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.”
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.
(Images via Buffalo Bill Gates/Kalle Mattsson)
TONY MONTANNA NICOLE SMITH
MICKEY MAOZEDONG
SPOCKAHONTAS
SMILEY CURYS
ALICE IN WONDERLANDY WARHOL
BRUCE LEE.T.
RINGO STARNOLD ZWARZENEGGER
QUENTIN TARANTINA TURNER
CROCODILE DUNDEE RAMONE
PAUL MCCARTMAN
MAD MAXL ROSE
MARILY MONROWAN ATKINSON
JOLLY ROGER RABBIT
EMINEM C HAMMER
STEVIE WONDERWOMAN
YOKO BONO
VANILLA ISAAC NEWTON
KATE MOZZY
BABAR KELLY
PUTINTIN
GANDALF
DIRTY HARRY POTTER
RIHANNIBAL LECTER
BALOU REED
TUPAC MAN
RONALD REAGANDHI
ANNE FRANK SINATRA
MICHAEL DOUGLASSIE
ROBOCOPRAH WINFREY
GALILEO GALILEIA
JOHN F. KENEDDIE MURPHY
JOHN LENIN
BUFFALO BILL GATES
MADONNALD DUCK
LADY GAGARIN
GEORGE MICHAEL JACKSON
ELTON JOHN WAYNE
FREDDY MERCURI GELLER
CHER GUEVARRA
