What we’re buying…

We thought it might be nice on occasion to let you in on a few of the our recent etsy purchases that haven’t yet been featured in our weekly Etsy Schmetsy round ups. We wouldn’t want anyone having the misconception that only sell on and post about etsy — we are also frequent etsy shoppers. This week’s purchases are all made by Samantha and Jessica (tiniestj); it appears that Owen and Kirsten have been exhibiting a bit more budgetary control.

Read on for credits and comments.

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anthropologie + hatch show print

The June Anthropologie catalog is stunning! The beautiful use of type and colors are absolutely wonderful. The creative team at Athropologie collaborated with Hatch Show Print to create the amazing piece. Check it out!

Lovely, lovely lace, lace, lace.

As some of you may know, I love lace. I am so intrigued by the femininity and intricacy of the patterns: so delicate, yet structural. Here are some delightful lace and lace-inspired finds from Etsy that I’m loving at the moment.

Row 1: Recycled Canvas and Lace Tote Bag by Forest Bound; Abelina Lace Necklace by Fox & Clover; Antique Linen and Lace Sachet by Tuttie Lou

Row 2: Laced Ring by All Those 3hrees; Greer Necklace by tree & kimball; Soft French Lace Bag by tortilla girl

Row 3: Saffron Headband by teeny house bunny; Spool of Lace by The $5 French Market; Lace Ring No. 1 by Masami Kelly

Row 4: Carved Lace Vase by Mad Hatter Ceramics; Trompe L’oeil Lace Embellished Canvas Bag by Show Pony; Leila Clutch by Percy Handmade

custom cake toppers

I have a number of friends who are planning weddings right now, that, in addition to the fact that we design wedding invitations,  makes me spend quite a bit of time thinking about weddings. There are endless ways to infuse your personality into your wedding, but one very simple place to do it is with some great cake toppers. These three designers offer some awesome customization options so you can get cake toppers that are exactly what you are looking for.

The Small Object makes fantastic crafty custom toppers. She even has a cupcake version available. To view the huge variety of toppers that The Small Object custom made, click here.

My sister gave us these molded resin cake toppers, designed by Chris Collicott, to use at our wedding. They are sold individually so you can mix and match gender and color. They are a great option for people who are looking for a very clean, modern design. Available at Zipper Gifts.

These adorable merino wool cake toppers are from Yu Yu Art. Though I initially thought they were tiny, they are about 8-inches tall. I love the vintage-ish feel that these have. You can see a ton more of these fabulous toppers here.

Font-y Friday: Tuscans

Did you like the giant S from French Vogue Kirsten pointed out a few weeks ago? Us too!

This style of type is called Tuscan and it originated well before printing. Tuscans can be identified by bifurcation of the terminals — some have speculated that the bifurcation in the earliest examples may have been a typographic equivalent of the sign of the fish, an attempt to signify Christian faith in the letters themselves. Tuscans really hit their stride in the 19th century, during the age of handbills (each trying to outdo one another in typographic excess). This is when the form started mutating like crazy: the ends trifurcated, bulges or spikes erupted mid-stem, letters split into two, swashes and flourishes sprouted out.

Tuscans can be extended or condensed, rigid or expressive: some of the newer digital ones are hand-rendered. So versatile a type style, it’s a shame it’s rarely used contemporarily outside of circus- or western- themed work.

Credits & analysis, after the jump.

jon klassen

One of my new favorite artists, Jon Klassen. I LOVE his use of color, content (lots of nature), and texture.

Fun with Crayons

Here is a great collection of the evolution of Crayola’s packaging from the dieline. I love the vintage boxes. Below is a limited edition set of reproductions of some of the older boxes. I wasn’t able to find all three, but I did find these and these.

transit map abstraction

Tokyo Rail Map Poster and Calendar, zero per zero, 2008. Click for larger version.

I got really excited about this map of Tokyo’s complex rail system by Korean designers zero per zero today. It establishes a new abstraction vocabulary (arcs) for railway maps, which since Harry Beck’s 1933 Tube map (more on which below) have tended to use variations on his circuit-boardy angle system. And it uses chocolate brown, which I hope against hope will never go out of style again. And it has an underlying 12×31 grid and comes packaged with post-it notes sized to the grid squares: that’s right; you can use the thing as a calendar! It’s available straight from Korea here — San Francisco friends give me a shout if you want something, we’ll combine shipping! along with smaller folding versions with great info backs. And New York, Osaka and Seoul editions.

A little discussion of some more great rail maps featuring Messrs Beck, Vignelli, Hertz, Jabbour and Good Magazine after the jump.

Evelin Kasikov

I first became aware of Evelin Kasikov last week when some of her work was featured on Black Eiffel. I was completely blown away and contacted her immediately to see if she was interested in being the first of our mini-interviews with artists, designers and crafters. Evelin graciously accepted. After reading her responses to our questions, I think I might love her work even more. I definitely recommend spending some time looking at her site and exploring some of the other pages of her beautiful books.

Read the complete Q & A and see more work, after the jump.

Font-y Friday: Wayne White

Todd Oldham has a book coming out in a few days, entitled Maybe Now I’ll Get the Respect I So Richly Deserve. It’s not about himself; he’s got respect aplenty after all. It’s about Wayne White, and honestly it’s a hilariously appropriate title for the first comprehensive monograph of an artist who’s been making awesome and original art for 30 years.

Beauty’s Embarrassin!

