Yeah, When Monkeys Fly Out of My Butt

We love a great combo of letterpress and die-cutting, so we had to highlight this promo piece for A Hundred Flying Monkeys, an outfit based in California. Funky illustration, beautiful printing, AND it'll put your eye out.

Slots Are Our Friends

Is anything sacred with slot machines?!?!

While traipsing around Las Vegas, we stumbled upon the slot machine above. Now, we've seen some oddly-themed slots before, but this one caught our eye. (And not just because the whole premise of this machine is built around one really bad pun.) Pictured above the "Easel Money" marquee are a series of fictional painters, including the requisite dude with beret. But are those characters really fictional? Seems one of them is heavily inspired by our favorite painter ever, Bob Ross.

And that's no happy accident.

Patriot Paint

Ever wonder what it would look like if Uncle Sam threw up on your car?

Fans can now choose from three potential paint schemes for Kevin Harvick's Budweiser Chevrolet, two of which are pictured above. The winning design will run at Daytona over the July 4th holiday weekend. While the summer Daytona race has always had a dose of Independence Day fever -- from the '60s through the end of the '80s it was known as the Firecracker 400 -- has there ever been a paint scheme that has been so yea-rah-rah America?

Perhaps not. But don't let that stop you from trying to top it. Now's your chance to create one even more Americantastic! The Toyota Sponsafier is back, allowing you to design your own paint scheme from scratch! And what can be more American than slapping your red-white-and-blue on the side of a Japanese car?

Plumbing the Depths of Typography

How easy is it to get information these days? As easy as turning on the tap, according to Richard J. Evans. To illustrate that, he completed the installation informationleak_part two (pictured above) as part of his studies in Birmingham, England. For those letterpress purists out there, don't fret: no vintage type was hurt in the making of this art. The wood type used was cut specifically for this.

And if you're wondering, yes, there's an informationleak_part one.

City Maps in Lettering

If I ever get lost in a city, I want it to be this one. No, not Washington, per se, but a city that's built entirely from type. Axis Maps has created a series of five city maps that weave together nothing but letters to shape the city form. From waterways to the street grid, the posters aren't only accurate, they're distractingly compelling. So much so that your mind might actually get lost just looking at them. Finally, a map that you get more lost the more you look at it.

Pictured above is DC. You can also find Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City on their site.

Modernist Poster Sale

It's time again to salivate over Swann Galleries' annual Modernist poster auction. As always, it's packed with treasures from the heyday of avant garde graphic design. Though the catalog is wide-ranging — from wartime PSAs to sporting events to film debuts — pictured above is sampling of travel-related posters we culled from the 200+ posters being offered. You have until 1:30pm to wipe that drool and start your bidding.

Click on the images for a jumbo view. Bib not included.

May Flowers

From Luis Vega and Alberto Cerriteño, here's a beautiful letterpress reminder of springtime's bounty. They've created a 200-edition print of an umbrella-toting elephant. (Betcha didn't know elephants used umbrellas, huh? Well, umbrellas sure use elephants!)

The print is available at their Grinket site.

Rest Stop Frames

The ol' dogwood tree in front of Duckpin Press HQ is blooming and that means summer is just around the corner. And summertime means road trip time.

Do you have any road trip plans? Lizzy Oppenheimer sure does. She plans on photographing what many folks overlook. Namely, overlooks. (And picnic areas, rest stops, and roadside shelters.) She's been at it since 2009, but has a long way to go. You see, she plans on photographing every rest stop in America. That's going to be one long trip.

Her photos so far have a great open-road feeling to them (three appear above). If they're any indication of what's to come, this is going to be one terrific journey.

Happy travels wherever you may be headed this summer. And while you're on the road, why not check out a rest stop or two?

The Bullring

NASCAR rolls into Bristol this week, in what is one of the most entertaining tracks on the circuit. The high-banked, 1/2 mile oval always makes for tight racing and hot tempers.

This week Denny Hamlin will be running his FedEx Express paint scheme, one of four schemes he normally runs for FedEx. Given my penchant for orange, I'd say it's the baddest ass one of them all. Since Denny joined Gibbs racing, the one constant has been FedEx on his hood. But the paint schemes have changed throughout the years. Here's a run down of the "Express" schemes:

2011:


2010:
2008:

Have a favorite one? Put it in the comments below.


And now, for bonus paint scheme coverage from 2006:


This last one has got to be one of the most original paint schemes of the modern era. It ran at Atlanta to promote FedEx's sponsorship of the PGA Tour Fed-Ex Cup. Though it looks like they took a mallet to body work to give it its dimpled look, it's all an illusion done with paint and vinyl. NASCAR, meet trompe l'oeil. (I'm pretty sure this is the first time those two words have appeared in the same sentence.) Just imagine what they could do if a breast implant doctor ever sponsored a car...

Enjoy the race!

