Big time Dedleg pirate booty coming soon. The oil spill t-shirt designs have been finalized, and should be arriving the week of the 26th. Fortunately, it looks like BP hasn’t quite fixed the leak just yet, phew. I was getting worried there!

Have a peek at the finished designs — I’ll be offering both a solid asphalt shirt and, for my burgeoning hippie constituency¹, a black tie-dye version, which is a bit more reminiscent of the streaked, poisoned depths of the Gulf

¹ Dedleg LLC has no knowledge of any hippie constituency — the audience seems to skew more skater/stoner than stoner/stoner, but tie dye has two letters in common with irony, and that’s no coincidence.

Paul Rand’s logo for Westinghouse —

CREATURE-IZED —

Yeah, so this is a total bite. But if you’re going to bite somebody’s shit, you might as well bite from the best. Why would you want to put garbage in your mouth anyway?

I had to cheat, too. Boy, I really suck.

Also, I realize that while I’m being a literalist here, the term “shit” carries a rather foul connotation. Fortunately, in art/design/whatevs, not all shit stinks. Let’s just say, Paul Rand didn’t need to gas the bathroom with Oust when he was done with his doodoo.

Westinghouse ad designed by Paul Rand

Go ahead, watch it… just do it, already. Or don’t… have it your way. Okay, I’m done.

Maybe it’s a statement about the gross excesses of capitalism, maybe it’s a dark portent of the near future, maybe it’s a celebration of iconic logo design, fuck, maybe it’s just a great, thoughtful cartoon! Either way, it definitely deserves the Academy Award, and your time, even if it isn’t on IMAX.

Thanks for the tip, Nathaniel.

Anyway, in light of yesterday’s post… I figured enough time had passed that I could get away with this parody without invoking any kind of ugly Tanya Harding insinuations.

Got a hell of an itch on the inner thigh there, and the whole area’s really starting to stink. Anybody wanna be a friend?

Lighthearted little rip-offs are a veritable staple in the world of skateboard graphics — as far as I’m concerned, this is step one to becoming a successful mega brand. I’m thinking snowboard goggles, I’m thinking reality show on MTV, I’m thinking giant, hazy sweatshop in one of those Asian jungle countries. Oh, and Tek Decks! Duh. All we need now are some actual skateboards! And, I guess, like, the respect of the community. And maybe some legs that aren’t totally fucked.

I’m willing to mix and match. Two out of three? One for the price of two? Anything?

If I say “you’re not supposed to get it”, that’ll make it seem better, artwise, right? Sarcasticallywise.

Now, the following drawing, by comparison, might as well have a speech bubble with the words, “Keep it simple, stupid” tacked onto it (god knows I tacked on enough other purposeless shit in an effort to make something vaguely resembling “cool”). It could learn a few things from the doodle above it, to say the least. I think I’ll title the piece:

Q: What the fuck were you thinking?
A: Almost literally nothing.

This was one of those creative projects where you’re not really happy with your progress and just keep adding more shit on, hoping that it’ll somehow get incrementally better. This is almost never the case, most often resulting in the drawing only getting incrementally weirder. At the very least, weird is better than boring so… uh… high fives all around, gang!

Welcome to dedleg, folks. We don’t skim the fat, because that’s what people who get paid for this type of shit have to do.

Minor league baseball logos are far cooler than their grown-up counterparts — they usually employ cartoons, keeping things more playful and not as serious as the professionals who feel the need to turn themselves into unnaturally muscle-bound freaks in order to play. Which is refreshing in a culture that treats sports as less of a game and more of a religion or dangerous cult. I’ve actually seen someone beaten with a stick over a Red Sox game. One of those situations where you have to sit back with some popcorn and laugh, because otherwise you’d cry.

Various minor league baseball logos

Anyway, I was always more of a tee ball guy, but I understand that some people aren’t scared of projectiles being lobbed at them. So I present to you, The Dedleg Outfielders. However, try-outs were last Saturday. So… sorry champ, maybe next year.

Why not?

Well… still doesn’t look like a g, but whatever. It’s 140 characters or less, and that’s all the kids care about anyway.

I guess making parodies of cheesy pop song lyrics doesn’t really work when you switch out an easily rhymed word like “girl” with “logo.”

Originally the idea here was to take an element from the first “logo,” as it were, and carry it over to a new doodle, letting it evolve naturally (hey, weed is natural, prudes). Nonetheless, I lost the reigns here a little bit, in case that wasn’t obvious, and I think this ended up as more of a devolution than anything. For one thing, “DG” isn’t even a logical abbreviation for “dedleg”. But not like that matters, considering by the third iteration it was totally illegible anyway.

I often lament that what I love to do doesn’t pay the rent. But sometimes, I can really understand why.

Anybody need a male escort? Special talents include mediocre logo design.