After examining our analytics over the last year, we found that we got a lot of hits when we ran a story about famous pictures that had been re-imagined with Lego. Really? Are people that enamoured with the toy of the century that they’re consistently hitting our flagship site with their Lego-related searches? In hopes that some of these folks found other useful content in our Design News, we’re breaking out one last Lego post for 2008.

Today’s post takes aim at Lego in a whole new, thug life wearing, champaign poppin’, Masarati squealing sort of way. From Run DMC, to Mos Def, A Tribe Called Quest and even the Old Dirty Bastard (RIP), take a look at 20 hip hop albums that have been totally revamped with Lego.

A giant Ice Wall was erected outside the Royal Festival Hall, which encompassed an array of fruit, vegetables and seafood magnificently suspended in ice. This artistic display showcased the freshness and high quality of frozen foods. Say what? At five meters wide and two meters high, the Ice Wall, unsurprisingly, was a real crowd puller amongst the many day-trippers and office workers milling around along the Southbank. According to Brian Young, Director-General of the BFFF “The purpose of the Ice Wall was to strip away the packaging and showcase the freshness of this essential food item. It was frozen food ‘naked’ and on display for everyone to see. This exhibit proved that frozen is one of the freshest and most natural forms of food you can buy.”

‘Trace a Face’ is a collaboration between Konst & Teknik and Jonathan Puckey. 13 fellow artists and designers were asked to trace a face using the ‘Delauney Raster’, a custom-written image vectorization tool for adobe illustrator by Jonathan Puckey. The tool combines the intuitive and motion based character of a brush or a pencil with the distortive and manipulating characteristics of a filter. The publication aims to encourage and discuss the development and usage of modern tools in contemporary graphic design practise and is the first in an ongoing series of collaborative publications initiated by Konst & Teknik. Contributors include: 1:2:3, Europa, Fageta, Florian Ludwig, Harm van den Dorpel, Kristina Brusa, Laurenz Brunner, Martijn Hendriks, Martin Ström, NODE Berlin Oslo, Ola Persson, Stefan Narancic and Abäke.

Don’t Panic has some wonderful coverage of Bloomberg Newcontemporaries, an exhibition that displays a wide range of works from oil paintings, to print, films and sculptures. The jury of Ken Lum, Ceal Floyer and Richard Billingham chose 57 fine art students from around the country in an effort to give them a proper stage to show their works to a broader audience. St-Clair Clarke’s sculpture, “The Unconscious Significance of Hair: Queen” is a massive, black creation with soft shapes and romantic details, mainly made out of synthetic hair. Grossly appealing, but not as amazing as Steve Bishop’s “Suspension of Disbelief”, a twisted mix of taxidermy and light.

At the entrance of the exhibit, Littlewhitehead’s masked man “So Many Fellows Find Themselves” welcomes the audience. “The installation is a man in a chair, looking relaxed and thoughtful. It takes a while to decide if it is a performance or not. Last but not least, Paul Westcombe’s filthy “Coffee Cups” gives the sense of dirt poured into your imagination, with a decaying world of sex and self abuse and watercolour comics. Yes, it’s fun the whole family can enjoy on this XMas day.

Kate Kretz was raised on a visual regimen of Catholicism and Technicolour films. This rich, lurid vocabulary, full of resplendent light, is used as a seductive device to pose questions about the more complex or convoluted aspects of the world surrounding us. Her work demonstrates her interest in issues of class, power, manipulation, and internally coherent systems of illusion, whether occurring on a personal or global scale.

Kate says: “I create across media boundaries, in materials deemed most suitable to the content, often worked to the point of obsessiveness. The cathectic aspect of my work is vital: a gift given to the viewer. As our world becomes more virtual, I find myself increasingly seduced by the tactile and handmade.” We just love her work, specifically her paintings which include the Holy Mother (Angelina), Jesus night lights, which are pretty suitable during the holiday season.

The 6emeia project was created and developed by the artists Anderson Augusto, also known as SÃO, and Leonardo Delafuente, also known as Delafuente. The duo live in the Barra Funda neighborhood of São Paulo where they began the project with the purpose of changing and transforming daily life. The duo’s objective is to modify the means within which we all live, proposing a new way to view things by reflecting upon themes generated through creative and unusual works. Such modifications are made by painting storm drains, light posts, manhole covers and any other object which makes up the urban scenario.

With the painted storm drains, a new type of communication is proposed between art and the city as well as between art and the residents. Art then becomes within the reach and at the service of everyone. By looking with care at the most forgotten and indifferent objects, one can take in art in a new way. The painted storm drains are like colourful drops falling into an immense ash-coloured canvass. The work itself has been well received by the residents of the places which are painted, which affirms the fact that art does not always need to be viewed on the walls of galleries and museums.

