What do you think?  Was this a complete ripoff of a concepts, or are people over-reacting?  For more news, reactions, and info about this project, check out fry lights or search online with the term “fry lights”.

Sponsor: Check out the Gluten free guide to fast food eating. Learn how to safely choose the right menu items at restaurant locations such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Chipotle, Subway, Starbucks, Panera, and more.

– Abraham Lincoln

Someone was either really clever, or really bored.  They turned a regular blue public city waste receptacle into our favorite blue cookie eating monster from Sesame Street!  Either way, a very creative use of converting something normal or everyday into something funny.

How true is this?  We need to choose our words very wisely when speaking to children; especially our own kids.  Sticks and stones break bones, but you can stifle a child with harsh words.

Got fish breath?  Then you need some Clorets!  This is such a great ad, with lots of copy space.

Get back into the plasma TV you naughty dinosaur!  This 3D Panasonic advertisement hits the nail right on the head.  The 3D is so real, it’s almost like the subjects you watch on it are invading your home.

Ever walk through an apartment building and smell everyone’s cooking mixed together?  It’s pretty nasty when too many aromas mix.  This fan company came up with a funny concept, to illustrate how well their exhaust fans work.

FedEx, Federal Express, a company that does logistics and shipping worldwide created a great ad illustrating how easy it is to ship packages to other countries.  It’s just as easy as handing a package to another person, through a window.  I love how they melded the scene together with the world map.  It’s clean, simple, and easy to understand at first glance.

Don’t drink and drive – if you do, it will feel like this.  Note the end of the road – disastrous consequences.  A greatly executed ad.

Recently we’ve read about and maybe heard the recent freeing of beagles in Spain that were being used for testing all their lives.  It’s really sad that they test cosmetics on these cute little guys.  I have two beagles myself, so I definitely feel for them.  They are the sweetest dogs.  If you find yourself in a position to rescue a beagle that needs a home, please do so.  Don’t even think about buying cosmetics from companies that practice animal testing – period!

A simple concept of clearing polution and smog with something as simple as the windshield wipers on your car.

A Faber Castell ad for true colours so well illustrates the fact that the color you’re using is so accurate, that it’s the same as the real thing.  Clever, and fun!

This is a really cool one, where a woman is actually hugging the page of a letter.  Talk about illustrating the point home about how much more thought and care goes into snail mail letters, than emails.  A great attempt by the post office to remind folks of this, in the digital age of smartphones and tablet pc’s we are living in.

Get so close and have so much control over your favorite sports, that your smartphone finger will actually have control over the games!  This is a funny one.

We all know evian water has used babies to advertise for years now – here is a funny continuation of that series.

We hope you have enjoyed these – please share this post, and be sure to bookmark us to come back regularly for more creative goodness.

Funny enough, I noticed the dunking basketball player stock photo in the montage above is in fact one of our royalty-free images!

Now don’t leave just yet… did you enjoy this post?  Then please be kind and leave a comment below!  Which of the above image manipulations are your favorites?  These posts take a lot of effort to compile, so please share this with your friends and colleagues.

That’s definitely a realistic reenactment of what happens after blowing tabacco smoke into a pretty woman’s face.  About 5 Tipalets for 25 cents.  Not 5, but about 5.  Just in case we throw in an extra half, or 4, or 6, or 3. 

Cocaine.  Instantaneous cure for everything.  Right.  For sale by all druggists.  Coke heads rejoice!  Nowadays they call them “street pharmacists”.

Oh look!  There’s actually a Soda Pop Board of America, and what do they recommend?  Starting babies on Cola EARLY ON!  Sure, that makes a lot of sense.  No wonder why most Americans are overweight, and why many school systems have removed their soda machines.

There’s nothing like a fresh and crispy gat on Christmas morning LOL!  Put a heater in your pocket on those cold winter days.

