Boss not Boss | 2011

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Our Adventure Time Costumes

Author Selena Category

Misc

Oct 31 2011

The best American holiday. No contest. Don’t even try to argue–you will lose. So, every year I dress up. I think one year when I was 14 or something I was in a weird stage where I was like too old to go out, and I didn’t really have many friends who had parties or whatever, so I had no reason to dress up. But ever since then, I always dress up. And I always make my costume. ALWAYS.

What’s the point of a pre-packaged costume? Or of a costume bought at Victoria’s Secret (yes, they make costumes). Or of a costume made out of your lingerie, some tights, and some animal ears? Really, you should just stay home and be alone and cry. Because Halloween is not for you.

So this year, us here at BossnotBoss decided to make our costumes from scratch in honor of one of our favorite cartoons, Adventure Time. Now, if you haven’t heard of Adventure Time, you better download every episode after you read this post and watch it day and night until your eyes bleed. But for those of you who do know about our friends Finn the Human and Princess Bubblegum, you will recognize our disguises :)

It was super fun making these costumes. Chris is a genius pattern maker and I am a top notch seamstress. So the two of us work really well together despite the few hours we had. Some of the items made were:

Finn’s backpack – crazy circle pattern stuffed with straps (I can’t believe Chris came up with that pattern in his head)

Finn’s animal eared hoodie – another crazy pattern made by Chris that I didn’t understand while I was sewing

Finn’s sword – painted cardboard is a super easy and affordable material to make accessories out of

Princess Bubblegum’s dress – 1950s extremely altered dress with handmade bubble sleeves, purple collar and belt

Princess Bubblegum’s crown – another painted cardboard accessory

If you guys had amazing costumes this year, send us some pics or links in the comments! We would love to see them!

HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEEEN!

Typewriter Ribbon Package Design

Author Chris Category

Design

Oct 28 2011

Typewriter ribbon is probably one of the last things I ever think about ever. If only I had let that ribbon ink into my consciousness earlier, I might’ve been inspired by these tins much sooner in my design life.

So dope that these tins have won my heart with so few colors. I love the tins that contrast the circular tin shape with rigid straight lines and corners in the design. Maybe I’m just a sucker for contrast, but I know you are too (you might not know it, but you are).

There’s more to see in the full flickr set, so def check it out right now!

It’s too bad that there isn’t more design like this with computer parts. If you go to buy a video card, the packaging just has some goofy 3d type with a gradient or two, maybe throw in some arbitrary computer model of a robot or an eyeball. It’s mostly boring.

I know Apple’s packaging is ok, and video card packaging is just the first shit thing I thought of, but if you know of some amazing, jaw-dropping packaging for modern comps, let us know in the comments and you’ll be a little more famous :)

Albrecht Dürer

Author Chris Category

Oct 27 2011

These images: Wood/copper cut (I know. I pooped myself too)

When you’re looking through blogs, you’re usually looking for what’s incredibly new. Well my man Albrecht is incredibly old, incredibly dead and incredibly incredible.

I first learned about him in design history and immediately idolized his dead dead amazing corps. But when I talk to designers I’ve met as I go through my career, they don’t know who I’m talking about and seem to get this look as if I’m talking about nothing more than a restaurant I liked because of the free bread.

He was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. WHAT! Plus the bastard makes a huge impact in late 15th century Europe in his 20s. (and he’s also regarded as the first landscape artist). And then this guy knew da Vinci! The Leonardo kind! What would you do if you met da Vinci? Slap him? I’d sure hope you’d do something funny.

There’s plenty more to be read about this man on Wikipedia if you’re so compelled to learn more in an attemp to gain the tricks to his greatness.

Shipping Logos

Author Selena Category

Design

Oct 26 2011

The first logo I ever took notice of, before becoming a graphic designer, was at the early age of 10. My family used to go on road trips down to Northern California to visit our family and I would stick my head out of the window so that I couldn’t hear anything but the violent whooshing of air. I would watch car after car after car pass by along with the occasional semi truck. I would stare at the shiny, usually dirty grills and then at the bumpy metal sides with their once-brilliant, rusty painted logos. Once I became a graphic designer, I remembered one logo. The red one with the flower. I basically contribute that logo to be the reason I became a graphic designer. The OOCL logo.

It isn’t a very detailed or interesting logo. Not very conceptual. It is simple, with almost tacky retro type and an image super-imposed inside the second “O”, which I would normally deem ridiculous. However, still to this day it is my favorite logo. The non-existent kearning and dramatic weight of the type almost looks accidental in its design. Yet the proportions are fucking perfect. And in my opinion, that red is the most amazing color on earth. Since then, I have noticed other shipping logos that are also, in their simplicity, quite brilliant. For instance Hanjin. It is a beautifully designed logo. It hasn’t received much attention I think, for it is just painted on the side of dirty ships and cargo containers. But, I think it is magnificent. How the H and J twist together to form a symmetric shape that is strong, yet organic.

