Marc has another comedy night coming up at the Princess Cafe, so it was time for another anthropomorphized microphone poster! Maybe the last in the series of posters, but certainly not the last comedy night, and maybe not the last in the series of posters. I loved this idea when I had it, but I'm still not totally satisfied with it. It needed to be finished though, and so it is.
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Slogging through my still back-logged Google Reader I kept seeing Bill Murray posters, and finally found out the were all for Please Post Bills at Gallery 1988. Awesome, awesome show.

Not surprisingly, DKNG threw down my favourite with William James Murray. So good.
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I got an email from White Elephant in Hamilton this week that they were running low on my hankies and wanted more. The most exciting thing about this is that it gives us an excuse to go and shop at White Elephant this weekend!

(Seriously though, the most exciting part is actually that they sell my stuff, because their shop is awesome, and it means I'm being sold alongside other awesome people like Jenna Rose and others.)
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And, here's another new product pic from Twitter. Yes, I finally have towels with bikes on them. At some point I need to do a bike graphic that's more true to what I ride, but this design obviously works better on hankies and these very classic style towels.

Finished that poster up above a week or two ago. Final version ended up having "and" instead of "with," between the two names, but I like the way "with" looked better, so that's what you get here. More Lost Type Co-op. They just dropped two new fonts this week, and they're definitely still killing it. So good.
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So much stuff going on! Lots of things to get ready for BRFC's first Stitch 'n' Kitsch as a full fledged member (like the little trees you can see in the background here). A new Cafe Comedy night poster is in the works, there's some Starlight stuff, some QSY stuff, and, of course, my day job. Really wish I just had the extra stuff to do. Maybe one day?

In personal news, I have to go to the dentist tomorrow morning. Cavities. Somehow I didn't go to a dentist for like 10 years, and no cavities were found. 6 months later I go to a new dentist and there are cavities. Bad dentist, or 6 months of terrible brushing?
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For awhile now my intention has been to go to Android with my next cell phone, but this monolith iPhone case/projector is giving me more reason to want an iPhone. Pretty awesome.
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Cabin Porn is a blog that instantly got added to my reader, and then immediately became one of my most looked forward to 'reads.' So pretty. I want to print in this place (and maybe nap upstairs...)
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Want. Fisher-Price A-Frame (also from Cabin Porn)
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Jenna showed me this amazing quilt. I may be biased because it is in our wedding colours, but it is pretty damn perfect. Definitely want.

Turns out when you have a wedding that involves a lot of hands on stuff, then go away for a few weeks, you really miss out on a lot of stuff. Playing catch-up now on work (see quickly produced poster above), tv, and blog reading now that we're back. I've already gone through tonnes of stuff and my Google Reader is still listing 1000+. Does it list anything higher than that? Like would it list 2000+? I don't want to find out.

Anyway, I obviously missed a bunch of cool stuff while I was gone, so I thought I'd share some with you.
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Poster process videos from DKNG. The Explosions one is what got me there, and then I had to watch the Black Keys one, because it is an amazing poster. I'm sure pretty much all of them are equally awesome though.

I get lost in these videos. They make me wish I had a better grasp of working with textures.
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Trip Print Press video. Trip Print is a Toronto-based letterpress studio. Pretty much every time I read mention of Trip Print, it talks about how awesome his studio is and how much people just want to spend time there. I can believe it. When this video ended I was disappointed, and a little angry. It's way too short.
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"Bear gobbles up pies at B.C. pizza joint." My kinda bear. I love that he tried going back for more, twice.
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I've yet to back anyone on Kickstarter, but I think Ruler Pencil might end up being my first.
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So very sad that I missed the fall colours edition from Field Notes. The Fire Spotter Edition looks like the best set yet. Hopefully Bon Mot will get some in and I can grab a set there. Every once in awhile I think about getting a colours subscription, but I just don't think I need 2 packs of each colours set (though I did buy 2 of Raven's Wing, that one was pretty great.)
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Most of this was via Coudal's Fresh Signals. What a great blog. They really pile up when you don't read them every day though!

