Glen Baxter Comics

A bit of high-brow Friday humor from art genius Glen Baxter.





















via [BB-Blog] which, if you haven't visited it yet, you really oughta.

tags:
Glen Baxter
comics
art
genius

Airpod by Blueair

Appliances such as air purifiers--well, we don't have high expectations for their style. Until recently, we might have considered ourselves lucky if they came in more than one color.

But the times, they are a-changin'. The Airpod by Blueair has a style that's sure to please-- especially if your decor is anything like that shown in this recent post by Anna at Absolutely Beautiful Things.




tags:
Airpod
Blueair
air purifier

Pillows: Company C

Pillows from Company C. I want them all. And a very, very long couch.

tags:
Decor
Pillows
Company C

Love Rats

How could I not post these love rats from Archie McPhee? Well, I couldn't not. So here they are!

tags:
Valentine's Day
love rats
Archie McPhee

Ten Free Valentine Fonts

Here are some lovely Valentine's fonts I've rounded up for your downloading pleasure, and just in time to use them in writing your Valentine love letters.

As far as I know, these are all freeware or trialware or linkware fonts that can be downloaded free of cost. Make sure you read the terms of use, usually included with the download as a "readme" file, before using them yourself. The designers typically don't want them used to make money, and would often like a link back.

I've done my best to give credit where it's due, and each has a link to where it can be downloaded.

Here they are:






4 My Lover was designed by Jakob Fischer, and can be downloaded here.
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Fiolex Girls is by a designer unknown to me, and can be downloaded here. If you know the name of the designer, please let me know in the "Comments" section.
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Heart, both the regular and the embossed versions, was designed by yokoyoko and can be downloaded here.
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Heartland was designed by Harold Lohner, and can be downloaded here.
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Hearts was designed by Brian Kent (for Sarah), and can be downloaded here (click on "H" link).
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Love Letters was designed by Aileen Lau, and can be downloaded here (enter site, click on "fonts," then on page 5).
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Times New Romance was designed by Eric Perlin, and can be downloaded here.
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Valentine Hearts was designed by Character, and can be downloaded here.
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Virgin was designed by m. libby, and is available here.
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Words of Love was designed by Jakob Fischer, and is available here.

I think maybe my favorite is Fiolex Girls. What about you?

tags:
Free Fonts
Valentine Fonts

Love Goblin by Heather Louise

When it comes to Valentine's Day, I've really been falling down on the job. I suppose I could do a hearts roundup the way I did a skulls roundup for Halloween, but with hearts, where does one begin?

While I ponder this, I'll tide you over with the Love Goblin from Egg Mercantile. Designed and handmade by Heather Louise, this little fellow's a real charmer. As are her other dolls, which you can find here. Do check them out--this lady has quite the imagination! She calls them "dolls," but I'm not sure that quite does them justice.

Here are some more of her sweeties, for your enjoyment--The Three Little Bears:

tags:
Love Goblin
Heather Louise
egg mercantile
dolls
textile arts

We Love Crafts

I'm very excited to share with you a great new online magazine, We Love Crafts. Unfortunately. there's a lot I can't tell you about it because it's in Spanish, and I read only enough Spanish to make my head hurt when I try.

Here's what I can tell you: I want to know who designed the site. No, let me put it a different way. I want to be who designed the site. Its visual appeal is first-rate, and the content looks to be splendid. I can't say whether it's well-written, but where high quality is found, it is often found across the board.

Here is a shot of the Table of Contents page:

















Don't you just want to click on all of the little pictures? And you can!

There are a couple of navigability problems, which is not surprising since the site is so new. The first is that you can't use the "back" button on your browser within the site; it will take you the previous site you were on. And the "Indice" button, which takes you to the Table of Contents page, is very high up on the screen; using Firefox, I can only use it if I hide all my toolbars, which is a pain. I hope they do something to change this, as it makes the site easy to navigate forward, but difficult to navigate backward.

Also, and this is fairly minor, but. . . the "Indice" button has an arrow pointing to the right ( --> ), which we tend to think of as "forward." It would be more intuitive if the arrow pointed to the left ( <-- ), as it takes you "backward" to the Contents page.

Here's something else: when I went into Internet Explorer to see if the "back" button worked there, I couldn't access the site at all! I hope they fix this: those who haven't made the jump to Firefox are already being punished enough!

But please don't think I'm being critical. I love this magazine, I totally dig its look, and I'll be spending plenty of time there. . . with a Spanish-to-English dictionary!

But guess what? Word on the street (ok, word on Poppy) has it that the site will eventually be translated to English! That would be great--while I'm easily entertained by looking at pictures, I'd love to be able to read the text as well.

For those who read Spanish, you may find more information on the magazine's blog. Also, the magazine's chief instigators seem to be Anabel of Jugando con Hilos ("Playing With Thread"), and Monica Leon (MiKiMoNo) of Te toco la china.

via Poppy.

tags:
We Love Crafts
crafts
online magazine

Misprinted Type

Ok, now you guys are going to laugh at me, but don't. This wouldn't be a big deal for a lot of people, but remember, I'm not a designer. I'm just someone who picked up a little Photoshop between phone calls. (Some people would use the word dilettante, but some people are just plain mean.) This is a big deal for me.

