Best wishes for 2010

In whatever language you prefer, best wishes for the coming year. Let's make it a good one.

When the big hand....

A suitable post for the last minutes of the year. Whoever designed this clock has a similar sense of humour as I have: I think it is hilarious. First seen here.

Origami teabag

Thanks once more to Jenny Downing for alerting me to this one. Definitely my cup of tea - this origami-inspired teabag design. First seen here.

The Himalayas

Another magnificent satellite shot. Soaring, snow-capped peaks and ridges of the eastern Himalayas Mountains create an irregular white-on-red patchwork between major rivers in southwestern China. Images like these re-inforce the idea that fractals mimic nature. First seen here.

Tripping

A fascinating experiment: an artist was given a dose of LSD and asked to draw portraits of the doctor whilst the drug was slowly but surely kicking in. This resulted in a bewildering sequence of drawings, the first four of which are shown above. I came across this on the Fukung site - generally not safe for work, so click here for the full story but proceed from there with caution.

Protection

Actually, the design itself is perhaps even more innovative than the caption - a 21st century version of the chastity belt. First seen here.

Dutch names

Well, this will not be of any interest to people outside Holland, but if you are a compatriot of mine, this is such a cool site. It gives the distribution of your family name over the various municipalities of the Netherlands - giving you an impression where the family name actually came from. First seen here.

Paperwork

Amazing, brilliant even, but not artistic enough for my blog Art for Art's sake. Allen and Patty Eckman are known for their fine and detailed sculptures made of acid free cast paper. Their art shows mostly sculptures of Indians, but it also includes nature, women, children and animals. First seen here.

Sleeping Santa dogs

Talk about cuteness overdose. First seen here.

Have gun will celebrate

And another from the same source and about the same time period. This one on the other hand could also be posted today - only in America. First seen here.

Chesterfields for Christmas

My main blog, Art for Art's sake, has a recurring topic about creative advertisements. In this blog I will be posting other advertisements that are worth sharing for whatever reason. Kicking off with a christmas ad from the late fifties/early sixties (I guess). In hindsight, this is so weird to see the future president of the USA recommending to reduce the life expectance of all your friends by about 10 years as a christmas gift. First seen here.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Merry Crisis

Brilliant word play. Even better because my first interpretation on reading this was the usual seasonal wish - that's how the brain works. First seen here.

Christmas pick-up

American Kris Marshall decided to turn his old pick-up into something outrageous that would draw attention. And he succeeded. His Christmas Truck has about 60 light strands, each featuring 50-100 light bulbs. First seen here.

Happy Christmas in 1000 words or more

For the occasion, a YouTube fragment of one of my all-time favourite sitcoms, Yes Minister. Best. Christmas wish. ever. To be seen here.

Christmas trees

A list of some of the weirdest christmas trees around, including the depcited one from Japan, made of sushi. First seen here.

Antidepressant

Move over Prozac. There is indeed no better way to get rid of a depressive mood than playing with one or more dogs (puppies even better). First seen here.

Metal fan

This one is so stupid it becomes funny again.... First seen here.

Deep cut

Another off-beat shot by Spanish photographer Chema Madoz, the Magritte of photography. First seen here.

Great Salt Desert

A new subject - magnificent satellite shots. Like painting an abstract on a gigantic canvas, this one shows the lakes, mud flats, and salt marshes of Iran’s largely uninhabited Great Salt Desert. First seen here.

Album cover stamps

Special designs of a different kind: the UK Royal Mail will launch its first set of ten 1st class stamps designed by Studio Dempsey that celebrate classic British album covers - in a unique shape like a vinyl disc poking out of each record sleeve. The ten winners are Pink Floyd (The Division Bell), Coldplay (A Rush Of Blood To The Head), The Clash (London Calling), Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells), Rolling Stones (Let It Bleed), David Bowie (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars), Led Zeppelin (IV), Primal Scream (Screamadelica), Blur (Parklife) and New Order (Power, Corruption and Lies). Can't say I agree with most of these choices, but the end results are intriguing. First seen here.

SPAD S.XIII

The SPAD S.XIII was a French biplane fighter aircraft of The Great War, developed by SPAD (Societe Pour L'Aviation et ses Derives) from the earlier also highly successful S.VII. It was one of the most capable fighters of the war, and one of the most-produced. It was faster than its main contemporaries, the British Sopwith Camel and the German Fokker D.VII, and was renowned for its ruggedness and strength in a dive. Key Aces like the Frenchmen Guynemer and Fonck, and the American Rickenbacker were amongst its users. Picture and information taken from here.

The secret life of everyday things

Photographer Terry Border obviously had a lot of fun creating scenes for his book Bent Objects, depicting what in his imagination everyday objects like fruit are up to when we do not look. First seen here.

Living like cat and dog

Any further comment is superfluous. First seen here.

Handicraft

A link sent to me by Jenny Downing. The hand painting works by Mario Mariotti are not of the same artistic quality as those by Guido Daniele (featured here in my Art for Art's sake blog), but they are fun to look at and hence very suited for the Potpourri blog. First seen here.

Fossils of modern technology

This one is on the border line between Art for Art's Sake and Art's Potpourri - in the end, it ended up here because, although creative and expertly crafted, it is not sufficiently artistic to my taste for my main blog. Artist Christopher Locke has made these modern fossils by hand, everything from cassettes and floppy disks to Nintendo and joysticks. First seen here.

Surprise

And what a bad surprise it is! Big stars like Paul Simon hardly ever release albums with extremely bad covers, but this one is right up there with the worst. The baby picture is awful and unsuited, the water at the top disconnected and artificial, and the placing of the album title awkward. Surely one of the worst of the decade. First seen, well anywhere really.

