Keepin' on.

The above picture comes from Vintagraph, a site (created by the same people as the seriously awesome Shorpy) that compiles old WPA posters. I love this one because the image at first struck me as incongruous to the message, yet at the same time, it does evoke the local through the image of the home, and the state through the image of the factory and tall buildings. Where syphilis comes in exactly I do not know, but the local and state, they're definitely there.
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I am loving this modular storage system. The colours not necessarily so much, it would be nice if they were more in line with those typical to the shipping containers they are based on, but still, they are pretty awesome. I don't know how much they cost, but you can be pretty sure that I would not be able to afford them.
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This here is a beautiful set of transistor radios on Flickr. This guy's collection must be amazing. I've only looked at a small fraction and am in awe. (from the DDC)

On a similar note, I just remembered that a friend told me this weekend that he picked up a part that should complete his repair of my vintage tube amplified suitcase record player. Looking forward to seeing that one again. He's been real awesome in fixing it for me.
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Some pretty great buildings pictured in here. I particularly like numbers 5, 6, 21 (which is actually a part of a complex that I've seen some pretty amazing pictures of), 22, 29 (shipping containers again! I love shipping container housing solutions), 30, 35 (yes, I fell in love like many others did I'm sure at the Olympics), 43, and 50 (Robot building!). That's a lot that I like, I know... There's a second page too, but I won't put you through a list of what I like of that one...
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Jenna tipped me off to this one out of an old issue of Jane yesterday. A couple of years ago, this would have been my ideal website, and I would have loved to be a writer for it. Now I'm trying to cut back on the snacks. I do have some pretty strong opinions about chips though. They even mention many of the same things that I evaluate my snacks for. Another one I've barely touched but would like to get deeper into.
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I'm loving the signs in this small flickr set. The impressive detail on the hot dog, the overload of flash and colour on the cleaners, the impressiveness of the city sign. Good stuff all of it. You really can't go wrong with anthropomorphic cannabalism in your signage, you know? (I think this is via the DDC as well...)
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A nice little vintage find on etsy. A beaufiful example of branding and sports if I've ever seen one. The style is just beautiful too.
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I've been seeing a lot of images created out of typography lately (there's a term for it, but I can't for the life of me think of it right now, maybe because I'm distracted by my need to pee...). Some are good, some not so much, but this book looks pretty great. Both the snail and the girl just look so cute, you know?

Speaking of books, we gotta get on ordering some Christmas stuff from amazon so's it gets here on time! It's almost December!
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Oh, and by the way, Seth and Chris Ware were pretty great. Chris was pretty hilarious, in his demure, self-depricating way. Seth was funny too, but a little more pretentious feeling to Chris' constant fear of sounding pretentious. I feel like the ways they said they thought about certain things are quite similar to the ways I do, which is nice to know. Chris had a presentation of a video he creatted with Ira Glass, so you know I was loving that.

EXCITED.

Jenna sent me this article from the Record today, and I only got as far as "Cambridge Galleries complements the Seth exhibitions at Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery" when I got really excited. It turned out to be even more exciting than I thought.

So yes, the amazing comic artist/illustrator/designer/letterer Seth does have work on exhibit at the KWAG (which I really should have known from their ad in the film guide). But then I found he also has work on exhibit at Render at UW (love the tagline "In the dull grey building on the other side of the tracks." Perfect for a gallery in that setting), and it sounds even better than what's at the KWAG. Awesome, right?

BUT THEN, things got even better when I saw this: Seth in Conversation with Chris Ware, in Cambridge! Chris Ware is pretty much the shit, and since, as far as I know, they're actually friends, it should be pretty great to see.

Jenna's timing on sending me that article was pretty much perfect, since it turns out that conversation is this Saturday. This is totally the kind of thing I only hear about afterward, but this time I'm actually going to get to see it (as long as I get there in time to get a seat!)!

Combine that with visiting the exhibit at the Cambridge gallery that the Record article was actually about which sounds pretty awesome, hopefully visiting the new Hespeler library in Cambridge that I'm itching to check out, catching Woodhands at the Starlight later, and then Marc & Kyle's music video DJ night at the bond after that, and Saturday is fixin' to be a pretty amazing day.

TIMBER!