I’m not a real doctor, but the big tobacco company has paid me to act like one endorsing how healthy it is to smoke in this ad.  Smoking cigarettes is actually healthy?  What a joke.  Decades of health research has proven otherwise.  I actually just recently saw a 20/20 special on the smoking and smoking kids / babies epidemic going on over in Indonesia.  Check it out, it was pretty interesting. The full 20/20 episode is here.

I’m giving my wife a Kenwood Chef, because it does everything but cooks.  But hey; that’s what wives are for! (Well, they used to be. Things done changed somewhere along the lines but let’s not get into that history lesson.)  I wonder if this ad pissed women off back when it was released?  Probably not.  Today, they would receive about 150,000 hate letters on the first day public.

Who wouldn’t want to go on a gay cruise with their wives and family members, while playing with puppets!?  Every voyage a gay cruise.

Yeah, we’re all going to die somehow.  Who cares, just smoke our cancer sticks!  Take it from this dude in the bowtie.  He looks like a wise fella.

There’s definitely nothing wrong with a hard working woman.  I can hear the ad slogan now, “Put some PEP in your step, with Kelloggs PEP cereal! Vitamin enriched so you can get all of your chores done on time!”

Lane Bryant today refers to clothes for heavier women as “plus size” or “plus sized”.  Back in the day? Chubbies.  LOL!

Wow, a softtop Schlitz beer can!  I wonder how long we’ll need to wait to have something similar!?  Ever heard of the on-can flip top aluminum tab?  What about the vented wide mouth opening?  Yes, things have come a long way.

DJ Paulie D would say: “Oh yeah, beer for babies yeah.”  Please don’t give beer to your children, people.  You know what?  I “pick up” a little every time I have a beer in my hand too, so I can see why mother and baby would also.

Wives: cry to your husbands for what you want, and then they’ll buy it for you.  Very realistic!

Wow, Motorola actually used to make TV sets.  This study showed that a television set meant better behavior in kids.  HA!

Tape worms.  They do a body good.  Eat all you want, and then let the tapeworms steal all of the calories, and grow inside of your stomach until they come out of your throat.  Mmm tapeworms!  Beats throwing up.

If you ever saw the movie The Goonies where Chunk has to do the truffle shuffle in order to gain entrance into Mikey’s house, or if you’ve seen the OK Go “This Too Shall Pass” music video, you’ve probably seen a Rube Goldberg style machine before.  Even this Honda commercial used the Rube Goldberg method in one of their ad spots.  They are those really cool obstacle course type booby trap machines that people make, with tons of moving parts like marbles, dominoes, fans, balloons; anything really that can move or create motion.

Here is the “making of” interview from the creator.  Thankfully they were able to get sponsors for this project, because the amount of photography gear they were going to have to buy in order to execute this was going to get a bit pricey.

We hope you enjoy these.  Please leave us some comments below, letting us know what you think!  A special thanks to RedDotStudio for sharing these with us.

The California Travel & Tourism Commission logo is a perfect example of how to effectively remove pieces of your logotype, and turn it into something amazing. I noticed it on one of their TV commercials a while ago, and just thought it was worth sharing here.  The yellow line just reminds us of a sunny dusk horizon on the California hills.  A great example of a simple, yet unique and highly effective logo design.  It looks just as good over white as it does over darker colors. Good graphic design is many times a reductive art.  Less is more; something even less of certain portions of a typeface.  What do you guys think?  Isn’t it a great, logo design?

Online crowdsourcing in its many forms has definitely taken the internet, and the world by storm in the last decade.  Have you ever heard of Fiverr with two R’s?  Well if you haven’t yet, it’s a website that asks “What are you willing to do for $5?” Fiverr.com turns anyone into an international business person, marketing their keenest skills and sharpest talents to the entire worldwide web. Making money on fiver, had now taken over the spot of the guy you always knew that would always make a killing selling junk on ebay. And I have got to say, I have been pretty impressed by the amount of talent and quality that you can get for just a 5 spot.