You other graphic designers can let me know if you think that I am crazy for loving such silly, almost obtrusive design and what you would do better. Or if you also fall in love, shout it out!

I’m Here by Spike Jonze

Author Selena Category

Motion

Oct 25 2011

Our friend Dane reminded us of this short by the good ole’ Spike Jonze. It is a surprising bit of film featuring the two small lives of some lonely robots finding love, and giving everything they have for one another til the very end. You will definitely sigh a few times from despairing sweetness. Very reminiscent of his film, Where the Wild Things Are, this is another beautifully shot film with a simple, yet endearing plot. Definitely watch with a close friend or two, and go here for more info.

DYE “Fantasy” Official Video

Author Chris Category

Motion

Oct 21 2011

My thought process:

“this could be cool.”

“meh, really?”

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

I love how this is the video to this song. Too perfect? No such thing. This animation is so gross and sick and perfect for watching at work or showing to little kids. Plus the track is dope.

Sorry, guys, but I’m way too pumped for the weekend to be tellin y’all all my feelings on this bit, but you get the idea. I hope you’re all doing amazing things and doing plenty of designing and dancing—the best kind of double Ds to get a handfull of :)

Kijek / Adamski

Author Chris Category

Motion

Oct 20 2011

Hell yes to any sort of rotoscoping action. But these kids don’t stop at rotoscoping; they like to fly a little closer to the sun and sprinkle in plenty of other yummies for the tastebuds on your eyes. And that’s just this first vid.

Their other work is def worth your time so instead of reading this you should hit up their site. It’s a little weird cuz it’s more of a blog than a traditional portfolio… maybe I’m just linking to the wrong place, but either way, there’s awesome waiting on the other end of that link.

Avanaut’s Star Wars Lego Pics

Author Chris Category

Photography

Oct 19 2011

I love how much detail that Avanaut has managed to capture here. Some of these are almost like stills from a sort of Star Wars B-Sides which happen to be done with legos since lego people have proven to be better actors than most humans (and they always do their work with a smile on their face. Well usually. Always usually).

There’s def more to see on his stream, as well as non lego Star Wars, non Star Wars lego, and non lego – non Star Wars photos. And yes, of course all his pics reminded me of those marwencol pics :)

Cheatin’ uh? WordPress Error Message

Author Chris Category

Misc

Oct 18 2011

Some of you might not be able to relate to this…..yet, but anyway:

So there I am, minding my own business just registering a new taxonomy in the BossnotBoss and when I go populate it, WordPress reaches out and slaps me with the least helpful error message in the universe: Cheatin’ uh?

I reacted with the mind of a normal sane person and calmly threw my computer out the window (which wasn’t open at the time). Once I cooled off, I went to glue my computer back together and I used paper mache substitutes for the pieces I couldn’t find. Fired up the internet machine and tried again only find the “Cheatin’ uh?” error seemed to have taken a permanent residence in my WP backend; this is when I thought to myself, “Am I cheating? hmmm.” Ultimately reaching the conclusion that I wasn’t and WordPress was simply on the blob.

After some research I learned that this damn thing is happening all the time all over the place and if it hasn’t happened to you, your WP site is probably really boring.

One solution that seemed to be very popular was that you should only use lower-case letters when registering the name of your taxonomy, but it should be noted that my research shows this error message can happen for a number of reasons which makes it less less less helpful.

I just don’t understand how you could get away with using that as an error message. Why can’t it just say “there’s something fucked on line 84 in awesome.php”, but instead it just accuses you of cheating? Where I come from, such a harsh acusation can get you into trouble and you’d better be sure you’re right before you run around pointing your finger. Shame on you, WordPress. I’ve been nothing but loyal to you. I don’t even look when another, more beautiful CMS walks by.

DADU SHIN

Author Selena Category

Oct 17 2011

Our okay-friend Wyatt sent me to DADU’s tumblr a few days ago and I instantly fell in love with the sketchbooks.

It’s quite an amazing thing, illustrator’s sketchbooks. They are so crazy and weird. I love the fact that none of it ends up being anything. It’s all preliminary bullshit and brain vomit. In fact, in some cases, I like the sketches better than the finished pieces. This would be one of those cases. After I looked through all of the books (all 109 pages, double-sided), I moved on to the commissioned pieces, and I was a bit disappointed. However, the sketches make up for the less-than-interesting finished article-style illustrations. Especially the fashion illustrations. They are exquisite! DADU should really try their hand at fashion design. Or at least textile design. Why do I always end up telling illustrators to go into textile design? Maybe because there are so few amazing fabric prints out there, I’m subconsciously dying for some great textiles. Besides, who better to design textiles than illustrators? I mean most textile designs are done by… well, terrible designers. Okay enough ranting about textiles. Maybe that needs to be a not Boss post… hmm.

So please check out DADU’s sketchbooks and don’t be afraid to look through the commissioned work, it is quite good.