Lazy Sewer

When it comes to sewing it's just like one of my various other hobbies I've sworn to learn and now just sits in my closet (my sewing machine, my keyboard, my guitar, my spanish cds) Mostly because I have the attention span of a 5 year old when it comes to my prescious free time after work, so I need to keep it easy and simple. I can hem curtains, but I wish I could do more (Like the talented Andrea)


Therefore, I'm totally excited about Lotta Jansdotter's new book: Simple Sewing: Patterns and How-To for 24 Fresh and Easy Projects

Oh yes, I shall wipe the dust from my sad, sad sewing machine. As for the others...ehh...

Kicks

New shoes from Urban Outfitters I'm loving. Somehow I got an insane amount of Urban Outfitters gift certificates for christmas that I still have not polished off, and now I will have no problem.

the sartorialist spots type

The Sartorialist is one of my daily reads. He captures the essence of street fashion wherever he is; it's always fun to see how real people dress. Recently he posted some type finds in Milan hopefully he'll be doing more of this as he travels.
R and I leave for Milan on Thursday, so I'll soon be taking a break from blogging but I'll be collecting inspiration to post when I return!

Mario Hugo

Micah sent me a link to an amazing artist/designer, Mario Hugo. It was hard to choose what pieces to post, so go look at them all. Really awesome portfolio site too.



and I really did want to talk more about the eco-friendly issue of Domino this weekend, but we had some major computer problems so I barely touched the computer all weekend. Hopefull tonight?

logology: the wonderland of logo design

After Kate's Saks Logo post, I've got logos on the mind. Josh Spear just posted about this new logo book. It looks yummy!

$44 from Victionary, available here.

marni

I've been keeping an eye on fashion week in Milan and Marni is one of my favorites. The designs for fall 2007 are refreshing and a just odd enough to keep it interesting. Things I love are webbing belts:



leggings that extend past your ankle:


gray gathers:


distinctive silhouettes:









see more of the show here.

Pangea Organics

The latest issue of Domino Magazine is filled to the brim with eco-friendly ideas for your home that has me rather giddy. It was such an inspirational push that I promptly went grocery shopping and bought nearly everything organic and/or with recycled packaging. I thought this weekend I'd go over a few of my favorites from the issue.

An apothecary line made with 100% organic ingredients and 100 percent recycled packaging -some of the glasses are apparently made with seeds and can be soaked in water and planted to grow herbs!- Pangea Organics has some damn fine design going on that won't make you feel guilty. As a package designer I'm insanely envious of such genius.
Plus if you enter the code "domino" on their website, www.pangeaorganics.com, you get 15% off online orders. Ching!

Saks Logo

Pentagram has designed Saks Fifth Avenue a new logo. At first I wasn't really that taken with it, but after reading an article in I.D magazine that basically had the same information as this post on Pentagram's blog, I was more enthusiastic about it following the logo's roots and the way it's traditional design is divided in a grid and then chopped up in a modern way on the packaging.



See more photos of the packaging and the old logos here.

ps. sorry for the lack of posts, our internet has been down all week at home so I only have access at work, which means I can really only post during my lunch hour and random times I'm waiting around for something. Hopefully this will change.

Fly Away

I always thought that passport/ticket holders were so stupid, that is until I actually started traveling and I realized how insane it is to keep all your papers and very important things together. So I'm on the lookout for a simple, great passport and ticket holder.

clockwise from the top: Passport Ver.8 by Millimeter/Milligram, Jane Street by Kate Spade, Tusk Passport Cover, Toile Document Cover by Mary Jane, Leather Passport Case by Undercover.

thrifty thrifting

I have always loved the idea of thrifting. Recycling items that someone else has no use for but that you love is thrilling. It's not always easy to find something you need or want, but maybe that's why it's so exciting when you unearth that beloved treasure. Stephanie Barnes of Little Birds is the queen of thrifting. Last summer she wrote a great guide to thrifting which has some excellent and useful tips. She also makes many of her stuffed creatures using thrifted fabric. This has proved to be the best tip for me since I like to sew. You can find so many amazing vintage fabrics at thrift stores, I had no idea!

Here are some of my more recent finds: $14 Vintage Coat (I replaced the buttons) and $5 japanese platter.

Shaun O'Dell

Love it, love it, love it!
Shaun O'Dell, at Paulson Press

oh, orla!

Orla Kiely is one of my favorite textile and handbag designers. Maybe my favorite. I always look forward to seeing the ways she's revamped the 60's.
Here's a new handbag and pattern I adore:




I love the styling in these photographs: the house, the girl, and of course the color!

