My friend Chad (formerly Moss, Kidrobot, now smartphone app designer) asked me to be part of a group show/event going on tonight called ‘Caked Up!’, a benefit to raise money for Art Start.

Chad asked several designers to participate, including myself, and the mission was simple: design and bake a cake to help out a good cause. The thing is, I’m in Baton Rouge, Louisiana right now living in a small hotel room, so baking a cake and getting it to the show was going to be a little difficult. Enter the fine folks at Ambrosia Bakery in Baton Rouge:

Still didn’t solve the issue of getting the cake to New York, so… enter the fine folks at FedEx, and the miracle of the ‘Overnight Express Box’:

I wonder how that cake did on that overnight express voyage. I’ll post a pic tomorrow of how it all turned out.

I can’t be there, but check it out if you can. Here’s the details of tonight’s show, from the Caked Up! website:

CAKED UP!
A one night only custom cake art show bringing together some of NYC’s best designers to create a cake for the NYC charity Art Start. Cakes will be eaten the night of the show.

Murphy and Dine Gallery
520 West 27th St. NYC

Just saw over on Gizmodo that pivotal magazine publisher Bob Guccione has passed away. He founded Penthouse, yeah… that was the dirty stuff compared to Playboy... Full frontal, multiple women, what!?! And what about that dope “key” logo?

But what I’m really bringing it up for is that he also published OMNI, the freaky sci-fi magazine that was always “the future” to me as I was growing up. I didn’t read it very often - I only had a few old issues that I had gotten from the swap meet (that’s “flea market/boot sale” outside of SoCal) but I always saw it on the 7/11 newstand. It was a little beyond me at that age.

It wasn’t steeped in reality like Popular Science before it, or the post-personal-computer, tangible directions that WIRED has covered after it - and unlike those magazines, since Guccione was involved, it also felt like the future was gonna have some freaky robot/artificial intelligence sex, along with space travel. Probably happening during space travel. OMNI seemed like it had the knob permanently set on a Syd Mead/William Gibson/Hajime Sorayama gouache-and-airbrush vibe.

In a way, selfishly, I’m glad the magazine isn’t around anymore (it ended in 1995) because it’s now locked on a weird pre-teen esoteric sci-fi plane in my mind that I can’t fully decode. It’s distant and misty like the weird airbrushed photo illustrations in the magazine.

Check out the huge collection of the ill pre-Photoshop covers at this site.

Whaddya think? OK, that’s just some silly nonsense but a funny thing happened last week - The Gap revealed their new logo, and then an even funnier thing happened: They got torn the fuck up for it. It’s a strange thing when companies just throw it in and admit they fucked up. Which is what The Gap did. So The Gap backpedaled and tried suggesting the community offer up better. And that opened up a whole new wave of spite from professionals rallying for designers to avoid getting involved in what was boiling down to a social-network driven call for spec work for a company that can definitely afford to pay.

Funny how quick the world is now; feedback can be immediate and positive, or swift and punishing. Seems both good and bad… Here, it’s clear The Gap blew it. They never should have come off the blocks with such a generic, ‘American Apparel’-styled logo. But on the other side of the coin, the masses don’t always “get it” at first, so why listen to a bunch of angry Facebookers anyway?

Make your own “Gap” logo using this web-based generator. Yeah, OK, so I didn’t work all weekend on that 12oz logo. You got me.

Went past the old Deitch space on Wooster with Peter Sutherland last night, where Levi’s has taken over for a few months with a photography workshop, part of their series of city-specific creative workshops like the silkscreening/letterpress one that they held out in SF in August. I get a little suspect when I see this level of corporate influence on an alleged creative project, but this is damn sincere and really cool. They’re doing it right, even if the end-game is to shift jeans.

You can go in and use a lot of equipment, borrow cameras, print on large-format devices, shoot on a photo cyc, use professional lighting, etc., all for free (within reason, I suppose). They have a full schedule of photo exhibits and photographers giving classes all the way up to mid-December. Stop by and decide for yourself. The collection of vintage cameras is worth checking out, although if that’s really your thing you might have more fun in the ‘Used’ department at B&H.

Ran into some heads at the event, and since the topic here is photography, got some flicks with my newest iPhone app fling, “Cross Process,” introduced to me by my friend Marie who still gets better results than I do with it.

A friend put me on to this weird find… Music cultivated from memory cards of old cellphones in West Africa, mostly used for ringtones. They’re actual songs, not blippy chip music, and the complete mix is a good trip.

All the info and a download link are over here at qualitypeoples.com.