Simpsons 20

Today marks the 20th birthday of the ground breaking TV animated sitcom series The Simpsons. For this occasion, a brilliant T-shirt design, transforming the well-known opening couch gag of the series into something very special. And Homer depicted as a bowling ball bag is sheer class. First seen here.

Stop! Stop! Stop!

Better get out of the car and start walking home then. Somehow it reminds me of some of the rules at our company. First seen here.

Pimp my garage

So... would you like your neighbours to do a double take the next time they pass your garage? Just pimp the garage door with one of a series of extraordinaily life like 3D effect designs by Thomas Sassenbach. First seen here.

Procrastination

One of the very best I have ever come across, sheer brilliance in its immense nothingness. First seen here.

The long arm of the law

Pictures like this really make you think "how can anyone be so stupid?" - unbelievable. But fun. First seen here.

Hang the DJ

More fascinating graffiti with what looks like a DJ from hell - and actually advertising the Roskilde Festival. First seen here.

Smurf this way

Another example of the lighter side of my photography. Some years ago, they were giving away smurf figurines at the local supermarket and I could not resist playing around with them a bit. To be found here.

Will it go round in circles?

One of the most disturbing - and therefore most effective - optical illusions I have ever encountered. My eyes/brain combination simply will not accept that these are just circles. First found on Fukung, which is sometimes so unsafe for work that I will not link to it.

Ten beautiful banknotes

A new subject, courtecy of several list-based blogs that I browse on a regular basis. We kick off with the ten most beautiful banknotes of the world, such as this one from French Polynesia. First seen here.

Tick-e-lish!

Sometimes you come across really great images on the web, but without information attached to them. I decided to start a new subject for these, titled A is for anonymous. I will include the link where I found the shot, and anybody who can provide more information on these pictures, please leave a comment or mail me. This one is simple but imaginative and fun. First seen (not safe for work) here.

Barbie jewelry

Creativity running rampant - how on earth does someone get the idea to use barbie parts to design jewels? Well, Margaux Lange did. And the result is stunningly appealing as well. First seen here.

London skyline veggie style

Carl Warner and his team of five model-makers spent three weeks crafting the famous London landmarks out of 26 different types of vegetables and fruits, ranging from melons and tomatoes to asparagus. First seen here.

Thank you for the dove

With "beautiful album covers" a frequent subject in my main blog, it was but a small step to start the opposing pendant here. Awful album covers will list some of the best, whilst trying to avoid the ones that you see all over the internet anyway. Mike Adkins' album is a great example of what an album cover design should NOT look like. Image sourced from here.

Ladder

In many aspects, the Spanish photographer Chema Madoz is to photography what Magritte was to paintings. I love his simple yet clever creations, and will make them a regular feature in the blog. First seen here.

Failed Flags

Browsing the blog Oddee is one of my regular fixtures on the internet, and this entry of a few weeks ago is certainly suited for Potpourri (but not for my main blog). An overview of some of the weirdest flags from all around the world. Above is my favourite in this pool of awfulness. I can't describe it better than Oddee did: One of the worst flags in the world comes from the city of Antwerp in Belgium. It's a chess set on acid. First seen here.

Global warning

An image that I was sent a few months ago by a colleague, and that I have encountered since on a number of sites as well. Anyway, if you have not seen it yet, a fun "prove" of global warming.

Coincidence

OK, this may very well be photoshopped, but even if it is, the image is both marvellous and devastatingly true. And if it is 100% real, so much the better. First seen here.

Bristol Fighter

As a kid, I devoured the books by Captain Johns on the adventures of Biggles, the flying ace. As a result, airplanes, especially vintage miltary aircraft from the Great War and the Second World War, have always fascinated me, and I had a large Airfix models collection as a teenager. I briefly tried this as a blog subject in Art for Art's Sake before last year's purge, but of course it did not really fit in. So it's back, in Potpourri. We kick off with one of the most successful two-seaters of the Great War, the Bristol Fighter, which was introduced in 1916. After its pilots had adjusted their tactics, it turned out to be a great fighter, with the pilot's fixed forward-firing gun serving as the principal weapon, and the observer's flexible gun serving mainly as a bonus "sting in the tail": a formidable opponent for any German single-seater. Picture and information taken from here.

This job sucks

In my main blog, the subject My photography deals with the more artistic side of my pictures - I will save some more funny ones for Art's Potpourri. Like this one from our recent Paris trip - a dirty mind is a joy forever. To be found here.

Rubiks Cake

Is there any toy more "eighties" than Rubik's notorious cube? Yes, I could solve them, after I learned the trick, and of course that was also the end of the fun. It remains a great icon though, and this cake variation on the theme is both inspired and fun. And it looks delicious. First seen here.

Sweep this way

One of those subjects that are not artistic enough for Art for art's sake, and fit perfectly here: graffiti. Thanks to Jenny Downing for supplying me a great link on this subject, and the first one that I picked is this awesome image. First seen here.

Taking the boss' lead

Thanks to Jenny Downing for sending me the link to this hilarious shot. Dogs are the best. Period. First seen here.

A lot of .....

Sometimes you come across really great images on the web, but without information attached to them. I decided to start a new subject for these, titled A is for anonymous. I will include the link where I found the shot, and anybody who can provide more information on these pictures, please leave a comment or mail me. This one I gave the title "A lot of..." - well, can you guess of what? Click the link and you will see a series of magnifications that will show you that traffic jams can form at the remotest parts of the world. First seen here.