tegu blocks

Been away from here a bit too long!

My sister just had a baby girl {hello Sophie~} and my attention is going to kids things! Here are some fun toys from Tegu {that actually my sister first introduced to me}. This is their story...the founder of the company wanted to create something fun that inspires children's creativity while doing some humanitarian good. A company based in Honduras, Tegu is "a creative business founded to address unemployment, under-utilized natural and human resources and the need for entrepreneurship in Honduras..." Look at all the fun things you can create - all with a positive social impact too. Love these toys that is built on the notion of inspiration and will hopefully inspire us all~



{Photos courtesy of tegu}

threeasfour

I'm working with ArtTable - a leadership organization for professional women in the visual arts - and creating materials for their Annual Award Ceremony and Benefit Luncheon on April 16. This year, Yoko Ono is the honoree of their Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts Award, and so I have had the pleasant surprise of really learning more about her and her contributions to the art world. One fun aspect of her recent work is her fashion collaboration with threeASFOUR, where Yoko Ono's prints were used in their collection {as seen above}. I like their avant-garde creations and then just discovered that OAK is carrying some of their items {as seen below}. Interesting yes? I will keep you posted with the actual materials that I create for this event~



{Photo courtesy of threeASFOUR and OAK}

softest of warmth {natural gas ad}

This ad is AMAZING. I feel as though there is a huge stop-motion trend out there, but this one is still unique, representing natural gas with a cozy knitted textile.

From Ads of the World:

“How to make the invisible visible?” That was the question we asked ourselves when we were conceiving the new ad campaign for Natural Gas, our new client. Based on the client brief, the idea of “the softest of warmth’s” quickly became obvious. Now we just had to find a way to make this visible and touchable. We decided to materialize the softest of warmth’s delivered by Natural Gas, by a very natural and soft fabric: wool. The 35” film tells a very simple story: it shows the moment early in the morning, where a cold house starts to warm up and this way bringing comfort to its inhabitants. The soft warmth spreads around the house and hence we see wool being spread around pipes, radiators, floors, stairs, walls and other objects. ...The result is quite surprising, even poetic.

ballet-inspired wedding

I just printed a set of wedding invitations for a lovely couple here in NYC & a few hundred cards for the American Ballet Theater...so when I saw this posting of ballet-inspired bridal fashion on Martha Stewart, I felt like it was everything on my mind. I liked how the bottom dress was described with how in ballet, it's so important to have costumes that are beautiful from all angles. What a great source of inspiration! Top dress by Vera Wang, middle dresses by various {Ouma by Monique Martinez, Badgley Mischka + Lela Rose} and bottom dress by Jim Hjelm.



{Photos courtesy of Martha Stewart}

sun goddess {karen walker}

Check out this ad campaign for a designer, Karen Walker's, sunglass/eyewear line...fun stuff.



{Photos courtesy of Karen Walker Eyewear}

brook&lyn

Check out these super cute things found at a friend of a friend's shop of pre-loved items, called Brook&Lyn. The little mouse is a ring holder and the foot form is a paperweight! She also has shoes, accessories and clothes - and from the selection, a really good eye for rare finds~ {thanks A for introducing...}


{Photos courtesy of Brook&Lyn}

visualizing music

This video Vanishing Point {stills photographed here} reminded me of Edward Tufte's work as a statistician and his books such as Visual Explanations. I'm always awed by people who can represent quantitative information in a beautiful way - and I feel like the creator of this video, Takuya Hosogane, might be quite good at that.



See video here:

Vanishing Point from Bonsajo

{Video stills courtesy of Vanishing Point}

duck duck green

I'm planning a baby shower for my sister and so I'm taking notice of all the cute baby things out there~ {and there is SO much!} On that note, I wanted to introduce my friend's online shop Duck Duck Green that sells everything eco-friendly for those newcomers to this world. My friend and her partner are moms and have collected their favorite things - and even created some items for their own line. Photographed above is their cozy kit that includes everything soft and cozy for the little one. I recently bought a few gifts and the packaging is so great topped by their cute branding touch - photographed below. I also read their blog and they had this great digital scrapbooking idea to create an email address for your baby {exerpt here}:

When our kids were born, we created an email account for each of them. We email them on special occasions, or whenever we feel like sending them a little message. Birthdays, we send a happy birthday message & attach a jpeg of their invitation. When we send baby photos to family members (almost daily, I admit) we CC our kids. First steps, video clips of dance parties, Halloween costumes. Or most often, we’ll just send an impromptu love note.

We also gave their email addresses to our family and close friends so that they can say hi when the mood strikes.