I saw this Florida ad in a magazine today, and I recognized the typeface. Or font. I don't even know the difference. But I recognized it. It's called "Porcelain," and it's by Eduardo Recife, and I know that because I posted about his firm, misprinted type, on NOTCOT(.org) a couple of months ago.


















Ok, it's distinctive. Not a hard font to recognize. Someone like Ben Terrett (see below) would have recognized it in his sleep.

But I'm no Ben Terrett. I'm not a graphic designer--I've never even taken a class. I'm a psychologist.

And I'm feeling pretty good right now.

tags:
misprinted type
Eduardo Recife
Porcelain
fonts

The Design Disease

Ben Terrett of Noisy Decent Graphics has this to say about design and designers:

It seems to me that if you're a designer, a proper designer not someone who learnt Photoshop in between phone calls, then design runs through your veins like Pantone 7418. But more than that, it's there in every aspect of life. You can't stop looking at things through your designer eyes. Everything you do is clouded by this thing that lives inside you.

Go on over and read his entire post on The Design Disease, just for the sheer pleasure of it.

via the inimitable [BB-Blog]

tags:
Ben Terrett
Noisy Decent Graphics
The Design Disease

Deb Eiseman's Moonlight Creations

Lately I've been under the grip of a growing fascination with fabric design. It's a wonderful fascination, as it leads me to such discoveries as Deb Eiseman of Moonlight Creations. Above is a wonderful example of her work. The pattern, called "Loving Thoughts," is part of her debut fabric line, "The Art of Healing." I am drawn to both the simple, iconic design and to the name of the fabric line; I'd love to use "Loving Thoughts" to make pillows for my therapy office.

While fabric design is new to Deb, her art is not--though it is, for her, a second career. Art, and watercolor in particular, became a refuge for this former television producer after she suffered devastating injuries in an auto wreck in 1998. Unable to work and, from the pain, unable to sleep, Deb led a tortured existence until a friend recommended that she needed a hobby.

Deb describes the relief of picking up a paintbrush for the first time as "astonishing." In a 2003 interview on NBC's The Today Show, she tells of finding not only a temporary distraction from the pain, but also the joy of looking down and seeing "all these happy figures dancing across the page." (The interview can be downloaded from the Moonlight Creations home page.) From this therapeutic response to painful, sleepless nights, Moonlight Creations was born.




Deb has a wonderful line of greeting cards that feature her simple, colorful icons, which can be found on both the Moonlight Creations website and that of licensee Brush Dance.com

Even more fun is her growing line of "Painting Cards," of which "Hip Hip Hooray!" is an example, shown below.



These cards are wild and wonderful; unconstrained, they seem to dance for joy.

tags:
Moonlight Creations
Deb Eiseman
art therapy

More of Me

Another one of mine, this one doing fairly well on Shutterstock. Impossible to predict what will sell. Last year my pink-and-white sort of valentines-y ones did well, so lately I've been submitting zillions of lovely valentines-y patterns. And instead the current top-selling one is this:

















My ability to predict what people will buy approaches nil. I just throw them up there and see what sticks. Kind of like spaghetti.

Five Reasons I Blog

Curses, tagged again! Actually this is kind of cool because it comes from a different neighborhood of the blogosphere. I've been tagged by the lovely Jean McManus of Orchids and Violets to tell the world five reasons I blog.

1. The amount of attention I need just to get through the day simply boggles the mind.

2. It flexes my writing muscles. One of my life's biggest "shoulds" is "I should write." This allows me to do it in small, non-immobilizing doses.

3. Despite my need for attention, I am quite self-conscious. Blogging is a method I've chosen for taking the risk of putting myself "out there" and publicly owning my thoughts, feelings, and opinions. This is another stepping stone on the writing path.

4. I feel the internet is the most exciting thing to happen in my lifetime, and I want to be a part of it.

5. It's an area of my life where I can do whatever I want. I like not having a boss, not being edited, and not being told what I can and cannot do.

6. It's an important creative outlet for me. I wish like crazy I could paint or craft or be a real drummer etc. etc. etc. This fulfills some need in me to create.

7. It allows me to do something with my internet finds, rather than simply feeling I've wasted my time surfing.

There, that's seven--two bonus reasons! And with that I tag Maryam of My Marakesh, Anna of Absolutely Beautiful Things, Karen of K Style, Gary of Spray Glue, and (ah, sweet revenge) Di of Designers' Block.

Pure Eye Candy

Like spirals? Of course you do. Who doesn't? You can find a bunch of them here in the spiral gallery, one of a number of galleries at sytes.org. Other galleries include circles, flowers, fireworks, zigzags. . . the list goes on and on.

