christian hückstädt.

There’s something about nudity, adultery, and all the other jealousies that boil just below our surfaces depicted in cardboard and vegetable collages that somehow makes it all seem a lot more scandalous.

German illustrator Christian Hückstädt’s work is a balance of contradictory extremes. Sure, it looks like something you’d find pinned on a pre-schooler’s refrigerator door, but the subject matter and nuance of emotion is distinctly adult. The simplicity and child-hood association with his media choices make it easy to overlook just how skilled he is. With just a few pieces of cardboard he’s got not just pictures, but entire stories, coming to life here.

This next one is a favourite of mine. I don’t know much German, but the onomatopoeiac beauty of “Putzmeister” isn’t too hard to decipher. Plus, there’s a toilet nearby, so that helps…

That’s just the beginning. Hückstädt also does some pretty amazing photographic work with fruits and vegetables. It’s not that easy to make a watermelon look trepidatious, but he pulls it off big time:

There haven’t been too many times in my life where I’ve said “Gee, I wish I knew more German.” (and I’ve been to Berlin…) but right now I really wish I knew what all these vegetable posts were saying. I have a feeling it’s subtle and brilliant and probably one of those things that’s a bit too smart to translate into other languages. Like reading José Saramago; if it’s that kick-ass in English, imagine how mind-blowing it is in Portugese.

These are just from two sections from Hückstädt’s site – we haven’t even gotten into his vector, graphic, and print work yet. To delve deeper (especially if you can read German) check out his prolific career on his site.

Via Lifelounge

pundo3000: advertising versus reality.

Deep down in our dark, carb-laden, fast-food munching hearts we all knew this to be true, but sometimes seeing the evidence laid out before us is a little bit hard to swallow. (That was punny, I realize, but I couldn’t stop myself…)

In pundo3000.com‘s “Werbung Gegen Realität” (Advertising Versus Reality), they’ve taken 100 (sometimes incredibly odd looking) German food products and given us a direct comparison of their packaging next to what was actually inside. I mean, sure, nobody really expects their Heringssalat to be as totally filled with juicy bits of fresh herring as is portrayed on the box, but shouldn’t it at least be approximately the same colour?

When you open your Heringssalat and it’s a bright shade of creamy mauve, it’s time to throw that shit away. Plus, you know that your Zwiebel-Hackbraten just won’t taste the same without those succulent grillmarks on whatever appears to have been intended to be a steak of some kind. If it had grillmarks, we’d know it was meant to be meat. C’mon people – where are the damn GRILLMARKS?!?!

I’m also a little suspicious of why my kohlwurst has sunk to the bottom of my Grünkohl. I like my wursts to be a little more buoyant…

You can check out the entire 100 products in all their glory here, but these are three of the more heinous ones. This Entenfleisch, Rinderroulade, and Schlemmergulasch ain’t how Grandma used to make it…

I also found a video hyping the project (complete with a culturally misunderstood quasi-old skool hip hop scratch soundtrack – I’d say the intention was some kind of irony, but I’m pretty sure Germany’s taste in music just blows…)

Via the kick ass The Denver Egotist via Funtasticus

playboy: breasts sell… who knew?

Though definitely not breaking any new ground, at least Germany is liberal enough to be honest about things. They have a (ballsy) female Chancellor, and they also have Playboy billboards with big ‘uns that, in the undying spirit of the wet tee shirt contest, show you some nip when it rains. Ah, well… it is what it is.

mondo pasta: suck on it.

Sure it’s a little bit odd, but there’s something about this that I just find amusing and cute. This ambient for Mondo Pasta in Germany used huge 1.5 metre stickers on the sides of boats to make it look like hungry people were sucking up the ships’ docking lines a la Lady and the Tramp. It’s simple, eye-catching, unexpected, and cheap. Just like good ambient should be.

(Agency: Jung von Matt, Hamburg)

Via ibelieveinadv