Left: David Kelly, 2001. Right: Todd Goldman

This is my favorite story making the rounds this week: Todd Goldman is a plagiarist. Summarizing from about 100,000 different websites, I can tell you that Goldman (of David and Goliath Tees) hung a painting in a gallery, and that painting was a recreation of a single panel webcomic called Purple Pussy, created in 2001 by an artist named Dave Kelly. In a very Vanilla Ice move, Kelly is purportedly claiming that the work is wholly and completely his own from thought through execution, though that may only be wild internet speculation as I have yet to find an official response from Goldman or his people.

I suppose it is worth mentioning that I stole the image above this story from Dave Kelly’s post on SomethingAwful.com. As did about 10,000 other websites proclaiming Goldman’s theft as The End of Days. The idea circulating the blog-and-forum-o-sphere is to simply “get the word out” and expose Goldman as a fraud. The internet being what it is, mostly this amounts to thousands of name-calling posts looking to garner me-too replies and social consensus. Forum posts and blogs rarely change the world, however, so I’m hoping people vote in the way that seems to affect the most reliable change in the world: with their wallets. Stop buying Todd Goldman stuff if you think this is reprehensible.

I’ve recently come to the conclusion of how to make it okay to steal work, however. There’s two boxes to check, and if you have both, you are generally in the clear.

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The trend-a-day email newsletter DailyCandy has received even more buzz than usual lately, due to a recent Wall Street Journal report that it was up for sale-for more than $100 million. According to an article in next week’s New York magazine, DailyCandy’s purchase (by “a big-time buyer‚Äù) is pending.

But there are those who, having sampled a morsel or two of DailyCandy, say they just don’t get it-what’s the big deal? So how did DailyCandy amass over one million subscribers and leave all of the other “Hey, look, buy this/go here!‚Äù-style newsletters in the dust? One word: branding.

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I recently came across Daniel Rozin’s website which has videos of his four stunning “mechanical mirrors.”

“The 4 mechanical mirrors are made of various materials but share the same behavior and interaction; any person standing in front of one of these pieces is instantly reflected on its surface. The mechanical mirrors all have video cameras, motors and computers on board and produce a soothing sound as the viewer interacts with them.”

My favorite is the “Trash Mirror.” I hope you enjoy them as much as I did … now if I can only figure out where I can see myself on one of these in person.

Almost perfectly timed with the units on Renaissance and Pre-Renaissance document design that I’ve been studying with my students in Meggs’ History of Graphic Design lately, the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha is currently exhibiting multiple pages from the continuing St. John’s Bible Project commissioned by St. John’s University / Abbey. I won’t take up an extensive amount of space describing here what the Joslyn describes in detail on their own site, but I will briefly comment on what a wonder this project is to behold in person.

Those interested should also visit the principle site for the St. John’s Bible.

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I can’t wait for printers like PixelRoller to hopefully reach the consumer market in the near future.

PixelRoller is a paint roller that paints pixels, designed as a rapid response printing tool specifically to print digital information such as imagery or text onto a great range of surfaces.

Just imagine painting your studio walls with giant typography murals or some badass illustrations. Of course if printers like PixelRoller do hit the mainstream, I expect there will be a *slight* rise in grafitti spottings.

(via futurefeeder)