Here is the original photograph of the FiverrFIVE.  Five friends that use Fiverr every day to do what they do and get paid for doing it.  They all work on Fiverr day in and day out and do different sorts of gigs on there.  They kind of represent their specific talents in the way they are acting in the picture.  Caricatures are pretty difficult for most, but these nine different and highly talented fiverr artists have nailed their own personal interpretations of the above photograph.  Click on each image to see it slightly larger in a new window.

Artist: Skarlette

Artist: Yummy_lemons

Artist: Yoyorobot

Artist: Thequornstar

Artist: Phantominus

Artist: Ahh_chuu

Artist: Luisfe87

Artist: Gariedoodles

Artist: Draculafetus

And there you have it.  Five different Fiverr illustrators’ interpretations of five over Fiverr artists.  A special thanks to all of the artists noted above, as well as the FiverFIVE as pictured from left to right in each of the images: Ben Aldous, Gemma Tremlett, Sam Cornwell, Beverley Mason, and Tom Chilton.  Look them up, and hire them for some gigs!  You can also link up with ArenaCreative on fiverr.

Here are some of the most popular logo designs on the Behance network. To learn more about each design project and more about each artist, just click on any of the thumbnails below. Most of these even show how each designer was able to produce the logo to fit all sorts of uses for the companys’ marketing pieces.  Some even show the design process, from sketch, to producing the mutliple variations, to the final result.

I have always admired the artwork of famous artist Norman Rockwell, but for some reason, never realized that he also produced illustrations and stock art for use in advertisements and marketing materials.  Here are some vintage Norman Rockwell advertisements that feature his unique, photo-realistic illustrative style.  Rockwell’s masterpieces even made the cover of The Saturday Evening Post a number times.  Way before there was Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or even mainstream digital photography, Norman Rockwell was a true creative.

To learn a little bit more about Norman Rockwell and to see some more of his fantastic artwork, check out this other post.

I’m having one of those weeks where I hate everything I do, not feeling very creative, I’m highly unmotivated, and I need to push myself to even accomplish anything.  Lethargic is the word.  I am just getting over a sinus infection, and still feeling a bit groggy physically.  Whether it’s just a case of man cold, or allergies, I’m not very sure.  I’ve got to get excited again about what I’m doing, somehow.  How do I usually do that?  Well in the past I’ve challenged myself to get out of my comfort zone and trying something totally new.  Breaking out of your comfort zone is vital so that you don’t get bored with what you’re doing.  The same daily mundane tasks of designing, editing, keywording, uploadings, emails, etc will get to you after a while.

“I Can’t”
The famous “I can’t” is the only thing holding most people back from trying new things.  Comparing yourself to everyone else can sometimes cause you to figure, “why bother”?  That’s not the right way to reason.  Many times you are your own worst enemy, and the biggest obstacle you face is your own.

Focus On What You Want to Achieve
You need to have goals in order to get anywhere in your life.  It’s the same with your field of work or expertise.  Sometimes goals take a long time, while other times they can get checked off your list rather quickly.  The importance is to focus and prioritize on accomplishing those goals.  It’s easy to make goals, but 1000% more difficult to achieve them.  Just look at how many people make New Year’s resolutions and then never stick to them.  Obviously, the resolutions made were not near enough to those peoples’ hearts.  They could have been distracted somewhere along the way, or even discouraged.

Coffee It Up and Kick It Into Second Gear
I got a little bit of oomph from my morning coffee.  I’m not so sure it’s just the caffeine, I think that it helps, but the majority of it is probably mental. What’s your morning coffee?  Maybe it’s tea.  Maybe you like to read the newspaper. Perhaps you like to play a game online, or check your facebook or twitter accounts.  Do whatever you normally do to get moving.  Or, maybe you need to try something else.  Make sure you’re physically nourished enough to think straight.

