Copycat

Is it just me or are these two a bit too similar for comfort?
1. Herb Lubalin hand-drawn type, 1985
2. Not Bad for a Girl logo

I actually own one of those t-shirts, I love it, but I'm a bit sad to find it's apparently a blatant rip-off.

Pretty portfolios

Two delightful portfolios I came across today:



Raquel Aparicio
María Luisa Isaza

Thank you to everyone who's bought a print from me! I've had an amazingly successful first few days - more so than I was expecting - there will be new items added very soon.

Also, I'm showing my prints at a little exhibition at the weekend, if you're in North/East London then come along. Info here and here.

Prints are done!!

Yay, finally the first batch of prints are up for sale in my etsy shop! I'm so happy with them and hope you like them too.







More coming soon!

DIY drawers

On the way to the pub last Saturday, we saw this darling little chest of drawers abandoned on the pavement outside our flat. I fall a bit in love with anything abandoned, but the lovely embossed metal handles on this chest especially appealed to me. We decided that if it was still there on the way back, we'd pick it up. Lo, it was, and after a strong cider it seemed a great idea to hike it up the stairs and try to pack it into our already-crowded little flat.

Since I was ill all weekend - I get strangely pro-active when cooped up in the house - I gave it a lovely little makeover, inspired by all the wonderful before-and-after projects on design*sponge. Behold:






(What's that sitting on top of it? Oh, just my prints that are available on etsy right now! ;)

What did I do? Just sanded off all the old varnish, painted it white all over, covered the top, sides and drawers with some lovely paper from Paperchase, and gave it a spray of matte varnish to finish. Super easy, cost under a tenner, and it looks so delightful. Now to find some space for it to live..

Post script: As I was clearing it out, I found two nice surprises inside: i) the original manufacturer's sticker saying it was made in 1960 (practically an antique! perhaps i shouldn't have butchered it), and ii) a fat envelope stuffed full of postcards, photos and drawings. I wonder who would throw out a cabinet with those things inside..?

Happy weekend: Pretty type

I really love the type treatment on the new Subtle album artwork - the music's pretty crazy too!

Happy weekend, exciting post to come Sunday hopefully..

Pikaland

I just discovered the delightful illustration blog Pikaland. Amy chooses some gorgeous work to blog about, everything's right up my alley and i'm really keen to get involved in the PikaPackage project. Check it out!

Recent del.icio.us

While I'm saving two very exciting posts for later this week (exciting to me, anyway), here's some recent lovely finds I've del.icio.us.ed (can we use that as a verb yet?)


Peele Lemos - a delightful portfolio of work


Suzanna Treister Alchemy series - goodness, I just adore these; a wonderful concept beautifully executed


Mira Ruido - a nice folio of Photoshop work. I'm working on a similar piece at the moment just as an experiment, will post results when I'm done.


Design & Typo - fantastic resource of scanned typography and design books, great for an inspiring browse.

Discount at design by humans

Get 25% off all the great tees at designbyhumans.com with the code LUVDBH - until Sunday only! I just bought this lovely:

cry

I AM SO ANNOYED. I saw those beautiful Babushka salt shakers in the Anthropologie store in NY. They were labelled $18, which was an okay price for the set but too much for one. I asked the shop girl and she said they were $18 EACH, so I left them, a little heartbroken. Yet I just checked the website, and it says they are $18 for the SET.. but £15 shipping to the UK. I hate you, stupid Anthropologie shop girl who lied to me!! Lesson learned: if you love something on sight, buy it, and never listen to shop girls who don't know what they're talking about.

Pecha Kucha

Last night I went to the D&AD's Digital Pecha Kucha night with some guys from work. Pecha Kucha is a lecture concept where speakers get twenty seconds to talk about twenty slides, on any subject under the sun. Great in concept, but in reality.. I was disappointed. About ten of the speakers (digital creatives from the cream of the UK's digital advertising agencies) spoke aimlessly about random 'inspiring' artists and things they've found online lately. I find out about more exciting goings-on from reading my daily blogroll in the morning. As leaders of design agencies, I was hoping these people would be talking about the cutting edge of what they do for a living, but most of them came off as either frustrated wannabe artists or people who'd reached their creative peak long ago (about four of them showed slides of their children, forgodsakes).