I wish I could give you a "via" link, but to be honest I found this as a random, uncategorized site in my Bookmarks file.

tags:
eye candy
spirals
sytes.org

Mark Douglass Vases

Today I'm in love with these remarkable vases by Australian artist Mark Douglass. As you can see, they've got a great look to them. But in order to really appreciate the workmanship that goes into these pieces, you need a sense of scale. This should help:


The artist described the process in an interview with Melissa Cunningham on the ABC program 'George Negus Tonight':

Hot glass is when you dip into a hot furnace of molten glass with a blowing iron. Pretty much like gathering honey on the end of a spoon. I work with Miles, another assistant, Dave, and with the scale of the work that I've been making you need a team of people to produce this stuff because it's... pretty much physically impossible to control a piece by yourself. So... And it's quite, um, draining physically to roll a piece around. So we do a bit of tag-team work.

As you can see from the photo above, Douglass' work is not all done in black and white, though those pieces are the ones that I like best. Perhaps I've been spending too much time over at Black White Bliss!

(Incidentally, if you like the black and white look, Black White Bliss posted a great find yesterday in the ceramic work of Mel Robson. Check it out!)

tags:
glass art
Mark Douglass
black and white
Black White Bliss
Mel Robson

Like Chairs?

If you like chairs (and, after all, we're talking design here; if you don't like chairs, it's not like you could admit it, right? And risk immediate ostracization--woops. I looked that one up and I guess it's simply ostracism) . . . where was I?

Let's take it from the top.

If you like cool chair designs, a great place to find them is over at the Design Obsession blog. One minor drawback for those of us who are linguistically challenged: the site is in French. Of course, that's half the fun. You can copy a post and use an online translation gizmo to tell you it reads as follows:

John Dodelande: Designer, writer, designer, contractor at the 18 years age! onceptor of a yacht-convertible, a armchair-guard-dress, a restaurant with tables elevators, a deliver-magazine, a mini-car, transitory shops, of a collection of mode, a condensed language, a tray meal of suhis to the Frenchwoman, I forget some, here John Dodelande who, at 17 years (it has 18 today of them!) decided to launch its mark of luxury. And you know what? It did it!

That particular gem was a description of this (I believe it's a) chair by John Dodelande, who is both a designer and a designer.


I promise I will try not to have so much caffeine before blogging in the future.

tags:
chair design
Design Obsession
John Dodelande

Peter Marigold: Make/Shift

Make/Shift, by Peter Marigold, is a modular shelving system designed to be wedged into whatever awkward nook or cranny your abode might hold. From his very read-worthy interview on London's Design Museum website:

The world that I live in is chaotic and densely populated by junk, both collected things and simple rubbish. It’s not a perfect place but it is consistent. Like wise, English homes are usually consistent in their shared irregularities – pokey architectural spaces, weird under-hangs, and unusable corners. I was interested in how a piece of furniture might adapt to and therefore reflect our acceptance of living with these innate problems.

One version of Make/Shift was built in the manner of packing crates; these could be used as boxes when moving house, then put in place as shelving units once there.


Units available soon from movisi are manufactured from expanded polypropylene with corrugated edges. This material is well-suited to the task as it makes the units sturdy, yet lightweight and easily wedged into gaps.




So. Cool, yes? And we all know that, just as my favorite category is "miscellaneous," my favorite item of furniture is the shelf unit. I'm crazy about Make/Shift as shelving, but I've also got to rave about the mind of the designer. Again, from his Design Museum interview:

I am interested in objects, and the vast bulk of objects that we experience have been, at least in part, mass-produced. In this respect, as with my impulse to become a ‘proper designer’, I feel a real impulse to ‘fit’ with the aesthetics surrounding me. However I am also conscious that most of the products that I see today, idealise a world that I doubt I will ever experience, unless through the media. I’m probably doing something wrong, but my house never looks like that, and I think there are probably parallels here with how the fashion industry actively encourages anorexia in women. It might look innocent, but, intentionally or not, a beautiful surface with perfectly rounded corners is a good way to convince a human that he is little more than a contaminant in the product process.

I just identify so much with this! I love looking at the magazines, but my life nor my home will ever be showroom pieces. At best, I'm shooting for functional. At least, at this stage of the game. Perhaps things will be different when I'm an adult, working at a real job and living in a real house.

After all, at forty-five there's plenty of time, right?

tags:
Make/Shift
Peter Marigold
movisi
shelf units
Design Museum

Clash Mickey

I know this isn't new or anything, it's just the mood I'm in. Mickey Mouse does the cover of the classic Clash album, London Calling.


















Designed by Japanese artist Roen. (WARNING: Site badly designed in detestable Flash.) Available at Medicomtoy, where I could order it if I spoke Japanese. And had piles of money.

And what does it mean when one awakens in a "mickey mouse does the clash" sort of mood?

Oh, right. Means I have to work today. *sigh*

via productdose.

tags:
Mickey Mouse
The Clash
London Calling

Favorite Fabric

This is my new favorite silk print fabric. Isn't it great? Doesn't it rock? It's available here.

tags:
fabric

Metacopy

Click on the image to make it bigger--it's even better that way. You can download it for free at dafont.com.

tags:
fonts
metacopy
Yoshiki Kita

Inspire Co. Fairy Gift Tags

This one's the Cheeky Fairy. And a saucy little number she is, too. Go on over to Inspire Co. and check out the others for yourself. Cute as dickens!

tags:
gift tags
Inspire Co.
fairies