Make Those Butterflies Fly In Formation
Hopefully there’s some sort of creativity in my head somewhere, because I have a photo shoot today.  Sometimes I get a bit nervous, but I find that usually when I don’t get nervous I perform much worse.  Pressure can sometimes be a good thing.  I’ve always been a procrastinator, a HUGE procrastinator.  Maybe it’s because I know I perform best under a little bit of pressure.  I’m not saying I like to be unprepared for work, because that’s never a good thing.  What I mean is that having a little bit of anxiety isn’t always a bad thing.  When you doubt yourself and maybe have a bit of fear of not succeeding, sometimes that can push you to try even harder and make sure you’re pushing yourself to do your best.

We all fear the five oh when we’re riding down the highway, but sometimes you have got to admit that their cars can sometimes look pretty incredible.  Here are our top 20 most incredible,  highly unusual, coolest looking police cars we’ve found on the web.  Some of these are just concept renderings, some show cars or movie cars, while others are actual police cars, in action on the force.  Check them out, and let us know which are your favorites!  You have got to have a lot of respect for police officers and what they do.  They definitely deserve being able to drive cool work vehicles like this at least once in a while.  Despite the dangerous aspect of their jobs, cops at least sometimes get to ride around in style.  Because we all know they get sick of those played-out Ford Town Vic’s after a while.  Enough jibba jabba, and on to the cars!

#1.  2010-12 Chevy Camaro Police Car Cruiser

The new Camaro’s design I personally think is unmatched to anything else out there.  With hints towards the classic models in its design, it’s an incredible mix of both retro and modern.  It’s got the standard light bar on the rood, alternate color glowing headlight ring strobes, and even a backwards stop indicator on the front and rear windshields.  Looking even further you will find many other generation Police Camaro editions.

#2. Dodge Charger Police Cruiser

You might have seen this one on the streets already, as Chrystler’s muscle clad four door sedan has already seen plenty of action on the beat in the US.  It’s usually painted in this type of black and white paint scheme, but other times the police use solid colored unmarked car editions, as well.  With the hemi v8 those cars are heavy but can get up to high speeds on the highway, so don’t try to outrun them.

#3. Chevrolet Corvette Police Car

You can find a lot of different styles of Corvette Police cars online.  The last one here is a rendition of what the all new ZR-1 supercar vette would look like.  They come in C4, C5, and even C6 trims. There are so many that we have to put them all under one category.

#4.  Dodge Challenger Police Car

The old school styling of the classic Dodge Challenger is back in its new form, and they’ve even used it as a police cruiser already.  Watch out for the po-po, because you might be speeding up on the highway to gawk at one, only to find out there’s a friendly neighborhood occifer driving it.

#5. Ford Mustang Police Car Cruiser

This Saleen edition Mustang debuted in the Transformers movie, as the Barricade car.  Although not exactly real or in production, it’s still an incredible edition of the always classic muscle car.  There are many other non-Saleen edition police car versions of the Mustang, from the fox body style to the newer editions.

#6. GM Hummer H2 Police Edition Truck

Hummer H2′s have that huge bad look about them.  You know why vehicles like this are so great as cop cars?  Because they look like SWAT vehicles from the start.  They’re so flat and square shaped, that wrapping them with vinyl printed graphics is a piece of cake, similar to what a lot of businesses do with the Scion xB and the Nissan Cube.  I’m not sure how practical low profile tires are for a police cruiser, unless they’re some sort of run flats.  When you’re involved in a high speed chase, you definitely don’t want to pop your tires when the terrain starts to get a bit bumpier.

#7. Porsche 911 Police Car

The Germans have it right with this sexy rendition of a Porsche 911 cop cruiser. I wonder how the officers on the force decide on who gets to drive it?  I’ll bet they fight over it a lot.

