SCION is a modern-thinking brand on the forefront of youth culture and innovation, known for engaging its consumers in an interactive quest for creative ideas. One of SCION’s trademarks is its support of organizations that also seek to connect with children and young adults in expressive, artistic ways.

In its mission to advocate community outreach and foster creativity in the younger generation, SCION now joins forces with Cut&Paste in the FRESHLY SQUEEZED WEB DESIGN CHALLENGE (”Contest”). The website design competition will benefit J.U.i.C.E., a non-profit weekly after-school program that allows the underprivileged youth of Los Angeles to express themselves artistically through dance, music, visual arts, and MC skills workshops.

As J.U.i.C.E. focuses its resources on programming and operations, they need your help: SCION’s new online competition, the FRESHLY SQUEEZED WEB DESIGN CHALLENGE summons all web designers, illustrators, graffiti connoisseurs, coding geniuses, hip-hop enthusiasts, and creatives all around to help J.U.i.C.E. refine their online presence with a brand new homepage design. Web designs submitted for the competition should embody J.U.i.C.E.’s urban aesthetic and youthful spirit, while adding to the site’s functionality as a user-friendly vehicle for communication.

So, help city kids, put $5K in your pocket, and get your work seen. Submit your designs for a new and improved Web site for J.U.i.C.E., a nonprofit hip-hop arts program for LA’s urban youth, and you’ll be entered to win five grand, courtesy of SCION. All entries must be submitted no later than 11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on April 10, 2009. Visit the site to learn more.

Stencil Graffiti Capital: Melbourne by Jake Smallman, Carl Nyman. What has happened to turn Melbourne into a stencilled graffiti capital? When did this happen and who is responsible? Furthermore, why stencils? Isn’t the use of stencils a bit of a cheat? Stencil Graffiti Capital answers all these questions and more with a visual celebration for several artists and the themes which dominate their work. Interviews with the likes of Civilian, Dlux, and Ha-Ha illustrate how and why these artists live in, moved to, or visit Melbourne to practice their street art. Full-page and double-spread visual treatments within the book illustrate the artists’ basic themes, which focus on politics, symbols, love/sex and war/death. Read the rest of this entry »

Each year you have the opportunity to change the photograph which appears on the cover of COMPUTER GRAPHICS forum, Journal of Eurographics, the European Association for Computer Graphics. This is your opportunity to show the world what you can do, a competition for the photograph for the 2007 volume. Electronic submissions may be in all image formats. For production on the cover of “forum”, you are asked to provide a CMYK-separated eps file, saved at 300 dpi, sized at 152 mm x 128 mm. The contest officials would also appreciate a PNG or JPEG image for use on the website. In return, the winner receives 200 Euro and tons of recognition. Entries must be sent by 20 August. See site for more information.

Hey folks - I’m going to play a bit with this site this afternoon, as I add Feedburner and a contact page. So if you see some strange goings-on, hang tough.

More: I’ve just changed the RSS/Atom feeds for this site to Feedburner, and hopefully you’ll be redirected if you’ve already subscribed. If you have any trouble reading the site through your feed reader, please let me know. Otherwise, I think it’s all good.

If you don’t want to use feeds, you can register to receive posts by email. You can register at Feedblitz, and your information will remain confidential.

It took some whinging from the Guardian Unlimited about their loss in Design Museum’s Designer of the Year award to alert me to the fact that Jamie Hewlett has knocked down some major design wins in 2006. I noticed his first achievement in the 2006 Webby Awards “Special Achievement Honorees” with the Webby Artist of the Year award for Gorillaz. This month he won the Designer of the Year award from the Design Museum, London, over the likes of The Guardian Unlimited newspaper, Tom Dixon (the wire chair, among other great designs), and Cameron Sinclair (Architecture for Humanity). Read the rest of this entry »

I didn’t know that when I would mention “that book,” or “that recently released movie” starring Tom Hanks, that so many advertisements would appear on this site against that book and that movie. Even though the article has cycled off the homepage, the ads still appear and - I thought at first - that they seemed to appear inappropriate for this site since nothing about “that book” and “that movie” are on this homepage other than their ads. Although I spent a few moments banning a few advertisers a few days ago, I realized that I would spend two minutes a day for the rest of my life banning someone from advertising here unless I removed that article. Since I feel that a removal of that article because of the ads is a form of censorship by those advertisers, then I’m not going to remove it. Nor am I going to remove the ads, because it seems that I’m making some money from their foolishness. But, should I mention those keywords again and perpetuate the advertisements and make money from these certain groups even though I don’t support their efforts? See point #2 in the Morel Dilemma. I’m clueless.