Clever and Creative C-Notes. Redesign the $100 Bill at Make Your Franklin.

above: the 100$ bill redesigned by Sean Fermoyle

Make Your Franklin is an online community art project devised by French designers Vincent Desdoigts, Martin Joubert and Etienne Lecorre, that allows anyone to design their own version of the United States 100$ bill. They are asking for you to recreate the money with a symbol of modern society.

All you have to do is download the template (a gigantic jpeg of the C-note) and start designing. Then you can upload your finished Benjamin to their online gallery. They simply ask that it be no larger than 7300 x 3000 pixels and no smaller than 1000 x 411 pixels.



above: bills with popular iconography like Paul Stanley's KISS make-up and Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa, by Molle William and Loic Bel respectively, were amongst the designs submitted

Some people have gone all out and created viable and beautiful alternatives to the paper currency, while others (myself included) just had some fun defacing ol' Mr. Franklin with icons and imagery reflective of trendy and popular culture (e.g Disney, Mona Lisa, KISS, etc).

Here's a few of the bill redesigns from their online gallery, selected at the time this post was written. I'm sure many more terrific designs have since been submitted.

First, some seriously beautiful redesigns of the $100 bill:

Alexandre Manet Pikartzo:

Christelle Mozzati:

Julien Benayt:

Hugo Lecrux:

Arinin Evgeny:


And some funny money:

Two versions of Mickey Money by Didier Gerardin:


Paul Schuler gave it a complete Khadafi overhaul:
A Pink Floyd reference from Thomas Fontaine:

An homage to Darth Vader by Sylvain Weiss:

Agathe Teubner brings the American Eagle to life:

Some colorful currency from Martin Joubert:

Cedric Bariou asks Why So Serious? with his joker version:
Dekker Dryer's Monopoly Money:

Superhero C-note from Arlam:

Wasted Rita's take on a song we all know:

Vivien Cormier's illustrated version:

Fabio Maiorana cleverly gave Ben some time off:

and Cabanes' toxic money:

Bouton Bleue punks it up:

and a lovely minimal take on it from Burkhardthauke:

My own lame contribution to the project:


Give it a try or just view the gallery of submitted designs at Make your Franklin.

Vintage Furniture Re-upholstered That Speaks To You From Voici!

Voici! is the new-born child of Los Angeles gallery voila! A highly individual line of limited edition handcrafted upholstery pieces from LA-based Belgian native madame voila! (alias Katrien Van der Schueren) and UK-based madame voici! (alias Jo Laurie).



Using vintage fabrics gathered during travels around the globe, they re-upholster and re-finish vintage furniture, so that they are born again with a new persona. If they can’t find the appropriate pieces or don’t have the right fabric to play with, they create their own toys.

Of their many unusual pieces, the Wordy collection of furnishings with silk-screened quotes from the likes of Oscar Wilde and Albert Einstein printed in a cream, silver or white typewritten font on soft cotton denim is one of my favorites.

The Wordy Double Seater I:




A voici! limited edition piece. They took a low, vintage two-seater sofa and gave it the voici! touch. The soft denim cotton fabric has hand-silk screened designs on the cushions of inspirational quotes by famous leaders and innovators. Ask about getting these quotes put on a fabric of your choice.
Length : 35
Height : 29
Width : 55
$3400, buy it here

The Wordy Double Seater II:


A voici! limited edition piece. They took a low, vintage two-seater sofa and gave it the voici! touch. The soft denim cotton fabric has hand-silkscreened designs on the cushions of inspirational quotes by famous leaders and innovators. Ask about getting these quotes put on a fabric of your choice.
Length : 35
Height : 29
Width : 55
$3400, buy it here

The Wordy Armchair:



This single-seater version of their very popular "Wordy double seater" only seats one and boasts not only a comfortable place to sit, but a recycled vintage chair frame given new life in our studio. The soft denim cotton fabric has hand-silk screened designs on the cushions of inspirational quotes by famous leaders and innovators. This chair is available only in a limited edition. Ask about getting these quotes put on a fabric of your choice.
Length : 28
Height : 29
Width : 30
$1,940, buy it here

Wordy Pillows:


The pillows are also available in pink type on brown fabric.

Like the rest of the collection, you can inquire about other fabrics for the pillows .
$190 each, buy them here.

The Sherpa - A Stylish Skin For Your Sharpie Marker and Other Disposable Pens

Now you can dress up your Sharpie and other disposable pens* with these marker cases from Sherpa




above image courtesy of Cheftalk

The Sherpa™ is a unique pen shell that holds a variety of disposable pens and markers including Sharpie®, Pilot® pen, uni-ball® pens and Accent® highlighters. It comes in 22 different styles for you to enjoy. Each Sherpa™ is designed with an innovative cap to keep the color of your marker or pen bold and fresh every time.

Here are a few of their available styles:





Custom Corporate versions are also available.

*other pens that work with the Sherpa

The Sherpa™

Buy the Sherpa here

Street Artist RETNA Gets Some Tail As He Hand Paints A $60 Million Vista Jet.

As part of a partnership with VistaJet & Bombardier Aerospace, 31 year old Los Angeles street artist RETNA has hand-painted a unique artwork on the tail of a VistaJet Global Express XRS as part of his Hallelujah World Tour.






Those familiar with RETNA's work will recognize the iconic styled heiroglyphics which he uses in much of his art, as shown in the multiple examples of his work below:








This $60,000,000 luxury aircraft will be the star of VistaJet’s fleet of 31 private jets. Drawing from a wide array of influences including the Old English style of gang graffiti writings, Asian calligraphy, Incan & Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hebrew and Arabic, RETNA’s vision manifests as an international visual language all his own.




At EBACE 2011, the premier aviation show in Geneva, May 17 - 19, RETNA will officially launch his artistic vocabulary over 50,000 feet above ground.

VistaJet and RETNA is a new partnership that begun with VistaJet’s and Bombardier’s sponsorship of RETNA’s “Hallelujah World Tour,” presented by Andy Valmorbida and Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, which launched in New York in February and will continue throughout the year in cities including London and Hong Kong.



Retna, whose real name is Marquis Lewis, comes from a graffiti background. The nom de plume – derived from a Raekwon song – was originally given to a friend. “I gave him a sketch, and he went and battled some dude and he lost,” Retna said previously in an interview with Upper Playground. “He wasn’t even supposed to battle anyone anyway with my sketch that I gave him. And on top of that he lost, so that really pissed me off, so I took the name back.”

Over the past few years, Retna has been known less for his graffiti pieces than a unique written language derived from various ancient scripts.



“It draws on Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Mayan glyphs, as well as Mexican and pre-Columbian heritage,” Jeffrey Deitch, director of MoCA in Los Angeles, said. “He filters those traditions through the tradition of tagging and graffiti that has been seen in Los Angeles since the 1970s. Within these traditions, he has come up with something entirely his own.”

The New York exhibition, The Hallelujah World Tour (Venice and London are the two other stops) is Retna’s biggest show to date.

Images courtesy of Bombardier and RETNA