Honeymoon update 2. We're back home.

Some updated stats:
- weeks married - a few
- states travelled through - a bunch
- kilometers travelled - a lot (5000+ I think...)
- calories eaten - a disgusting amount
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I had good intentions to keep people updated on here as we went along, however driving for a number of hours each day can be really tiring, and by the end of each day I really didn't want to do much except plan the next day and then go to bed.

Now I'm already back to work, and everything already seems far gone. Once I go through all the photos and get them up online, I'll re-cap it all for you. Suffice to say, it was an amazing trip. We made it all the way down to Savannah (which is an amazingly beautiful city and which I'm already itching to return to) and back. We went zip-lining, and rode roller-coasters (which I've long had a fear of); we swam in the ocean, and we hiked up a mountain; we looked at old houses, and stayed in a modern cabin (Lost River Modern, it's amazing); we spent time around thousands of tourists, and we spent time completely by ourselves. It was all over the map, literally and figuratively, and I'm so happy we went and did it.
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Speaking of work, I forgot to share some more work I've done for Marc at the Princess Cafe recently.

While we were gone Marc had a crazy busy weekend. One part of it was having the 2nd Princess Cafe Comedy Night. I worked the poster into my busy pre-pre-wedding schedule, and am pretty pleased with it. I think Jenna suggested the vaudeville hook when I was working on the last Comedy Night poster, and I'm happy I decided to try it out for this one. Now I have to figure out what the microphone is going to do for the next one!

That same night, Marc also launched his new late-night grilled cheese stand called Cheeses Murphy. I crammed this work into my even busier pre-wedding schedule, and worked on edits on the road because I wanted to work on this project with him so badly. I'm mostly happy with how it turned out, but am glad he wants to make some changes to what's on the menu, because it gives me some more time to make a few changes to how the menu looks.

Since I don't really do illustrations Branko Vranic drew up Cheeses himself for Marc, and I set to work trying to put some things together that did the image justice. Luckily, Lost Type just released Oil Can not that long ago, and as soon as I saw where Branko had gone, I knew it would work perfectly (and I had been dying to use it!). Actually, every typeface used on the Cheeses work is from Lost Type. They are releasing some pretty great stuff over there.

Cheeses Murphy basically redresses the Princess Twin lobby for Marc to sell sandwiches out of, so he had me design up some big posters, as well as standard smaller menus, to give the place its look. After Jenna and I got home on Saturday night, we popped over there to check it out and I was really excited to see everything printed and up.

Oh, and the food is good too! Marc was working on his bacon jam recipe while we were gone, and it's pretty awesome. The Lumberjack is a great one too, hearty. Looks like there'll be some late-night snacking in my future, as I still have to try the rest of them!

Honeymoon update 1.

Stats:

- weeks married - 1

- states travelled through - 5

- kilometers travelled - 1063

- calories eaten - too many

We left KW yesterday afternoon, with our new bumper 'sticker' (thanks for making it a magnet Celene!! Also, thanks for making it!) proudly displayed on the back of our car. 600km's and more time than it probably should have taken (mostly bad Ontario traffic), we stopped near Scranton, PA. This morning we got up and continued on to Philadelphia for the afternoon.

Pennsylvania, and most of New York state, have been surprisingly treed and pretty. I'm actually sad that we passed through most of NY in the dark, as there seemed to be endless tree covered hills, and every small town downtown we passed through looked like it was post-card perfect (I love a good small-town downtown).

Philadelphia itself seemed pretty cool. Obviously we went to Love park, and then found some oversized game pieces that made me pretty happy.

