Felt and Wire has a feature up about the studio/house I share with my special lady, Alissa Walker. Come on in, poke around the cabinets, look in the medicine cabinet, and see what kind of leftovers (gelato) we’ve got in the fridge.

Skateistan is a skateboarding school in Afghanistan. It came about when Australian skaters Oliver Percovich and Sharna Nolan took a trip to Kabul to skate. Local kids were fascinated by their boards, and insisted the two teach them how to skate. They did, and now Skatistan is a full on skateboarding academy.

To raise funds for the school, Skatistan is auctioning off a quiver of hand-painted decks by good group of skate-friendly artists. I contributed the one you see above. You can bid on the board on eBay here. If you’re interested in bidding, you will need to act fast. The auction ends tomorrow.

Click on the images to get a better look.

On Friday at noon, I will hunker down with a group of brilliant people to create a new magazine. By Sunday afternoon, it will be finished. All of the writing, photography, illustration, editing, and layout will have been completed in a span of 48hrs. As I type this, I am not completely confident that I will even survive. Luckily for me, I will have lots of help.

When I say I will have help, I’m not talking about amphetamines, automated software or an army of interns. What I’m counting on is a bunch of incredible submissions from people like you. Want to make something cool this weekend instead of your usual routine of eating and/or drinking way too much?

Here’s how it works: This Friday Aug. 27th at noon, we will announce the theme. You will have 24 hours to create something that relates to that theme. It can be a photo, a story, or a comic strip. You could paint a portrait of Bo Diddley, or maybe make a sculpture out of pipe cleaners and take a picture of it. We need all the things that make up a magazine. Illustrations, photo essays, writing… a cover (!) it’s time to bring out all those brilliant ideas. At noon on Saturday, the submissions close and we take the remaining 24 hours to choose from the work and make the magazine.

Go here to sign up for the Longshot mailing list. The theme will magically appear in your inbox at noon on Friday. After that, it’s up to you!

Last month, 181,000 people reached the limits of their 99-week unemployment benefit. As the unemployment situation in the United States reaches epic proportions, our lawmakers in Washington are busying themselves with balancing the budget and winning mid-term elections. Some people are, understandably, mad as hell.

I was asked yesterday by the New York Times Op-ed page to submit an illustration to run alongside letters from some of these severely fed-up people. It’s a heartbreaking and extremely difficult read. Being a freelancer and feeling the effects of this recession myself, this was more than just an assignment, it was a chance to write my own letter.

If you are gainfully employed today, be thankful for it!

Read the letters here. See the full-size illustration here.

I couldn’t be happier that these title frames I designed for the GOOD Design LA event were selected to be showcased in the California Design Biennial.

GOOD Design LA was a live event hosted by GOOD last year where designers proposed solutions to some of the biggest problems plaguing L.A.

I got to design these cool backgrounds for some of LA’s heavy hitters to speak in front of.

At the event, Geoff McFetridge, Stefan Bucher, Frances Anderton and more got up and proposed some cool solutions to the problems you see here.

The GOOD Design event has proven to be a successful model for creating a dialogue between design-problem solvers and their native habitats.

The California Design Biennial will be showing at the Pasadena Museum of Art through October. There’s also a nice interview with the curators at Print’s Imprint blog, and a review here at the New York Times.

If you’re particularly observant, you may have noticed a poster for the typeface Helvetica in the background of this week’s Mad Men.

Ok, let’s face it, Helvetica is super-overused and boring. Even in the context of a 1960’s ad agency. So I’d like to propose a replacement.

Hobo, designed in 1971, has no hard corners and minimal descenders. It’s not suitable for text use and barely suitable as a display face. But hey, it’s Hobo. What do you expect? When Mad Men gets into the 1970s, I will have the poster ready, and I think a few designers might actually be excited to see it.

No traffic, no clients, no emails, no deadlines,

No hotels, no luggage, no phone calls, no television,

No bathrooms, no showers, no computers, no airport,

No pool, no beach, no bar, no restaurant

No walls, no door, no ceiling, no floor

No rent, no deadlines, no neighbors, no bills

When someone asks me what I did this summer, I just say no.

More photos from our no vacation here and here.

Cover and pages from A History of Land Transportation by Maurice Fabre, designed by Erik Nitsche, 1963.

Advertisement for the book Dynamic America, A History of General Dynamics, 1961.

I’m sad that an extensive archive of Erik Nitsche’s work has been removed from flickr due to unauthorized reproductions. One bad apple has ruined it for the rest of us. So here’s a few unauthorized scans from my personal collection. Yes, two wrongs do make a right.

I’m on vacation this week, but managed to roll out some important new features to the site. There’s a new header up top and a roll call of VIPs under “Salty Salutes” on the right. Go ahead and click those links. I’ll throw in a coupon for free wiper blades.

I’ll be rolling up my sleeves and painting a few skateboards for One Way Or Another, a fundraiser to benefit Contributor. Contributor is an organization that gives skateboards to poor kids. These custom commisioned decks are selling for $150. You buy a deck, and I paint it for you.

50 talented artists including Max Erdenberger, Todd St. John, Jordan Crane, Don Pendleton and Mike Perry will be donating their valuable sweat. The decks can be purchased here.