AJS Food Design AJS
AJS Food Design does the best lunch in Takapuna, hands down. The food is far beyond any local competition in terms of quality. I can highly recommend the beautifully spiced Morrocan Chicken ($5.00 nzd for a Quarter of a chicken with relish and salad!?!!) , the hearty Bolognase Calzone ($8.50 nzd - takeaway pictured…at my desk), Fresh Scallop Pies, and the amazing dark brown relish that comes with every take away meal. Takeaways include salad in the unreasonably low price.
AJS’s combination of great food, enormous portions, and unbeatable prices makes it a must visit if you are ever peckish in Taka’s.
Don’t be suspired if you have to queue though.
AJS Food Design, 5 Huron St, Takapuna: A-
Mareko
Ha, a large portion of this video was filmed on my doorstep, literally. Mareko’s second single from his second album is a semi ironic take on hit making, possibly taking some inspiration from The Manual. I especially enjoyed the punchline reference to Fast Crew. This song itself intentionally employs most of the tactics it derides, clever, but once you’ve heard the message, you’ll never want to listen to it again.
What is up with “Māori” Game Characters?
I realize the percentage of the market that care may well be too small to for game developer to cater for, but DAMN the Maori inspired facial tattoo’s in the video game world are bad.
Take this guy from the upcoming XBOX360 game Gears of War 2 above, real moko tell a story, this guy’s story is about the how he caught some temporary “tribal” tattoos from a Venice Beach face painter.
He’s built like Ngati Porou but his moko is all sorts of wrong.
On the right, this agent from the XBOX360 game “Crackdown” only fares a fraction better, but overall very little style or substance. I don’t feel there is anything wrong or exceptionally offensive about Maori influenced styles, but please, get a good Maori artist to design or at least consult on your projects. This way you won’t insult Maori with your dodgy ripoffs, you’ll get an aesthetic steeped in hundreds of years of design and development, and a character with much more depth in their design rationale. I got Inia Hohua to very quickly sketch up something a little more authentic.
Mark of Kri was a great game, released back in 2002 for the PS2. Rau (above) wasn’t suppose to be Maori, or any real polynesian ethnicity, apparently to avoid offending anyone down and around this part of the world. Then they make his main weapon is the Taiaha, a traditional weapon of the Maori warrior. This is like saying that the somersaulting black clad asian with a Shuriken isn’t Japanese. I think that is far more less respectful then doing your homework and getting things right.
It’s too late for Crackdown and Mark of Kri, but yo Epic! Get hooked up with my boy Inia, and you can fix that nancy’s ink up before Gears of War gets too close to going gold. Same goes for any other devs about to go “tribal”.
You can see some more of Inia’s work after the jump.
Michael Venker and The KDU
A collaboration between the KDU and NYC fashion designer Michael Venker produced this book- hand constructed out of 70 year old linen paper, and using real platinum and 24k gold detailing, the hand bound book in a huge 18 x 22 inches big. More images after the jump.
Booooooom.com
Remember Booooooom.com with seven o’s because that’s Jeff Hamada’s latest project, an art/design/music/culture blog with a collaborative twist. You have probably seen Jeff’s work as head designer for streetwear hustlers 3sixteen.
So far Booooooom seems to have a healthy mix of the above topics, and if he can keep that up, he has a permanent place in my Google Reader subscription pile. I’m extra excited about the Projects section, with Jeff’s circle of heads from around the world I can see some really epic collaborations happening. Sweeeeeet!