A while back we posted about a great new product by the online friend of all designers known as Swiss-Miss. Tattly sells beautifully designed temporary tattoos to parents, kids, adult-kids and to anyone else who needs them. As a parent, I was always well aware of how hard it was to find cool temporary tattoos for kids unless they liked fairies, dinosaurs or skulls. Those days are over and now Chopping Block has it’s very own Tattly in the shape of the Space Shuttle.
The art is a detail taken from our “Above Earth” t-shirt and poster design. Get some now for a mere $5 for a set of two.
Our Chop Cards are ideal for making your mobile dreams come true!
We just got another batch of mobile design index cards back from the printer. Now you too can brainstorm like a pro with one hundred spot-color mobile device frames printed on high quality bright white index cards. Stockpile them for yourself or share them with a team. Pen, pencil, horizontal or vertical, with a handful of these bad boys you are ready to design the crazy future of mobile design!
Our team is often asked to mastermind and deliver new UX design solutions, or fix existing ones. A task which always entails lots of potential options, fresh ideas and rapid ideation. When the various bits (sections, platforms, navigation, etc..) of an interactive project are rapidly shifting, sketchbooks & notepads can not always keep up. Project discovery with index cards allow us to seamlessly explore design, user flows, application scale and more. It enables a team to challenge conventions or refine goals by shifting/swapping cards around until things feel right.
We believe that every creative idea worth discussing should be drawn. Experience has proven that a few hours of drawing & prototyping interactive applications can save days (if not weeks) development and testing.
If you really want to be an overachiever, our friends at Woomoo Inc. have created a genius app called POPapp that turns your Chop Card sketches into clickable mobile prototypes. Together we are combining the future and the past all for the price of $7.50 and a free app!
Over the past two years The Chopping Block has been working with the National Constitution Center on a few projects centered around electoral politics. While we were toiling over the presidential battle royale, the rest of the NCC team installed and opened “American Spirits”, an incredibly beautiful exhibit on the American experiment with prohibition (also known as the 18th amendment).
You don’t have to be a fan of alcohol or history to enjoy this exhibit, there is plenty there for designerds as well. Shown above are three of five panels from “Wayne Wheeler’s Amazing Amendment Machine”, a highlight of the exhibit that is something of a cross between sculpture, animation, information design with just a touch of a Rube Goldberg. While the machine is not our brainchild, we did get to assist in the design of “Choose Your Words” and the “High-striker” panels (above images center and right).
Read More…
When it comes to writing the CSS for a big, complicated page, CSS Grid Systems are an invaluable tool. You get consistency across your code and speed in writing the CSS. There are plenty of options out there already, such as 960.gs, Blue Print, and Susy.
However, using a third-party grid system isn’t always the right choice. If the situation requires you to be concerned about file size, a third-party system might add more CSS than is warranted. And sometimes other grid systems may not match your exact requirements for number of columns or gutter size (especially if the design you are building isn’t based on a consistent grid).
Building your own grid system can be a pain as much of the code is repetitive, just minor changes to class names and percentages. However, with a simple loop in SASS, you can avoid the grunt work and quickly have a grid system that matches your requirements and adds little weight to your final stylesheet.
Read More…
After the success of last year’s “weFab” celebrating the history and music of The Beatles, we couldn’t resist doing one for the Fab Six of comedy. Our new “It’s Tee” features seventy-seven symbols that represent the comic genius of Monty Python. Several depicting some of the best-loved moments in their three films with a large majority dedicated to their “Flying Circus” television program that ran from 1969 to 1974.
Read More…
In life we rarely need just one thing. Often you need one thing and only really want another. Need overcomes want, but there is nothing like the whole package. We are now offering the full package to fans of Chop Shop. You too can have it all, both the idol and the whip. God help those who try and make you choose. Available for Men in black (standard stock) or chocolate (American Apparel 2001) and for women in chocolate (American Apparel 2102). Read More…
We were recently asked to design and help develop an interactive election themed exhibit at the National Constitution Center, located in the heart of historic Philadelphia. Election Central features eight private voting booths (see below) that ask the user to choose the 3 issues they consider most important to them in the coming election.
Read More…
Part of our new line of Civilicious t-shirt designs are Two illustrations featuring 6 ex-presidents inspired by the actual (now largely ceremonial) code names given to each of the presidents by the Secret Service, a tradition that began with Harry S. Truman.
Liberally motivated Team Blue, with agents Deacon, Eagle and Renegade, are keeping the world safe for Democracy and maintaining the social safety net. Comes for men and women on navy or silver colored tees.
Join Team Red, with agents Rawhide, Timberwolf and Searchlight, as they embark on a daring scheme to spread Democracy and cut taxes! Get it for men or women on cranberry or charcoal tees.
We have recently been posting 8-bit versions of the most beloved American presidents in recent days for an upcoming design for this Spring. We couldn’t help but run a small batch of George and Abe called, “Presidents Play” just in time for the holiday.
If you are like me and like bands that are bigger than Jesus, play live spontaneous shows on rooftops, like to cross streets in perfect line formation and are at least 75% the Eggmen — well, then you will have to love this new tshirt design from Chop Shop.
In all there are 62 icons that relate to fab history and 23 icons that symbolize specific songs. Some can only be cracked by die-hard fans. Let us know if you get them all and we will deem you wonderfoul.
See more at 