Great looking Acronym collection for the Fall and Winter. It reminds me of Burton’s Analog stuff. You can check out more coverage by Eugene Kan at Hypebeast.

Just as the imagery in his films haunts your dreams, the art of Tim Burton manages to get under skin while remaining perfectly still. While many of the pieces carry the Dr. Seuss meets Brothers Quay depictions we would expect from the director, some surprise you, specifically the crayon renditions of characters including what resembles Cesar Romero’s Joker. The site is endlessly fun in itself; navigate the topy turvy gallery by walking around as stain boy, a rudimentary drawing with a curious little smile as he checks out the wall hangings. You’ll spend more than a couple a minutes on this, guaranteed.

The creative industry: Yeesh. On one hand, working in it can result in the most un-careery of all careers; an endlessly fulfilling extension of what you love into what you do. On the flipside, that same industry can be the ultimate soul-smoosher; a creativity killing monster leaving utter suckness in its wake.

If you’ve worked in it, chances are you’ve experienced both sides of it. The ideal client, the idol client, the client that shouldn’t even be a client because they should be out of business; they’re everywhere, and we’ve each developed our own way to deal with them. But when times get rough, we need reminding of why we’re in it in the first place– and when we need reminding, we need Joshua Gajownik.

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Since last autumn the work of MWM (Matt W. Moore) has been the frequent subject of our praise and the object of our design affections here at JoshSpear.com. So it should come as no surprise that we’re absolutely percolating with excitement over the news of the art and design studio’s recently redesigned website. The latest incarnation of the online home of MWM Graphics is chock full of impressive new works that run the gamut of design disciplines created for an vast array of clients such as Nike, Zune, and Burton. If you’re in the mood for a visual feast, head on over to the new site and maybe get a bib for your eyes.

Last time we checked in on Royal Remarkable (aka Joshua Gajownik), he was getting busy with Grafuck and Hand Job, two of the most graphically brilliant projects with sexual undertones that we’ve ever laid caresses on. Since then, the man’s been hard at work tuning out great stuff for clients like Burton, Nike and Nixon, and filling the time between with a piece for The Train Car Project, a promising group show featuring the work of 60 international artists.

The project (a brainchild of art collaborative PROCESS) supplied each artist with a train car illustration, either as a vector file or a screenprint. They were then instructed to take complete creative control over the trains, resulting in a miniaturized versions of THE BEST train cars you’ll ever not see chugging along the tracks. Check out a few of the participants completed work here, and if you are in the Brooklyn area on October 10th through the 16th, be sure to swing by Papa B Studios for a solid range of graffiti, digi, and artsy-in-general inspiration.

Ah, Chuck Anderson. Fresh, brave, and brilliant from all angles, we turned our sights towards this self-taught, Michigan-based designer in 2005, when the then 20-year old's portfolio was already competitive with those of players twice his age.

Since then, Chuck (aka NoPattern) has been filling his time with work for clients like Burton, Dolce and Gabbana, and Microsoft, and his light-filled designs have had us seeing stars all along. Graphic designer, digital illustrator, 23-year old basking in the glow he drew up himself; whatever he is, he's good at it, and we can't wait to see what's next.

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Matt W. Moore knows the remedy to day job doldrums. An ex-agency man turned big-time web designer, Matt has never renounced his personal creative pursuits for his job – a sacrifice that today's creative types find themselves depressingly prone to.

From his early days in advertising to his current responsibilities (keeping the Burton website sparkly fresh), Matt has been filling his downtime with personal side projects that feed his soul as much as his bank account. His versatile career experiences — as gallery artist, pre-press designer, editorial illustrator, art director, and curator, to name a few — have given him the experience he needs for side projects like Wallspankers, a sticky extension of Matt's graffiti past, and the B/W Bangers, Matt's very own saving grace.

So what is the remedy? It's one part introspection; one part creativity; one part confidence –- and a little dose of self–publishing.

Joshspear.com: For a period you lived the increasingly common double life of an ad man by day/artist by night. What finally inspired you to start MWM Graphics?

