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.

So last year I eagerly spent over 80 hours (4 or 5 sleepless nights) building this custom NYC Subway Train costume for my son, and despite the fact that part of me would have easily been convinced to attempt something totally new this year, replacing the numbers and getting some sleep is a welcome change. I had intended to post the project last year, now I can do that too…

Full photoset posted on Flickr .

Added lights on the inside, my son sometimes asks me why I didn’t make the doors open and close automatically.

Time lapse of the inside foam-core structure being assembled.

You Are The Sun is the latest space themed tee by Chop Shop Store. Following on iconic tees that collected various deep space missions and historic Earth orbit missions, this new design draws a new picture of The Solar System as we know it today, complete with Carl Sagan’s pale blue dot.

With your head as a stand-in for The Sun — the tee includes all 8 planets, 7 major moons, The Asteroid Belt and even details little Pluto lost among countless Kuiper Belt objects.

We are providing yet another link here to get it for Men on American Apparel 2001 or Tultex tees and for Women on American Apparel 2102 tees.

This new event is designed for creatives who are looking to boost their interactive design chops. Maybe you’re a designer who’s dabbled in web design but want to deepen your knowledge of CSS and HTML. Maybe you’ve done some interactive design but want to learn more about subjects like user experience and content strategy.

It’s humbling to not only be speaking at the conference but to be part of the advisory board as well. The goal is to expand a designers knowledge to encompass the fundamentals of interactive design. It’s about making smarter stronger designers by demystifying the stuff that slows us down.

If you are looking for an inspiring three-day design relevant experience that expands your understanding of all things interactive, this is the one. Sign up by September 1, you’ll save $100 off your registration fee. Use the code MATTHEW you’ll save $50 more.

The MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program at School of Visual Arts was recently featured in Bluecanvas Magazine. As part of the collaboration, I was asked to be part of an informal (and documented) conversation about storytelling, illustration and the graduate program itself.

We are all natural born storytellers. We draw before we can write or speak. As children, our drawings reflect how we see and feel about ourselves and the world around us.

- Marshall Arisman, Chair

Every fall and spring I am reminded how awesome the Illustration as Visual Essay program truly is, and what an honor it is to be a part of it. (Vimeo link)

We at The Chopping Block are dedicated to the continued listening for signs of other life coming from deep space. Especially as we are are running out of new alien icons to update our alienWe shirt and are always in need of new references. We surely wouldn’t want to miss ET’s phone call as he may have some friends to suggest adding to our design. Help keep The Allen Telescope Array online and looking for intelligent signs of life.

* The Interrobang is an advanced form of alien punctuation designating curiosity and excitement all at the same time.

So we thought we would feature a few other designers who have tackled the subject in various poster designs. Many of these are also available for sale by the artists and we provide the links when available.

Justin Van Genderen has a short series of American and Soviet space mission posters on Flickr. You may know him better for his series of fictional travel posters depicting several planets featured in the Star Wars series of movies.

Simon C. Page had a huge amount of success with his International Year of Astronomy posters in 2009. The people at IYA actually picked up the series and used them to promote the event which helped further their exposure. They were seen everywhere and revealed what we already knew… people like space.

Ross Berens published a series of posters beautifully depicting each of the planets (including Pluto). Simple in concept with a sprinkling of information design makes these a must for anyone that can claim to have a favorite planet. I myself own a copy of Jupiter.

Michael Paukner has been featured here before with a post of his very own. We like his work and especially like how its focus is on bizarre theories and often junk science. Very fun.

Lastly, I thought I would post a curious project I did for my blog a few years back. After years of scouring the internet for the best images ever taken of each major body in our solar system I came across many images of early space exploration that have been largely forgotten. Often they were kind of spooky and the limitations on the technology of the day are often apparent in the images. The noise, data or curious artifacts in the images actually make the images that much more appealing. Especially haunting are many of the Soviet images which were hardly made available to the west at the time or became historical oddities. One such example being the Soviet Lunokhod Rovers many of which had been doing their best work long after the Apollo missions had already taken men to the moon and safely back home. Also check out the rarely seen first image ever returned from outer space (in 1948!) — you would think we would all be more familiar with that landmark image.

Entirely too cool temporary tattoos for designers. Another fine concept by the very Swiss Miss.

My kid has lots of tattoo books and one is of all these letters. I have actually executed this very concept with her kid/girly letters and spelled out “LOVE” and “HATE”… which in some ways may be funnier that using this more legitimate version. Shame there is no “PEACE” and “LOVE” , but that would require the buyer grow an extra finger.

I will be presenting on “Web Design for Non Web Design People”, my ongoing quest to demystify the complexity of web design and provide some real-world direction as to what designers should be doing and learning to increase their comfort and experience working online.

If you plan on attending, stop and say hello.

Update: Thanks for all the great feedback, everybody in Virginia was most excellent – AIGA Hampton Roads is a force for good. As promised I have uploaded the slide deck from the presentation (click here), have fun.