i Ladies and Gents, I’ve decided to start of the new year with some good karma by donating 100% of the profits of my store to charity for the first week of January. If there are any prints you want but hesitated on buying, now is the time, as the money you spend will be given directly to the ASPCA to help them find homes for kittehs and puppehs. I adopted my two cats from ASPCA and I just really think they do a wonderful job of finding homes for animals (they make you take a personality test and only let you adopt animals that you match to!), and treat them wonderfully during their stay at the shelter. The ASPCA is a no-kill shelter, and I encourage you to adopt from them if you are considering a pet. Happy New Year and Happy Shopping!
Pictured is Billy, adopted at age 2 from ASPCA. He lays across my desk all day trying to convince me not to work.
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Starting the New Year off right.
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Fancypants laptop cases
finally went ahead and bought a new laptop recently, my macbook was so beat to hell it is ridiculous (it was my “tv laptop” before I got a separate studio space and actually started using it regularly, so after two years of lugging it around sans-case it was not pretty). SO! First thing I thought of was “I should actually get a case for this one so it doesn’t look like shit after 3 weeks”. I cruised the internet for a few days trying to find TheMostAwesomeCaseEver but ultimately bought a regular old Incase neoprene one in the apple store until I find a case I really love. Anyway, here are my findings for your enjoyment. You’ve probably seen some of them on other design / techy blogs if you are as much of an internet fiend as I am so please don’t be all “I saw this like a year ago on gizmodo” in the comments.
I would totally buy this IN A SECOND. I have a not-so-secret love affair with anything made out of wood or even simulating wood grain. Unfortunately, the price is listed as “contact for price” or whatever, which probably means it costs the same as the laptop itself, and is not a justifiable purchase. “Available” here.
I wanted this one really badly but it is sold out. I actually emailed Steve Harrington (whose work I LOVE) to see if there were any more available and alas they are hopelessly sold out. I’m going to email Arkitip, who puts out the artist series Incase sleeves, and see if they’re every going to do a reprint.
This case from the same curated artist series is still available, and not only is it illustrated wood grain (yes!) but it also has an ORANGE INTERIOR! Made by Brooklyn’s own HunterGatherer.
These folding felt and leather cases from red maloo are pretty rad, but definitely fall in the “if I really wanted this, I could probably make it for ten dollars” category.
These two are pretty great and would make excellent stylish dude laptop sleeves, the first from etsy seller Byrd and Belle, and the second from Hand Graft.
Lastly, I’ve seen a few iterations of the envelope-as-laptop sleeve, but I think this one by Aussie company Shuky is the nicest. Most other envelope sleeves are made just for Macbook Air, but this one comes in a few sizes including the 15″ macbook pro and is available here. If you know of any other awesome laptop sleeves available, feel free to leave them in the comments! -
Want me to do your wedding invites?
’ve made it kind of my personal credo not to design and print wedding invitations except for people I am blood related to or are near relatives to in friendship status. BUT(!), I have designed some letterpress invitations for the wonderful website Bella Figura, which is owned by the same folks that run Boxcar Press, my go-to place for letterpress plates. They were awesome to work with, and guided me through the 50 step process of designing a wedding invite suite with ease. I designed two versions for them “Weber” and “Hendrix” (which comes in a two color option and a three color option for those feeling slightly more spendy). “Hendrix” was based on my friend John Hendrix’s daughter’s baby announcement, which you may have seen on my site. This version uses my font Buttermilk instead of hand-lettering for the names.
I apologize for my lack of whimsical names for the designs, I just used the last names of my made up brides and grooms (the names of course were smashups of people I know, aside from baby Anneli Hendrix, who now has a fully designed wedding invitation suite for her future wedding). Also, the photos on the site are a little weird (I picked the least curiously art directed of the bunch to post on here), but I’m hopefully getting some samples from them and I will shoot some less contrasty ones that aren’t on top of a bed of crumpled newspaper.