A Little Bit of Glamour

One of my biggest Etsy seller favorites, Ashley G, updated her shop yesterday with some new originals. Almost all of them are sold out, except for 1, my favorite!


A Little Bit of Glamour

$74 at Etsy. If I were not insane-o broke from my vacationing ways, I'd buy it in a second!

Check out Ashley's blog for store updates and some great inspiration, including her mention of the magazine Amelia's Magazine, which I just shelled out 30 bucks for in a heartbeat to be sent from the UK because it looked so amazing. Then I realized that they sell it at Universal News on broadway, which happens to be 5 blocks away from my work.
Why am I so impulsive?! Oi vey.

Method strikes again

People are talking about the eco-friendlier take on the swiffer sweeper by Method, but eco-issues aside- that is some sexy design, people! The product design itself makes me weak in the knees, but the packaging design is what really does it for me. I don't even mop* and I'm totally buying this thing.
Available at Target**, or here at Method's website.





*no, I do not have an entirely carpeted apartment, I'm just a gross slob.
** unless I'm blind, it doesn't appear to be on their website, so you non-nyc'ers can drive your bums to the nearest Target to check it out, while I swear off the Brooklyn Target unless absolutely necessary or I'm feeling particularly mentally ill.

In addition to spilling coffee all over my desk, I got back to work to find on my desk the HOW 2007 International Design Annual!
I'm not a huge fan of the magazine's regular monthly issues, but I do love their design annuals. So far it's not inspiring me as much as usual, but I think I'm not just back into the grove yet. I only have 10 pages flagged rather than the 30 pages from last year. But I'll get there!
Pick it up!

alex kanevsky paintings

I can't remember where I discovered the paintings of Alex Kanevsky, but I melt every time I see them. I booked marked his site ages ago and just stumbled upon it again. If I were a full time painter, I'd hope to be as good as Alex Kanevsky. I love his style, it's the perfect amount of messy. I adore how the imperfect chunky brush strokes perfectly define the forms. They are an amalgam of a photograph and an abstract painting. Check out this interview and more of his work here.

vacaciones

I'm back from my fabulous Costa Rica vacation and thought some of the found type I took pictures of around the country might be inspiration to some of you. Lots of old metal signs and handpainted letters on wood.















and a pattern on an old bench


hopefully I can get back in the swing of posting! its hard for me to look at a computer screen for very long currently. It's also hard for me to speak in spanish (uh, the basics. trust me I don't speak it) to people, like at the coffee shop this morning and at breakfast.
hola, gracias

string type

Karin Eriksson has a wonderfully inspiring flickr set on the Stockholm furniture fair. My favorite of course, is the string type treatment above. I also love the simple gray pattern on these pillows.

Alyson Fox

Design*Sponge just posted about Alyson Fox whom I mentioned in my previous post. There are photos of Alyson's home and work space. I love to see other peoples creative spaces. Check it out here.

felt crazy

You know how it is when you discover something, you begin to see it everywhere! I have to share my newest felt finds.
Felt Rocks, who knew? I love the idea of soft rocks. Too bad they are out of my price range.



This is the funniest felt piece I've seen. I don't think I could pull it off, but I love the idea.



Greener Grass Design has some great wearable felt.
Felt jewelry by Melissa Borrell:






Lovely textural scarves by Alyson Fox:









I guess you could say I love felt.

helvetica letterpress

One of my all time favorite typefaces is Helvetica. It's about as plain jane as you can get with a typeface, but it's simplicity is what makes it beautiful.
There is a new film all about Helvetica, nerdy I know, but I can't wait! In the shop, you'll find some great letterpressed posters promoting the film. I recently purchased this poster for my husband who is a Helvetica lover as well.

adios amigos

Well my friends, it's been a fantastic week of posting and I'm glad it's been so much fun and went so well! It's especially great to keep in touch with lovely andrea on such a frequent basis too.
But I'm going to have to hand things over to Andrea for the next 10 days as I'm off to Costa Rica!! I'm so excited I could puke. I'll check in if by some miracle I get internet access, but chances are it's pricey and slow. Sorry to run off so soon after our debut, don't forget about me while I'm gone:)

I leave you with Rosco, who was sleeping under the covers last weekend like the little peach he can be sometimes

A Favorite: Josef Muller-Brockmann

I'm a sucker for Swiss design, and Josef Muller-Brockmann is my all-time favorite. I got this book about his life and work for my birthday. The book reveals interesting things about him as a person, one thing I didn't know was that Brockmann is actually his wife's last name. I didn't think it was possible, but this tid-bit made me love him more. Not only was he a forward thinking designer but also a forward thinking man. The book includes examples of his early work, which I'd never seen before.
Early Work


I love that even though these were designed in the 60's, they still look modern and fresh. These ads for Nestle where designed over 40 years ago! The yellow cow is great, I would love to see that as an ad in a magazine today.




