Patience, young grasshopper
That's what I thought when I saw this great piece which would make Rube Goldberg a happy man. (via Quipsologies) ...
That's what I thought when I saw this great piece which would make Rube Goldberg a happy man. (via Quipsologies) ...
Great gallery of 75 abandoned theaters across the good ol' USA. Like the Abandoned Houses photo essay we posted a while back, it's sad to see such glory rotting away. Makes you appreciate the work that went into restoring the old greats like LA's Pantages...
Cool live-art battle in the land of OZ between Ken Taylor & Drew Funk. Thanks to OMG Posters for the heads up....
Our work with Angels & Airwaves continues to trickle out. Their newly relaunched website features our custom-created AvA font that we just wrapped up for them a couple days back. Check it out on their site AngelsandAirwaves.com! We'll keep posting more of our work with...
Just got a few of of our new Valhalla x ArtsProjekt x Speck iPhone 4 cases in, available in our shop for $27 shipped! Fits Verizon / AT&T phones. We have both Full Moon on Abbey Road and Valhalla Battle Shield designs available.
We only have the 4’s in the shop, if you have a 3GS – you can get one from our AP Store
check after the jump for more photos!
Put together a lookbook of our most current work which is available for download. 41 pages, chock full of case studies, branding, advertising & consumer goods.
Download the 6.5mb PDF for free here:Valhalla Lookbook or follow the jump for more shots!
A quickie for you all today, just got back in the shop after the SIA shredfest last week, complete with literal bone-chilling -20° temps in the mtns. In celebration of the mtns though, we found this jewel above after clicking a couple links which started over on Quipsologies. Pretty amazing collection of VHS tape box Horror Movie art – Monster Brains Awesome!
More after the jump!
Nice little hello today from Type Union with it's feature on Optical Dillusion...
Cool graphic design oriented Venn Diagram by How Would You Like Your Graphic Design?. A 160pg PDF of Stefan Kanchev's work on logo design from behind the Iron Curton on LogoBlink. In line with the random title page link from the other day is all...
Cool Video we found over on Under Consideration's Quipsologies blog originally by Clim. We unofficially rolled a similar saying for a while there, We Make It Better, until our friends @ Shilo heisted it & rolled out We Make it Good a few years back....
This is huge and it's really just the beginning. Been working for the past couple months with the band Angels & Airwaves and their management on the branding / collateral for their five-year-in-the-making movie, LOVE. The Apple Trailer site just went up this evening, up...
Another random post for you all today. What you're looking at up above is the seriously ridiculously awesome work of ...
On our semi-regular list of checks is the DDC site. Draplin & I have been running in the same circle for a number of years & only a matter of time until our paths cross in person. It's always interesting to see what he has...
ESPN's Real Snow videos are up. Up above is JP Walker's edit where he puts some good midwest mid-century architecture to good use (others do as well). Pretty cool clips. Jeremy Jones' work with his ridiculous spinnermajig binder is crazy and Simon Chamberlain's rail skills...
Pretty cool live-art battle in what's supposed to be an amazing city in the land down under with Ken Taylor taking on Deb. Thanks to OMG Posters for the vid....
AT-AT day afternoon How about an awesome video from Patrick Boivin to stave off your case of the Mondays?...
Saw this over on Boardistan & couldn't not post it. 23's an amazing chair which serves Mammoth's lift-accessed steep terrain like the Wipeout / Dropout chutes & the Paranoids amonst others. This tube is there to protect you from the not-so-subtle winds that go hand...
How to make a skateboard: video. Pretty interesting insight on how they do it. Don't know if this is how the 5yr olds make them in China but it's interesting none the less. We found it over on AWSM...
Skateboardanimation from Tilman Singer Found it over on Quipsologies. While your there, check out #98 & the response #108...
My old boss, co-conspirator, friend, Andy Howell got a feature on IdN as one of their Creators. Pretty cool. Andy’s an immensely talented individual who I’ve got to know & learn a lot from in the years since I met him. Check it out if you get the chance IdN Andy Howell – Creator
More after the jump or click on the pic above to check out the page.
Call us dorks stuck in the 80's but sorry, we can't say we're not excited about this upcoming release. We just hope, pray & whatever other adjective that will fit here that they don't JarJar Binks us on this one. Probably won't rock the midnight...