We did a pretty rush job of the whole thing. I ate a cheesesteak at Pat's King of Steaks, we hit up some local crafter stores (Art Star and Nice Things... Handmade), then Honey's Sit 'n' Eat, where Jenna had an amazing quesadilla, and I had what basically amounted to another cheesesteak. Thanks to Design*Sponge and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives respectively for highlighting those spots. Glad we made it to them.

After dinner made a quick stop by the liberty bell (felt we shouldn't miss it, not unlike the cheesesteak) then we powered on past Baltimore and into Arlington, Virginia. We're real close to all the big stuff in Washington DC right now. That's what's on tap for tomorrow. The main monuments, the Smithsonian, and I guess the White House too.

So far I am loving our new GPS. I still doubt it takes us on the smartest routes sometimes, but it's tonnes better than our old one. Also loving our new car stereo deck. Plugging the ipod in is so much better than trying to tune new FM stations to play it through all the time.

Up to this point I've been 'live tweeting' our honeymoon (much to Jenna's displeasure), so if you want to know what we're up to each day, check out @bearfacejohnson.

Can't wait to share photos of the wedding, and the process of getting everything ready for it. Look for that sometime after the honeymoon. And then maybe after Stitch 'n' Kitsch even...

More new posters. Those in the know may notice that my posters of late are very Lost Type heavy. Loving their fonts. LOVING. A tip for you, if you're doing anything design-wise lately, check out Lost Type. Pay What You Can for awesome fonts. 

This Les Breastfeeders poster is possibly my raciest poster ever. Says a lot about my design preferences I think... 

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In life news, Jenna just had her gall bladder out on Monday. Bit of a wrench in the gears of wedding prep, but she should be pretty good to go by the end of the month. That, the wedding, and some other factors are making this a wicked stressful time, but we'll get through it. And then we get to leave for 2 weeks, so that will be nice. I just have to plan the trip now!!

Two weeks ago I was asked to do a rush poster for a labour day club night at Starlight. Looking for a quick solution, I started thinking about what ideas come to mind when I think of labour. After I ruled out a poster involving babies, I moved on to unions. Union logos can be very iconic and meaningful, so I decided to take a stab at one for a fictional DJ union. There's still something about it that I wasn't completely satisfied with, but that doesn't change the fact that I want to slap it on everything.
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Our wedding is less than a month away, which is pretty terrifying considering we still have a bunch of stuff we'd like to do for it. It's pretty exciting too though, as we'll get to share it with everyone there, and then I'll get to share all the little details we've created on here. Super proud of it all.
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Speaking of our wedding, last weekend was my bachelor weekend. Marc, Shane and I headed up to Ottawa to visit the Beau's brewery, do some camping and play a little disc golf. Pretty perfect weekend. I wish Sean could have been there though.

My 'bestie' Marc over at the Princess Cafe has scheduled a comedy night in September, and he asked me to put together a poster for him. A fun little project. Hopefully the night goes well and there will be more in the future.
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Jenna and I went to Hamilton this weekend to visit the Beehive Collective's craft fair. It was pretty great. Lots of nice stuff on sale there. We bought a couple things from Jenna Rose, and some awesome Halifax-related prints from Chris Foster. Jenna has liked Jenna Rose's stuff for awhile now, and got me into it too, and Chris Foster was completely new to us, and an awesome surprise. I bought a hanky from Jenna Rose, and now I get what people have meant when they've said they don't want to blow their nose on my hanky's because they like them too much. It's super nice, and has bears (and other outdoor animals) on it!
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The other highlight of our Hamilton trip was that I dropped off some of my handkerchiefs for consignment at White Elephant. White Elephant is an awesome shop, full of really nice stuff, so it's a total honour to have my stuff there. I hope Hamiltonians like them!

Yup, still feeling busy. Thought I'd update so you can see what I've been up to, though if you follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter, you probably know about all of this.

