If you’ve spent anytime at all on my blog you’ll have very quickly realised that I’m an unbelievable nerd. (The first step to recovery is to admit that you are). I have a love for videogames and a love for music and so when they combine you end up with something called chiptune encompassing the digital sounds from retro consoles. There have been some remarkable chiptune creative projects that I’ve written about before.

I think it’d be fair to say that the Kings of chiptune are probably the quartet known as Anamanguchi, there’s a great feature about them over at Polygon that you should read but familiarise yourself with some of their music videos I’ve included below and if you like them enough support their KickStarter project.

I saw this on Reddit before it was picked up by The Verge, a user by the name of RudeBootie has compiled a collection of backgrounds from Fighting Games which I just had to share…

When I visited Tokyo many moons ago, I came across the ‘Creative Life Store’ known as Tokyu Hands. Monocle have put together a great little short about it.

I collected my post this morning to find some promotional material from Fab, my attention was caught by a pretty nifty looking sweatshirt I liked. I turned on my computer to have a look for it online but to my dismay was unable to locate it. I went back to my mail and noticed that it was designed by Glamour Kills Clothing and decided to look there instead.

I’m glad that I did, much like when I first discovered Drop Dead Clothing I realised that I was a fan of almost their entire range. It’s both incredible impressive and depressing to learn that the brand is the brainchild of someone so young. He started his company in his parents basement in New York.

All of these stories of young entrepreneurs has inspired me to start work on an idea I’ve had myself with one of my best friends that will hopefully reach fruition within the next year if all goes well.

These old but beautiful concept sketches from various Studio Ghibli films popped up on BuzzFeed yesterday, they were just too good not to share.

Browsing the world wide web as I’m prone to do, I came across this astonishingly hypnotising video of an artist illustrating a chaotically detailed scene, as the video was in Chinese I wasn’t able to discern any other details from it. So then, it wasn’t until I came across the same artist on Halcyon Realms that I finally learned who he was. Kim Jung-Gi hails from South Korea and that the video was taken at a drawing show in China. His drawing skills are phenomenal!

You’ve probably seen bits and pieces by Japanese artist Yoshimoto Nara here and there as his output has been fairly prolific, along with Takashi Murakami he’s been at the forefront of popular Japanese art.

His work is unquestionably accessible with his whimsical childlike illustrations. Often featuring girls and dogs, his deceptively simple images are typically infused with tension and restlessness probably inspired by his love of punk rock, sometimes manifesting itself with portraits of children with piercing gazes or brandishing small weapons.

Fortunately for you, if you haven’t been following him since his first exhibition in 1984 (and frankly why haven’t you?), a collection of his entire work has been lovingly put together in a beautiful double volume including all of his drawings, paintings, photos, sculptures and more. I’d highly recommend picking it up!

Who’d have thunk we’d have reached this point, what with the Mayan Prophecy and all that. It has to be said on a personal level, this past year hasn’t been the best of vintages but I’ve discovered incredible new places and I’ve met more new people than in the last few years combined.

I’m hoping that this new year I’ll make more of my dreams come true and I know that all that stands in the way of them is a little hard work but I’m willing to do whatever is necessary. Anyway, I wish you all the best of luck with everything you hope for. Work hard kids and stay in school!

(Thanks, Davide Vicariotto)

The German pixel-design outfit, eBoy have updated their shop to include new sizes of their Pixorama cityscape series. Whilst I adore all of it, I think the Tokyo poster stands out with it’s bright pink robot and famous brands littered across it. I have the London poster hanging in my room and although it’s been up there for a few years now, each time I scan the image I see new things that I hadn’t noticed before. This newer smaller size makes these posters much more manageable and will instantly add some charm to your very own geek-den.

Natsumi Hayashi is a young Japanese photographer that has managed to create these surreal levitating photos. It often takes hundreds of photos and jumps before she captures that perfect float. You can see more of her photography on her own website.