If you happened to attend the Art Institute of California San Diego, you may have caught me iced tea'd up & running my mouth about design there yesterday on December 7th @ 2pm in Henry Hikima's "Design Research and Marketing Design" class. A lot of...
Pretty cool news here that I spotted over on Grain Edit a few days ago. Back Issues of U&lc (that's upper & lower case) magazine are available online! The first 3 are up, AD'd by the late, great Herb Lubalin! Check em out while they're...
We're extremely busy pumping stuff out for clients to the left and right at the moment & don't want you to feel neglected, so we decided to post up a couple sites which are on our regular check list. If you guys like this, let...
Came across a cool resource today, more bottle caps than you can shake a stick at! Tons to look at, check it all out by clicking up above or here Bottle Cap Man More after the jump
Our Optical Dillusion font was featured on Under Consideration's Quipsologies blog a few days back. Pretty cool to be amongst such amazing work! It's currently on page 9 but that'll probably change by the end of the day. Click on the pick up above to...
Nice illustrative depiction of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address by Adam Gault, via the folks @ Make the Logo Bigger And a rare moment in advertising where an agency used wit & humor to sell rather than the standard crap anecdote of sex sells (also from Make the...
It's hard to argue that these aren't the most incredible shoes ever...
Dang, check this jem out! Veer's Fred & Fred Jr Moose Trophy Puzzles. Amazing. Thanks to James for alerting of of this Jewel!...
Spent the weekend putting together a collection of branding projects I've done over the years. Most of them are in here, there's a few that aren't which were lost to the great hard drive crash of '03 & a couple which haven't launched yet, so...
Our Full Moon on Abbey Road is on werd.com! Pretty excited about this one, Werd's one of our favorite sites! Also, not to be outdone, our friends over at Boardistan popped our shirt up on their site, too. Fancy stuff, thanks guys!...
Amazing work here by Dutch Designer Tanja Soeter & Freedom of Creation. It’s actually pretty reasonably priced (comparatively speaking when you figure the price of modern lighting) at $600 for the small & $1k for the large. It’d be a nice piece to design a room around for sure. More after the jump
We recently finished an icon for the brand Philosophia. The project had to appeal to both sexes (Philo will be the men’s line & Sophia the women’s), be relevant to the marketplace & have a meaning. More of the story after the jump.
Came across this today & it's pretty cool. Some amazing homes in here, so much history...
That’s right, our first foray into merchandise celebrates the greatest holiday ever, Halloween! Full Moon on Abbey Road is available for Men & Women, Ghosts & Ghouls in just about every size you can imagine. Printed on black ringspun / combed cotton (men’s / women’s) these are ready to go. Check out a design detail after the jump or click on the picture above to go to the store & get one!
There’s still time to get a shirt by Valhalloween!
That's right, it's not Halloween, it's VALHALLOWEEN! We're big fans of the greatest holiday ever over here, so much so that we do a special Valhalloween website for our main portfolio, check it out! Valhalloween site...
Saw Remind’s product over on AWSM & checked out an interview they have on their site, Remind Insoles. We got the chance to work with Jim a few years back on the Ascape project we did & he was the coolest guy to work with. Funny that one of the things he’s most proud of about his career is inspiring kids to become artists & designers… It’s safe to say that he’s a major inspiration & one of the reasons I’m doing what I do. I can think of a slew of things that would be worse than hanging out with Jim Phillips for the weekend, these guys did it & filmed it for us to check out. There’s 4 parts in the series, the rest are after the jump.
Interbike 2010 went down last week and we made the annual trip out to Vegas for the extravaganza. Sadly, this is the last show in Vegas for at least 3 years, as it’s set to move up the road to Anaheim for at least the next three years. See more inside!
Stumbled upon some amazing photographs tonight at the bookstore. I noticed an amazing photograph on the cover of Alpinist magazine. I picked it up & was blown away by amazing image after amazing image. We’re all really lucky to have had people like Leigh Ortenburger & Ansel Adams in our human history. Think about it, not only did they climb, hike & adventure out to some of the most amazing places on earth, they did all that with huge-a** 4×5 film cameras, lenses, tripods & all the rest of the gear that went along with such cameras. More photos & dribble after the jump
We’ve been working with the crew at Ninthward Skis for a couple months now & the fruits of our labor are ready for the world to see. If you’re unfamiliar with Ninthward, they’re a freestyle ski company going after the urban / hip hop inspired market. Super cool guys, great product and an amazing team. The site’s getting some good response a few days into the launch, check it out if you have a few – Ninthward Skis.