Matt W. Moore: I actually started MWM Graphics while I was in college. I would side hustle logos, concert posters, editorial illustrations, anything that I thought would be exciting and help me grow as a designer. I caught an awesome break during my last year of school and started to work at an agency in Portland, Maine called The VIA Group. I later moved into an Art Director position there and worked on some fun accounts, all the while doing personal work and freelance in my free time. Now I work as a web designer at Burton Snowboards, and stay busy with all sorts of personal projects. The “double life” has been my style all along. I hope to one day break away and devote all of my time and energy towards my studio and making art. READ MORE…

Although this is old news to Spear Collective comrade Tom Judd, who did the illustration work for this Burton collab nearly two years ago in the Summer of ‘06, and was subsequently sworn to secrecy, it’s new news to us. This 2008 Burton GTwin deck has ‘Tom Judd’ written all over it, although the top sheet was censored a bit to — I’m guessing — scale down the loudness to comport with traditional Burton style. At any rate, whenever Mr. Judd fancies splattering his ideas on a canvas — no matter what type of canvas — we like it. This deck is ladies-specific, so rejoice Tom Judd groupie-snowboarder-chicks!

If you consider yourself a graphic designer, you’ve probably heard of Joshua Davis. As one of the first adopters of Flash, a significant new media artist, an author, and one of the design world's weightiest members, Joshua Davis is a name that rolls off many tongues during discussions regarding progression, experimentation, and development. A pioneer in the word's most technological sense, Joshua has never been one to find a niche and stick with it, instead choosing to find what's next — or in what's often his case, to create it. We chatted with Joshua about things like Praystation, philosophy, and his plans for the future, and wound up feeling a little bit like we do when we look at one of his mathematically composed graphics. In other words: utterly enthralled.

Joshspear.com: For our readers who aren't as familiar with your background, can you give us a brief rundown of your life up until today?

Joshua Davis: My name is Joshua Davis, born 1971 in San Diego, California, moved to Littleton, Colorado where I pretty much grew up. I had always been interested in art and in high school I entered a statewide competition and took second place in the state for painting. After spending ‘89, ‘90 in Huntington Beach, California skateboarding and ‘91, ‘92 moving back to Colorado living in Frisco to do some snowboarding, I moved to New York in November 1992 and eventually attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. At Pratt I worked on Design and Illustration and through fellow classmates got into working on the web in 1995 (Netscape 1.1). When Netscape 3 was released (at the end of 1996) I had a moment of clarity to use technology and the web to create my work. 13 years later I run Joshua Davis Studios where I use design and technology to create work for corporate clients, private collectors, galleries, museums, and personal exploration.

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Our Spear Collective comrade RoyalRemarkable (aka Joshua Gajonik) will again be appearing in this year’s Grafuck, a yearly publication of erotic work from an international selection of artists. While normally using his skills to produced tons of work for Burton, Arkitip, and books like Hand Job (sounds sexual, but depending on your relationship with typography, really isn’t), Grafucks allow Joshua to explore his (and I quote) “humourous, poignant, and charming,” side by bringing together the work of illustrators, photographers, graphic designers and fine artists. The result is a seriously pretty outlet for built up sexual tension which will be released alongside a gallery show at California’s Nucleus Gallery on December 8th. You’ll see more of RoyalRemarkable’s work on the walls in that gallery should you choose to attend; if you can’t make it, works should be up for sale after opening night here.

If Steve Nishimoto — Nish, to the design community — is as driven by change and culture as he claims, then today's inspiration must be in no meager supply. The designer just returned from his first trip abroad, where a last minute tag-along to the Tokyo premiere of Mash landed the seasoned artist in the same country from which his relatives emigrated four generations ago.

Not to say that that inspiration has ever been elusive to this sponge of a visionary — a long list of clients, including Burton, Uniqlo, MTV, and Beautiful Decay seems to prove the opposite — but if the 4,000 pictures Nish took during his travels serve their purpose, then we will surely see trails of his trip across the ocean in his work to come.

We caught up with the freshly de-planed New Yorker to chat about the past, present and future, and were left with three things: an itch to doodle, an itch to travel, and a new sense of what it truly means to marry art with life.

