Finished that poster last night. For some DJ nights my friend Frank has coming up. It seems hard to tell on here, but 'coolest' is in an icy blue. Aside from being a DJ, Frank also runs the UW Weather Station, so I figured that if you combined that, 'coolness' and 'love,' you get a thermometer with a heart on the bottom... Fitting?
------
The subject matter of this Christmas song is one I am definitely familiar with. Gift Card by Thao. Well dealt with. Totally feel the sentiment. 
------
A sad/sweet christmas wish from Patches. Poor Glasses.
------
Fonts in Use. This is my kind of blog. Doing film guide layout involves its fair share of font identification on posters. I can do a fair bit of it on my own, or at least throw up a close facsimile, but I also do my fair share of googling 'moviename poster font' for the tough nuts. Hoping this blog will be entertaining and helpful.
------
In this essay by Ricky Gervais he says some things I have said almost exactly many times:
'As an atheist, I see nothing “wrong” in believing in a god. I don’t think there is a god, but belief in him does no harm. If it helps you in any way, then that’s fine with me. It’s when belief starts infringing on other people’s rights when it worries me. I would never deny your right to believe in a god. I would just rather you didn’t kill people who believe in a different god, say. Or stone someone to death because your rulebook says their sexuality is immoral.'


'“Do unto others…” is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. But that’s exactly what it is -­‐ a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I’m good. I just don’t believe I’ll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It’s knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that’s where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. “Do this or you’ll burn in hell."'


It's a little long winded, but still a good read.
------
I'm sure this is making the rounds pretty heavily, but I gotta link it here anyway: You're A Comic Sans Criminal. You tell 'em!

Dying for Christmas to be here. Need a few extra days off work, and an excuse to do nothing and not feel bad about it. I just spent a little over around 2 hours clearing our my Reader (only 27 unread items!!) and linking stuff here, and now I feel like I've wasted too much time... Oh well.
------
Just realized I haven't posted pictures of our table at Stitch 'n' Kitsch yet. There's one up above. Click it to see it big. Sorry for the ugly background, there was stuff going on behind us, AND we were freaking out and making a mess of our own stuff trying to set up.
------
It was weird and exciting to start viewing this beautiful video that I came to from a link by Coudal, and hear music made by friends of mine as the soundtrack. Same thing happens every time I hear them in a Ford commercial too...
------
Olly Moss totally killed it on these Star Wars posters, as he often does.
------
Czech postage stamps. Some pretty awesome stuff in there. Highlights for me come all in row: Anniversary of TV broadcasting;  Anniversary of Radio broadcasting; Workers and banner; Factories and Rising Sun.
------
I haven't bought into the whole selvedge jeans thing, but I love this guy, Roy, and his one-man made jeans. That's hard work and commitment. I can respect a $275 price tag on a pair of jeans that one guy put that much work and soul into. I think I'll stick with my 50-ish dollars a pair Levi's at the rate of about 1.5 pairs a year though. I don't make $275 jeans money, yet.
------
I wish I was into playing guitar enough to justify spending $45 on a strap. I would definitely buy this Couch x Timber one. A guitar strap with bearded dudes, tree stumps and crossed axes? Yes, please!
------
A little creepy but an interesting development. BMW uses afterimage to brand their logo in viewer's minds.
------
Frequently I wish we had a fireplace or wood stove, for the warmth, and smell, but also for the excuse to chop wood. Now I specifically wish we could have this stove, because it looks awesome, and is super efficient.
------
I wish I was friends with Matt Stevens, so I could have a copy of this limited run Air Max 1 a day book. I love this series of illustrations, and it looks pretty sweet in book form.
------
I don't think I've linked to this yet, and I can't believe. This Delorean external hard drive could just be the best thing ever to store your Time Machine back-ups on. Seriously. Amazing. Clever. Detailed. Awesome.

Somehow I'm always busy at Christmas-time. We recently streamlined film guide production at the Princess, so theoretically I should be less busy than other years at this time. But then BRFC had a really great day at Stitch 'n' Kitsch, and at the same time Bon Mot opened in Uptown Waterloo and started selling our stuff. So suddenly we were out of stock on pretty much everything (a good problem, I know), and I've been relegated back to the basement in my free time, printing up more stuff.

I can't really complain though, I'm still loving doing it, and the response we're getting is pretty amazing. For going from not doing this at all a few months ago, to knowing that something I've printed is in someone's house, or is being given to a friend or parent as a gift, or is even on someone's Christmas tree, this is all pretty cool. BRFC has even been mentioned on two blogs recently, which you can see here and here. It's so cool to see the stuff in other peoples' homes!

Long story short, I haven't been posting because I've been busy. But I'm so happy being busy because everything going on right now is awesome. If you've bought something from BRFC, I really have to thank you, because you've helped to make this an amazing year.

Enough blathering. Here's some links...
------
From Andre in Jenna's office: Flamingo's gather in the shape of a flamingo. Seriously!?
------
In case of holiday emergencies: Altoids tin martini kit. I don't drink martini's, or mixed/shaken drinks much at all, but this is a great idea.
------
1987 Nissan Pao concept car. LOVE it.
------
R2D2 headphones. Pretty awesome. Not for me though. I'm kinda thinking of buying a pair of these though. What I find annoying is that I like the look, but I don't know if I want noise canceling. I use my headphones mostly at work, and kind of need to hear other people around me at the same time.
------
It's kind of lame that this is done by Buick, and the conversation is pretty awkward, but this video makes me pretty excited about the idea of visiting Chicago. Good thing that two people I love are moving there soon!
------
I LOVE this Arcade Fire poster. This one too. The problem? I'm not a huge Arcade Fire fan, so the idea of having a poster of theirs up feels a little weird to me. This actually happens to me a lot. Particularly with Andrew Bird posters. So many nice ones out there, but I've never even really listened to him! Conflicted!
------
And now I've eaten up too much of your time. I keep meaning to post more, shorter posts. And then I don't.

