connecting creativity + community
I live in one of the most bicycle-friendly towns in America, Davis CA, and pretty much adore all things bicycle. Including these posters.
Eleanor Grosch at Poster Cabaret.
Stumptown Printing at Buy Olympia.
The Keep Calm Shop on Etsy.
From Small Stakes, via BB Blinks.
I became a fan of Anthony Burrill’s work with his Work Hard and Be Nice to People poster. More new, nice stuff. (Thanks to Design Crush for the find.)
Before you start your week, take a moment to wander around this site, and I promise your week will have a little more bounce to it’s step. A Love Letter For You is a mural project in Philadelphia, painted on the walls facing the Market elevated train. The project encompasses 50 painted walls, done by 40 artists. Here’s a sampling…but really, pour another cup of coffee and go to the site and enjoy all of it. (See, I gave you three chances, one for each cup of coffee.)
The Type Diaries of Vladimir Koncar (via Quipsologies). Tea bags, condoms, cigarettes, pills, hair, rotten apples…I am at a loss for words. Stunning….fun….weird…cool…inspiring.
Stephen Colbert commissioned Shepard Fairey to do his own version of an Olympic poster, and then premiered it on his show. Colbert may be over the top, but I do appreciate his shout out to the power of design.
Link to his interview with David Ross, and a surprisingly interesting discussion about what is required for an effective Olympic poster, here.
Just because. I heart letterpress, and designers who find a different way to tell the same story.
From Sycamore Street Press.
From Felt+Wire, Roll and Tumble Press.
Sarah Utter at BuyOlympia.com
The path of discovery: Meryl Friedman via Design Milk, with credit to Vik Vidor.
Prepare to swoon. Via Quipsologies, with all credit to Lettercult.com (check out their site for more…it’s pretty inspirational). Some of my favorites:
Jessica Hische. As I was putting this post together, Lettercult named Jessica 2009 Person of the Year. Well deserved. Read more about Jessica and her work here.
Josh Kenyon and Colby Nichols.
I love typography, but I am not a typographer. A few years ago I discovered Wordles, but considered them a guilty pleasure, hiding my addiction from those who were skilled and accomplished designers. I considered starting this blog with a post about Wordles, but was embarrassed to confess spending time with a program that names fonts Alpha Fridge Magnets and Grilled Cheese. But then Wordles began showing up last week on other designer blogs (Dear Coffee, I Love You and Steve Mehallo), I felt ready to share…openly and without shame.
Wordles are “word clouds” created quickly from your content, emphasizing the most significant words. You can alter the number of words used, the colors, the font and the shape. It happens instantly (hence, the addictive quality). And yes, I do feel a small pang of guilt thinking of designers spending hours pondering over the placement of each word, the weight of the type, the shape of each ligature and it’s relationship to the others…I try to maintain my dignity by using “coolvetica” and staying away from fonts that could also be food names.
I have done Obama’s speeches, each of my blogs, my friends’ blogs, and my daughter’s college essay. For birthday gifts, my youngest daughter has written stories about her friends, created Wordles, then framed them. I did a job description once, and do letters, poems, quotes and lists.
I did this based on a blog post I wrote during a trip to India.
For a friend who was fighting breast cancer (she won).
The big surprise was discovering how valuable they were for design work, to engage others to experience concepts and copy in news ways as we begin projects. I often create Wordles out of creative briefs, and have had my own clients want to use them to present design programs to their staff. I use them to kick off naming projects and sometimes just to kickstart my own imagination. I can see what words come to the surface, and see new relationships within the language. It’s particularly interesting to take all of the content from website, or a really length document, and create a Wordle out of 25 words. Try it.
My crowdsourcing|Peace o’ Pizza post, reduced to 25 words.
They’re fast, fun, and safe (as long as you stay away from the aforementioned food as fonts). Mine tend to look the same, as I stay with the same settings (half and half, coolvetica, and I try to keep it simple with the colors). But you can go nuts…and if you do, send them over. It can be our secret, I promise. wordle.net. Have at it.
This post.
I suspect the same conversation happens in every design studio. We drink coffee and someone says something clever (perhaps) and someone else says, “that would be great on a t shirt.” And later in the day, post afternoon latte run, someone designs something cool, and the fourth someone else says (again), “that would be great on a t shirt.” And repeat.
We said it. And we did it. We jumped in and opened a store, What’s The Big Idea, on zazzle.com. We’ve been wanting to do this for years, and when we were working on our New Year’s promo, the time and opportunity created a giant Venn diagram of right-timeness.
We’re not sure where this new path will lead, but we’re hoping there is something good around the corner. For us, it’s about following our curiosity, taking things into our own hands, and creating something new and energizing and even fun (remember that? fun!). This blog started that way, and we’re trusting the process of discovery.
We’ve opened with two lines, 2010|The Year To Get It Done, and live.art.fully.
We have a clipboard and stack of folders full of ideas, and we’ll keep making stuff and hoping some of it will resonate with our friends, colleagues and folks who stumble upon the shop. Heck, we might even use this social marketing thing for something besides announcing how we feel about the weather, the weekend and today’s sandwich.
So if you have a moment, click on over and check out the newest venture. Let us know what you think, and may we all brave the new year and the new decade and make something happen, like we know it can.
