We here at Stimulate the Economy aren’t usually into posting girly crap, which is why I started this entry with a manly-looking yellow box. Recipe box.

We aren’t USUALLY into that, but for this occasion we’re making an exception (for me, Steve) because my friend, Danielle Marshall — whose items sell under the moniker Delightfully Lovely — has just been KILLING IT with her wooden, lovely delights.

She’s destroying up on Etsy where people are requesting items that she only made once and that are super complex pieces of construction and cost about $9 million to ship, even without them being listed. Besides that masterpiece (not pictured), she also has some seriously classy-looking neon cake plates, and cupcake stands, and the aforementioned recipe boxes.

Her construction and attentiveness to detail are top-notch, so if you’re in the market for something not very manly, but still very awesome, you should definitely purchase one of these unique items.

If you have to, you can put some bacon on it.

And, if it wasn’t clear before, check out her blog — Delightfully Lovely, and feel free to peruse the wares on her Etsy page.

So I know that Beards and owls are out and like melting wax and narwhals are in. But I can’t let that stop me from posting about Dave Mead’s portraits from the 2009 World Beard and Mustache Championships. So not only do these people exist in the physical world, you can buy a print of one of them and hang it in your boudoir if you’re having trouble not having nightmares. No, but all kidding aside, I feel bad for the hipster with the lip caterpillar that shows up to this gentleman’s sporting event and immediately realizes that his/her pubic facial growth fails miserably to attract attention amidst a sea of silvery Santas and debaucherous Dalis. Either way, these telling portraits are all that’s left of the extravaganza.

http://www.davemead.com/home.html

via share some candy

Working with Legos outside of the step-by-step instructions has never been my strong suit. But I’m glad somebody is proficient, because it means that we’re getting that much closer to my Lego mansion complete with Kool-Aid waterslides and hovercrafts. Basically, the world is falling apart — structurally — and Dispatchproject is a crowdsourced experiment in fixing it up. My only suggestion is that people start incorporating Star Wars pieces. I’d love to see some corner of the Empire State Building renovated with part of the Death Star or the Great Wall retrofitted with some Robin Hood treehouse remains. Join the party at dispatchwork.info.

http://www.dispatchwork.info/

@dispatchwork

I was going to leave them alone and let them be hilarious without my old guys from The Muppet Show comemntary. But, Wieden and Kennedy have done it again with a third installment of the ongoing romantic comedy that is the old spice guy. In a time when the TV spot is looked at as the crazy grandpa of the advertising world, it’s refreshing to see something traditional that doesn’t feel antiquated by its medium. Whatever, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but that guy looks like an Aliens action figure that my stepmom threw away when she decided I was “too old for dolls”…racist.

via Wieden and Kennedy @WiedenKennedy

By the time I originally heard about the Toyota IQ font from PleaseLetMeDesign, Zach Lieberman and race car driver, Stef van Campenhoudt, it had already made its rounds throughout the blogosphere. But, now it’s won the Cannes Design Grand Prix. So I can talk about it again and everyone will only remember me and my awesome words.

So, basically, these guys Tokyo Drifted their way to typographic glory using a Toyota IQ and some cones. Apparently there were some designers involved but, honestly, the video tells me that Campenhoudt did the majority of the work. “Hey Fast and the Furious. Make a ‘Q.’” Then he’s all, “Uhhhh, ok.” So, here’s to you Stef, you’ve definitely got us beat. All race car drivers in America can do is turn left and crash a bunch. I just hope that this spawns a whole new era of racing street art.

@Toyota

@zachlieberman

So, sports. I don’t generally care, but soccer is the one that I really got into last World Cup and have been emotionally connected to since. Like, paint-Uncle-Sam-on-my-nipples connected. So when Donovan scored that pivotal goal in stoppage today against Algeria, I had to dogpile my office, take off my shirt, belly slide to my computer and post. About something. So here it is, World Cup shirts from iconic t-shirt purveyor, Didi. You can’t buy one anymore, due to raving fanaticism. But, instead, you could just chant USA, USA, USA, USA until someone blows a vuvuzela in your face.

Didi

Man! These guys just keep BLOWING OUR MINDS.

The first round of videos for AOL that Universal Everything put out were pretty incredible. Some really interesting stuff.

This round — round 2 — is far-and-away better than that. Like round one was just a first draft. This round had our whole office standing around one computer going, “That is awesome. How did they do that?”

So yeah. This video is disgustingly amazing.

Universal Everything
@universalevery

So if my aunt Terri were asked to redesign the stop sign around Christmastime, this is what we’d most likely have. Given she had enough time in between scrapbooking other stuff. But, in reality it’s the latest work from famed New York “tape up” artist, Aakash Nihalani. If you haven’t seen Nihalani’s other wok, make sure to check it out. His minimalist street art is kind of a refreshing take on a medium that is traditionally dominated by artists touting an arsenal of anvil-shaped social statements. If you watch the video below, there’s definitely a jab at that. According to his site:

I selectively place these graphics around New York to highlight the unexpected contours and elegant geometry of the city itself. All execution of a piece is done on site with little to no planning.

http://aakashnihalani.com/

via Unurth Street Art

It’s so true. California is a massive community swimming pool full of diverse cultures and crews. But I shouldn’t do anything to take your time away from watching these telling vignettes of Californian lifestyle. “Califonia is a Place” is an outlet for creative shorts shot, produced and directed by Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari. As the site says:

Our plan is simple. new videos. new photos. new stories. all day. everyday (maybe not everyday).