Up above is the front and back cover I did for the 'Home' issue of WLU's Blueprint magazine. Pretty happy with it. I might have done something different if I had a little more time, but I had all of those little houses left over from when I did this coaster set and was happy to get to use them for something. On the back you'll find a house I lived in as a kid in Brantford, and our current house (the most boring of the bunch). The front is Jenna's parents' house. Definitely a home-y place.
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After a fairly successful Spring Stitch 'n' Kitsch sale, where I was asked multiple times about a business card, I finally made up some business cards. Heavy stock. I had them in time for the first Uptown Flea, which I participated in, on the first Car Free Sunday. I don't know if I'll sell at the next Car Free Sunday, I kind of want to check out what's going on!
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I finally did a 2 successful 2 colour print, of a line of poetry that's always stuck in my head. Sorry for the crappy Blackberry in my workroom photo. Sold one so far! At least it was a good training exercise for a big important print I'll be doing soon.
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Finally, on the home front, Ron and I rented a stump grinder and got rid of the stump from the apple tree we cut down over the winter. Pretty fun, and tiring, couple hours.
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Obviously there's been lots of other things done and not done since I last posted too, but that's a bit of it. Wedding planning needs to amp up soon and fast, so it may be awhile before I'm back on here.

Seems about time for an update. More than time, really.

Recently finished the above poster for Danny Michel at the Starlight. Danny loved it, which is awesome, and I've made a modified version for him to send to other venues as his tour poster. Pretty awesome to think that it'll be up in other cities.

I tagged a little self-promo on the bottom of that version, and since my blogger address would look kind of lame, and by etsy one wouldn't be appropriate, I finally bought www.bearface.ca and tagged that on there. It only links to here for now, but I've got plans. Just have to make time to enact them.
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Speaking of plans, my bike plans are finally almost finished. Just need some bar tape and I'll be done with working on it for now. Got some brakeless riding in there for a bit, but finally put a brake on, and really like riding with the additional safety. It was a little nerve-wracking riding brakeless...

Got out for a long-ish ride this evening, and loved it so much. After everything I read about riding fixed, I didn't think it could all be true, but it really doesn't disappoint. It's exciting to have a bike I'm excited about riding again.

You can check out a flickr set of pictures of my bike here.
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Trying to work on some new stuff for Stitch 'n' Kitsch. It's kind of scary soon. June 11. I've got enough ready to go, but I just wanted to go in with more... We'll see what happens.

It's been way too long since I've updated here. I've got a lot of things on my plate lately. I did finally get around to updating my gigposters page recently, but you've probably already seen most of it here.

I've also started using Pinterest. Some of what I would usually post on here (cool images, things I want to buy, etc) has ended up being dumped over there, so if you want to check out some neat stuff, you can check out my pinterest page.

The rest of my time keeps getting filled up by various things. This weekend, for example, was yard work, some custom printing, some freelance design, and planning a workshop with Love Made.

Lots of stuff on the agenda too. This blog may move onto an actual site at some point, once I get around to making it; there's a wedding to plan (with lots of printed materials to design!); and a bike to finish building (it's at a shop to be powder coated right now! Can't wait to get it back). So all that and more is what's up around here lately. Maybe I'll have some cool links for you to peruse soon...

Interesting fact: in the last month this blog has seen a lot of Google hits from the search words Diane Lane Outsiders, and various combinations of similar things. I cannot figure out why. I know I have mentioned her before, but there are a tonne of other things that come up first when you google that. Weird.

Been pretty busy lately with various things. Bunch of Queen Street Yoga posters, some club posters (like that pretty basic 'artist photo' poster up above, not my favourite type of poster to do, but I try to make them a little interesting) and a new BRFC project or two in the works. I've been amassing a tonne of links to share, but just haven't gotten around to it...
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At work it's film guide time again. Time to flip through about 8 million images online. Always interesting to see what stands out in that time.

One of the films we're playing in March/April is the Oscar nominated Dogtooth. Sounds like a weird one, but one I'm intrigued by. LOVE this poster for it, though you won't see it in the film guide. I described the poster to my boss as ballsy. Ballsy to make a movie poster like that. It's more something you'd see for a concert. Just a simple image. Love it.