Or if you just want to stay on our fantabulous site, check after the jump for some screenshots.
I’ve alway enjoyed a bicycle ride. Whether it was BMX growing up (or maybe last week) or trying to hurt myself downhilling at Mammoth on a mtn bike, it’s always a good time. Interbike falls right near my birthday every year so we always make a trek out to the show to see bicycles, catch up with our friends from Shadow and try not to lose too much $$ in the hellhole known as Vegas. In light of the upcoming show, here’s a few bike related clips to check out. More after the jump
It’s no secret that Herman Miller is one of the greatest companies ever made. Wait, you didn’t know that? Well, welcome out from underneath your rock & to the real world. For anyone in question of the above statement, Eames worked extensively with them. Nothing else needs to be said. Case in point referenced below (Eames also designed the molded gems used for the contest).
Follow the jump to see the other artists renditions in this contest.
Today's apparently turning into Shepard Fairey Day over here at WDC (that's We Design & Conquer, get it? ). We're suckers for the snow, bears, anniversaries & awesome shading, so I guess it isn't too surprising that it's up here, is it? ...
Looks like Shepard's been getting busy in the non-mistake by the lake city in Ohio, Cincinnati. Saw this over at OMG Posters & couldn't pass up posting it on here. All the murals he put up around the city in HDR. Nice of the Noble...
Emerica's new video just dropped and the word on the street is it's jaw dropping. Seeing as how the premiere was a few weeks ago & the movie released on DVD / iTunes on Sept 1 - we should have a full review but, well,...
Just a bit longer, we promise. Loads to update everybody on in the next few days. Some of amazing signage / logos from a trip Around the upper Plains (the gem above is just a teaser, from the Alex Johnson Hotel in downtown Rapid City,...
A few weeks back our amigos at the Shadow Conspiracy released their Back to School 2010 line and, once again, we've got a few shirts in their collection. Read Between, Bloodbath, and a hat & t-shirt of the Pinstripe design are available at Dan's Competition...
Saw this over on Werd and it's just too AWSM to not post. Apparently Canon, being the photography badasses that they are, decided to make these up for the photographers at the recent Vancouver Olympics. Pretty dang amazing in my book, almost makes me want...
A while back, we did a post on vintage packaging (here). Looking around on the treasure trove known as Lovely Package today while doing some research, we came across some more jewels from yesteryear. Follow after the jump if you want to see more!
The bi-annual brofest known as ASR is going down in SD right now and, as hard as we tried, we were sucked into it once again. This year wasn’t especially any different than any other years, still lots of dudes rolling around trying their hardest to be seen by anyone willing to look. More after the jump with a slew of pictures to keep you abreast of the art that seemed to be the theme this year.
We came across Jeff’s work somewhere in the last few days and thought we’d post it up on here. These are cut paper people, not multiple layered photoshop documents. Nice to see someone getting their hands dirty (or bloody when fingertip & xacto meet, you think the red on this one is blood?) and doing some amazing stuff for people to see. More of his artwork after the jump!
The Ampersand symbol, every designer’s long-time beloved friend has an interesting story. Around the world, it’s known as “the and sign” but did you know that it was once the 27th letter in the alphabet? What about how it got it’s name? Read more & see some cool examples inside.
The world’s longest post delay here. Drove around the Mile High City after SIA and came across a pretty nice looking skatepark. More inside.
This may be old news to the super-Shepard or Hillcrest Regular crowd but I was down there the other day & noticed a gigantic wall of his on the side of the new(ish) Urban Outfitters on 5th. The thing is huge, like 120′ x 30′ huge. More inside
We don't post a ton about surfing on the blog but we saw this over on Todd Richard's AWSM site today and thought it was pretty relevant to our deal. Great title graphics, interesting editing & random Iron's brother looking like Eazy E in a...