The only people who impressed me were the ones who really used the talk as a pedestal to talk about something they cared passionately about. Nat Hunter of Airside spoke about how our industry is not as envionmentally-friendly as we'd like to think, and suggested some measures we can take to correct this. David Streek from playerthree gave a funny and personal history of video gaming, and Tom Bazeley of LMFM gave a typically offbeat presentation comprising a long list of simple pleasures and everyday delights ('sneezing', 'coming back from a beach holiday and walking on carpet', 'wanting sugar in your tea after being outside for a long time') chosen by members of the agency. Overall though, it didn't give me much hope for the people in charge of our industry. Thank god for the new young designers doing amazing things!

Diana+ New York pics

Diana+ is a contrary little lady - when she behaves, she's very good; when she messes up.. she's still sometimes good!

A few more New York snaps on Flickr.

New York

I've been in New York for a long weekend. It was a crazy and rushed holiday, but a lot of fun. Despite the inevitable aching it causes, I still maintain that going everywhere by foot is the best way to really experience a city. We walked from our hotel near Times Square to Greenwich Village, Soho, the Upper East Side, and all over Central Park. While it was a good place to spend a weekend and take advantage of the super-cheap shopping, I still think London is my favourite city. New York had a weird vibe that I can't quite put my finger on.. plus those wind chills!! I was freezing cold the whole time!

Here are some photos from the trip taken with my various cameras (Fuji F70 digital, Olympus Trip-35 and Vivitar Ultra wide and slim. I also have some from my Diana+ still in the processing place.)


I did love the architecture in NY. Even the 'cram-em-in' apartment blocks are more attractive than the concrete monstrosities London seems to favour, and as a result the city feels less overbearing and cloying than London sometimes can.


I also love the abundance of faded old advertising typography on building-sides; I always make a point to photograph good examples.


My favourite NY store was Anthropologie. Beautiful (but expensive)!


Kids playing baseball in Central Park, how quintessentially American! (Unfortunately neither of my analog cameras likes cloudy days, and it was overcast for most of the weekend.)


We went to the Cai Guo-Qiang retrospective at the Guggenheim. It was pretty cool - aside from the attention-grabbing hanging cars, he's done some really interesting large-scale work with gunpowder, and all the works really set off the lovely building. We went to MOMA on the same day but got museum-fatigue halfway through.


We went to see Minus the Bear on our final night. Interesting to see a gig in a different country - we felt like pariahs as we seemed to be the only people a) over 21 and b) drinking beer.


Our hotel was a crazy boutique called Night Hotel just off Times Square. It was completely black and white in decor with vaguely pornographic photos on the walls, hip-hop blaring out of the lobby, and totally blacked-out windows (which made getting up in the morning quite disorienting). Nevertheless it was in a great location on a quiet street and had a great buffet breakfast.


I found a few other random photos on the Vivitar, I think I shot this through my bedroom window. Love the effect the grimy glass gives to the shot.

More photos of NY, and a few randoms of London, on my Flickr.

New coins

These new coin designs from the Royal Mint are almost too pretty to spend...

ATP Mixtape

With ATP next month, I thought I'd make a mixtape of the bands I'm looking forward to seeing (along with a few others I've had on heavy rotation lately). Enjoy!

Tracklist:
The National - Abel
Why? - Fatalist Palmistry
Vampire Weekend - Boston
Bound Stems - Andover
Animal Collective - Fireworks
M.I.A. - Paper Planes
Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing!
Silver Jews - People
Broken Social Scene
The Cure - Love Cats
Dinosaur Jr. - Freak Scene
Explosions in the Sky - Catastrophe and the Cure (Four Tet remix)

Threadless

Threadless have been printing some really weird and wonderful shirts lately - including a series of designs which originally scored very low. Quite brave of them and it makes for a really interesting catalogue. Shame I just bought a few from the recent sale or I'd be snapping up all the ones above. Makes me want to get my designing hat back on and try some more subs, too.