Every so often, we’ll check their email accounts. It’s already so much fun to read about all the little moments we’ve had with our kids over the past two years. It’s sort of like a photo album meets journal meets scrapbook. I love to picture our son, 10 years from now, reading a note from his uncle on his 2nd birthday. Or our daughter watching a video of her first birthday cake.

Great idea right?



{Product photos courtesy of Duck Duck Green}

happy feet

Bundle up out there {or you'll end up like me, a stuffy sinus mess!} With the frigid weather back, everyone/thing needs those extra layers...and why not your chairs? These chair personality socks made me smile. Argyle or athletic tubes...I think I would do a mix and match for a kid's room or put them on your boss's chairs to fun up a Monday morning?



{Photos courtesy of Charles & Marie}

dancing poem {lou doillon for vanessa bruno}

Found this...love it.

From Style.com:

Lou Doillon returns in the second installment of Vanessa Bruno’s ongoing video poem directed by Stéphanie Di Gusto, which goes live tomorrow on the designer’s Web site. Kitted out in Bruno’s designs, Doillon performs impromptu choreography in talc and goes for a quick frolic in the dunes, all set to a composition especially for her by the Canadian pianist Gonzales. “There’s something really primal about Lou; she has great freedom,” Di Gusto told Style.com. “We just left it up to her, and at one point, she just let go. There was talc all over the room.” We got a sneak peek, below.

subway architecture

Came upon this feature of subway architecture through a random blog stroll. I'm a big fan of the NYC subway station art {tiles, installations, mosaics, etc} ...but I am absolutely impressed with the imagination and vision to create these stations photographed here. Subways/metros and their stations are such an integral part of urban design and is something that really represents that city's personality. I appreciate Design Boom for putting together this overview~

Photographed here from top to bottom: 1. moscow – komsomolskaya station; 2. prague – line a, 3. tokyo - iidabashi station; and 4. stockholm tunnelbana. See more here.


{Photos courtesy of design boom}

happy holidays~

Happy Holidays to everyone~ At this time of wrapping up the year, I want to thank you for your continued support and encouragement. I hope you, your friends and family all have a super holiday season and a new year full of good times~

I leave you here with some photos of my favorite Christmas find...ornaments made of pages from Pride & Prejudice from Brookish.

{Photos courtesy of Brookish}

must-have handheld of 2009

I watched this little parody of an iPhone and thought it was pretty well done - and so true! No waiting for pages to load, no contract, no losing reception - there's no substitute for the good old paper. Created to celebrate the the 40th anniversary of the Sun, this video is a fun way to fight the paper cause...

numbered bowls {gleena}

This weekend I went to a nice housewarming/holiday party at my friend's home. I was looking for a housewarming gift for this family who already has all of their basics. I came upon these bowls by Gleena and thought these could be so pretty in a new home. They are a versatile size that could be good for the kitchen {for little treats}, the bathroom {maybe soap?} or the bedroom {perfect for your jewelry}. I love the shape and simplicity. Apparently they are inspired by gourds found during the designer's trip to French Guiana. Just lovely...

{Photos courtesy of gleena website}

judy ross scarves

Came across these beautiful embroidered scarves by Judy Ross. They are hand embroidered in art silk on wool - I love the modern design and neutral color palette. It looks like something that stylishly can keep us warm in this winter's-on-its-way weather...


{Images courtesy of Judy Ross}

packaging with mt tape

Yesterday, my TOTA Press December 2009 cards went out in the mail! The last few days and hours of the month are always spent where my working space is upside down and I am in major packaging mode. One of my favorite packaging "tools" is mt tape - a line of masking tape that comes in beautiful colors, sizes and patterns. I am a big fan of the grid pattern {shown above} as it's versatile but adds a touch of uniqueness. But during my last trip to Japan, I got to see their latest colors and patterns, as well as other brands that have come out with similar products {like Classicky, whose cute numbers tape pictured below I got}...and of course brought them home with me. I find the tapes to be refined + simple and use them to seal envelopes, as well as post little notices to customers on their packages. For the holiday season, I bought a silver and gold duo package and used them for the December packages~



Side note: Did you know that there are blogs out there solely about tape and their uses! Like this one, happy tape...ideas ideas!

{Images courtesy of mt, uguisu shoten and happytape}

costume?

Tomorrow is Halloween...how are you dressing up? Found this Etsy shop by Devani Weaver of creations like the pink monster and cupcake shown here. I think her dresses could be amazing + stylish costumes...or perhaps inspiration to come up with something unique but wearable. Trick or treat!