It's unlikely that we'll show I Saw The Devil, but I can't stop going back to look at this poster for it. Striking, for sure. No pun intended. Really love it. Makes all the other posters for it look like shit.

We showed Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives a few months ago, and I wish this poster for it had been making the rounds at the time, because it definitely would have made it's way home with me. Seriously, more of this please, film companies! Criterion has had some good covers done by Daniel Clowes recently, but more movie posters would be awesome too.
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And, just to burn off a couple more links that have piled up:

Want. (Ben Ong shared this on Google. LOVE.)

Neat. (I think Jenna sent me this)

AWESOME. (Super clever monolith art. Pretty sure this came from the amazing Coudal feed)

I finally started collecting the Complete Peanuts series, with the 1950-54 set pictured above. I'm pretty sure this is my favourite era of Peanuts, so I can't wait to re-read them. The books and box are beautiful, not surprisingly, since they're designed by Seth. His lettering is perfect for it, and the vignettes he used in the opening and closing pages really emphasize the seriousness that underlines Peanuts, as well as give the series a distinctly Seth touch. 
(edit: I was just reading the above linked info about the series in which Seth is quoted: "I want to emphasize the sophistication of Schulz’s work by creating a package that is both austere and direct. I would like to try to reflect the quiet and melancholy of the strip in a package that hopefully, shows the proper amount of respect for Mr. Schulz." Obviously, I think he nailed it.)
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You may or may not know this already, but I rarely ever wash my jeans, and I wear the same pair almost every day. Turns out I should have done this as a 'study' rather than my regular practice, 'cause I could have ended up in the news. I know people wash their jeans more than I do, and wear them less than I do, but the idea of washing them every day, or even every week is ridiculous to me. Jeans are rugged and durable, so why not treat them that way? Good enough for miners to wear every day, good enough for me to wear every day.
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Almost every designer I follow shared this video in one way or another, so I thought I should pass it on too: The House Industries trailer. So much awesomeness.
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From Julia N. on facebook: Generic Dr. Pepper gallery. I love store brand/generic sodas. Dr. Pepper versions are, of course, the best since Dr. Pepper is awesome, and the names they come up with to evoke the original are usually pretty entertaining. Dr. Thunder, Dr. A+, Dr. Pop, etc. The names are amazing! Personal favourite, by name and experience: Dr. Smooth.
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Anson tweeted about a blog that discusses user interface design that seems pretty interesting: Little Big Details. I LOVE this kind of stuff, because these really are the little touches that make the user experience so much better if they're done right, and ruin it if they're not. When Google Labs announced this new favicon tweak I got really excited. It also helped me clean up my inbox, as apparently it doesn't could when you have more than 20 unread emails. I feverishly went through everything and got down from 30+ to 18 , so now I can see what I've got unread in a very small spot, and I have less unread. Look how that little UI tweak helped me! Now if I could manage to have less tabs open...
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Herman Melville has 25 words for Beard. Personal favorite? "Long, trailing moss hanging from the bough of some aged oak." At least I think that's it. There are some real good ones in there.
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Camper Kart and Camper Bike. Neat, cool and clever.

Getting a bit more work done. Some yoga posters, some ads, and that poster up above. Tomorrow I finally get down to work on wedding invitations for some friends. Looking forward to that, at the same time that it's a little scary to do work for friends. Not as scary as doing my own invitations will be, but still scary.
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The National Post shows some of the cover design process of Seth. Pretty cool to see. I can never say enough how much I love Seth's lettering and style. So nice. (from Drawn)
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Just in Time, Or A Short History of Production. Amazing looking art installation. I'd love to see footage of it running.
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Blerg. I was supposed to get more done today, but so far I have not. Fridays off always disappear way too quickly.

