Welcome to the newly revamped House of Moose! Come on in…

The antlered one welcomes you to a sexy new digital space filled with doodle magic and custom figures, all hoofmade in Scotland by Lucy Moose.

Moose makes all sorts of beautiful, delightful things, corporate commissions and custom 3d figures from your doodles made to look exactly like your children’s doodles and drawings, suitable for kids and big kids alike. Stuff Your Doodles – your doodles, stuffed.

The sexy new website is now live and pure doodle magic. Ch-ch-check it out!

Keeping up our Halloween traditional of making a short film to celebrate the hallowed souls, we bring you “Pony and The Microwave”.

Lola wrote the story of “Pony and the Microwave” when she was just three years old, and now – thanks to the Songify app, it’s the next big alternative electro-pop sensation. It’s also a little bit freaky but also super cute. Magical lyrics that only a kid could scribe.

I’ve died one hundred deaths and wept the same again with awe, laughter and pride.

Dedicated to all you hallowed souls and others much more saintly than us!

Lyrics by Lola Woods. Film by Von Shape featuring Lola.

Halloween wouldn’t be the same with an intoxicating dose of our favourite lowbrow, street artists – D*Face.

Metro Gallery is excited to present D*Face’s first solo exhibition with the Gallery. The London street artist, known for his fluorescent prints, dark portraits, and interpretations of popular culture, has presented numerous sell-out exhibitions around the globe.

D*Face’s 2011 exhibition at Metro Gallery will bring the artist’s bright, bold and comical style to Melbourne. While the artist is most commonly recognised for his collaboration with pop singer Christina Aguilera on her “Bionic” album cover, amongst street art-enthusiasts, D*Face represents the avant-garde of street art, pushing boundaries in and outside of the gallery.

D’s ethos of “read and destroy” has produced a few new stunning titles, and during down time he’s hitting the city hard and heavy! The concrete spray cans have made a dent in the southern hemisphere with a random bunch of cheerleaders passing through adding touch of glamour…. D now rolls with a cheer squad at all times!

We’re stoked to share some of the behind-the-scenes peeks… so check ‘em. And if you’re down under, you know what to do.

Show Details

D*Face Solo Show
1st – 11th November 2011
Metro Gallery, Melbourne
1214 High Street, Armadale, Victoria 3143, Australia.
Get directions.

Opening Times

Monday to Friday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
Saturdays and Sundays: 11.00am – 5.00pm

The wait is O.V.E.R. Officially live and open for business… HOT-TUNA.com

We are super stoked to announce that the new e-commerce website for the iconic surfwear and fashion brand, Hot Tuna, is now LIVE!!! Aaaand you wondered why we’d been so quiet of late.

Well, as you can see we’ve been hard at work creating the behemoth that is HOT-TUNA.com website – and it bites! The new online store is packed full of their legendary graphic-led tees, hoods and boardies with a strong focus on the brand’s heritage and some of the original graphics.

Established in 1969, Hot Tuna has travelled across the world on the backs, bums and boards of surfers and is instantly recognisable but its piranha logo. Edgy graphic prints inspired generations and now it’s set to take over the younger, more urban generation where surfwear meets streetwear.

The website and blog are custom designed and built (of course!) with a strong focus on the signature ‘mass graphic impact with a dash of mischievousness’ both synonymous with the Hot Tuna name. Though we’d like to think that the site is as functional as it is rad to look at so drop by, hang out and shop til your card maxes out! Then let us know what you think.

Big props to HTHQ for giving us so much creative freedom, to the fine folks at The Cult PR and to our lovely home girl, all round rad surfer chick and photog gem, Julia Toms.

We’ll be posting more once we’ve celebrated the launch but, for now, head over to the Hot Tuna online store or get your dose of vital sustenance on their blog – The Piranha Soup Adventures. Go big or go home peeps!

For those asking… a lil’ update on the HOT TUNA ecommerce website project.

We’ve received several direct enquiries in the form of comments, tweets, emails and calls regarding the delay in launching the Hot Tuna ecommerce website so wanted to be offer quick update to quash any fears or misconceptions and keep ya’ll in the know!

