Eye Gate II is a Philadelphia-based collective of friends who specialize in layered psychadelic projections. Part live performance, part video installation, Eye Gate II utlilizes found footage from old film reels and a variety of retro oil tray techniques to create an amazing viewing experience. Recently collaborating with a variety of musical acts in a few key venues around the Philadelphia area, Eye Gate II has been melting faces and blowing minds.

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Ever seen a boldly-colored monster regurgitate a killer whale? How about happy clouds ejecting t-rexes from their fluffy bosom That’s what Yis Goodwin, aka NoseGo, specializes in: a contemporary style that mixes wacky fictional creatures with the realism of fine art to deliver highly energetic work. His designs feature abstract patterns full of vibrant colors, and characters derived from his imagination and his surrounding environment.

While much of his current work is done on wood panels and the traditional painter’s canvas, he has extended into new media forms. In fact, he recently teamed up with Broken Compass Studios, an indie game studio, to create Catball Eats It All, a cute iPhone platformer based entirely off his hand-painted art.

If you travel down Germantown Avenue’s cobbled street to the Mt. Airy Section of Philadelphia you’ll come upon a tiny shop called called Artista Gallery. There you will find the whimsical, wispy and wonderful clothing of designer and batik artist, Katy Robinson. Batik is a process of dying fabric and creating designs using wax to block out patterns on the fabric. I did not fully appreciate her work until I actually tried on some of it. The pieces are unique, some are show stoppers, and all definitely meant to be worn with black to show off her work.

The sandwich reigns over Philadelphia. The king: the cheesesteak, which dates back to the 1930s. But now foodies are searching for fresh, innovative takes on such classics. Of all the delis in the city, Jake’s Sandwich Board is one of the leaders. Using local ingredients like loaves from the famous Carangi Bakery and whole pigs from the nearby Italian Market, Jake’s makes sandwiches that have locals and bloggers raving.

The Fire Steak sandwich starts with the traditional ingredients (rib-eye, fried onions, and provolone cheese) and adds a huge amount of heat with Jake’s homemade fire sauce and a crunchy deep-fried hot pepper (a ‘long-hot’ in local parlance) to top it off. The short, sweet menu also features steak sandwiches with crunchy peanut butter and a wildly popular Pig Sandwich that lets serious eaters choose toppings and spreads to create the juiciest and most succulent masterpiece without additional charges. Oh, and don’t forget to wash it all down with Jake’s microbrewed soda.

Camera at the ready, following two Philadelphia street artists as they wheat paste around the town.

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So you think you’re all cookied out after the holiday season? Well, you may want to rethink that and try treating yourself to a tumbler-full of SNAP. Think of it as your daily cookie intake, but in boozy liquid form. Philadelphia-based Art in the Age developed this ‘somewhat sweet, spicy and buttery’ spirit using an old Pennsylvania Dutch recipe for Lebkuchen (better known to most of us as gingersnaps).

The company blends real ginger, blackstrap molasses, nutmeg and cloves to create ‘a sophisticated, organic spirit…designed for people who know how to drink.’ Anyone who’s still in a baking mood after a few sips can check out the company’s recipes for things like SNAP caramels or SNAP-spiked gingersnaps, plus a whole range of SNAP-based cocktails. Snap, that’s good.

This Holiday season bring out the gelatin and rum. My Jello Americans is a small craft/food business located in Philadelphia that creates very special treats. Their last catered event was at McJAWN and Masthead Print Studio’s The Monster Show, where they served specially designed monster jello-shots with rum inside. Hello to jello, yum yum to rum rum.

Hipster City Cycle is an 8-bit bike race adventure set in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Although, the game has not been released yet, it’s been getting a lot of buzz from the media. Even the hipster-haters, such as the upper-echelon New Yorkers, are getting a kick out of the idea of the game, posted in the New York Times: ‘If this is not happening already, someone should create a Hipster City Cycle for New York’.

Artsy Philadelphians get to be the first to test out the game. Hipster City Cycle has announced that they’ll be sharing their iPhones at the Part Time Studio’s One Year Anniversary art show on December 3. The game is scheduled for release sometime in early winter and it will be available in the App Store for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

In a city full of run-down buildings, bum fights, carved names on stone walls and burnt down cars after a victorious Phillies game, you can find artist: Alex Lukas. McJAWN pays homage to this Philadelphia-based artist for turning something considerably ugly into something mysteriously beautiful.

His fascination for run-down buildings has led him to our city of brotherly love. His laughter for Batman has led McJAWN to him.

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Check out First and Fifteenth, housing famous Philly street artist, Stephen Powers, aka ESPO. Cornbread, the world’s first notable graffiti artist, used to tag his girlfriend’s name all around the city of Philadelphia, just to get her attention.

As graffiti gained more popularity, it lost its romantic essence. In 2009 with the help of the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Stephen Powers brought graffiti back to it’s original roots, in a form of a love letter. Words were painted that were drawn from the neighborhood, such as Your Everafter is All I’m After and Co-sign on Our Lifetime.

Everyone seems obsessed with the apocalypse and the resurgence of tribalism, but few artist render these end-times visions so effectively as Philadelphia-based painter Christopher Davison. If the 2012 prophecies come true, Davison should be the one to document them.

Philadelphia’s 58-floor Comcast building has been awarded the Gold Certification for LEED-CS (core and shell). The obelisk-formed building, which sits right above the Suburban railway station, boasts high performance glass and sunscreens, which helps keep out 60 per cent of the sun’s heat and contains 70 per cent of the site’s available light. The building also boasts high-efficiency water utilities, allowing for 40 per cent less of water consumption than a traditional office building. The building, Gold certified LEED by the architect Robert A.M. Stern, is one of the first, but certainly not the last, skyscraper to get certified.

Almanac Market in Philadelphia is slightly pricey, but you definitely get what you pay for. Offering fantastic bread, cheeses, produce, and cured meats such as sopressata and pepperoni, it was a great pit stop when my band played in town, and definitely more economical and tasty than hitting a greasy spoon for road snacks.

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Philadelphia-based artist AJ Fosik’s wooden sculptures look like Indonesian gods guarding an intergalactic temple built by time-traveling monks.

in 2008, I went to Philadelphia six times and I have to say, I love that city. It’s got the blue collar grit of cities like Detroit and Cleveland, but still has a big city vibe. Great galleries, great bars, and great food. If you go, be sure to check out Jinxed toy store.

Although the work of Philly artist and skateboarder Thom Lessner is infused with a touch of mockery, his illustrations are undertaken seriously. Creating cartoons of his favourite bands, like the Ramones or Thin Lizzy, has become his signature style and scored him work with Shephard Fairey and various magazines. His illustrations can also be seen at the Space1026 Gallery, which is a breeding ground for new talent.

Philly based artist Ben Woodward attended the Rhode Island School of Design, but never graduated. It hasn’t impacted on his career though. He has since become one of the founding members of artist’s collective, Space 1026, and has shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art. He’s also soon to release a kids book called ‘Sullivan’s solo’, about a bunch of birds that save their friend with … errr … poop.

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Print Liberation is an exceptional Philadelphia-based creative visual agency whose website showcases a variety of deisgn styles, each immaculately executed.