I got a sneak peak of Social Suicides Dictators of Fashion collection when I bought my yellow suit. First impressions, very nice :) Juicy pics on their site, although the online store doesn’t seem to have any stock yet.

I want to like the Churchill suit (top pic) but I’m drawn to the de Gaulle below, lovin’ the asymmetrical leather trim detail. Apparently mimicking a ’Sam Brown’, which is a leather belt that passes over the shoulder to suspend a holster, whatever looks great.

It constantly amazes me how far reaching my blog is, merely hours after asking if anyone had a Kickstarter invite on the blog, Lisa Yao came through with one :) Then a couple of days later the founder & Art Director of Kickstarter Charles Adler, dropped me line saying “DO IT. I absolutely loved your CDT project”.

Well I’ve done it, my project – Film about walking 1800 miles across New Zealand has just launched. We’re trying to raise $5000 and to be honest it feels a bit weird/cheeky raising money for something that I’m clearly going to enjoy doing.. But there is a lot of effort going into what I’m offering as ‘rewards’ i.e. maps & finished DVD, so I’m trying to stay optimistically hopeful that other people will want to get involved.

It isn’t all cash in hand of course, the cost of producing all the rewards and mailing everything out is going to take out a huge chunk. But I’ve got a few fun things in there like drawing peoples names along the way and styling my beard which should be a bit more profitable :)

Ideally I’d like to raise an extra $3500 (you can go over your target) which would pay for a mountain guide to take me to the top of Mt. Cook/Aoraki. It’s definetly beyond what I have the experience to do on my own, but is the highest mountain in New Zealand, has the same name is me and would make a pretty spectacular addition to the film!

You don’t have to back my project, there’s plenty of other great one’s on there. I’m backing IN TRANSIT presents: 16mm, pictured above. A film by Jonathan Dueck, who’s been busy scratching & painting over old 16mm films. Also James Taylor who wants to make an ‘absurd game of logic’ – The Gentlemen of the South Sandwiche Islands.

Invites
If anyone wants one? I have five, none left sorry.

Just got a comment on an old post that I’d completely forgotten about. Felt like it needed a re-post, such a simple genius idea (not mine sadly), need to remember this before mid December next year..

Fascinating tattoo paintings by Shawn Barber. Quite a large growing collection, I particularly like the equipment/tattoo gun studies.

Via: NOTCOT.

Very jealous of all the places Tom Robinson has been, but loving his collection of Feet First photographs taken there.

Via: Elastronauta.

Swedish illustrator Jonas Bergstrand has a style firmly set in the golden age of illustration, and he does it so well. Gorgeous backgrounds, great character design and some pretty innovative stuff in there too.

Via: FFFFOUND!

Quite an amusing read through this list of rock band names and their origins. I was most surprised to find out that 2 bands names (Lovin’ Spoonful & 10cc) both refer to how much spunk you can fit in a teaspoon…

Via: Coudal.

Lovely style from Finnish illustrator Lotta Nieminen, can’t get enough of the simple geometric shapes with detailed layering and texture. Be interested to learn her technique, reminds me a bit of an ink spraying technique I used to use many years ago, hmm where did I put that little thing…

Via: Grain Edit.

eep calm, I’m not going to start ripping off Jessica Hische’s ever expanding and amazing Daily Drop Cap. This ‘K’ was a rejected logo concept which I was quite fond of, so I thought I’d make a one-off drop cap to give the poor fella some purpose in life.

If you’d like to use it, paste this code at the begining of your post (in HTML mode):

<img src=”http://www.made-in-england.org/images/K-cap.png” align=”left” alt=”K”/>

Last Christmas post from me I promise, but if you feel the need for some extra festive cheer, grab this new desktop.

If you need some Christmas present ideas, you might find something in my Stuff to Buy Category. Also remember my Christmas cheat sheets are here to make life a bit easier for you :)

• Download the Girls version here »
• Download the Boys version here »

That’s what Dave Hoffman has to say about free falling 90ft over a waterfall in a kayak, I concur, holy shit balls..

Via: The Adventure Blog.

Wow, this thing looks set to be massive – Square is this tiny little dongle that fits into any device with an audio input jack, and turns your iPod (for example) into a credit card money taking machine. They are giving out the dongles for free, there’s no transaction charges, only a $1 fee to install the application on your device! It’s the brainchild of Twitter inventor Jack Dorsey, currently in beta and will roll out to everyone next year.

Where’s the Catch? Well I’m not sure if you can use you Visa or Mastercard on it, you might need to get a some sort of Square credit, debit or pre-paid card, suppose they’ve got to make there money somewhere? Sorry got the wrong end of the stick, just noticed the image above has a Mastercard logo in it… These days when everyone hates bankers and loves Twitter, I think there could be a lot of people happy to make the switch.

What I like about it, well as a freelancer who once a year has to try and find some receipts to offset against my tax, this is a dream come true, everything stored digitally online where I can’t lose it and I can access easily from anywhere. Also this is going to be a massive help to small independent businesses which is always going to be a good thing.

Via: Matthew Buchanan.

Lovely on going collection of re-worked Twitter Avatars by Adam Koford. Reminds me of those cartoon political maps.

Via: Drawn!

While I’m on the subject of adventure film making, I’ve been meaning to blog about this site Kickstarter for a while now. It’s not about film making, but it is about raising money to do stuff.

I’ve seen this sort thing before, but the interesting angle about Kickstarter is you have to supply tiered ‘rewards’ for the people giving you cash. People get quite creative not only with their ideas they want to get off the ground, but also with these rewards that they give back. Brilliantly it’s working, check out and see how many projects have already been funded and how much money they’ve raised.

Problem is you need an invite to post a project and I don’t have one :( So if you have a spare invite to Kickstarter please sent it my way, Cheers for the invite Lisa Yao, you are a legend :) Ok so here’s my pitch:

I’m planning to walk 1900 miles across New Zealand from the Northern most point to the southern tip next year, the trail is called Te Araroa and it officially opens next year. Problem is I’m spending too much time these days planning/mapping, rather than earning money for it.. So the concept of Kickstarter instantly appealed to me :) But I think my work could be worth while rewards for would be pledgers.

Pledge $5 or more and you’ll be able to download all the route maps I’ve been making and use them for your own hike.

Pledge $25 or more and I’ll mail you the finished DVD once we return and edit it. Here’s an example of last years video of my hike across America. Plus all the maps on a separate disc, and hey shit I’ll stick your name in the credits!

Pledge $50 or more you’ll get all the above plus beautifully screen printed A2 poster of the route, maybe some sort of date planner thing like this.

Pledge $100 or more and I’ll leave your name (obviously nothing permanent) along the route somewhere, write it out in rocks, draw it in sand on a beach, piss into snow, chips on my plate, whatever! Promise to do something interesting and send you the hi-res photo.

Pledge $1000 or more Ha ha, this is the big one and it was Nicky’s idea so unsurprisingly involves me making an arse of myself.. but It could be pretty funny so – donate $1000 or more then at the end of each month you decide what I have to do with my facial hair.. It’s a bit of a tradition that you grow your beard on a long walk, but I’m giving you the chance to style it for me – Big Lamb chop side burns, down to the moustache, shave half off vertically… (Only six available, 1 each month).