Long story short, the delay has largely been due to an incredibly long drawn out merchant account application courtesy of one rather large UK bank! Anyone who has, or is planning to, become an e-tailer will be au fait in the need to have an online merchant account so as to accept online transactions… pretty darn vital for receiving payments, huh.

Well, cheeky minnow is now caught and we have a launch date, hellz yeah. The super rad new site will be launching soon – and it bites!

Catch the big fish when it lands at 10am on 22nd September, 2011 – did you get that? Launch… in 6 days! Eeeek.

Join the HOT-TUNA.com countdown on Facebook or partake in crazy Twitter comps right through til launch day! WOWZERS.

Image: Source unknown.

Artisanal filler text for your site or project. Do you need some text for your website or whatever? *sigh* Okay…

The invention of online ispum lorem text generators for graphic designers was revolutionary. In fact, I can’t even remember what we did prior – did we rely on copy and pasting from Microsoft Word?! Eugh, no wonder that has been wiped from my memory!

For the benefit of non-designer readers to this blog, a brief explanation, as per Wiki:

In publishing and graphic design, lorem ipsum is placeholder text (filler text) commonly used to demonstrate the graphics elements of a document or visual presentation, such as font, typography, and layout… nonsensical in meaning and not proper Latin… used in order to direct the focus to the publication style and not the meaning of the text.

Quite as one would expect, it didn’t take long for more subversive renditions to make their debut appearance on the interweb. Sometime last year, Lorizzle, the Gangsta Lorem Ipsum generator emerged giving designer’s the opportunity to laugh at some pretty ghetto, Snoop Dogg inspired placeholder text thus providing a sharp injection of design humour to an otherwise painfully monotonous task. Did anyone actually send the gangsta version to client? Pray tell.

Anyways… the latest generator just arrived, HIPSTER IPSUM. It’s a little more client-friendly and packed full of all kinds of hipster buzzwords like tofu, organic, shoreditch, letterpress and the quintessential hipster buzzword du jour, “sartorial”. Yes, indeed. See for yourself…

Sample hipster ipsum generated text.

Sample text above was generated using the “Hipster, neat.” option but if you prefer a touch of Latin in your ipsum, the hipsters have it covered. Go play – and then tell us how it went down with clients!

Pretty deep in some hefty Magento ecommerce development so apologies for the lack of geek tutorials of late. But here’s something that has come in pretty useful for a couple of projects recently and figured I’d share and save a fellow custom coder some precious time!

If you ever need to change a specific price or value to an alternative currency in Magento, just call the following:

Mage::helper('directory')->currencyConvert($pricein, 'GBP', 'EUR');

This should work from any Model or Block, the above example will convert GBP to Euro. Handy if you need to update things like static blocks with the most up-to-date delivery pricing.

Part of the ongoing Puma by Alexander McQueen collab and minty fresh for AW11, the ‘Cloud Dancer’ Eagle Print reinterprets the classic baseball style…

Aaaaand I’m hella smitten. Available in a distressed, off-white leather these hi-tops feature a biro blue scribble print eagle illustration on the heel. Somewhere that fashion house meets street artist in a none too brash style.

For fellow obsessives this is not the first time we’ve seen the winged warrior of footwear collaborations, think Jeremy Scott x Adidas BUT this time, it’s different – a little more understated, almost accidental as opposed to full-on statement. I know, I know, it HAS been seen before but for purists these are different… please don’t ask me to rationalise further. I can’t. Just be warned, this is someone who can justify couture frocks on expenses based on a Cost Per Wear algorithm (really).

McQueen x Puma Eagle Print ‘Cloud Dancer’ Mid Trainers are available now at Hervia London, RRP £155 – but if you’re thinking you could get away with booking in a plain pair of these pumps and then plan to ask your offspring to customise them with a BIC biro, try again. The blanks retail at a whopping £185!!! Go scribble from the offset. Or, then again, you could always go down the Reebok Classics x BIC original chav route… possibly more Jack the Peanut than Flash Harry but we’re in a recession yo!