{Images courtesy of devaniweaver's etsy shop}

live what you love {hijirik}

Hijirik Studio chooses some really simple but thoughtful words - live what you love - for this letterpress print. They are hand-printed with care by my friend, Hijiri...and I have found them to be a really nice gift. I got this green one was for a dear friend who lives in Portland, OR - her and her husband run their gem, Seven Virtues coffeeshop, with one set of hands and care for their newborn baby with the other. I find that these are warm words of encouragement - and a little reminder to live life to its fullest.
Live What You Love prints {and other letterpress goodies by Hijirik Studio} sold here~

graphkin

Sometimes good and fun ideas come about when you least expect it. My letterpress cards line, TOTA Press, came to reality while slurping on some soba noodles at the Sobaya counter here in the East Village. And at the time, there was some napkin sketching and listing that went on. So when I saw this designed product - Graphkin {by Colin O'Dowd} - I immediately thought of that time. Not only a clean + clever design, but functional in encouraging the mind to brainstorm and evolve some of those itty-bitty ideas that can become so much more~

{Images courtesy of colin o dowd website}

daily talk

On the Monocle website, there is a video feature of Alfred Sirleaf's Daily Talk "newspaper" that reaches thousands of Liberians every day. His version has only one copy produced - by writing the day's biggest stories on a large blackboard beside a busy road in the capital {as seen in the images here}. I thought it was a great example of making things happen with available means - and the best part of it is that this seems to be a more effective method {than a standard paper version} for the busy citizens to be in the know of current events. Quite inspiring in an out-of-the-box way... see full video here.


{Video still images from Monocle website}

literary jackets

Something that I would like to try out sometime is to design wine bottle labels and book covers. As for the latter path, I found to fun site - The Book Cover Archive - that does just that - and is a great source of print inspiration. Above are experimental covers by Michael Kosmicki inspired by the phenomena of a visual glitch - the design utilizes a logarithm that translates the title and section into a distinct graphic pattern - found via BCA's blog. Also as seen below, the cover designs of Gabriele Wilson caught my attention. I think the graphic pattern is pretty as it looks like it is painted/bleeding onto the cover; and the use of rubber-band images for the book titled "Resistance" seems perfectly thought out. All of these books can be placed on a shelf or a table to be room decor-worthy~



{Image courtesy of The Book Cover Archive website}

off to europe~

I will be out of touch for the next 10 days as I take a trip to Europe - my best friend is getting married! I'm so looking forward to spending some time in the Basque country on the French and Spanish sides.
I leave you with some postcards {well, a photo of them} that seemed quite appropriate...from the creative minds of Yellow Owl Workshop!

{Image courtesy of Yellow Owl Workshop website}

thank you springwise!

To a nice surprise, TOTA Press - my handmade letterpress card subscription service - was reviewed by Springwise {an online collective source of promising new business ideas and young ventures around the globe} as seen here. The positive support towards handmade, personal and one-of-a-kind products is super appreciated - and I hope that others feel so as well~

For more information about TOTA Press, please visit the website or our Facebook page.

sewing made by hank

Love the random fabric folding + sewing of these zippered pouches by madebyhank. In her bio the creator, Katie Henry, writes: "madebyhank is madebyhank because my last name is henry and i am far too tough to be a katie." :) Her items are definitely my aesthetic of beauty in the random and unorganized organization. And looks like she has so much fun with her threads and fabrics~ Yes, noted on my wishlist...
madebyhank is sold on etsy here.


{ Images from madebyhank website}

alphabet drawers

Whenever I see typeset collections at antique stores or vintage markets, I ALWAYS want to get them. And as I stare at them in awe, reality kicks in and I can't imagine what to do with them. If I were to use them for printing, I'd need more vowels or duplicates or etc etc...and then I sigh and walk away. Inspired by such vintage printing blocks {and quite a beauty I might add} is this drawer chest of letters by Kent and London. Love the large-scale of it and how it {literally} makes a statement. Note to self for that future loft space I get ;).


{ Images from Kent and London website }

copa soaps

I received this package of soaps for my birthday and wanted to share it. It's a medley package which includes 10 cut slivers of soaps from Beekman's COPA soaps. Mine includes all natural "flavors" such as lavender oatmeal, seaweed, lemongrass, shea mint, tea tree, avocado and more~ When you open up the box a super nice aroma fills the air - and I am just a fan of the super minimal packaging where each sliver is wrapped in brown paper tucked into a compact cardboard box. Stylish in an unpretentious way...

vintage box {8/12!}

This vintage wood tray was once used to house letterpress letters and numbers, but since my purchase at Three Potato Four, now it's the fun addition to my desk. If you look at the side of the box, it has 8-12 branded onto the wood...which is today!...which is my birthday~ {bells, whistles, the works~} Another year passed and another year to come. All in all, life is good to me and I feel quite lucky for that. Keeping my fingers crossed for another fun happy exciting spontaneity-filled year!

{Image from Three Potato Four website}