Fusion :: Watercolor and Letterpress Wedding Invites

My client asked me for an illustration of roses on her wedding invitation with more nuance than I felt letterpress was able to do. We decided watercolor was the best direction to take. I discovered letterpress even more wonderful when fused together with watercolor.

I set out to find the right materials from watercolor to paper. The first question I had to tackle was whether to use watercolor or gouache. The color red had to stand out on the invitations, and at first gouache was the obvious choice, but later watercolor had the advantage of layering color and having a more luminous quality.

WATERCOLOR ILLUSTRATION
SAMPLES ON ARCHES PAPER

Young Wild & Three: Toddlers birthday party

                                           
Summer quickly turned into fall and suddenly a lot of party planning begins. Among the obvious, there was Maya’s third birthday to plan for too. I decided to do my own take on “Young Wild & Three”. I just love that fierce little slogan and couldn’t resist.

Dig It :: Kids Play and Printing

When you add meaning, be sure to equip with water for making mud pies and washing up. Spring is on and I have been working on designing a play space for the family. While doing so, I’ve made some parallels between it and printing in the studio.

STATIONERY ELEMENTS

Creating Value :: Paper

Paper choice. It's an important part of what pushes your work towards sophistication and something your client can value. Some of the considerations when choosing paper are its weight, color and texture, or/and taking it a step further by understanding the paper manufacturer's history and culture.

Italian Paper Choices to Devour

Paper choice - we’ve heard of and absolutely love Neenah, French and Mohawk and not to mention their amazing creative marketing teams behind their collateral products, but Italian paper is pretty fine too. Even if it can lack in assertiveness or edgy on-line appeal, they make up for in innovation and bare bones history and culture.
Italian paper innovation, print techniques and graphic design is a feast, buon appetito!

FABRIANO’S TAKE ON
LA CUCINA ITALIANA - REPRINT OF THEIR FIRST ED.
VIA FABRIANO BOUTIQUE

Christmas Gift Guide : Graphic, Paper, Product Design Enthusiasts

I like to collect my ideas and share them this time of year, as I am also getting ready to buy for loved ones. The gift guide this year is more about the philosophy or bright idea behind the product itself. Nevertheless, I think graphic designers, paper enthusiasts, package and product design lovers, lifestyle trenders and the like will find this guide useful.

Not in any particular order.

BULLET JOURNALING : WEEKLY LOG LAYOUT
PHOTO VIA CHIC STUDIES

Is Graphic Design Art?

So there’s a question older than “why are we here”.  Is graphic design art? Some say it depends on whether the project functions for the sake of monetary gain versus existing for its own sake. But maybe it’s about the scope.

PROTOTYPE, PLAY AT WORK.
EXPERIMENTS WITH HANDLETTERING
DRINK MENU 

Turntable Tuesday :: Paper Chase

What is the most important factor when designing a stationery project? Some would say the concept others would say resources. I would have to say paper a lot of times. It communicates feeling, craftsmanship and richness that is hard to convey with ink and ideas alone.

Italy is an old country and along with it come craftsmen from generations down. They have their methods, and imbue soul into what sometimes seems a soulless market place. This is indeed why we, paper lovers, are so inclined to them. They are elusive, plainly dressed and always at the dinner table to share a story.

DETAIL WINTER WEDDING Piedmont, Italy
 Letterpress silhouette bride and groom
Magnani’s Etrusca - textured Italian paper

Turntable Tuesday :: Ephemera Flag Tags

If you are a paper lover, chances are you have saved some type of beautifully designed ephemera along the way. I know I have! Some of my absolute favorite types to collect are paper sample booklets. They are such a great source of inspiration, as mentioned in a previous post. They are usually beautifully designed by agencies with the sole aim to showcase the companies paper. They are wonderfully tactile, and most times humorous telling the story of something or someone around the theme, paper.

Why not put some of this collected ephemera to work and create something for your own stationery needs? In this instance, I used some paper from an old sample booklet I had by International Paper featuring Beckett Paper’s 'True Felt'. Petrick Design designed a booklet with truth quotes foil stamped or engraved. With them, I cut out flag tags, punched a hole and added a paper cord.

FLAG TAGS :: MADE FROM EPHEMERA PAPER

"BEAUTY IS TRUTH, TRUTH BEAUTY.
THAT IS ALL YE KNOW ON EARTH,
AND ALL YE NEED TO KNOW."
JOHN KEATS

“THE TRUTH IS RARELY PURE AND NEVER SIMPLE."
OSCAR WILDE

How to Sketch Ideas

For some of us sketching might mean doodling on a napkin, for others it means saving visual inspirations on a mobile application (Evernote comes to mind) or perhaps Pinterest. But it all starts with an idea and then evolves into visual form.  Brainstorming the big idea is the hard part, but it’s also the most stimulating for me.

After the big idea and visual doodling, mock it up.

Print tests: checking out lay out and best paper for this project :: Stay Tuned!