Being a self-confessed hi-top sneaker snob and an insatiable McQueen evangelist, I’d personally go ‘scribble originals’ all the way… but then again, they’re not selling these winged beauties in a Size 37 so, for now, I’m sticking to the limited edition Nike Blazers, which not only come in my size but also well under a oner. Touch.

Anyways, the eagle has officially landed at Hervia so fly now and treat yourself… (I’m not bitter honestly!)

StolenSpace is proud to present “Out of Stock”, a skatepark exhibition based around one of London’s skate meccas, Stockwell.

Brixton was home to our studio for 3 debaucherous years so we’re stoked to see one of our regular old haunts and its locals getting some serious attention, the notorious Stockwell Skatepark in SW London. Rad.

StolenSpace presents “Out of Stock” featuring art, film, photography and installations and Stockwell locals… Get ready to shred! Watch the trailer.

Show Details

“Out of Stock” A Stockwell Skatepark Exhibition
Private View Only 18th August 6 – 9:00pm
18th – 28th August 2011
StolenSpace Gallery, Dray Walk, The Old Truman Brewery
91 Brick Lane, London E1 6QL. Get Directions.

Opening Times

Tuesday – Sunday / 11:00am – 7:00pm

Nearest Tubes

Aldgate East (District, Hammersmith & City)
Liverpool Street (Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan)
Shoreditch (East London – Peak Hours & Sunday mornings)

The Helmholtz Resonators recently released their Double A with remixes of their underground classics ‘Bombs!’ by the acid house kings, Medicine 8, and the awesome ‘Gypsy’ by Nu Chicago sensation, Kurtis Hardrive.

We’ve been pulling a few all-nighters in the studio lately and have got it down to a fine art thanks to a few basic ingredients: adrenaline, caffeine and music. It’s true, as a combined cocktail, these 3 things are officially all you need to combat sleep deprivation.

Our current studio fix is courtesy of The Helmholtz Resonators who recently released their Double A with remixes of their underground classics ‘Bombs!’ by the acid house kings, Medicine 8, and the awesome ‘Gypsy’ by Nu Chicago sensation, Kurtis Hardrive. The single has been picking up a lot of love from Eddy Temple Morris (XFM) and Lauren Laverne (BBC 6 Music) with Medicine 8′s remix of ‘Bombs!’ becoming a regular on her show.

“This tune is, in the vernacular of the medium, ttz amaze” - Lauren Laverne, BBC 6 Music, on Bombs! remix

After the success of The Helmholtz Resonator’s album, “The Crystal Submarine”, this band of sonic scientists (named after a device created by Hermann von Helmholtz), are releasing an EP of hedonistic ruckuses remixed by the freshest and most anticipated producers in the land. Lead tracks from the album, ‘Bombs!’ and ‘Gypsy’, have been going on 5-day benders, trashing hotel rooms, fu*king porn stars and have come out at the end as pumped as 80’s Arnold and slicker then Silvio Berlusconi!

Now, we can’t quite claim to be having the exact same kind of all-nighters BUT we’re doing it our way and ‘Bombs!’ is getting some serious repeat action!

Marking the long awaited return of Medicine 8, who spent years living the dream playing the biggest clubs all around the world, regulars in Ibiza and the Miami Winter Music Conference as well as DJs at Creamfields, Global Gathering, Homelands, hellz they even had a residency at Pacha Argentina and all this in between numerous sessions on Radio 1 and remixing tracks for artists including Orbital, Manic Street Preachers, Nirvana, Tiga and Kylie (who loved their mix so much she asked for it to be played when she walked down the catwalk at Karl Largerfeld’s show). Who knows why they stopped but it doesn’t matter because they’re back with this monster remix of ‘Bombs!’

‘Gypsy’ on the flip side is a sick acid disco reworking by Trashmouth’s new signing, Kurtis Hardrive, with its twitchy chanting vocals, warehouse echo chorus and authentic “f*** you” slap bass it’s already set to be a Nu Chicago phuture classic.

“An electronic riot from start to finish” – (5 out of 5) Artrocker Magazine on The Helmholtz Resonators

So what are you waiting for? Get it.