File this under “most awesome things anyone’s ever done, ever.” More inside
Saw this article while perusing the interweb yesterday. Apparently a skatepark not too far from Valhalla HQ in Poway, CA recently implimented a thumbprint scanning entry system for people wishing to skate the Poway Skate Park. Really? A thumbprint to skate? Wow. Child predators lurk...
E3’s going on right now. We rolled up there last week to meet up with some people and check out what’s going on in the world of video games. Microsoft’s Natal Kinect was everywhere & it was pretty a impressive deal. By the looks of the sheer amount of games released at the show, there’s going to be a lot of synchronized dancing going on in the world next year.. Lots more inside.
Got a call a little while back from Olympic commentator / wiseguy / business owner / pro skiboarder, Todd Richards needing a logo for his new project, AWSM. The creative brief was pretty epic, “bright and colorful and fun. not really needing an icon as the the awsm is the logo too.” Check out AWSM here or check after the jump to see the logo we did in larger format.
David Beckham, Daft Punk, Snoop, DJ Neil Armstrong, the Gallagher brothers (not the funny ones, the Oasis ones)? Dang...
This has been around for a little while but it's pretty creative none the less and definitely worth watching. It's definitely a watchable public service ad, words which don't always go together....
The video's been around a while but it's hard to argue that the visuals in it are pretty awesome. The Rube Goldberg style of continual randomness is just to awesome not to post up....
Dropped a font this week named Optical Dillusion. Two years in the making and countless minuscule changes and tweaks which nobody but us would ever notice it’s ready to go. If you want to see more or hear the story behind it, follow the jump!
So about a week ago Seattle’s Best Coffee decided to drop their new logo. In case you haven’t read really any design blog, msn or yahoo type site or have a water cooler gossiper who knows you like that arty stuff it’s causing a pretty big commotion, generally not the good kind.
Perhaps you’ve seen this newfangled fanciness or perhaps you haven’t. Either way, the idea’s pretty good. Next year Puma’s bringing a whole new game to the shoe world, The Clever Little Bag. More after the jump.
Ever want to roll over your own grave? Well, now you have the chance. I’ve never been to the Shadow Conspiracy’s headquarters but I imagine things like this around every corner there. More after the jump.
It’s always sad to see good things die. I wore black for a week after Johnny Cash died. I get sad when I see a crashed up classic car. This is the graphic equivalent of Johnny Cash dying from crashing a hemi ‘Cuda. United Airlines & Continental Airlines recently announced that they were going to merge. Read / See more after the jump
Handmade design work is the new rage. Everywhere you look there seems to be another amazing thing done by another new artist / designer. Papercutting is one of these new trends in design and the publisher Gestalten is promoting their new book, Papercraft, with an exhibition in the Netherlands this week. More after the jump
Book of the Month time again. This time around, it's an amazing number by Michael Evamy, simply called Logo. It's as thick as a dictionary and has just about every good logo you can imagine. Check out our mini review here....
Pretty good work here by Julian Hansen. A crazy flow chart of how to find a typeface. Doing an infographic and you cried during Terminator? He’s got you covered. Don’t like the type on highways and you’re ok if it’s Swiss? Helvetica’s your answer. Pretty cool, check after the jump for details and a full view.
Got to thinking about commercials you don’t mind watching recently and one that sticks out in my mind many, many years after it came out is Spike Jonze Levi’s Tainted Love spot. Amazing. Got another Spike vid after the jump if you’re interested.
Saw this the other day and thought I’d post it up on here. ABCs of branding is done by Jason Dean out of Orlando. The poster is embossed & foil stamped featuring, well, the abc’s of branding. Of interesting note is that there’s only 25 logos and yet the alphabet is 26 letters. Either way, great job. Check them out at The Best Part’s blog & shop. Or just check out the details after the jump.
A while back we rolled up to Tahoe to meet with the guys at the Burton Snowboard Academy at Northstar about a couple projects. While we were there we got a full tour of the place and to say it’s amazing would be an understatement.
Awesome book this time around (again, if we do say so ourselves) for the book Upper Playground: Ten Years of T-Shirt Graphics. It's a pretty comprehensive of the last 10 years of t-shirt graphics by the SF based Upper Playground and a very good compilation...
Medicom has teamed up with one of the most visually stunning movies released in recent years and one of the greatest kids books ever written, Where the Wild Things Are. More after the jump
Seen his work around for a little while now but today’s the first time that I went to his site and let’s just say that it’s impressive. Lots more after the jump.