There are a ton of other beautiful invites on the site by other designers if mine don’t suit your fancy, so definitely poke around (but ultimately go with mine). ha! -
So, I’m making wrapping paper
Help me decide what colors to make! I’m thinking silver ink on colored French Paper, which is nice and heavy and high quality (and awesome colors). I want to narrow it down to three or four colors of paper so I picked a few from their different lines — Pop-Tone, Construction and Dur-O-Tone.
I’m thinking Cotton Candy, Blu Raspberry, Hot Fudge, and Whip Cream, but I really like all of these colors so I haven’t totally made up my mind yet…let me know what you think in the comments, which ones you’d be most likely to buy, etc.
Here is the design I’m going to print. These are all uncoated papers, so if I print with a metallic ink it won’t be incredibly shiny, just a bit shimmery. I’ll be selling them as 18 x 24 sheets in my store and using sheets to wrap the posters and whatnot that I sell (bonus!) -
Glamour Magic
‘ve had a few inquiries about the provenance of my last “about” picture, so here is the story of my (now) most prized possession: When I was 12 years old, glamour shots were all the rage. As popular as the old-timey saloon pictures you could get at amusement parks, but more accessible. All of the popular girls were getting glammed-up headshots done for fun or as birthday presents and I wanted to join in the craze. I begged my mother for glamour shots for my birthday and glamour shots I got. Apparently not all glamour shots are created equal. Instead of an in-studio professional experience, my glamour shots, “glamour magic” shots rather, were taken in a Best Western hotel room by a husband and wife team, a “photographer” and “makeup and hair artist”. I confess, I had frosted hair at the time which certainly contributed to the outcome of the shots, but they dolled me up a la 1988 and I was absolutely mortified by the result. I think I threw away all of the wallet sized photos and hid the “portfolio” of shots for years. In college, I was digging through the attic and lo and behold there they were—a suppressed memory, a time capsule of embarrassment. Of course now they are probably the only thing I would save in a fire, I love them that much.
Favorites include: Top left (with my mom, instructed to make what looks like a gang sign by popping her collar), bottom left, and the insanely inappropriate bottom middle. -
Holy S! Brand new site!!!
o this new site has been a long time coming. My previous site served me well, but now thanks to Cameron (my awesome 612a studiomate) and Evan of Fictive Kin, I have my own crazy back-end management system so I can update more than once a year. The gallery pages and about page of the site were custom built with a rails CMS, the blog is Wordpress with some serious styling and customizing, and the store is powered by Big Cartel, which Cameron magically transformed to perfectly fit the rest of the site. One of my favorite new features of the site is the super-duper comprehensive FAQ page to answer any and all questions you might have about my inspirations and process. -
Incase you missed it…
About a month ago I posted this little tutorial to twitter and drawger, but I figured I would catalog it here as well. This is in no way a comprehensive guide to drawing an A, it’s a little intro into the things I consider when attacking a type project.
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Blanket Magazine Feature
The lovely people at Blanket Magazine, an online art and design magazine, asked to write a feature about me and my work for their holiday issue. Si Scott designed the cover, utilizing my Buttermilk font in his design, and Buttermilk is featured as most of the headline type within the magazine. -
Australia, here I come!
This March I will have the pleasure of speaking at the Semi-Permanent conference in Sydney, Australia. According to their website, “Semi-Permanent is a design event. It consists of a conference and side events which include exhibitions, competitions, workshops and parties. It’s a week long celebration of all things design. Graphic Design, Film, Art, Illustration, Web Design, Photography, Visual Effects, Animation, Graffiti, Motion Graphics, Stop Motion; all these things and more. Semi-Permanent explores the diverse and exciting design world bringing together exceptionally talented artists and designers to speak at the event.”
Past speakers for the various Semi-Permanent conference locations include Shepard Fairey, Wolf Olins, Paul Pope, Wieden & Kennedy, James Jean, Marian Bantjes, Stefan Sagmeister, David Carson, Tara McPherson, Jeff Soto, Ron English, Pentagram, Jonathan Zawada and an endless list of other amazingly talented folks. I’ve decided to make a bit of a trip out of it and stay for two weeks, so definitely get in touch if you will be in Sydney at the same time. So excited!