Please watch all of them. I can’t claim deep roots in the hood, but I am a Californian and I loved these. That’s all I have to say about that. Oh, and go to the site to check out all the photos, videos and updated posts.

California is a Place

via The Post Family

So this is my continual postulation since seeing Tunnel House: why aren’t we using the Tazmanian Devil to demolish every building? I’ll give demolishion crews the benefit of the doubt since either 1) they didn’t realize this technology existed and/or 2) they didn’t want to lose a massive, vortex-shaped swath of their business to a monosylabic Loony Toon. “Well, we were going to hire you, but then we realized that we could do something way more awesome, like push the plunger on a huge box labeled TNT or use a fictional character/golem to knock this mother down.” If only I were a Scientologist, then I would actually be allowed to believe that cartoons were real.

So the exhibit (Inversion) was installed by Art League Houston back in 2005. But I just felt like I needed to post even though I’m like five years late.

Art League Houston @ArtLeagueHousto

via ReadyMade

UK Street Art has done an excellent job of documenting Banksy’s recent National Lampoon’s family-style vacation tour across North America. The notorious hot-pink-can wielding street Picasso must have figured hitting just one U.S. city wasn’t enough this year. His graffiti joyride drug Banksy and his rat pack from America’s bankrupt coast across the Louisiana Purchase to the Big Apple by way of Motor City, the home of the great fire of 1871 and the site of the massacre that sparked the Revolutionary War. How’s that for a vague geography lesson?

Los Angeles

New York

New York

San Francisco

San Francisco

San Francisco

Toronto

Toronto

Detroit

Detroit

Chinatown

via UK Street Art

http://www.banksy.co.uk/index.html

Just wanted to give a quick shout out to my high school chum turned overnight modern art sensation, Davis Ngarupe. Davis was recently featured on Design Milk’s little sister blog, Art Milk, and as they so pleasantly note

Davis Ngarupe certainly has a knack for creating really rad poster art.

But let me tell you, cousin, that’s not all he’s good at. You should catch him tearing up 200 East in Provo or Pwning newbs on Counter Strike at Netopia down Northridge way. All I’m saying is this fool has some swagger far beyond that of his bootsie poster game.

Davis Ngarupe @Rupeshow

via Art Milk

I just got an e-mail from Carmichael Gallery about some new stuff from the famed soviet satirist, Shepard Fairey. So, if you have a few grand in loose change, nab yourself a screen print on a piece of wood. Otherwise, you can look at these for free. And if you’re one of those people that are like, “What a sellout. Graffiti isn’t about making money. Slinging your stuff is pretentious and buying it is even more so,” quiet down. I don’t know what to say. This guy has always been really good, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him produce awesome stuff for a few more decades. His success is the success of a continually growing medium, and I can get into that.

I don’t see a problem with street artists getting the same commercial recognition that traditional artists expect. In fact, Pentagram recently commissioned some Shepard Fairey pieces on their building and they look pretty awesome. The buzz around Banksy’s recent feature film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, is probably warranted as well. I can’t speak from experience. But I did stand in a waiting list line for like three sub-freezing hours attempting to catch a peek at what slashfilm is calling the most entertaining film of the year. So, I guess what I’m trying to convey is a message of acceptance. Let the artists who had to literally start on the streets get some credit and dough for their efforts.

Carmichael Gallery @carmichaella

@obeygiant

I recently watched National Geographic The Photographers, a 1995 documentary on the photographers behind the most iconic National Geographic shots. It gave me some insight into the delicate art of composition. Obviously, snapping the perfect shot of a dancer doesn’t offer the same difficulties that shooting a lion stalking a gazelle at three in the morning does. But, I do like what Denis Darzacq has done here. I don’t speak French, but according to City of Skies, these are pictures of dancers caught at the perfect moment, sans Photoshop. The perfect moment, in this case, being the moment in which most people would be saying, “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”

http://www.denis-darzacq.com/actualite.shtml

via City of Skies

I just finished Stephen King’s On Writing, and his answer to this question is almost always no. Not until you’ve conducted adverb genocide, succumbed to description anorexia and somehow still collected enough nouns, verbs and other parts of speech to make up a two million page best seller that revolves around a recliner that eats people. To be fair, the book was pretty good, apart from the part where he doesn’t tell me how to make millions writing a story about a really bad period.

So, what we have here is a poster designed by Anna Hurley and produced by 826 National; the proceeds of which go to assisting students ages six to eighteen with their writing skills and helping teachers get their classes excited about writing. So that’s really great. One suggestion though: if you want to get kids excited about writing, don’t make them read this TLDR poster. Seriosuly, it’s like the definition of creative buzzkill. Though the design is super sweet and I’m already over writing anyhow, so I’ll probably get one.

826 National @826National

via For Print Only