Came across these gems by Heads of State. Great collection of 8 screeprinted posters based on cities across the US, the collection is called From Sea to Shining Sea. Check them out at their site here or follow the jump for our overview / samples.
Found this on Andy's Bend Press site, a 10 minute movie on Thomas Campbell preparing for his show in Denmark. I love Thomas' work. I talked to him about being included on the Ascape project as well but, alas, he was under contract with Paul...
Came across this gem a couple days ago over on BMXSociety. I worked with Andy a couple years back on the Ascape project, he did a couple rugs for us and was super cool to work with. We have some similar interests in bmx, mx and of course skateboarding / art / design. It was cool having him in on that project and interesting to read about how he got where he is today in the interview. Check it out here (the interview link is after the intro paragraph). After the jump I’ve put up some highlights
Idiocracy couldn’t have said it any better. In case you haven’t noticed, this blog is generally about design, skateboarding and snowboarding with a few random tidbits of nonsense thrown in. Well, this covers at least two of those subjects. I came across this in a recent email blast from Megalo Mart, Price Club, Costco – heli time in Alaska.
Popping up a few amazing posters I’ve run across the past few months. A little of this, a little of that. Think of it as a St Patricks Day present from us to you only without the nonsense that’s become synonymous with St Patty’s day. Check out more after the jump.
Just a couple days after House Industries had their Eames Century Modern font Wright announced their Charles & Ray Eames auction taking place on April 8th. Click here to go straight to the auction site or just look after the jump for an overview.
Pretty good (although somewhat sad for the SD family related to this story) skit on SNL this past Saturday. While I doubt that Ford had anything to do with the skit, this is a great example of viral marketing. I Googled "ford, we make...
Our friends at Shadow dropped their Spring 2010 line the other day and for the 3rd season in a row, we’ve got a shirt in their collection. Check them at the Shadow Conspiracy or just follow the jump.
It’s always fun to look through the great work of the past. While many people I know dislike them for some reason, I’ve always been a fan of old posters. It’s nice to look at packaging from yesteryear as well, it’s like looking through the window to a time before focus groups and execs dabbling in everything they get the chance to.
This coming Thursday, the fine folks at House Industries are putting on an open house / opening reception for their new Eames Century Modern font collection at the Eames office in Santa Monica!
New Skateboard Graphics is the book of the month for March 2010. I know what you're thinking, another skate graphic book? Well, yes. To see why check out our mini-review here....
The latest addition to the Logo Rants & Raves section is the Chocolate chunk script logo by Evan Hecox. Is it a rant or rave? While that shouldn't be too hard to figure out, you can check it out in the Logo Rants & Raves...
Found a couple pretty nice flickr sets the other day from the Berlin Buchstaben-Museum ( or letter museum for us English speakers). Being a lover of signs, old & random stuff, the next time (first time?) I’m in Berlin, I know where I’m going. (check after the jump for some highlights & links)
Designers are a dime a dozen*, everyone with a computer is a graphics designer (no mis-spell there). Saying a great designers are one in a million would be an understatement. Then there’s that whole other level which is so rare that the level doesn’t even exist, Herb Lubalin was the definition of that kind of level.
Sure yesterday, we put up some good examples of American design on cars from the 70’s but don’t think for a second that the German’s were sleeping at that time. The early 70’s meant business at the Porsche factory, their cars were works of art and to top them off, they painted them amazingly well for the races. Here’s a great set from the Porsche museum of the branding on their racecars. (check after the jump to see out highlights)
Seems like now the only thing that car companies make are remakes of older cool cars, cars with some Green story or just complete garbage. Enough of that though, here’s a cool set with some amazing examples of how cool the typography on old cars used to be (you can also see a condensed version after the jump)
I just can't say no. Check this out. Amazing German currency note from 1919. Or check out this a doozie of a 1921 Czech note. Or how about this random German note with a devil dude on it from 1921? I could go on...
This guy should know. Ken Segall worked with Steve Jobs while at Apple's agency, TBWAChiatDay. He's the guy who wrote the Think Different campaign and came up with the name "iMac" (which Jobs initially hated). Check out the interview here....