Muller-Brockman can make san-serif type look brilliant and evocative like nobody else.




How to make a rectangle blow your mind:

1 more for the collection/addiction

Either these are new or I just missed them before, but Good On Paper has some really cute sticky notes I must purchase for my sticky note/notepad addiction. Comes in a pack of 4.

Andrio Abero | 33rmp

My good friend Micah, an incredibly talented graphic designer, mentioned this other Seattle graphic designer the other day: Andrio Abero of 33rpm . Amazing, amazing stuff I thought I'd share. From big name clients like Microsoft, to Seattle concert posters (ah, makes me miss home) his work has a style I'm really into right now. Green with envy am I.
See his work here on his very well designed website:Andrio Abero

Brocade Home

What are your thoughts on Brocade Home? Resoration Hardwares offshoot had a lot of buzz of excitement before it came out, but once the catalogs hit mailboxes, the buzz faded quickly to barely a hum. A lot people feel it's too over the top, do people really decorate their entire homes with this stuff? I say heck no, but a few pieces added to a simple modern home? Heck yes. The latest catalog came in my mail yesterday and the 2 things I wish I had money for are the Tufted Bucket Chair ($599):




and one of these white Baroque-style mirrors ($399-599) would look great against a brick wall:

(in white, no silver for the love of god)

But ouch, that's a lot of cash to drop for something that I might not love in a year.

Check out the whole catalog here: www.brocadehome.com
Unfortunetly there's no online ordering, just by phone.

felty finds

I've been seeing and dreaming of felt everywhere! I love the way people are using industrial (super thick) felt these days. A few of my favorite items below are bags and sliding doors. The felt bag from Josh Akus is amazing! I love the way it unfolds to a flat shape. Also, check out the link as it shows an animation of it unfolding!




I also really love the Carga bags, which are more of a masculine messenger style. The leather and rivet details compliment the industrial felt nicely.







I recently purchased a felt necklace similar to the one from moda muse, and I love it! It gives an instant pop of color and makes you take yourself less seriously. I've been wanting to try making the felt beads , they seem really easy to make. Felt doesn't have to be an accessory either, it can be a fully functioning door, as seen on Apartment Therapy.

kitchen

Please ignore my standard cheap brooklyn apartment cabinets and ugly countertops, but this is my favorite part of my little nook of a kitchen, now that I've finally hung my Aesthetic Apparatus screenprint on the wall in this very perfectly sized space above my stove.
Also note my crafty use of a vase for my kitchen utensils, my little Roost cup for my chopsticks, and then there's my most favorite little For Life teapot.

City Notebooks

When I go on vacation to a new city, I like to put everything I want to see and do, maps, etc in a little notebook. It's a bit chaotic usually, but it works. But now my days of chaos can be calmed with Moleskine's new city notebooks. A book for various specific cities filled with maps, street indexes, pockets for your documents, blank pages for notes, and tabs "so that everything that matters most is at your fingertips".
Awesome.
I might have to plan trips specifically to these cities just so I can use one.

Available now:
Amsterdam
Barcelona
Berlin
Dublin
Lisbon
London
Madrid
Milan
Paris
Prague
Rome
Wien

Coming spring 2007:
Boston
New York
San Francisco
Washington

Coming fall 2007:
Chicago
Los Angeles
Montreal
Seattle

Edit: if you didn't notice the link up in the text before, here it is again:city notebooks. I think the links were hard to see, so I changed the template to put underlines underneath all the links. Not as pretty, but functional.

Swindle

When it comes to graphic design inspiration from magazines, I turn to the usuals: Print (my favorite), Communication Arts (pretty conservative, but a the good old standard), the occasional How (sometimes good, sometimes bad) but lately I've been needing something new for inspiration. Books on graphic design rarely work for me because they become outdated so quickly, so I usually look at magazines for ideas. While at Barnes & Noble during the summer, I discovered just what I was looking for: Swindle Magazine.

Not for everyone, it's self described as "More than just reporting on culture, SWINDLE is dedicated to influencing culture through content unlike anything else on newsstands. SWINDLE fills a void for readers who desire a well-balanced periodical, one that is sophisticated but not too serious, intelligent and whimsical, progressive yet timeless, all at once. As both a product of the times and a documentation of them, SWINDLE manages to stay modern and culturally relevant without falling into the endless recycling bin of trendiness."