Things are moving along at BRFC. Getting real close to Stitch n Kitsch on December 4, and I'm getting real anxious about getting everything done that I want to have done for then. Got a prototype made of a new product on the weekend, now we don't know if we can get the material to make them or not! Still soldiering on though. Only thing to do, really. Just finished a new coaster design that's totally pandering to a specific market we're expecting to see at the show, let's hope they like it!

That's the poster for the upcoming show up there above. Designed by Sheila, who you can find over here.

I have to say, I am SUPER excited to be selling at an SnK show for the first time.
------
Some items of mine recently got featured by people I don't know, which is exciting. On this blog here, and in this etsy treasury here. Lots of views on my stuff now! Nice to know people at least like looking at my stuff online!
------
Art of Manliness meets Etsy in this storque guest curator spot. My kinda stuff. (unfortunately, none of my stuff though... somebody else's handkerchiefs at least.)
------
Talking to your kids about Star Wars. An excellent PSA. Lots of things to think about when you have kids. How young is too young to see the original trilogy? 'Cause it would be nice for them to see before they get all tainted by the school kids and the new stuff...
------
Cookie Monster auditions for SNL. I know this is all over the place, but I had to re-link. Gotta support the Muppets.
------
I want to go to here!

One of the funny things about doing promotional design work, is that I tend to spend a fair bit of time thinking about things that are kind of far off in the future. At the Princess, I'm often working on things that are two months ahead. I tend to get excited about movies as I'm working on the film guide they're in, then forget about them by the time they're playing because the distance between production and show time is so big. Up above are two text lock ups I put together for the Starlight new years poster. Have you started thinking about new years yet?  Well I've been working on it!

Pretty happy with how these worked out, so I thought I'd put them up here solo. I think I'll be using the Charless one again somewhere, as I think it suits him. I hope he does too!

If you click 'em, you should be able to see them bigger. If you wanted to that is...
------
This is the prettiest camera I've seen in awhile. Seriously, I've been looking at other cameras for the last little while and thinking "yeah, I'd like one of those someday." Then I saw this and thought, "I want THIS NOW." Really nice work making a modern camera and making it look amazingly old school. Impressed.
------
Speaking of impressed:
Peering out of the windows of the International Space Station (ISS), astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson takes in the planet on which we were all born, and to which she would soon return.

Love this picture.
------
Product placement on Days of Our Lives. Hilarious, and a little scary that this is what things are coming to. But still hilarious.

When Marc recently ordered a bunch of coasters from me for the Princess Cafe, he asked me to make some with a projector on them. I've been working on how that would look, and I'm pretty sure that the image above is going to be the end result. I hope it ends up printing okay.

------
Started off today with some design work for a yoga teacher in Guelph, and a viewing of Vanishing Point. Spotted this production company logo in the opening credits which apparently somebody else also thought was cool, since they put it up on youtube. Simple and awesome.
------
The more I see of the design for Frank, in Austin, the more I LOVE it. Seriously, it's making the rounds and it is awesome. Check out this run down that The Dieline posted. Really, really nice stuff. Thorough too. I love how they even went to town all over the outside of the building.

Actually, a number of things designed by the firm behind it, Helmsworkshop, have come to my attention of late, and they are putting out some amazing stuff all around. For example, go here and pay special attention to the Optimistic Beverages logo. Forget that, just look at everything on there. Nice stuff.
------
These might be the cutest bird-feeders I've ever seen. Too bad I've only seen them for 99 euros. That's a little much for me!
------
Shepard Fairey, and other people, have designed manhole covers in Milan? Awesome.
------
Dueling Bears by BoyGirlParty. This print is adorable. I've seriously probably looked at it once a day for the past week or two.

I'm really holding it down with being inconsistent with my blogging. Honestly, I've been pretty busy all around. Lots of work being done outside of work lately, like those two posters up above, and printing items for brfc.etsy.com and the upcoming Stitch 'n' Kitsch show on December 4. The posters each reference something different that I'm a big fan of; Saul Bass & toggle switches. I have been tweeting a fair bit lately, so if you want to know what's going up with me personally, check out the feed up there on the right.

If you've been looking for links to stuff I like, sorry! Here are some for you now though.
------
It Would Have Been Cooler as a Van. Classic movie vehicles re-imagined as vans. Awesome. So hard to pick a favourite, but I pretty much have to pick the Back to the Future Delorean any time I get the chance.
------
History of video game consoles. Thorough. Seriously. Like, so thorough I've barely even started to look at it. Excited to slog through the whole thing when I have some time (so, never?).
------
Apple: Their tablet computer history. More thorough, nerdy chronicling of techno-history. Another thing I'm excited to read through...
------
Heroes of Folk. Love these. Love the classic American folk hero stories.
------
Jack Purcell mids in melton wool? Yes please!
------
10 reasons to grow a beard. As if you needed one.
------
CBC 75th anniversary logo. Nice.
------
The evolution of the geek.
------
That's enough for now! Maybe more sometime?