Road trips mean new adventures whether it be seeing new & cool things, eating new & cool foods or acquiring new & cool stories. One of my favorite parts about road trips, especially road trips through random area are the incredible roadside signage. This year’s SIA show was in Denver, so naturally that called for a road trip and all it’s glorious signs of yesterday.
We’ve been quite excited about this one and have had to keep the wraps on it for over a year. Outdoor Research is known worldwide for their amazing technical outdoor gear. We’re proud to have been part of their first graphic t-shirt line ever!
You know, since we have a mile long to do list and 407 things planned for the upcoming year, we figured we’d start another section of the site (note the sarcasm dripping out your monitor). We watch movies like everyone else; some good, some bad so we figured, why not give our $.02 about them?
For our first in the installment, we have three films. Strange Brew, Hurt Locker and a blockbuster currently out in the theaters which we dubbed Crapatar
That’s what Portillo’s does. It’s hard to say what’s better, the absurdly delicious food or the amazing hand painted signs. Of course 99.9% of the people who frequent their establishments probably never even notice but being the design dorks that we are – you know we do.
The Boy Scout’s motto is Be Prepared. The people at Zombie Targets must have been Boy Scouts because they want everyone to be prepared for the zombie uprising.
Rolling through a little store the other day that you may have heard of named Macy’s, came across a slew of the most awesome unwearable hoodies ever seen… although, I must say it’s pretty tempting to pick one up.
We're starting off December with guns blazing. Behind the scenes, there's a load of stuff going on which will all become evident soon. For now though, our book of the month series continues! This time around, it's Vans: Off the Wall. One of the cooler...
I grew up not too far from Danny, he lived only a couple towns over. My group of friends I skated with had heard of a group in Vista who all skated super good. Looking at the list of people he grew up skating with, it’s no wonder that we heard of them 20 miles away (which is a pretty long distance in an 11 year old’s world). Little did I know that in a couple years, that group would revolutionize skateboarding as the world knew it.
We here at Valhalla take Halloween very seriously. Well, at least as seriously as you can take the greatest holiday ever. To celebrate this, we tuned up our main site with a special Halloween feel for this week only. Click Here to check out the handywork! ...
Nixon dropped their Fall 09 line yesterday and, as usual, they’re on point with an amazing collection. Since day one, Nixon has been at the forefront of the design game and their new collection does not disappoint.
We just got back from the ballhoo known as Interbike. Every year we make the trek out to the show to check out crazy bikes, meet with friends / clients and to take in some good times & food in Vegas.
Over the weekend we had to make a delivery up to LA and while driving around the other City of Angels (everyone knows Escondido is the real one) we saw something which is just too good for words. Girl Skateboards took it upon themselves to do a bit of promotion for the upcoming movie of the year “Where the Wild Things Roam”.
Sad weekend over here at the Valhalla HQ. Last week, we made the decision that our beloved Pirate ship fooseball table maybe really wasn’t necessary to have at the office. We posted it up on Craigslist and by the end of the week amongst the comments and “how did you do that’s”, we had a buyer.
It’s always nice to see your hard work go into production. A while back, we wrapped up a headwear line Outdoor Research and ever since, we’ve had to keep our yappers shut, even though we were thrilled with the work (quite easily the best headwear line we’ve done to date). Well, here’s our announcement, our OR headwear line has finally launched!
Click here to go to OR’s site and check out the whole lineup, most of our work is in the wool headwear section.
A few days ago our friends at the Shadow Conspiracy dropped their new 2009 Back to School clothing line. We've worked with the group at Shadow for almost a decade now, before Shadow was even a plan, let alone the company in bmx. Click here to...
Rolling through the bookstore today and came across a pleasant surprise. Picked up the new Los Logos 4 book (complete with fancy iridescent cover) and came across a couple logos that we did for our friends at HypeType Studio over in the UK a few years ago. Not a bad little Hello there while checking out a great book. Some good stuff in there, definitely worth checking out if not buying.
That’s right, we’re honored to be featured on LogoLounge.com for their “2009 Logo Trends” article, calling out an opart themed design we did for Adio Skateboards saying “Psychosis: Another new sort of fill is more psychedelic-crazy lines and patterns projected onto other shapes.”
Pretty exited about this one, the article is definitely worth a look if you’re interested in design.
Click Here to check out the whole article, there’s definitely some good stuff in there!