There's rarely a drop of white space on the pages, it's exploding with color and pattern, a lot of urban-graffiti-style design (the whole magazine is heavily graffiti art influenced), even the ads are cool! Bonus: if you subscribe, you get your issues in hardcover. They know the way to this girls heart.

Click here for subscription information and where you can find it:Swindle

Welcome back, 1960.

I am in love with the simple A-line cuts this season. They are almost always flattering and give you instant innocence. Here are a few of my favorites from A.P.C. and Chloe. Chloe's color combinations are delightful, don't you think?

A.P.C.





Chloe

IKEA, YOU NEVER LOOKED SO GOOD!

I'm not in the market for a new kitchen, but I love to cook so I am always dreaming of a beautiful kitchen. Since Ikea is hardly known for quality, I was leery of their cabinetry. After doing some research, I found that what ikea uses is pretty much standard for the industry and while it's not top of the line it's pretty damn good. It's a nice if you're looking for something modern. The kitchen above uses Ikea base and upper cabinets with custom walnut doors and panels which really make it custom. I love how they've combined Ikea with top of the line Carerra marble counters and stainless steel (Miele, no less) appliances. Take a look at the before and after photos, what a difference!
via www.ikeafans.com

flickr love

I want to curl up inside these photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lastleaf
don't you just love flickr? I just discovered that you can subscribe to people's flickr rss feeds. whaa? so cool.

Eye Candy

Eye candy from the Gramercy Park Hotel's bar, the Jade Bar. I went there on an inspiration field trip at work and felt like a kid in a velvet candy store. My favorite detail is the cut out in the wood above the bar, mmmmmm. The renovation of the hotel by designers Julian Schnabe and Anda Andrei is absolutely amazing.
There's a great little article on the hotel in the Jan/Feb. issue of I.D. magazine, a magazine that has its highs and lows for me sometimes.

nerd time

Usually free fonts make me gag, but fontshop.com gives away a free font every month and this month's font, Preface, aint too shabby. I haven't had time to test it out, but so far I love the lowercase l's. I'm a sucker for light sans serifs, such as Meta Light (oh look at that letter g!) and Helvetica Neue 25 Ultra Light, my staples at work. *drool*

Etsy Find

An Etsy find I'm loving today: Courtney Filer-Dougal's jewelry. Self described as modern, organic & sterling, I love the simplicity and organic shapes. Not to mention it's all very affordable.







Also, I want to make a tradition of posting my favorite etsy find every friday, so this is a bit of a preview I had to post today!

HERE WE ARE

Thanks for the great intro Kate!
I'm Andrea, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I came to Seattle for design school where I met my husband, Rick, a fellow designer. We've made Seattle our home and intend to stay for a while; I prefer gray skies over snow. Kate and I bonded as interns, making books & scanning photos. We became fast friends, sharing our love of art and design. Not only is Kate a great friend she has a great sense of style and is a talented designer. Since our days as interns, Kate has moved to New York and we both have landed awesome design jobs. With a need to keep in contact and our love of design, it came naturally to us to send each other our findings over email or even snail mail. Since we live on opposite coasts and in different communities, it was always fun to see what the other had to share. After sending links to inspiration here and there we both realized how fun it would be to share. This blog is a home to share what we find: for me, for you.

enjoy!

An introduction

Welcome to the first post! I'm Kate, and this blog has been a long time in the making.
Here's a little background on myself: I grew up in Washington state outside of Seattle and lived there almost my whole life, moved to the city after I graduated from high school, went to school for graphic design, and got an internship for a book design company, where I met the lovely and talented Andrea. I instantly loved her for her style, her talent and for being one of the nicest people on the planet. We became really great friends and then I get to go and move thousands of miles away! My job in Seattle was going nowhere, and I needed a change. So I got married to my long time photographer boyfriend Mike, and we moved to New York. What better place to move to for our artistic fields? New York was good to me immediately, and I landed a job as a graphic designer for a bedding company.
Andrea and I kept emailing each other things we loved back and forth to the point that one day I thought, why not put this online for everyone else to see? Inspired greatly by port2port and design*sponge, our goal here is to share with each other and the rest of you reading things that we love and inspire us! Not just limited to things for the home, but any little thing that we see that's inspiring or that we covet. We're both graphic designers, so we both take inspiration from pretty much everything around us for not only our work, but our homes and personal fashion.

We hope you love it, and I'll let Andrea introduce herself.
So here we go- for me, for you.