#8. Lamborghini Police Cars

From the Lambo Gallardos to the 80s Countach and the 90s Diablo, we’re still drooling over their unique body styles.  Supercars being used as police cruisers?  I’ll bet those cities have huge municipal budgets.  I would imagine that if there was actually a speed limit on the Autobahn, the cops would have to be rolling in cars that can do 200mph without a problem.

#9.  Mercedes Benz  Cop Car

Classy huh?  This Mercedes Benz is ready for duty with it’s clean lines and blue on silver paint job.  Even the NYPD is rollin’ in at least one benz.

#10. Ferrari Police Cars

Ferrari.  The most coveted Italian sports car of them all.  If you’re going to try and outrun one of these babies you have better be sure you’re not driving a Honda Accord.

#11 Nissan Skyline GT-R Police Car Editions

This is awesome.  The Nissan Skyline is one of the most sought after Japanese cars in the US, considering you can only get them imported and even then they’re not always street legal.  I’ve seen lots of them at the track, and at car shows, but you will rarely see an older Nissan Skyline model driving around legally.  In 2007 the Skyline finally officially made it to the US, but with a hefty pricetag.  Flaunting 473 horsepower and a price tag of $80,790 to $84,060 it is definitely not the cheapest Nissan.  They can definitely afford them in Abu Dhabi, though.

#12 Toyota Supra Police Car

DARE to outrun a twin turbo mk4 Toyota Supra Police Car on the freeway.

#13 BMW 123D Police Car

One of the smallest Beamers, and yet its just so cute as a po-po wagon.

#14 Cadillac CTS-V and XLR-V Police Cars

Talk about taking down criminals in class, this Caddy Lack Yack Yack definitely makes a statement.

#15 Bugatti Veyron Police Car

Talk about a modern supercar with a futuristic look to it.  The Bugatti Veyron cop car is the type of vehicle you might expect to see in an action movie that takes place in the year 2132.

#16 Lotus Esprit Police Car

The Lotus Esprit Turbo has always been a favorite supercar of mine.  It’s got that semi Lamborghini-esque type of look and feel to it.

#17 Lotus Ellise

We had to separate the Elise from the Esprit because there are so much different in terms of size and body style.  You’ll see a lot of these at the local race track or speedway.  They corner amazingly, but they’re a little slow on the straightaways.  I remember once getting a few hot laps with a professional race drive on the track in Lime Rock Park in Connecticut, in a C5 Corvette.  We were blowing the doors off of most of these.  It’s definitely an unfair comparison, because from what I hear, the Lotus Elise runs the same 4 cylinder motor as the Toyota Celica.

#18 Acura NSX Police Car

The Acura/Honda NSX is no doubt the coolest production Honda ever made, so yeah… it also makes a pretty great police car.

#19 Mini Cooper Police Car

It’s little!  It’s zippy!  It fits thru the tightest alleyways!  It even fits inside of a shoebox!  It’s… the Mini Cooper S police car!

#20Mazda RX-8 Need For Speed Edition Police Car

Last but not least, the Mazda RX8 Cop car.  This one might not be real, but it’s still pretty incredible.

Those are our Top 20, but we must have left some more unique police car designs out.  If there are any you think belong to be in this post, feel free to add links to them in the comments section below.

Desigual is a global fashion company that tried to create clothing that conveys positive feelings. All of their stuff is amazing creative, so no wonder their building in Herald Square is this colorful. This paint job of their NYC location has basically transformed that block. I think it looks amazing, and definitely stands out amongst its drab neighboring buildings. This video shows the process behind what went into that transformation and the tedious process of painting the mural on the building’s exterior fascade. Lean more about the Desigual project here.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting a skilled freelance designer out of the UK on twitter named Pritesh (everyone calls him Pritz for short).  Here is a brief interview I had with him recently.

How did you get into the creative field?

When I was at school, I wasn’t interested in anything other than Art and Design, so that’s all I’ve ever done. As I got older I got more involved with digital arts and that’s how it all started.

