What do graphic designers do in their spare time, when you let them exercise complete creative freedom? Well, you probably end up with something like this Tumblr site from Stockholm-based designer Kalle Mattsson. The site, Buffalo Bill Gates (via Imgur), combines half of an image with another, and it’s always a mash-up of two celebrities – both real and fictional. For example: Spockahontas (Star Trek’s Mr. Spock and Disney’s Pocahontas), Ringo Starnold Zwarzenegger (Ringo Starr and Arnold Schwarzenegger), Eminem C Hammer (rappers Eminem and MC Hammer), and Stevie Wonderwoman (Stevie Wonder and Wonder Woman).
Perhaps Buffalo Bill Gates is Mattsson’s comment on pop culture, or it’s simply a bunch of creative nonsense. Regardless, it reflects Mattsson’s direction as a graphic designer. “My starting point is that of the graphic designer, and if there is a need for an image solution, I find the right visual language, and execute it,” he writes on his personal page. “From one point of view they have nothing in common, the image maker and the graphic designer, but from another point of view, it is the same; you make things.”
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It’s childishly silly but very funny – particularly the names given to the Frankenstein creations (still cracking up over Yoko Bono). Even Mattsson doesn’t seem to take it seriously. “These bastard images are all my fault. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s awful, I know. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I’m so sorry,” he writes. If you like them enough, you can purchase a print from Mattsson.
The Tumblr page was launched in 2014, but when we last checked it’s still going strong in 2017.
[UPDATE: In a message posted on social media on Monday morning, Princess Kate said that she herself edited the image, and apologized for the fuss that the picture had caused. “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing," she wrote, adding, "I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused."]
Major press agencies have pulled a photo of the U.K.’s Princess of Wales and her children amid concerns that it has been digitally manipulated.
How to photograph April’s solar eclipse, according to Nikon
Excitement is building for next month’s total solar eclipse that will see the moon’s shadow fall across a large part of the U.S., from Maine in the northeast all the way to Texas in the south.
Folks who make their way to the best viewing spots are reminded to protect their eyes by using specially designed solar specs or other safe viewing devices when witnessing the celestial event on April 8. Others may want to photograph the moment the moon comes directly between our planet and the sun (solar specs are still required!), and Nikon shared a video on Thursday offering some handy tips on how to do just that.