Rock Star

We revived an old linoleum block we cut last year for a new curling poster this year. Combined with (mostly) 16-line Clarendon wood type and lead stars, this 6-color concoction was printed in an edition of about eight. Maybe ten.

ED. NOTE: The type in upper right -- a nickname for curling -- was originally going to read "hurry hard", but I didn't have enough Rs in the proper size. I figured this out only after cutting the lino for the blue splat which the type sits on. While "hurry hard" fits neatly inside the splat, "the roaring game" is a bit snug for my tastes.

Various color papers are from the French Paper Company; assorted wood type; handcut lino blocks; lead ornaments; hand inked in 5 passes on the cylinder press. 12.5" x 19".

Type Nerd App

Unless you're obsessed with type—or like to chide those who are—stop reading now.

Now you can think about type 24-7 via the iPhone app "KERN". The idea is to score points by inserting missing letters into design-related words while maintaining optimal letterspacing and avoiding unnecessary ligatures. (If you have no idea wtf this means, remember, you were warned.)

Since I haven't actually downloaded the app, below is a mix of user reviews and my own snarky commentary. Guess which is which:

A. "This app should come with its own black mock turtleneck!"

B. "What may be the first and only video game in history with the potential to get typographers all hot and bothered.”

C. "The iPhone's first design-nerd game."

D. "Better than a girlfriend."

Lego My Letterpress!

Perhaps you eagerly peeked in your stocking this year hoping for a brand new toy or two. Nothing beats the excitement of unwrapping a package and finding in it a toy that you know you'll want to play with forever and ever. In reality, "forever" lasts a few months, and by next year you're eagerly peeking in your stocking once again.

Via the wonderful NPR Picture Show blog comes a well-timed story about what to do with some of those abandoned toys. The Legos that have been gathering dust in your closet for years? Perfect for letterpress artists Sam Cox and Justin LaRosa. They've been using Legos to make some wonderful pieces, including The Fox (pictured above). Check out much more of their pixely work at Physical Fiction.

Art Nouveau Posters

Just in time for stocking-stuffer season comes Swann Galleries' latest poster auction: Rare & Important Art Nouveau Posters. The auction includes nearly 200 items from such noted artists as Alphonse Mucha and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. But don't feel like you need to buy us a poster from one of those elite poster icons — we're not too picky.

Mobile Printing

In the depths of steamy DC summers, Duckpin's basement print shop is a cool respite from the spiking heat outdoors. Its cave-like qualities (cool, dank, musty, full of bat guano) aren't ideal, but they do provide some comfort, and I relish the opportunity to hide out down there.

But what if you could avoid the summer heat -- and humid basements -- all together by taking a print shop on the road? Well, Kyle Durrie from Power and Light Press would like to find out. She's planning a cross-country tour in a tricked-out bread van outfitted with a complete print shop. With a modest donation you can follow her adventures by collecting her letterpressed postcards dispatched along the journey. Even better, for a little more, you can get her to stop the van at your house for a personal letterpress demo! (Guano not included.)

See her pitch and read more about her adventure here.

Above: Kyle in action

Letterpressed Folk

Designer and illustrator Scotty Reifsnyder is offering a beautiful collection of letterpressed cards. His "Heroes of Folk" series features six different American icons including Annie Oakley, Johnny Appleseed, and Paul Bunyan (pictured). The 2-sided, 3-color, 6"x8" cards are $30 each; the set of six fetches $150.

Kayser Smackdown

Attention both readers!

I've been tasked with creating an announcement for the 2011 Kayser bonspiel for new curlers. In honor of the host club's 50th anniversary, the Potomac Curling Club is invoking the theme "back to the '60s". The design brief clarifies this as "not the hippy '60s, more like Camelot or Mad Men." Pretty clear, right?

I decided to take two design paths. On the left, the martini design, toasting the Rat Pack spirit of the '60s. On the right, the Mod design, inspired by the movie and music advertising of the era.

Since we can only use one, do you have a preference—martini or mod?

Click on image for larger view.

Beans are Bullets

Starting today, the USDA headquarters in DC will be displaying an impressive exhibit of War-Era food posters from the collection of the National Agricultural Library. The exhibit spans the World Wars and touches on the emotional, practical, and patriotic sensibilities of consumers and producers.

A lushly illustrated electronic version of the exhibit can be found here. The physical show ends November 10.

Printer's Devil

How did Shorpy get this image of Duckpin Press' first apprentice? Well, they didn't. It's a 1917 photo of Riverside Press in New York City. But you can understand how we confused the two, as we still try to dress as nattily as these chaps.

Click on image for wicked big view.

Alphabet Soup: Ten Qs

Sixteen-line wood type and transparent ink

Anatomy of a Letterpress Project

Lame-o us.

Our very first print from our press reads "No. 1 / Duckpin's first impression" and the date. If we had any sense of humor, we'd have done something like this.

Now that's a first impression.