Would you recommend education for those that are just starting out, or thinking about getting into the design business?

Education is always important. A good set of qualifications goes a long way, but you also have to make the right choices in courses and institutions. I went with what I thought would be best for me, so I would say go with what you feel seems right, and something you enjoy doing. I’ve learnt that education brushes up on the things you already know. I think my choices in education have helped me improve in my work, and gained my interest in areas I would never think about going in to.

What is one of the most important things you think freelance graphic designers will need to do in order to stay successful?

Staying motivated and inspired. This is why I blog things that I’ve looked at nearly everyday, that’s what keeps me going. I would also recommend printing things off and keeping things you like for example in a sketchbook. You just have to keep at it and work hard, then opportunities will be knocking on your door when you least expect it.
Are there any specific people that inspire you?

There are lot’s of people that inspire me, all excellent at what they do too. Some names that inspire me include Jacob Cass, David Carson – whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting at my college, Photography inspires me a lot too, I love the composition of colours and beautifully taken photographs. You don’t always have to look at specific people in the field that your in to be inspired, I think your interests are your best sources of inspiration.

Where else do you find your creative inspiration?

Nearly all my work is screen based, so I find myself sitting in front of the computer a lot. This is my biggest source of information. You can find anything and everything on the internet. But like everyone, I have my collection of design books too, along with my sketchbook of things I like, or photos to flick through when I’m looking for ideas. Mostly I just like to see everyone’s work all the time. This way I can encourage myself to do something great too.

To contact Pritz you can follow him on twitter or check out his blog

For some reason this blog is not set up to show unicode characters, so I’ve attached them in an .rtf document that you can open in any text editor or word processor.  Click on the images below to download them all, and then you can copy/paste to retweet.  For more great #twitterart be sure to follow these twitter text artists: @tw1tt3rart @140Artist @naoshim140 All credit is due to these creative text artists. Thanks guys!

Quick Tip: After you tweet them, save them as favorites on twitter, then it’s easier to find and reuse them again later.

I feel her pain – this happens to me and many of my other colleagues fairly regularly.  Yeah, there is a huge difference between creative inspiration and blatant copying or idea theft.  People really need to stop blatantly copying ideas, especially in the illustration-type-photo department.  It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of gall some might have to do this outright, and expect to fly under the radar forever.  I don’t know how I find these, but most times it’s while I’m keywording, using the keyword tool.  Who has time to spend all day scouring the internet for potential copycats… you just have to basically accept that it’s bound to happen.  For example, I have an image of a man looking like he is thinking, contemplative… doodled words above his head, like the things he is thinking.  There is another VERY close, uploaded after mine.  There is another example of a silhouette shot, with typography added in a way that adds to the subject theme of the image; and yet I stumbled upon another version very close to mine, with same words used and all.  I won’t post links to examples… but I should.  You can see them if you ask me privately.  If you ever have concerns about someone habitually copying you, discuss it with the proper admins at the agency.  It never hurts to be on the same page with them, so they know who to watch out for.  They can’t police everything; so much slips their vision.  There just isn’t enough time in the day.  I’ve had many people banned for outright stealing vector elements from my images.

What it comes down to, is that imitation is said to be the highest form of flattery – but it’s still SO annoying when it comes to stealing the food off of someone else’s plate.  Even if the copycat only gets the crumbs.  Dear copyists: please make a change for the better.  Be original – don’t be a scavenging bottom dweller.  We all get ideas from one another, but make them your own.  Creativity feeds off of other creativity.  People can copy all of the most popular images they want to, but in the end, they’re only just stabbing themselves in the foot.  You have a much better strategy to try and create something original that isn’t there yet, and will have less competition.  You also have to realize that in microstock photography, you sell about 90%-95% of the images in your portfolio at one time or another, so just copying the first page isn’t going to do you any good.  Develop your own ideas, and stop being pathetic losers looking to sponge off of others, for an easy way out.  I’d say that it’s also pretty safe to say that most copycat efforts are never even half as good as the originals.  Don’t return evil for evil, although it can be tempting.  If you copy a copycat back in return, you just might be copying someone else that they stole the idea from.  It really can become a vicious cycle.  In the longrun, copycats get burned.

