Happy Medium

A land of rainbows, ice cream cones, blue skies, and happy little characters - welcome to the world of paper medium. In a time when so much is over-designed and we're constantly bombarded with busy imagery, there's something so incredibly refreshing about these sweet, simple, beautifully letterpressed cards. Give one to someone nice.

Cutest. Ever.

Ending the week on a cheery note here, Fern Animals by Ashley Anna Brown was my absolute favorite thing at this summer's Renegade Craft Fair at McCarren Park. My friend Liz and I, who share a love of animal-related items, were both dying over her wonderful lions with the frou-frou feather manes. Sure enough, later that afternoon, both our little lion friends had been taken home by some lucky buyers! Glad to see people buying great work.

The details in her work are just impeccable, and she uses the sweetest patterned fabrics for the animals' "outfits" (pajamas?). In the red hooded guy above, you can lower the hood to reveal his cute little head, amazing! I couldn't find any images of the feathered lions from the craft fair, but from what I gather on her blog, AAB is recovering from the craziness of a recent move and the craft fair, so I'm sure we'll see fun new stuff in her etsy shop soon!

Feeling blue and white and beachy

Maybe because it's our first day in ages with no rain on the forecast? And I'm nowhere near the beach...

From top:
Turquoise Bay, Western Australia by Carlie Statsky
St. Lucia Blue Door by Dain Larson
Surf Shop in Venice Beach by Michelle Campbell-Zurek

(All can be found for sale on etsy.com)

Leon and me

The recent MoMA exhibit, Tangled Alphabets, featured the work of Leon Ferrari and Mira Schendel, and it was a broad, extensive overview of both their life's work. But for me, it was all about several of Ferrari's elegant yet natural calligraphic works, some consising of letter-like scrawled shapes and others of actual words. Unfortunately I couldn't find a lot of this work represented online, but you can view a portion of the exhibit (now closed) on MoMA's exhibition site.
I've always loved swirly scrawly type; this type of thing is just impossible to reproduce in a font. His work inspired me to practically run home, get out the calligraphy pen and go to town (results below). Not exactly MoMA-worthy, but I think it will lead to some fun patterns and designs.

A.S. I.S.

I met Angela Spencer at my friend Cheryl's art swap party back in May, and since then I've gotten to see what a talented designer she is, making fantastic crocheted jewelry among other things. Her newest pieces feature vintage sewing spools she found while digging around in her attic at home in England, here are her words on the piece:

"I've always collected sewing stuff since I was little don't ask me why. When I was home in April I dug around in the attic and found all my old vintage sewing spools and I decided they where just too pretty for them to stay in the attic. I crochet metallic cotton around the middle turning them into a decorative pendant."

I'm also lusting after her chain necklaces and her pink quartz necklace, which was featured in this month's Lucky magazine. See more of her wonderful work at http://www.luvasis.com/

Simple Pleasures

I'd been searching for a new mug to replace the sad, stained, chipped yellow one I've had for ages. I randomly came across this one while shopping for inkjet cartridges at OfficeMax - very surprising to find anything mod/cute/design-y there. He makes my morning tea so delicious and friendly. Unfortunately there is no label on the bottom, and I threw away the (super wasteful) plastic packaging... so I have no idea who made it. Well I'm off to start some Gocco-printing, I will post some images of that project later. Happy Friday!

Karin Kautzky Jewelry

My dear friend Karin, who is also a tremendously talented art director and graphic designer, is debuting her jewelry line here in NYC this summer after tons of time spent perfecting her craft in her home studio. Her work has a modern, fluid sensibility; I want one of everything, especially the stackable rings and amazingly detailed flower necklaces.
You can find more on Karin's work here: www.karinkautzky.com.

Vintage Dutch tins

My only souvenir purchases on our Amsterdam trip, I was so incredibly psyched to find these; I had been eyeing some vintage tins on e-bay a while back but there's nothing better than coming across something totally unexpected and wonderful like these. The rectangular one is so great in all its pink/green/gold swirliness and the kooky farmers cylinder is very reminiscent of Alexander Girard, one of my all-time favorite designers. I found these in a cute store called Juffrouw Splinter. The girl told me she had just put them out on the shelves that day, so it must have been destiny...

Dutch style

On our recent trip to Amsterdam, we noticed tons of inspiring bits of typography everywhere - here are a few favorites. Everything about the city and its habitants seemed well-designed, charming, friendly.

My First Post!

I'm always interested in the process behind design and the creation of something totally new on a blank piece of paper (or canvas or webpage or any preferred medium). There's something about the loose, unsure quality of a sketch that is so appealing. I often prefer sketches to final pristine work. On that thought, I am posting the above first draft sketch for my "Lovely Pieces" logo. First blog post...done!