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.