Maybe it’s the difference between the way some people eat a well prepared meal, but don’t truly appreciate it.  Do you chug your morning coffee or do you sip slowly and savor the subtleties of the flavor?  There are a lot of people that stroll through New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) that might honestly care less about the fact that they’re standing just feet away from Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night; a true masterpiece.  There are also a lot of people that take their families for granted, until something happens that sobers them to the fact your family is always going to be there for you.  There are a lot of things that we can easily take for granted, just don’t forget to stop and smell the roses once in a while.  Maybe even snap a photo.  It’s the little things in life that make it special.  Artists and creative professionals of all types become professional observationists of the “the little things” and the finest details.  You should too.  Let the world and all of the life around you inspire and motivate you in whatever you do.

A few days ago I had the privilege to catch an advance pre-screening sneak preview of Seth Rogan’s new superhero movie The Green Hornet. For a quick review, the movie was amazing. I liked it just as much as I love the Ironman series.  First word that comes to mind is “hilariousness”. There was some purposeful corniness at some parts (if that makes any sense), crazy action sequences, lots of Inspector gadgetry, and even Cameron Diaz aging gracefully, actually starting to look like she isn’t 23 anymore. You’ve got to see it when it hits your local theaters on January 14th, 2011.  Here’s the official Green Hornet trailer from youtube.

Seeing the trailer alone, you might think it’s the same typical plot of the Batman series movies, or Ironman.  Rich parents die, leaving a spoiled rich kid all this money and a gadget slinging sidekick that happens to be one of the members of the estate “help”.  Even so, this movie was slightly more quirky and funnier than even Ironman.  Even the main villain Chudnovsky (played by Christoph Waltz) seemed a little sensitive for a bad guy.  I got a kick out of the fact that I have an Israeli style photo prop gas mask that is the same as the one he uses in the movie – the only difference is the canister on his is painted blood red, after he decides to change his name to “Bloodnovsky”, seeking to increase the scariness of his super villain image. Does this look familiar?

The movie has something for everyone: comedy, cars, even a double barrel desert eagle.  This is definitely the kind of action movie you will want to see on the big screen, in IMAX 3D if you can.

This isn’t a movie review blog, but Kato’s sketch book in the movie reminded me of the fact that we all need to remember to draw out or write down our ideas.  Kato, (played by Jay Chou) had page upon page of sketched in his notebook, as is briefly seen in the movie.  He even had sketches of Bruce Lee on one of the pages of his sketchbook. Obviously that was a cameo of sorts, seeing that Bruce Lee played the part of “Kato” in the original Green Hornet TV series.  Seeing that Kato was a creative genius, he could whip up just about anything his mind could think up.  Everything from gadgets for the Black Beauty (funny, we used to call my dad’s old Buick that) to a custom cappuccino machine.  My point is, he had a sketchbook full of his concepts and ideas, and didn’t just go straight to creation.  I find that especially with logo design, you can get very lost in the process of designing if you start from your head and just go straight to the computer.  It helps to sketch your ideas out first, and then take it to the computer once you have narrowed a few of your best ideas down.

Even keeping a notepad and pencil on your night stand for a quick scribble in the dark, in the middle of the night, is better than losing your thoughts.  I’ve had some nights where my brain was working full steam just before I fell asleep, coming up with all sorts of ideas for new images I wanted to create.  I failed to write them down, being so tired and wanted to get to sleep.  As you might expect, those ideas were just about 90% gone by the time I woke up the next morning. Don’t forget to doodle what pops in your noodle when you get that sudden creative inspiration!