Mark Spurgeon is collecting photos of old hand painted building signage on his site - Preserve. Most shots are from New Zealand and Australia so far, so if you have anymore, send them over »

Lots of great stuff on there, but I’m really taken by these massive numbers painted on doors above and below :)

21 year old Illustration & animation student Matthew Lyons is knocking out great work reminiscent of classic animation backgrounds. The highlight I think is his (hopefully) growing collection of fictional movie title screens.

The Light-Fingered Raw Material Fiddler below cracked me up, got to be the best movie title ever :)

Via: Matthew Buchanan.

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!

These old clown bikes are too cute, half tempted to buy a couple for my niece & nephew, or maybe I need an impractically small and rusty old bike..? Probably not, but yours for $385 from Modern 50.

Via: Dinosaurs and Robots.

Mick Jagger’s brief to Andy Warhol - “do what ever you want….. and please write back saying how much money you would like”. Ha ha, why don’t I ever get briefs like this!

The album in question was Sticky Fingers, which famously had a huge bulging cock imprint on a pair of jeans with a working zipper:

Via: Biggest Apple.

Mark Weaver is still knocking his retro/modern collage pieces every day, I hope he makes this one into one of his silksreen posters.

This is an awesome idea, recycling old camera lens components into these one off retro bracelets. Brain child of Aussie Photography Craig Arnold (can’t find his site), but they are for sale in the UK Cost £100 - £150, available from Oye Modern. Not many left, but be sure to check all the sold one’s too »

Via: Ace Jet 170.

Sorry I’ve not been bloggin’ much lately, been a bit preoccupied with popping the question to my missus. Did the deed yesterday, Nicky said yes! Rather than get a diamond ring, which to be honest I think is probably the least interesting thing you can spend a lot of money on, I got her a guitar instead!

Neither of us play guitar, so at first sight it seems quite a random choice.. But her maiden name is Gibson, same as the legendary guitar makers, so I thought I’d get her something to remind her of that when she becomes Mrs Cookie.

I wanted to get her a vintage Gibson (this sort of thing just gets better with age), preferably a 1977 model to match her birth year (and mine). After a lengthy bit of research I decided on the Les Paul Artisan model, it’s basically a Les Paul Custom with hearts & flower inlays on the headstock and fingerboard. Beautiful looking thing, thought Nicky would appreciate all the detailing, they didn’t come in many colours, but this walnut finish was my favourite.

The fact that it had quite a short production run (1976-1982) didn’t help any, I couldn’t find a single one for sale in the UK. Only the states seemed to have any Artisan’s that people were prepared to part with, some way too pricey, some played to shit, but when this one popped up it seemed a good price and in good nick, so I rather nervously wired my money across the pond and hoped for the best. Well Neals Guitars did us proud and it arrived safe and sound.

I think I made the right call, Nicky loves it and has no plans to trade it in for a diamond! More pics on my Flickr »

I can’t play guitar, but there’s something irresistible about this amazing banana guitar! Please buy it quick before I succumb to temptation.. Apparently it’s not actually a banana, but rather a moon (Kawai Moonsault), here a video of someone playing one.

Anyhyow,  £3,322.75 started bid… and 4 days left on the auction.

This is alot safer for work than you might think ;) It’s quite a surprisingly good collection of vintage porno title frames and logos, put together by the appropriately named Pornographics agency.

Here’s the video:

Cheers for the link Dickon.

Just found this lovely online store, the London based Present & Correct. “A long-term obsession with stationery has culminated in a constantly evolving store. A selection of P&C products mixed up with handmade goods, vintage items and work by designers from all over the world”.

I could of happily bought just about everything on there, but had to restrain myself! I did pick up this great vintage dymo machine, and this 1949 book on preserving (and a few secret other things). Most of their stuff is one off finds so get over there and have a look before it all gets snapped up.

Wow, the work of Bulgarian Graphic artist Stefan Kanchev is blowing my mind. Fantastic line, form and colour combinations to die for.

He style inspired by Bulgarian folklore and traditions, reminds me a lot of the more recent Finnish folklore inspired work by Sanna Annukka.

I think I like his stamp designs best out of his vast body of work. It seems I’ve blogged about them before, but never knew the original designer. It’s funny I’ve drawn some trees recently almost exactly the same is these here, weird..

Crap load of great logo designs too.

“Stefan Kanchev was not just talented but also exceptionally industrious artist. All of his works to the last letter were drawn by hand. His passion was so great that often he worked night and day without stopping. The artist’s wife remembered that he was working at his drawing table till the last moment when he was taken to the hospital. Stefan Kanchev died in 2001 at the age of 85.”

Via: grain edit.

Apparently Neil uses old expired Polaroid film to create this vintage look, but it’s not just the colour palette, loving the angles and composition. These 2 shots are taken from his PULP ART BOOK project in collaboration with the rather tastey supermodel Joni Harbeck.

This was the first thing I saw after just watching Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo (The Mole), I’d love to see this guy do a remake of it.

Via: ISO50.

Can’t get enough of the cheap inky printing on these Indian matches boxes, pilllpat (agence eureka) has amassed a pretty comprehensive collection of them.

I‘ve been searching the internets for jam label inspiration, came across, and was quite taken by this collection of Polish Jam Labels.

Also from the same blog, check out these sewing thread labels, soap packaging, hotel stickers and processed cheese labels (I would eat processed cheese if it had labels like this).