YOU ARE NOT COOL

April 5, 2010 10:50 AM

Flavorwire brings us some signage for the modern age from Trustocorp.

Turn your life around. Because Life is too short.

posted by Eideteker (12 comments total)

The street signs are so-so. The fake products are fantastic.
posted by Damn That Television at 10:55 AM on April 5, 2010

Happiness beer would be a good name for a quality microbrew. Or a depressing name for rebranded Bud Lite.
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:04 AM on April 5, 2010

I like their art style. If you jump to the current page 4 and 5 of their Flickr gallery, you can see most of the street sign original designs.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:18 AM on April 5, 2010

I've seen one of the signs around New York, actually, now that I think about it. His (her, their) gallery is pretty great, but my problem with the signs is that, while they look awesome, a lot of them don't necessarily look like signs. My personal metric for this type of street art is how well a particular piece blends in to its environment, and some of these stick out like sore thumbs. Compare the sunglasses at night and vandalism encouraged signs to the you are not cool sign, for example.

(I'm nitpicking here, because I love)
posted by Damn That Television at 11:21 AM on April 5, 2010

As for existing microbrews of Happiness: Pursuit of Happiness Winter Warmer (better picture on Flickr) and Liquid Happiness (no photo).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:26 AM on April 5, 2010

Is this Asian gang graffiti on this sign (on the pole)? I realized that I see this angular, random style of graffiti all the time, but it doesn't match any of the "decoding" examples posted on the Internet.
posted by crapmatic at 11:35 AM on April 5, 2010

all in all, I thought those were pretty great.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:36 AM on April 5, 2010

In college I had a curmudgeonly old communist/practically-Maoist professor who was an advisor to our socialist student group, and whenever we would organize banner drops, wheat-pasting and general street art projects he would get all self-righteous and call us "Spamarchists" wasting our time. He despised Banksy and even DuBord and their super lo-fi ilk. But I think the professionalism and slickness of these signs might even win over his Wobbly old heart. I just wish that some of them didn't look like something you'd buy at a Spencer's Gifts in the mall. However, the fake products are fucking awesome.
posted by Juicy Avenger at 12:10 PM on April 5, 2010

If you want to make a statement, spellcheck it first. It's spelled bulimia, not bulemia.
posted by Metroid Baby at 1:31 PM on April 5, 2010

Anything that amuses you and makes a few people stop and think for a moment is a good thing.
posted by davejay at 1:59 PM on April 5, 2010

If you want to make a statement, spellcheck it first. It's spelled bulimia, not bulemia.

Also coherence-check. Wtf does a Snickers have to do with bulimia, more than any other food in nthe world?
posted by drjimmy11 at 2:35 PM on April 5, 2010

Anti-conformity conformed; Church of the Sub Genius now available at Target. Or did I just have a FRANKIE SAYS flashback from 1985? The targets of outrage here (bulimia--really?) seem quite tired for 2010.

I thought the products were more clever.
posted by applemeat at 3:22 PM on April 5, 2010