Our little baby O'Brion is scheduled to come into the world on Friday! We'll see when he or she is actually ready to make the big debut, but in the meantime we'll be closing up shop for a week or so to hunker down (hopefully with the nug on this side of the womb). In between designing wedding invitations, ad campaigns, and a logo- meetings in Boston- and a nap here and there- time was spent creating a cozy nursery for the babe. The inspiration lies mostly within the framed brightly colored woodland animal stamps on the back wall- and to offset the explosion of color, the soft grays and chevron pattern supply the "gender neutral" element. Can't wait to just sit and sit and in that rocker- it's a heavenly space. Oh, and, with all this baby talk, the letter "B" was born! Progress on the letter line- so much good stuff in store!
2012 is the year we plan to see our design line go from idea to reality! Think alphabet, think pattern, think modern and graphic. That's where we're headed. We're creating an iconic alphabet series that will be applied to different product from pillows to notecards to paper cuts. Above is beta version 'a' - stay tuned for more in the coming months!
This lovely publication made it in to the office yesterday and, surprise (!), our wedding is highlighted in the Real Weddings section! You can check out more of the beautiful photos (by Daniel Kiyoi) and details in the online photo gallery. And speaking of weddings, we're spending January designing wedding invitations for a few brides with incredible venues AND ideas- from a Maine golf course wedding to a Rhode Island seaside cabin to a Puerto Rico extravaganza- can't wait to show the final products!
11 gifts for the feminine designer in your life (ahem).
1. New York Times 36 Hours - $39.99 Who doesn't need a guide to dreamy stateside weekend getaways? Complete with illustrated maps by Olimpia Zagnoli.
2. Studio E Pillow- $75 Erin Flett, a super talented good friend, has released her 2012 collection. What office chair wouldn't look lovely with this geo pillow?
3. Rifle Paper Co. Stationary- $85 Custom handpainted stationary!? Yes, yes, yes. You can even pick your portrait. In love with everything Anna Bond creates.
4. David Yurman Monogram Necklace- $595 Ok, a little on the pricey end but sure to be an heirloom one day. There's some justification.
5. Flower Coasters- $30 Laser cut felt = a studio favorite. Our desks here are plywood so pretty things that can minimize drink rings are on the top of the list.
6. Zinc letter- $18 Perfect for adding a personal touch to the bookshelf.
7. Field Notes Journal - $9.95 for a 3 Pack OR you can sign up for a year subscription. The Northerly edition has a silver metallic logo. Yum.
8. Ceramic hanging planter - $14.99 Our office needs plants! This minimal white ceramic planter would be the perfect vessel for a few airplants.
9. Herschel Field Pouch- $49.99 This fits an ipad, or for those of us without- this makes a perfect office supply pouch. Love this company's story.
10. Lumadessa Bird Print- $20 Talk about affordable art. Josh Brill has created a whole series of iconized birds and mammels and he's local too.
11. Quoddy Slippers - $300 Designers need comfy office slippers. These are handcrafted in Maine, since 1909!
The best feeling as a designer: opening the box of your latest issue, fresh in from the printer.
I spent the better portion of the fall working with Patrick Mitchell at PlutoMedia on conceiving a new magazine for the creators of Inc. called The Build Network. Build is aimed at CEOs- which, surprisingly, is an under-served market because of the assumption that CEOs have it "all figured out." The 3 pronged Network consists of the print publication, the website and forum, and the regular live events held across the country. It might sound super snooze to some of you- but out of all the publications I've worked on- I learned and retained the most from this 1 issue! The content was striped down to its "big idea"- for every idea in the book- and presented either visually or with a nice visual compliment- so it really worked for my designer brain.
It's an exciting thing to be a part of magazine startup- there are no rules, no precedent- and lots of room for cutting edge design. This magazine wasn't going to follow traditional publication "rules" from the beginning- stories are contained in just one page- there are no "deks" or "bylines" or even traditional page numbers-full pages are dedicated to just a quote or an idea- each page gives the reader footnotes of related information that they can seek out on the web, etc. Pat and I did a lot of design research (see our pinboard on Pinterest) to devise a way to create a book full of one pagers- with the right amount of visual interest to illustrate these simplified, yet profound business ideas- that didn't become redundant. We created a "golden section" template, a 3 color palette, some tight type rules, a few photography filters, and categorized all pages into "quoteagraphs" "charticles" and "stories." The result: some amazing design collaboration and a beautiful (seriously interesting) publication.
Build is only available to those in the Network- but check out the website to become apart!
