Chris Zuppa - Zuppa Design

My good friend and one of the designers here at Purple Gorilla, Chris Zuppa, recently launched his brand new website featuring his work. Like many others here at Purple Gorilla, Chris is a graduate from Full Sail University, with a B.Sc in Digital Arts & Design. Check out some of his work below in his demo reel and give him a shout on twitter.

2011 Demo Reel from chris zuppa on Vimeo.

MegaCon 2011 - Meeting Stan Lee

This past weekend I had the privilege of meeting Stan "The Man" Lee at MegaCon 2011 here in Orlando, FL. If you're unfamiliar with his work, well then you need to crawl out of your cave.

Together with my good friend Scott, we had a 3 day pass so we could get the most out of this awesome event. We met greats like Stan Lee, William Shatner & Lou Ferrigno. Here are some of our highlights...


Q&A with William Shatner aka. Captain James T. Kirk

Signed Amazing Spiderman Issue# 1, got $20 000 - $40 000 laying around?

New Purple Gorilla Logo - April 1st

On Friday, April 1st I will reveal the new Purple Gorilla logo. As so many of you have been asking me, no this is not a April fools joke!

I'm also printing stickers in the next few weeks & the first Purple Gorilla T-Shirt is coming soon after! Exciting stuff happening. If you'd like a shirt, just shoot me an e-mail so I can put your name down as a definite buyer. purplegorilla@mail.com, you'll also receive a free sticker with your shirt and some other goodies!

Gazelle ft. Teba - Chic Afrique

If you've been following PG the past few months you'll know we worked on the Ashtray Electric & Gazelle music video that was released in December 2010. Gazelle now returned with a new video and it truly brings out the African Savannah.

" The always theatrical and expressive Gazelle takes to the African Savanah in the search for a connection between a real world and a mythical place. Kings, Queens, a Sangoma and the Tokolosh all play their part in what is to be one of the most coveted and cinematic music videos in South Africa this year "

Enjoy.

Record Store Day 2011

The countdown has begun! For those of you unfamiliar with Record Store Day, here's your education for the day... Record Store Day is an internationally celebrated day observed the third Saturday of April each year. Founded in 2007, its purpose is to celebrate the art of music. The day brings together fans, artists, and the over 700 independently owned record stores in the US, along with hundreds of independent record stores across the world.

The fourth annual Record Store Day will take place on Saturday, April 16, 2011 & Ozzy Osbourne has been voted as the official ambassador. Upcoming releases you can expect include Foo Fighters, Franz Ferdinand, Green Day, Moss & many more.

Check out the official Record Store Day website for a participating store near you!

aKING - The Runaround Animated Music Video

South African rockers, aKING, recently released their brand new animated music video created by visual genius, Louis Minnaar. If you're unfamiliar with the South African music scene you definitely need to check it out, so much talent from a beautiful country.

Chicago & LA... Here I come

Photo: Brendon Weyers

On April 22nd, I'll be making my way to Chicago, Illinois and the city of Lost Angels a few days later. I'm very excited for this trip, spreading the PG love wherever I go and visiting some old friends. I'll finally have the opportunity to check out some of my favorite stores, my friend Mr. Johnny Cupcakes & The Hundreds. I'll post more details on my trip closer to departure.

New PG Logo Sneak Peak

I've been promising you new logo details for a while now and it's almost time to release the official new Purple Gorilla logo. I'm very excited, at the same time I'm working on ideas for the new website and the first PG t-shirt line. Stay tuned my peeps...

Arcade Fire & Spike Jonze Short Film (The Suburbs)

Scenes From The Suburbs, inspired by Grammy winning band, Arcade Fire, The Suburbs, is an episodic and impressionist look of friends drifting apart set against a dystopic world where 'burbs and towns go to war against each other. Under the conceit of a man trying to piece together memories, scenes jump, rise and fall, and are all impressively performed by actors who naturally capture teenagedom, even if the narrative leaves you scratching your head.

Bandmembers (and brothers) Will Butler and Win Butler wrote the project with Jonze, who cast total unknowns in Austin. How unknown you ask? The lead girl was a drama techie who did lighting for school plays.

Scenes from the Suburbs will play at SXSW in March, then will get released on DVD in the spring. The band is also considering entering it into more festivals.

I think this is a great approach to bring new light to music videos, we could see a new trend here...

Thank you to Hollywood Reporter for the article.

Arctic Monkeys Announce Fourth Album Details

Arctic Monkeys will release their fourth album, entitled ‘Suck It and See’ on Monday 6th June 2011.

‘Suck It and See’ features 12 new Arctic Monkeys’ songs and was produced by James Ford at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles.

The album will be available on CD, vinyl and via digital download. The tracklisting for ‘Suck It and See’ is below:

1. She’s Thunderstorms
2. Black Treacle
3. Brick by Brick
4. The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala
5. Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair
6. Library Pictures
7. All My Own Stunts
8. Reckless Serenade
9. Piledriver Waltz
10. Love is a Laserquest
11. Suck It and See
12. That’s Where You’re Wrong

Purple Gorilla Skateboards

I've been getting a crazy amount of requests for Purple Gorilla Skateboards and I think it's awesome. Never really thought about it too much but seems like I'm going to have to make it happen. Keep your eyes open for updates on the launch of the new logo and website!

Here's a piece by one my favorite artists, Don Pendleton. He did this piece for Alien Workshop.
Check out Don's new website HERE

New Purple Gorilla Logo

Like I said in previous posts, I'm working hard on bringing you the new Purple Gorilla look. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll have everything in place. And when I say everything I mean logo, website, t-shirts etc all at once! Stay tuned on Twitter for more updates as we get closer to the launch.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/_PurpleGorilla
Another peak at something on the works...

iPad 2 Is Here

March 2nd Steve Jobs made a surprise appearance at the Apple keynote in San Francisco to bring you the next generation iPad.

It will be available for sale on Friday, March 11, 2011 in the U.S. and on March 25, 2011 in selected countries worldwide.

It will be available both on AT&T and Verizon for the same price as the original iPad -- the cheapest wi-fi only 16GB version costs $499. The most expensive version featuring wi-fi and 3G and 64GB costs $829.

It sports a new chip called A5 that makes the tablet much faster than the previous version. It comes in two colors white and black.

It has front and back cameras. The new tablet is 33% thinner at 8.8 mm, and is slightly lighter at 1.3 pounds (versus 1.5 pounds for the original iPad.) Its battery life is the same at 10 hours.

Let me know your thoughts on this new Apple creation. I honestly think all the features from the 2 should have been in the first version so I'm not too amped about it.

Arctic Monkeys Release New Song & Video

Arctic Monkeys have released a new song called 'Brick By Brick' today (March 4th).
Footage in the video hints that the track was produced at Hollywood's Sunset Sound Studios by longtime producer James Ford. The band recorded their new album in the Los Angeles district, no confirmed release date as of yet.

It's coming

It's almost time to release our new logo, been working hard on it the past few weeks. ALSO I'm proud to bring you the first range of Purple Gorilla shirts along with our brand new website! I'm stoked, this random dude next to me at Panera Bread looks stoked so you should be stoked. More details coming soon people!