art Jacket!

beth — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:42:34 +0000

We love the Shiny Shiny blog, “a girl’s guide to gadgets” (I love that!), so we were sooper excited to see their entry this morning of our Mila Art Jacket design! My favorite sentence of their review of the iPod skin and case:

“Casey Porn is among the artists who have designed Mila Jackets for tarting up your iPod.”

Great holiday nerd gift! Cute Li’l Mimoco Flash Drives!

beth — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:45:29 +0000

Star Wars flash drives for the true geek in you! Princess Leia, she rules. But Luke Skywalker is pretty great, and everybody needs a Chewbakka! If yer buyin’ for Christmas, you’ll have to settle for a picture until January, as these babies are all pre-order.

If you need something right now, Mimoco has a whole host of other little flash drive monsters and such to choose from.

Boogily Bunnies and Stitch Kittens by Gus Fink

beth — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:22:41 +0000

If you think Ugly Dolls are cute and Scary Stories rock, then you need to check out Gus Fink’s Boogily Bunnies and Stitch Kittens. Fink has added a whole new level of darkness to the “so ugly it’s cute” plush toy genre. His art has often played with the line between the morbid or grotesque and cuteness or innocence. His work has humor and wit, and now his toys have sweetness and big eyes! How can you lose? Thanks Gus!

Pacific Design + Gamila Product Launch Party!

beth — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:01:15 +0000

The First Friday Gallery show at Designbox was a special one for us. We are partnering with the awesome all-sorts-of-cases brand, Pacific Design, out of Austin Texas to create an “Indie Artists Collection” for iPod cases and PSP gaming cases. The Indie Artists Collection is launched under the Pacific Design brand and features 2 local Raleigh artists: David Eichenberger and Paul Friedrich. The First Friday show was a celebration of these cases being launched nationwide and sold in Circuit City throughout the country. The party was a smashing success. Ty Rarick and Alexandra Elliott (both of Pacific Design), flew in from Austin for the event. Paul and David were both here signing cases, and Chad Wilkins of Gamila orchestrated all of the logistics. We had incredible music with old school vinyl spun by DJ jasonjohns, great food from the RedRoom, and the always popular Big Boss beer. Breakdancers showed up and made their own dance floor, and a local bike club arrived with 35ish cyclists and at least 3 inline skaters. The party went late (of course) and the feedback and sales of all of the artist cases was very positive. We also showed a line of 6 Mila Art Jackets at the event. These are also cases designed for iPods with local art as the main graphic. They are all under the Gamila brand.

The Pacific Design “Indie Artists Collection” iPod and PSP gaming cases can be found at Circuit City, on the Pacific Design website, or on this Gamila store page. The Gamila “Mila Art Jackets” can be found on the Gamila website. And very soon – maybe even tomorrow – we will have a new shopping page here on the Gamil blog so you can shop straight from here. Stay tuned…

(above) Items from the Pacific Design Indie Artists Collection. Left and Center art are by Paul Friedrich. Art on right is by David Eichenberger.

(above) Pacific Design PSP Gaming Street Pack. Art by Paul Friedrich.

(above) Gamila Art Jackets and Mila Bikini combo. Featured artists include Paul Friedrich, Adam Peele, Beth Khalifa (these 3 shown in picture), Joey Fralin, Casey Porn, Ben Wilson and Dale Flattum.

You know it’s a good ad campaign when you noticed it changed!

beth — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:54:10 +0000

French Paper Company. I’m a geek about it. I don’t want to like all the C.S. Anderson designed ad inserts. I don’t want to like them because everybody likes them. It’s like still liking a music group once they’re on Clear Channel or sell out (translation: actually become successful). But I can’t help it with the French Paper ad inserts. I see them in all the design mags and, instead of ripping them out in a rage because they are in my way, I oh-so-carefully pull it out from the binding and save it in a drawer with all the other French Paper ads I have carefully removed. And C.S.Anderson designed it to be that way. They designed in the collectability by creating a baseball card approach to the cards, showing different fun personality portraits. It’s fun to go through the ones from previous issues to see all of the different portraits you have amassed. But today was a new day. I opened the December issue of HOW magazine, and the French Paper insert was a new design. I removed it in an automatic pilot sort of way and then immediately noticed the visual difference. I still like it. I’ll still save it because once I start a ritual, it’s hard to let go. But the collectability of this new card isn’t there. It’s just a pretty card. Maybe after 3 or 4 of these new ones, I’ll see that it is indeed a set, and I will praise my own smarts for not giving up on the collection. Only time will tell.

On a similar note, I still love the Goth-Icky collection they’re sellin on the site. They’ve been available for a while, but check it out if you haven’t seen them already. Now that Halloween is over, ya gotta start thinkin’ about that crazy gift givin’ season!