fair wages

Jessica Hische posted a great blog about fair pricing for freelance projects (especially illustration, lettering and logos) that will be good to come back to from time to time. It is so hard to get information about how people price their work in the creative realm and there is so much downward pressure on prices in the field that it is always helpful to hear how successful designers are pricing their work.

cut paper

I'm totally loving the work of Sabrina Transiskus. Makes me want to pick up paper and scissors! For her commercial portfolio, click here.

julia rothman

Came across this grain edit interview w/ Julia Rothman the other day. I love Julia's style and patterns!
She also just recently co-authored The Exquisite Book, a new take based off of the exquisite corpse game. 


There's also a link to a pattern making tutorial that was on Design*Sponge. Give it a try!
or
Check out the interview!

in love with letterpress

Also in love with this necklace!

Buy here

si scott

Tonight I went to UCLA campus to hear Si Scott talk about his hand-drawn type and distinctive design style. For two plus hours we were treated to his back story and descriptions of his process and works. Amazing! Go to his website and get lost in the incredible curvaceous details. Handmade flourishes at their finest.

inspiration: summer

inspiration: flora fauna

little font

Dear Sarah font via FontShop

lovely hand-drawn type

If you haven't already seen Jessica Hirsh's portfolio of typography, it could change your life. Jessica is the woman behind the daily drop cap and her other work is equally inspirational. I just love it all!

what type are you?

Turns out I'm Marina Script.
And you?

Fun interactive quiz to find out what type you are:
Here
password: character

affordable art roundup

I stumbled upon this online gallery with some really great and affordable prints.
All around $20.
The site is really well designed and built as well (Flash-o-rama!). Check it out!

Charmingwall


Prints by Devon Kelley-Yurdin, Eric Otto, Evan B. Harris & APAK

the lost art of letterheads

A friend sent this website to me the other day - very cool blog all about letterheads.
Some really great vintage designs, personal as well as business.
*love the Henson Associates letterhead!

letterheady

one more time, with flourish

So I'm sitting home alone. Watching Iron Chef America on my dvr (Battle Almond!). And an overwhelming urge just hit me. The urge to conduct a Google search using the search term "flourishes". This is perfectly normal, right? Right??

Anyway, I found a cool blog post from Andrew at www.myinkblog.com in which he gives detailed, step-by-step instructions for creating your own swirls and flourishes in Illustrator. Way to bring The Awesome to my Tuesday night, Andrew!

typographic blues remedy

Serious type inspiration.

Feeling a little blue? Type got you down?
No need to fret! Brand new blog, Friends of Type are here to save the day.
I came across FoT browsing on GrainEdit this morning, and I'm swooning.
They've only been posting for a short time and already their blog is full of inspiring type and sketches.
I love the 'yes.stay' and I'm really feeling like hand drawing some type this weekend.

poster roundup

add a little color to your home - art prints that you can afford

pretty

Design Sponge is celebrating their 5 year anniversary with pretty wallpaper giveaways. It's the gift that keeps on giving, because they will also be doing a wallpaper giveaway each month featuring different artists and designers. So keep checking back!

I always love getting a nice wallpaper every now and then to spruce up my background and rejuvenate my computers appearance.

5 year anniversary

analog!

There's a cute little stationary site based out of San Francisco called Yellow Owl Workshop that is offering up odes to all things analog in this crazy digital age. Love this postcard set and all the Polaroid kitsch!

reverse graffiti

The idea of cleaning grime to create street art is a new one for me, and I have to say I like it. 

fonts, free fonts

Hello there :)
Everybody likes free fonts right?

So I've been following Fontfabric for awhile. And I'm always waiting, watching and anticipating their next font, and quite often it's a free one. Even the fonts that aren't free are decently priced.
The free ones are always a little funky, not 'exactly' legible, but definitely fun.
It's worth checking out and their designs for promoting the fonts are nice eye candy as well :)

Free fonts!

letterpress workshops?

I want to letterpress. I want to create a design, typeset it and see the actual letterpressed goodness after a run through the 'ole printing press. I want to spend a weekend geeking out with other graphic design nerds about typefaces and ink combinations. I want to get my hands dirty.

So periodically I sit down alone with my MacBook Pro and I type in search queries designed to elicit the ultimately cool letterpress workshop taking place next weekend at some yet-to-be-located letterpress studio (which, in my crazy fantasies, is located just down the street from my little apartment). I have not had success in this quest to date. As you might have guessed, either by noting that question mark in the title of this post or by observing the whiny tone to this blog entry.

Anyway, enough about me. The point here is to mention that while conducting a sad and lonely letterpress workshop google search tonight I stumbled across a website that includes classified ads for all things letterpress. No LA workshops on there at the moment, but maybe I'll find that elusive perfect weekend workshop someday. It must be out there somewhere!