What’d I Tell Ya?

His M.O. for the last decade has been basically painting giant, usually funny typography “realistically” into mass-produced “kitsch” landscape paintings — that is to say, using their perspective and lighting and often reflections and gravity too. This, years before things like Panic Room‘s opening titles made a trend of floating type in physical perspective, or for that matter before indie artists made upcycling/overpainting found art cool.

Oh, and he used to do sets for Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and directed Peter Gabriel’s video for “Big Time” — possibly the best video ever. Several more paintings [PG-13 for language], and the Big Time video (because we both know it’s been too long) after the jump.

The ties that bind

So, father’s day is coming up and you can’t figure out what to give the guy who has everything? There’s always the safe bet of a tie. (Actually, the hipster ties we’ve rounded up here are probably more suited for your beaux, or yourself, than your dad.)

Credits and lots of commentary after the jump.

Twitter on Paper

“Putting Tweets On Paper Since May 26, 2009.”

Generally I am a pretty early adopter of technology, but I am still totally behind on the twitter phenomenon. I finally set up an account a week or two ago, and have yet to post any updates (and probably never will). Basically I have stuck my head in the sand when it comes to Twitter — until now.

Twitter on Paper is a hysterical new project from Sam Potts, where you submit a request for a tweet on paper and he will mail it to you. I definitely recommend checking out the about page, which ends with this question:

Why would anyone want a tweet on a piece of paper?
I have no idea.

I too am unsure why someone would want a tweet on paper, and yet, I sort of do.

via Swiss Miss

Portland TONIGHT: DDC at Office PCX

In case any of our readership is in Portland, we’re so jealous that you get a chance to see the solo show of DDC/Aaron Draplin. Not just an art show but “Portland’s greatest selection of cool office supplies.”

6-8pm at Office. Read all about it.

Draplin’s aesthetic — which you might recognize from Field Notes, the new Recovery.gov logo*, or his lovely hair organizer — is a mix of working-class Americana and 50s – 70s modern graphics, with occasionally an amazing burst of maximalist minimalism. I am so down to get one of the “career spanning” posters for the show (which features pretty much every project DDC has done since its inception and has today’s date in the title) when they go on sale next week (click for gianter version).

We are lucky enough to own an earlier iteration of this sort of thing that Draplin did for the Wurst Gallery’s We Heart Gocco show in 2006. It’s all sorts of design-geeky (8: Pantone 123, 42: Futura Bold, 45: CMYK misregistration) and a great introduction to this singular designer.

*It’s unclear how much of the recovery.gov and TIGER logos was done by Draplin, how much by Mode and how much by Chris Glass but he has both on his poster. In related news, have you seen Chris Glass’ He-Man and the Masters of Univers shirt concept? Can you believe that these are the guys making our federal logos these days? Our new president is so rad.

oslo national academy of the arts

It’s always interesting seeing what design students are working on these days. Pretty nice colors and textures found on Under Construction.

Cardon Copy

Cardon Copy is a pretty awesome project from designer Cardon Webb in which he redesigned found fliers and tear-offs and then replaced the originals with his redesigned posters. Conceptually I think it is a pretty neat project, but I also like that each poster was designed in a distinct style.

More posters after the jump.

Heather Benning’s Dollhouse

So, I know that many people have already blogged about this (we found it on Famille Summerbelle’s blog, who found it on Design Shimmer), but I am insanely in love with Heather Benning’s life-sized dollhouse from 2007. What’s not to love? Farmhouse? Check! Dollhouse? Check! Canada? Check! The Saskatchewan artist converted an abandoned farmhouse in Manitoba into a full-sized, livable dollhouse. And, oh, how I’d love to live in it.

Oh, and on a doll-related note, a current project of Benning’s is Field Doll, a 12-foot tall mixed-media sculpture of a doll that Benning has carried around with her on her travels.

Enjoy more photos of Benning’s delightful dollhouse after the jump.

Font-y Friday: Rubik’s Cube Font Generator

I thought this was so cool, it just begged to be a second Font-y Friday.

For the assignment, “Produce a visual representation for the word ‘Move’,” Jas Bhachu created a rubber stamp set that can be used in varying combinations to create type. I love the packaging and instruction booklet too.

I wish it were available to purchase, because I really wanted to buy one for Owen (he was always a huge fan of using the letterpress equivalent when setting metal type).

via Design Observer

Font-y Friday: Upright Scripts

Scripts, love ’em or hate ’em? Certainly a lot of them seem stuffy or old-fashioned, but, there are certain styles that still look fabulous after all these years. We’d like to look at one of our favorite subsets of script, the upright. Whether inspired by the Nineteenth-century French model or the mid-century modern craze for brush-written uprights, we can’t resist the charm of this style.

They are enjoying a recent resurgence in popularity, fueled largely by the efforts of superstar typographers Alejandro Paul and House Industries, both of whom have revived mid-century styles and made their own new faces. Here are thirteen of our favorites; credits after the jump.

show posters

Three of the four experts are going to see the Decemberists play tonight at the newly-restored and reopened, historic Fox Theater in Oakland. Since I’m a big fan of silkscreen, gig posters and the Decemberists, here is a collection of some of their beautiful show posters.

Even more posters, and all the poster credits, after the jump.

my new chair

Thought I’d share with you all my new chair. Funny how a new piece of furniture can bring me so much joy. If you like vintage furniture as much as I do, definitely check out Amandromeda online!