Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Habitat Skateboards: Stained Glass Series

I've always been a big fan of skateboard art, even going all the way back to the ol' famous Tony Hawk bird skull deck from the 80s. I remember being younger and looking at them and really liking the art, though I wasn't sure why. Even as I'm older now and have a trained eye for art and design I appreciate even more the quality of illustration that went into many of those old decks.

Fast forward to the modern day...I still love skateboard art and design. I recently stumbled upon this deck series by Habitat - whose designs I'd always admired for their palettes, vector work, and attention to detail - but this stained glass series really stood out to me. Looking further into it, I realized it was actually made in stained glass by an artist named Jessie Cundiff and her crew of glass artists, then photographed for use on the board format. Really engaging use of shape and color, and a great example of old world techniques merging with modern technology. In my opinion they look even better together as a series. I look forward to one day hanging these up side by side in my studio.





Thursday, January 2, 2014

Ken Griffey Upper Deck Rookie Card

Ahhh, the nostalgia of baseball card collecting. I remember when Upper Deck first came out it was considered high end because it had the fancy hologram on the card. And remember how everyone thought seeing young Ken Griffey Jr.'s smily face appear from behind that foil cover would be the key to their retirement??  It was like winning a mini lotto.  If there's one thing we can learn from the 90s, it's that anything that claims to be a collector's item will never actually ever be a collector's item in the decades that follow. Yes, that means you too, comic books with the chromium variant covers....