FONTS NOT DEAD

EL GUINCHO | Bombay from MGdM | Marc Gómez del Moral on Vimeo.

Pervy out freak-out that Colby Parker Jr. put me on to earlier today… I almost think all other projects across the planet need to be put on pause, and reassessed under the higher standards that this video introduces.

Headed over to the mighty Taschen store last night to cop the new TRESPASS book put out by Wooster Collective‘s Marc and Sara. It was packed. Hung for a bit - a few of the artists in the book were there signing stuff, but it was too hot and too hectic, so I grabbed the book then jetted in the jet.

Fantastic book - more than a book on street art, rather an effort to consider art put in public spaces without permission - yes, there is “Street Art” in the book, but there’s also some diverse documentation of offbeat art - the phenomenon of art occurring and happening in society, unsanctioned, which of course covers graffiti, but also things like the guy who built his own sub and headed out on the East River in 2007, or some of the ‘Locals Only’ tags from the Dogtown days’ beaches of Venice (at the time likely more emphasis on communcation than an attempt at art). There are some essays in the book that I haven’t had a chance to read yet (I’ve only had it a few hours!) but I’m looking forward to diving in a bit tomorrow.

Saw some 12oz Prophets in the spot…

Finished up my L.A. trip by heading out to the Arketip Project Space in Hollywood for the release party of photographer Ari Marcopoulos’ sharp new camera bag he designed for InCase. Check it out over here.

Nice bag. Ari ran through the features with me - slick design, single strap to allow swinging the bag from your back to your front to get at your camera(s), room for multiple bodies and lenses, iPad pouch, small magnet-latched pocket on the front for quick access to your point-and-shoot. Plus it’s in a sick Roger Sterling grey-suit color. The bag comes with a limited-edition book of Ari’s photos called Now is Forever, which he also had on display at the event, by ripping all of the pages out of one and mounting them in a long strip on either side of the space.

Ari Marcopolous and Damon Way of DC/InCase

Ari’s arsenal on display - My man just doesn’t give a fuck and puts the package of Kimonos right out there! What!

Songs The Lord Taught Us, Bill McMullen, 2010

The Art For Tibet II fundraising auction is happening this weekend, and I put this piece in for the cause - to help raise some money for Students for a Free Tibet, the non-profit organization that, in their words, “works in solidarity with the Tibetan people in their struggle for freedom and independence.”

Over here at www.artfortibet.com, you can see the many fine pieces of art available other artists involved, and you can bid on pieces as well, up until Saturday at 5pm EST, when a silent auction at the event will begin.

Art For Tibet II Fundraising Event and Auction
Saturday, September 25th, 5pm-10pm
UNION GALLERY
353 Broadway
New York City

I went to the U.S. Open Wednesday night and watched heavily-favored tennis superstars do what they’re supposed to: Easily crush lesser foes. In what is easily one of the best things you can do in New York City at the end of the summer, I pulled the old “Take the 7 train to the U.S. Open night session” gag with some friends and watched the two night matches. Big story of the night was the wind messing up everyone’s game.

Ok, so read about all that elsewhere. The reason I’m bringing it up as that as we were pouring out of Arthur Ashe to head to the 7 train to head back, I was looking at the entire 7 line’s trainyard under the walkway…

Seeing the trainyard at night reminded me of the film Style Wars (maybe you 12oz readers heard of it?), which reminded me to mention here that tomorrow the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is hosting several benefit screenings of the seminal doc on graffiti, Style Wars, kicking off the fundraising to save the original negatives. Apparently the master negatives of the film are starting to deteriorate, and director Henry Chalfant (Tony Silver, the other credited director, passed away in 2008) and family are trying to raise the money to restore it digitally for future generations to study. More info at http://www.stylewars.com.

They need a lot of money. $500,000.00 is the target number. No one is expecting you to drop that fresh Jacob & Co. watch you spent a house on, playa, but I’m sure every bit helps. I’m heading out to BAM with Evan Bernard for the 6:50 show, tickets are $12.50. Director Chalfant and a few writers in the film will be having a Q&A after the 6:50pm and 9:15pm screenings. If you can’t be there, consider looking into donating online at the website, starting at a very reasonable $10.

Show your support to one of the key touchstones in graffiti history.

Grabbing a soda at the Dean & Deluca (real talk; D&D is cheaper than some delis in SoHo - I don’t get it either), I spotted this girl in a 1996 Freaknik shirt, “All Eyez On Me” ‘Pac song title just conjuring up images of her 15 years ago, getting into all sorts of crazy Hotlanta trouble.