All You Need Is Love

Adding some new card designs to the shop today, just in time for Valentine's Day! Hope you like them.

Photo-Ephemera

My sister-in-law generously bequeathed to us much of her late father's photography equipment collection, which includes a late 60's Polaroid Land camera, a Kodak Brownie box camera from the early 1900's, and a few Super 8-type video cameras. Included in the huge box we received in the mail recently (like Christmas morning all over again!) were a few of the original brochures that accompanied the cameras as well as some early 60s photography magazines.

I love seeing this kind of vintage print material so I thought I would share a few of my favorite spreads with you here. Wouldn't you just love to wear this excellent striped bikini/shorts/jacket combo to your next archery lesson? There's also an excellent demo showing how to make a groovy projected background from a doily. And included with one of the projectors are some great sticky letters for titling your slides and films.

It's clear these products were geared towards men, because besides the borderline-racy patterned figure study below, there were a lot of chicks in bikinis. I guess photography was really a male-dominated field back then. Times have changed!

Loving...

...the pop colors and petite, punchy graphics on crisp white paper of these limited edition prints by pancake&franks. Detail below.

New Shop Banner

I added a spiffy new banner to my etsy shop today in anticipation of some changes happening in the year ahead. The aim was to give it a more fresh, clean, modern look. What do you think?

What's Old is New

It's a whole new year, so let's....look to the past? I wanted to share a few spreads from one of my favorite design books, Antique Packaging by Josep M. Garrofe. This yummy, tactile hardcover features Victorian-era graphics from products ranging from food to pharmaceutical to cosmetics...great inspiration! The cheeky Nestle packaging is a fave - quite different from the brand's look today.

Design, Simply Put

The winter holidays is my favorite time of year for curling up in a cozy spot with a good book and a hot cup of tea. This afternoon, I'm going to take a little time out to chip away at The Count of Monte Cristo (a small literary step up from last year's Twilight obsession, ahem) - I've just passed the halfway mark of the 1200-page volume. With the joys of reading in mind, I'm loving the simplicity of these book cover designs. The magnificent imperfection of hand-rendered design, above, and beautiful classic typography with colorful patterns, below, by Christina Ottolini for Mucca Design.

Last Stop Before the Holidays

Last weekend, I visited the Brooklyn Lyceum Holiday Craft Market - a really good showing this year of fun housewares, art, and delicious food items. I got to meet one of my fave designers, Tara Hogan. I've been reading Tara's blog, INK+WIT, for ages so it was super to meet her in person and chat for a while.


Tara was kind enough to feature my yoga tees and prints on her blog recently, and I am now the proud owner of one of her lovely letterpress prints (below) which is now making my home office a cheerier place to work! If you haven't already checked out her blog or shop, get on over there!


A few other faves from the holiday market: (clockwise from top left) ceramics by jennifer fisher, artwork by Kristiana Parn, handmade plush toys by Zooguu, screenprinted moleskin journals by fisk and fern

Hello? Retro-Cuteness Calling!

I randomly came across Lab Partner's etsy shop recently and am now completely enamored with their work. A pet-loving design/illustration duo based in San Francisco, they have collaborated with Hello Lucky! letterpress studio and Monocle magazine, among others. I originally fell for their excellent San Francisco print, but I couldn't resist posting these retro charmers, from a limited edition series for a Hunt & Gather show in Australia. There are so many tasty tidbits over on their site, including a couldn't-be-cuter pair of animal pen pals, so be sure to have a look!

Paper Goods

GOOD magazine is known for its philanthropy and its top-notch design work (among other things)... so when I received my current issue, celebrating the first-ever "GOOD 100" top ideas and innovators, I expected nothing less. And of course I was not disappointed. I absolutely love these paper sculptures from the current issue! Totally fun.

If you don't subscribe to GOOD, you should! All subscription fees go to your choice of charities, so basically you're contributing to positive change in the world, and getting a great magazine for free. Can you beat that?

PC girl makes good

Yay! Another one of my PC alum friends is in the news this week. Amy Gorrek, founder of studio ag (pictured below), has her beautiful packaging design for John&Kira's Chocolates featured in AIGA 365, amidst the ranks of Pentagram and Sagmeister, Inc. Amy was kind enough to invite me to join her at the opening reception last night, where we enjoyed complimentary white wine and cheese straws in the super-packed space and tried not to get any greasy finger marks on the work as we jostled our way through the crowd.

You can view all the work until November 25th at the AIGA National Design Center.

The only exhibition images I could find are atrociously small (ahem, I guess they want you to buy the book), so here's a little montage of some of my faves.

Designing Terror

My Portfolio Center schoolmate, Sam Potts, is featured in the New York Times' Op-Art article debating the merits of the Homeland Security Terror Alerts levels, and features New York designers offering up their own solutions. Sam's version tracks the changes in the alert level, so you know when to pay attention, rather than staying in a constant state of alarm.

Yay Sam!

Hurray!

My new website is up and ready for viewing! Yep.
It's Friday, it's hot, and that's all I got today folks.
Bon week-end!

Art from Abroad

I recently finished reading Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran by Azadeh Moaveni, so it got me googling, first, imagery of Tehran, and then Iranian art.

This led me to the work of Tehran-based designer Reza Abedini, founder of his own studio in 1993, winner of numerous awards, and teacher.




I also found the calligraphic work of Mohammad Ehsai inspiring, shown below.



And, as you would expect, given the current climate in Tehran and the huge youth population, I also found a lot of street art imagery. Below is one example.

Beautiful Posters from ISO50/Scott Hansen. You can find these prints and lots of cool tees at his shop.