Turntable Tuesday :: Milan Loves Trendy

HIGH TECH IN MILAN

If you’re in Milan, and have an hour to spend, High Tech may be your type of space. It’s an all go to mash up concept store which has samples of the latest trends in stationery to post modern furniture design.

Turntable Tuesday :: Italian, Dutch, French Adorable Toys

There have been so many reasons why having a baby in the house has been a delight. For one, discovering cool toys and the designers behind them!

Turntable Tuesday :: Homestyle Classic Rock-n-Roll

I like clean modern aesthetics in just about everything, but softness to a homestyle environment is essential too. Just as the birds and bees co-exist with hard manmade structures; textures and aromas can add warmth to a space.

LEFT: PHILIP BARLOW FABRIC, KOH-I-NOOR TOOTHBRUSH
RIGHT: STEPHANIE NG LIGHT FIXTURE, ABREEV’S CONCEPT DISH P SUP

Organic Food, Italian Markets, Gardens and Printing Inspiration

Juggling a new little being in the house has made getting back to the studio slower than I first imagined. Actually just getting out the door can sometimes be tricky. Having said that, I do add on more responsibility to my “to do list” that increases the workload and perhaps marginalizes time in my studio.

It’s baby food making mode here lately. It’s a bit of a paradox finding organic food living in Italy, and you’d clearly expect for every Italian mother to make her own baby food (yeah, 25 years ago). I mean, EXPO is being held this year, and everyone should be conscious of healthy eating habits (that should start at birth) right? Still, there are two main producers of canned baby food and a lot of mothers opt for it. Actually I think it’s probably more of a trend in America making homemade baby food, but I could be wrong.

Another paradox I’ve found is locating organic food here. Yes, we have farmers markets and yes families in rural areas generally have plots dedicated to food for big folk, but living in the north means there are pockets when there are no veggies growing in the garden and all depends on the weather. This year, for instance we have tons of cherries! And like the weather, studio time comes in pockets when I can sit down to sketch or typeset and start to think about what colors to use on the next project. 

Papê :: A Pre-Cool Stationery Shop and Lab

We spent Sunday afternoon in Genova to visit friends Nora and Marco - aka Manolab. Nora has just ventured into opening Papê, a boutique stationery shop in Genova. It’s no ordinary card shop and showcases some fun & unique graphic design pieces as well as screen printed t-shirts and children's art books. I picked up the one and only children’s book illustrated by Saul Bass...

NORA & MARCO

PAPER FLOWER BOUQUET TO SEND VIA POST

Turntable Tuesday :: 1%

99% INVISIBLE is, well lets say, very often gratifying and that’s reason enough to listen to anyone for any period of time. It’s name was inspired by Buckminster Fuller - American born architect, designer, futurist (the enchanting list goes on), who said “Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable”. 

SURFIN’ STATE OF MIND IN URBAN ENVIRONMENTS

Turntable Tuesday :: Munich Eatery Spaces

Italy is famous for espresso and perhaps even more so people clamoured up to the bar to have a jolt, but not so much to sit and sip as I found in Bavaria. I met up with my sunny Californian cousin and her Deutsche husband in his hometown Munich. I had never been and wasn’t sure what else to expect except for beer and sausage. And there was plenty of that with the infamous Oktoberfest in full swing, which we popped into and out of and back onto gentler and quieter streets in record time. And I mean quieter, strangely and reflectively quiet which I think these interior eatery spaces show.

CAFE’ MARIE

Turntable Tuesday : Taming Neenah, Menu Design

Here is a paper sample booklet by NEENAH PAPER COMPANY. I’ve had it for about 15 years, so a bit tattered. I’ve permitted myself to cut out just parts from a few pages and even brought it over with me to Italy from America. It goes to show how much I love this...well, object.

Writing, Design On Your Desk

This is a late post, at least relative to when the event actually occured. Nevertheless for those of you in Milan area next year in May, WRITING, DESIGN ON YOUR DESK  is free and worth a visit. This was a 1st. ed. stationery fair in Milan for paper designer enthusiasts held this year last May. There were print demonstrations, paper “rendering” workshops, booths by small and large studios and inspirational talks about concepting, bookbinding, print in todays marketplace and letterpress as a viable medium in the design arena.

FONTEGRAFICA (upper-top and bottom images) designs for artist gallery shows

THYPE Turin based Cultural Association (center-most image)

 participants final work at their paper rendering workshop 

Turntable Tuesday : Homage to Andy Warhol : 2 Day Letterpress Print Performance

I’ve revisited Andy Warhol, who celebrated a birthday on the 6th of August, and plan a two day letterpress print performance with friend Claudio Mandella from 9PT (14-15 August, 2013 Mondovì, Italy). This is a homage to a fantastic artist--not to be mistaken as an Abstract Expressionist, but the purveyor of Pop Art. Warhol had the cool capacity to make his objects d’art "un-unique". Common sources Warhol used in his works in fact came from reproductions from popular American culture like advertisements, hollywood icons and newspaper clippings.

Heinz 57  limited ed. letterpress postcards