Regular readers of this small intersection on the Interweb will know two things. Firstly, that we’ve probably started numerous posts with the phrase “regular readers…”, and secondly that we are video game junkies. Specifically, we have an affinity for most Nintendo-based art forms, as it truly reminds us of our roots, and past lives as NES, SNES and now Wii fanatics. Not to be repetitive, but we’ve talked about how awesome the blurred line between video games and reality has become, which sort of leads us to today’s post.

Again, the likes of the Wii, and moreso the PS3 and XBox 360 have propelled the world of gaming into new, ultra realistic realms. But there was a time when simple 3D, the kind that was popularized by systems including the N64, and Sega Dreamcast, was a feat in and of itself. Given the ability of PC-based artists to render pretty much anything they want, a small group has set out to re-create 8-bit gaming scenes in the raw, junky 3D that pioneered the way for Gran Turisimo, Gears of War, World of Warcraft, and all the rest. They remind us how far gaming has come over the past decade, and answer the what if regarding how Mario Brothers would look according to the standard set 10 years ago.

Last month I celebrated my champagne birthday, and while I was at my parent’s house, some younger family members were playing around with balloons. After a while, the static clinging antics got extremely annoying, but I had to remind myself that there was a point in time when I would have been mesmerized, nay enamoured with a handful of balloons. I remembered that my grandmother used to put coins, and paper money in balloons, and after a birthday meal, we would be permitted to select one, and lay claim to the prize therein. To be a kid again…

Think that’s creative, then you have not seen the likes of the world’s best balloon designs. From tanks sculpted entirely out of balloons, to anatomically correct portrayals of skeletal balloon animals, and even the worlds most elaborate air balloons. Although you couldn’t pay me enough to take a ride in the latter, I invite you to join me on an inflatable journey through the wonderful world of balloon art. Keep your body parts inside the train at all time, and enjoy your flight.

We’ve featured some pretty neat foldable designers before, but today’s artist should be considered a leader within this growing field. Marshall Alexander’s obviously been busy growing his repertoire of downloadable goodies, and the end result is truly worth a look see. Whether you’re a fan of paper toys, or his new set of foldschool heroes, I doubt you’ll go away unimpressed, or within the urge to try ‘em out. How hard can it be.

On his site, Marshall states: “growing up in the seventies and eighties, my childhood memories basically consist of videogames, bright plastic toys and TV cartoons. Any time that was left I spent drawing and programming games for my Commodore 64. At a later age a few of my childhood dreams became a reality when I temporarily moved to Melbourne, where I worked as a videogame programmer, did oil-painting in a studio and had my work displayed in one of the local galleries. After a course in Graphic Design I made a career-switch and became a graphic designer/illustrator. Currently back in The Netherlands I work at a small design company and spend my spare time illustrating my childhood memories and designing papertoys.” He’s livin’ the dream.

As soon as I saw this print, I knew I had to write about it. Although my disdain for glitter as nothing to do with the movie, or my past experience with crafting, but rather it has everything to do with female fashion. Too many times I’ve sat down on my couch, or buckled into my car only to find that the person who occupied the space before me had shed 5 lbs of sparkles. And thus, I was now covered in sparkles, which regardless of how much cleaning, would pester me and my attire for weeks to come. For that reason, I love Because Studio’s Glitter Herpes.

Did you watch your Lost like a good little reader? Well, good then. From the depths of dreams, imagination and creativity lies the artist named Souther Salazar. Familiar with a variety of techniques and materials, Salazar has created a fairytale world, where nothing is off limits and everything is breezy, beautiful and untamed. Thus far, his work has been unveiled in Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo. With his go-with-the-flow attitude, Salazar has created fantastic illustrations, sculptures, and installations that have captured a throng of people’s curiosities and kept them glued to his visual stories, wondering what is next to come.

Regarding his preference to draw animals instead of people, he states: “there’s more room for invention with animals. I feel like I can just have fun and make things up without referencing anything and it can still be true to the strange variety of the animal world. But ultimately I think animals, humans, buildings, plants… they don’t necessarily represent themselves. They are all just things that come out of my mind so they’re me and my imagination and my memories of people and places, all mixed up and regurgitated. A cat could be a girl, a hill could be an old man, a rock could be my house.”

Disney has collaborated with well-known contemporary artists Aroe, Bojorquez, Ewok, Rime, Suiko and Tenga to create unique Mickey Mouse inspired art. Each artist has created a rare, one-of-a-kind piece in their signature style. From limited edition Washfurn guitars, to New Era hats, and even a huge collection of numbered prints, it was all up for grabs in the BLOC28 charity auction.

This is the second wave of artists to take part in teh BLOC28 project, which has previously been graced by one of our faves, Greg ‘Crayola’ Simkins. BLOC28 helps raise funds for Art Share LA – a community arts incubator whose mission is to shape lives through art, education and community action. Go check out the portfolio, and if you’re lucky enough to have the opportunity, bid on their next auction of cool stuff.