Still finding it hard to get creative lately, but I'm working on it. When I was originally thinking about doing a Plants and Animals poster, I went to the obvious place and thought about doing something with plants, and animals. In the end I started thinking about Montreal, where both bands on the bill are from. I always forget that Montreal has a subway system (maybe because I've never been there...), but it seems like something distinctive about the city. Since I love trains and subways, and maps, I thought that might be a good place to go for their poster. I hope they like it!

Actual Montreal subway (metro) map for reference.
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If you haven't heard anything about Vivian Maier yet, you should check her out. You should start by watching the video here. Really cool story that's making the rounds. Thanks so much to Sheila for sharing it with my in a comment the other day. Beautiful images.
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That's it. Time to get on to my to do list. Tonight is birthday dinner with some good friends, and viewing of Back to the Future, one of my all-time favourites, on 35mm at the Original Princess tonight. Looking forward to it!

I have had 7 rolls of film kicking around in a shoebox for the past 9 or so years. I think at the time I took the pictures I was probably low on cash and figured I didn't need to spend it on developing the film. Over the years I'd look at them from time to time and think I should do something with them, but I never did, for reasons ranging from money to 'just where do you take film now anyway?' to laziness.

 

I finally took them in, and sadly only got about 3 rolls worth of stuff. I guess maybe if I hadn't let them sit so long, they would have been better off... Oh well, at least I got something. They're not the most exciting pictures in the world, but it's kind of neat to see them, lost for all this time.

That's me up above, taken sometime in the past, with an action sampler. I'd put it at about 2000-2001-ish, considering the hat, and the fact that I'm wearing contacts. Yes, I am playing hacky sack.

I'm sure you'll see more of these soon.

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New add to my google reader: Someone Else Will Put it Back. Love it. I never understand why people can't just put things back where they go. Especially things that will spoil if left out of a cooler. I do enjoy when the places things end up are especially weird though.

Related to this, I think my biggest shopping pet peeve may be people who leave empty coffee cups on store shelves. I saw this so much during the shopping season and I can't stand it. How hard is it to hold on to your cup, or put it in your cart, for just a few minutes longer? Ridiculous.

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Want. House Industries x Herman Miller Japan blocks. Damn, nice work. The details! "Took us a while to sniff out the tiny brown kraft packing tape, but solving specky details like “tape scale” allows me to sleep at night." Seriously. You have to love that attention to detail. 

If you happen to be in Japan at all, please pick one of these up for me. Thanks!

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Homeless guy with golden radio voice. Seriously, that title does not lie.

edit: started this post yesterday and Jenna just informed me that job offers are already coming in for that guy. Nice.

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Love this ConverseXAce Hotel shoe. Good look.

Finally updated the header on here. I've been meaning to for a while, but just finally got around to it. Sounds like most things with me.

Up there is one of my trivets spotted in action on New Year's Eve. Looks good peeking out there from under the dish, if I do say so myself. Anyway, happy new year and merry christmas and all that. The holidays were nice, but not relaxing enough, and I'm having some serious trouble getting down to work and being creative. I'm sure things will get back on track soon, but until then, links!
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More than 1000 dead birds fall from the sky. What?? What makes this extra sad to me is that the red-winged blackbird is my favourite bird. Sad.
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Speaking of birds, you may know we kind of favour bird images around our house. Jenna recently found these two different antique packaging items that I really need to keep an eye out for now (on top of this Hush-shak can I'm itching to own):

Ronson Oily Bird lubricant. Clever, clever use of the spout as beak. Love it.

Snow Bird Dust Mop Polish. So pretty.
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If I were a snowboarder, I'd probably want this HBCxBurton snowboard. It's like a Bay blanket on a board!
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I know this is a little late, but Black Thought throws down some beautiful vocals in this video of The Roots doing The Christmas Song. Multi-talented vocalist! Love it.
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Also a little late, is this article about the novelty industry struggling with creating glasses for NYE 2011. Some pretty ridiculous solutions there.