Multilink Magazine

Skateboarding has had it’s share of household names since finding itself back in the mainstream. Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen are often the first to be mentioned when thinking back to the 80’s boom while the casual observers tend to be more aware of younger guys like Bam Margera who have taken their profile to a wider audience now that MTV and the like are keen to provide them with a platform.

A name that gets less than it’s fair share of recognition is Natas Kaupas. To me, one of Skateboarding’s greatest strengths as a culture is its ability to be different things to different people and Natas really personifies what it’s meant to me over the years. The guy got involved on his own terms and carved his own route, that’s what it’s all about. Later, he would use that same personalized passion and drive as he began to get involved in related business ventures. Eventually finding himself as an art director he continued to turn his dedication and love for what he was involved with into some seriously fresh, original and influential styles.

Below is a 4 part ‘On Video’ biography on his career from pioneering skate legend of the 80’s to his post injury art direction of the 90’s. Don’t sleep on this if you’re feeling it’s not an area of interest to you, the cultural significance of this guys attitude and approach goes way beyond the context of skateboarding…

Part one…

Part two…

Part three…

Part four…

Hard Format is a design blog that catalogues interesting examples of music packaging…

“It seems like everybody’s talking about the end of physical music media. Who knows whether they’re right or not, but Hard Format is a little place we’ve set up to celebrate our love of brilliant music-related design. That means we’re going to focus on records, CDs, cassettes and their like. However, Hard Format isn’t intended to become a dusty museum devoted exclusively to past glories, though there’ll certainly be some of that, we also want to highlight the brilliant new design work being produced right now.”

Great inspirational resource, especially if you work in this area.

Pixel Notes by Duncan Wilson and Sirkka Hammer.

“A wallpaper consisting of four layers of varying grey tones on a bright primary backing. Each layer is perforated in a grid format and backed with a tacky adhesive similar to ‘post-it’ notes. Pixelnotes is inspired by the way we work within a space. The walls become functional, an integrated noticeboard that documents our activity within the room. Pixelated formations and shapes develop according to our patterns of use.”

Very nice!

We ran an article about these guys and their film ‘Scratching The Surface: Japan’ back in Feb 2005 as part of the first pdf issue we put together. Having shaken off their old ‘Kwai Lo’ guise, the two main guys behind the project moved to new HQ in London where they’ve been busy producing some tasteful work under the new alias of ‘Studio Rarekwai‘. May 2007 saw the release of their book ‘RackGaki’; an eye popping showcase of Japanese graffiti that comes bundled with a stunning DVD produced in collaboration with Cinema Iloobia (another name that may be familiar to long time multilink readers). Check the trailer below…

Iloobia has passed me an article on filming this that I’ve put aside for the new issue early next year but you might want to think about picking up the DVD/book now as it’s been around for a while. Available from Laurence King Publishing in all good book stores…