Graphic artist, Alex Griendling says about himself that he “likes to design things”… That is an understatement, not to mention that anyone could say that about himself, but Alex is really good at it. I mean really good… like awesome. This isn’t just some guy who plays around with the idea of being a designer: Griendling has designed countless posters for current and popular films and TV. He has dappled in freelance design, and is now working for Google’s design team.
So, now that we have concluded that Griendling is definitely not just “some” guy, let’s talk about his current project. He is operating a sci-fi inspired forum called Raygun52
For a bit of background on rayguns (even though most of us have a basic understanding of what they are) here is a good description. A creation of science fiction, the raygun is an energy-directed weapon that can emit a ray that is generally accepted to be lethal to humans and incredibly destructive.
Image Above: The 44 Space Cowboy by Dan Blackman. Image Below: Tree Spirit Ray Gun by Jay Rogers.
Now you are probably wondering what the purpose is of this “ray gun” forum. Well, thanks to Griendling’s creative imaginings we have an awesome background story. In the year 2258 a weapons manufacturing “Company” can no longer contract designers for their weapons because of a new law that prohibits them from doing so. Luckily, the futuristic people have a limited form of time travel, which they decide to use to seek help from designers of our time. Hence, Alex takes on the task of creating a public forum to collect original designs for attractive ray guns for “The Company”. Believing that the government of 2258 will discover their plan and prohibit this use of time travel technology within a year, Alex has one year to collect ray gun designs. Therefore, 52 designers will create 52 raygun concepts in 52 weeks. Managing to connect graphic artists from all over, Raygun52 has already obtained over 20 totally cool designs, complete with their own titles and narratives. Check them out at Raygun52.com and follow Griendling’s Flickr feed for more about this and other of his projects.
Image below: Love Potion No. 9000 by Cory Loven
Image below: The Whelper K-9000 by Alexandra Beguez
Image Below: AstroBlaster 5000 Prototype by Mark Weaver
Image below: The Slot Machine Gun aka “Vegas” by Jake Page
Image below: Ender by Cory Schmitz
Image below: The 2600 LR (Long Range) by Brian Weaver
Image below: P-51 Mustang “Bombs Away” by Adam Turman
Image below: 8-B Narrow-Beam De-energizer by Andy Helms
Image Below: The Grinder by Matt Stevens
The PEW PEW 1.0 by Scott Allen Hill