Joshspear.com: Tell us about your background…

Nish: I’m 100% American Japanese (fourth generation), born and raised in Chicago. I've been living in New York for the past six or seven years, and was bi-coastal with San Francisco for one or two of those. I've been a skateboarder for as long I can remember, I enjoy riding a fixed gear around the city, and I have been full time freelance for the past 3 or 4 years. I survive on coffee with milk (soy if possible), no sugar, please. READ MORE…

Two years ago, Paul Smith and Burton collaborated to prove that the words “gentrified” and “snowboarding” can glide nicely into the same sentence. This was significant for a few reasons, primarily because attempting to place high-fashion in the land of slopes could have resulted in something far less pretty than a foot of new powder. The resulting pieces not only proved to be a success, they also managed to garner the admiration of many riders expected to laugh at the alliance, resulting in a new segment of style-conscious, mountain-friendly gear. This winter, the two world-known apparel companies are at it again with another blend of traditional Paul Smith design and Burton Mark XIII collection snow-sense. The collection, while small, mixes classic elements with streamlined functionality, resulting in pieces like this Burton Paul Smith Single Breasted Jacket — a topper that hides all kinds of Christmas magic under its three-layer traditional English yarn-dye shell. In any case, the collection adds a little humor to the transition from meeting room to chair lift, and girls really like doing dirty things with guys wearing hunting checks on chair lifts. I mean, not me personally, but you know. Some girls.

In August 2006, Burton photographers Dean “Blotto” Gray, Jeff Curtes and Adam Moran (also Burton Snowboard’s team manager) hit the road with six major international snowboarders, from Norway’s Terje Haakonsen to America’s Shaun White, to such far-flung destinations as New Zealand and Chile. 28 Day Winter: A Snowboarding Narrative is a culmination of that trip, a coffee table book that puts readers there in the flesh with the photographers as they witnessed these stars doing spectacular 720’s, grabbing air on their boards, soaring over objects like gasoline barrels. The photographs are stunning, showing magnificent backdrops of terrain, sometimes with a brightly colored speck in the distance that is the rider cruising across a blanket of white. Other photos depict riders bonding in their down time, an experience that snowboarders know are very much a part of the whole picture. When you reach the end of the book, you almost have to hold yourself back from hopping on a plane with all your gear and heading to snow country immediately.

The book comes out in December, but you can pre-order it at Amazon for a discounted price.

While it is said that oil and water don’t mix, Singapore native Hunn Wai, a recent graduate of the IM Masters programme at the Design Academy Eindhoven in The Netherlands, could probably make the two work in concert with one another. Exhibiting a design philosophy that revolves around accentuating the “processes and results of collision combinations and fusions of materials, meanings and forms,” Wai has shown his ability to turn two opposing components into a cohesive tour de force of creativity. His graduation pieces, Tre Di Una and Wood X Plastic Shelf are shining examples of this.

Tre Di Una doesn’t resemble your normal set of wooden chairs as much as it does a set piece from a Tim Burton film. Wai turns the generic wood chair on its ear by combining it with the characteristics of plastic clay to break down an iconic structure and transform it into something utterly unique.

The components of Wood X Plastic Shelf may appear to be warring factions, with “sheets of smoke-coloured acrylic impaled by beech poles to construct a shelf.” But Wai actually relies on their confrontational nature and engineers a certain simplicity with his “meticulous technique of programming the components to fit” with one another, and creates quite the lovely shelving unit. IKEA, eat your heart out.

You know what sort of irks me? When the bottom of your snowboard matches your zip-up hoodie; if both the hoodie and the board were by the same company, shame on you for using both at the same time, but if the hoodie and the board were by separate companies- separate big companies- shame on them. (And okay, if you want to get technical — I’m talking about a certain ‘06 Burton Freestyle and an Urban Outfitters item. Those matched.) What I’m trying to say is, in today’s wide world of textiles, there is no reason or excuse not to be individualistic. Companies do exist that will sell you fresh fabrics and designs (and I should probably clarify that by “fresh” I mean your sweater won’t be matching your neighbors couch anytime soon). If you’re on the hunt, a good place to start is the Sydney-based Sixhands. Owned by three ladies specializing in fashion, textile, and graphic design, Sixhands makes environmentally conscious, locally-produced fabric treatments that will keep your clothes (boards, couches…) looking like, well, yours. And, for those of you accustomed to matching your socks to your sweatband, that’s kind of a good thing. A very good thing.