Our mail has been particularly boring lately, but now I've got something to look forward to! I just noticed the above design by my favourite t-shirt maker, and I absolutely had to have it! Of course, I grabbed one of his other shirts in the process as well, you know, just for good measure.

During an etsy conversation, I also sent him this little pic from our trip to Funspot, where I happened to wearing one of his shirts and spot a pretty special arcade machine:
(not the best picture of me, but you know...)
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Some beautiful work on here. (via Draplin, I think...)
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I am in love with this Philly post office via 1900. Amazing. I've said it before, but this is definitely one of those pictures that makes me wish I could travel through time. (thanks Shorpy!)
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This is a really cool little application that lets you search through millions of flickr images by colour, and combinations of colour. Select up to 10 colours on the side, and it will return images that use those colours. Pretty great to play around with. (via Jeff)
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Awesome early Star Wars storyboards. Pretty cool flickr set to flick through, if you ask me.
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"Wasted" a good chunk of time flipping through the images on Letter Cult last night. All hand drawn lettering. Great stuff to check out. Here're two favourites:


Time to get up and go to work! And then tacos!

That there's a poster I just did for my newest "client." It's for their winter sale, but as far as I know it hasn't been printed yet, so consider this a sneak peek. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I hope they ask me to do more in the future.
Overall I've been pretty happy with some of the stuff I've completed recently. I'll have to up it sometime so you all can see it.
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In the category of things I would like to own:
Something little. Every bathroom could use a robot! Actually, every room could use a robot...
Something big. Just beautiful. I can't decide which I like the most... Either the Twin, with its vintage british styling, or the MP, 'cause I've always loved vintage military gear (gotta be the green variation though, badass).
So, if you need a gift for me, big or small, there you go.
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The Neon Boneyard is a place I'd love to visit one day. It's pretty much the only thing I've heard of in Vegas that I would really like to go to. I mean, I'd like to see Vegas in some ways, but I think in the end I'd hate it. Except this place.
This place gets blogged about it alot (death by kerning, h&fj, for two, recently) but I've found myself talking about recently and realized that the people I know don't seem to have heard of it, and need to see its beauty.
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A great concept. I always find 2 litre bottles of soda taste flat like the day after you open them. If this bottle can fix that, I'd be awful happy!
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I guess you can file all of this section under 'Obama'. I wasn't planning on talking about him, but there's some pretty great stuff to share right now (not that there wasn't during the campaign, in fact, there was some amazing stuff, but you know...)
Loving this shirt. And, of course, the truth that it will soon come to represent. The 'new' lettering is pretty great if you ask me.
Newspaper front pages from the day after, from all over. Loving this contribution from Ottawa. The Toronto Sun ran the same tag line, but not as good of a picture.
So glad somebody did this! I was loving every piece of design that I saw come out of that campaign, and this compilation just proves that I was right in doing so. SO GOOD. Clean, concise, bold, confident, pretty as heck. Awesome.
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Another thing that's been making the blog rounds: Photoshop in real life. Pretty great.
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And now, for a touch of cute. Probably played out on the blogs by now too, but you know, I could use a nice peaceful touch of cute right now.

Engaged, but not underage

So the above ad ran in the Princess film guide earlier this week, with positive results. I will hereafter refer to it as "the most important ad I will (likely) ever make". You may remember awhile back I mentioned making a big purchase, and well, the ring pictured up there is it. Pretty darn happy. Now there's just a ton of planning to do...
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Here's a bit more about that Pepsi redesign. I guess they mailed out examples (old, current, and new), and a video posted, on that site there to "digital and social media influencers," which I can only assume is a fancy-pants term for bloggers and the like. Makes sense to me, since certain sites were already abuzz with the news...
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An interesting project from NBC. They've gotten different recording artists to record "covers" of the NBC chime "jingle". There's a video on there of the Flaming Lips recording theirs. Of particular note is Mr. Coyne's double neck guitar that repurposes a guitar hero guitar neck into an actual way to make real noise. (via Draplin)
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Here's a neat little desk that I am currently smitten with. I just love the way it keeps itself up.
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Finally, I am madly in love with these bus passes from the 40's. They're just perfect. I really can't stop looking at them. Maybe a style to influence some wedding related paper ephemera? We'll see just what I'll get to get away with for that stuff. I particularly like 10, 1, 8, & 7. Wish there were some close ups...