I’ve been a fan of Texan-based metal band The Sword for the better part of 5 years now, and I was surprised recently by the release of their new album, Warp Riders.

I picked up the album yesterday and, not only do the new tracks totally live up to The Sword’s talent but check out the album art and collateral. I really enjoyed the previous logo and artwork the guys put together for previous albums, but I was floored by this old school sci-fi direction. I thought the art looked strangely familiar, and as it turns out Dan McPharlin did all of the painting and design. You might remember his work from this post, or even this one.

I really enjoy seeing my favorite artists work with my favorite bands. You metal-heads might want to check this album out, pretty awesome.

• The Rockies from 30,000 feet up.

I met Fabio Sasso from Abduzeedo! Ain't nothing cooler then this guy right here.

Scott Hanson, ISO50 onstage dissecting one of his posters in Photoshop.

• Tycho performing at one of the FITC after parties.

• Part of Erik Natzke's work for Nokia

• 'Cymatic Ferrofluid, with Gray Scott Reaction Diffusion' by Robert Hodgin

• Kyle Cooper telling stories and showing us select title sequences from his library of over 150.

• Shot of Brendan Dawes' DoodleBuzz application

• Yugo Nakamura wowing the crowd with his portfolio work and upcoming releases.

• San Francisco fog, as captured from the window of a bus.

I returned from my big trip to FITC San Francisco 2010 this weekend, and after a short break from the blog and all things scheduled I’m ready to get back to work. San Francisco was wonderful, and it was great to meet some new creative folks and re-unite with some pals. After a short stint of lost luggage upon my arrival, the whole trip went real smooth. Please excuse the low quality of some of the presentation shots above, as I only had my handy iPhone available to snap pictures of people onstage. I’ll have to see if I can track down some more professional looking photos. However, here is a little wrap-up of the 3-day event as I wandered from talk, to party, to talk.

One of the highlights was certainly meeting my pal Fabio Sasso, creator of the mighty Abduzeedo. I’ve been in touch with Fabio for about 2 and a half years as we teamed up on a few giveaways and other fun blog collaborations, so it was awesome to finally hang out with the dude and shake his hand. He’s just as cool as you would think and we had a great time having a few drinks and talkin’ blogs.

I also got to see Scott Hansen, ISO50 speak for the second time. He made some adjustments to his presentation this time around, which included a breakdown and explanation of his art show poster in Photoshop. He opened up the source file and showed us how we went about creating the composition, effects and color treatments. Scott is great at explaining himself and the reasons he makes design choices along the way, so it was wonderful to see his layered work in action. To top it off, he performed as Tycho at one of the FITC after partys where I got to hang out backstage with Scott and Dusty Brown (whom I only knew through Scott’s posters). It was a great time.

Following their talks I had the pleasure of meeting a few of my other art & design heroes such as Erik Natzke and Robert Hodgin. Erik’s presentation was beautiful, where he took us through his progression as a code-driven artist chronologically, showing us how one idea led to another and how his he ended up being hired by big clients for the work he sees as “play”. Very inspiring and nice guy. Robert, or Flight404, has been one of my favorite visual artists for the past 10 years so it was awesome to finally shake his hand. His talk was excellent and he covered topics from video feedback, magnetic sculptures to building a universe. His work is always intricate, scientific and inspiring.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Brendan Dawes following his presentation as well. Brendan is always entertaining to watch and manages to get some really good advice into his delivery as well. He talked briefly about the products his company produces, and described it as “We wanted to be more in control of our own destinies, rather then at the whim of a budget.” A good point there. He showed us a few of the projects he and his company worked on over the past while, and previewed his new iPhone app, the Accidental News Explorer.

In conclusion, FITC always delivers on quality speakers and great networking opportunities to meet those you look up to and make new friends. This is the third even I have attended and have had a wonderful time at them all. If you are an artist, designer or developer and have the means to get to an FITC event, you won’t regret the trip. A big thanks to Shawn Pucknell and the FITC gang for making this latest event a fantastic time!

Here is a fantastic example of a personal project relating to an existing brand/product. The talented Matt Stevens decided to do some visual interpretations of Nike’s famous Air Max 1 sneaker, keeping the same general layout for each design and messing with concept, style and color treatment. I plucked a few of my favorites for this post, but check out the entire run. Just look at all the diverse styles.

Not only are all of his fun interpretations well executed, but he’s drawing on all kinds of nerdy material like comics, films, cartoons, toys as well as paying homage to some of his favorite artists and designers like Olly Moss, Aesthetic Apparatus, Aaron Draplin and more. Matt is taking something and making it his own, and he’s obviously having a lot of fun. That’s reason #1, keep rockin’ Matt!

Swing by Matt’s official site for more of his work, and say hello on Twitter. Thanks to my bud Fulton Hawk for reminding me of this series.

Here is some excellent work coming out of Boulder, Colorado by the talented Anthony Dimitre. I have always enjoyed simplified illustration and logos, stuff that might appear on national parks signage or cub scout badges, and Anthony’s ability to capture an image with very few shapes is certainly of that ilk. I want that snail on a shirt.

Swing on over to Anthony’s website for more of his work, and say hello on Twitter.

News: Unfortunately there will be no Signalnoise Broadcast this week as I am busy packing and shipping t-shirts, then am off for a little trip until Sunday. But next week things will be back on schedule with the broadcast, along with more fun t-shirt news. Have a great weekend, everyone!

This Tuesday I would like to post a simple compilation of design talks on TED. For those of you unfamiliar with TED, it’s the premiere source of inspiration and forward thinking on the web with over 700 talks across an array of issues and topics. But for now, here are a few of my favorite talks dealing with art, design, inspiration, ambition and chasing your goals. If you have a little chunk of time to have a watch, or just play these in the background as you work, you won’t regret it.

PS. Thanks so Scott for bringing that Marian Bantjes talk to my attention. Great stuff.