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

Letterpress Insert Covers :: Traveler Notebooks

NOTEBOOK INSERTS FOR TRAVELER NOTEBOOKS
LETTERPRESS COVER

I’ve been delving and developing notebook inserts. It all started with a bullet journal article I read. Like many of us we have a note book or ten floating around us at any given moment. They are promisers of taking a load off our brains, getting things better organized and the added bonus of sitting pretty on a table, but after a few pages filled they can be like an old toy left alone.

Kismet, Fabrica Notebooks

THE BIG AND SMALL NOTEBOOK BY FABRICA
PHOTOS VIA CATARINA CARREIRAS WEBSITE

The other day I eyed some notebooks from across the counter at Benetton. The sales girl asked which one I wanted hurriedly but politely, after all the store was full. I asked for the black and white one with the simple motif, so she handed it over.  That style only came in the smaller format, The Small Notebook it was literally called. My second choice was a colorful lime green chevron motif in a larger A5 format, The Big Notebook. The sales person took it for me to further inspect; it had a lovely hot pink elastic enclosure and an emerald green book mark. There were plenty of others to admire, but my husband gave me a sign that the customers behind me were becoming disgruntled and I should move it along.  I couldn’t help but bring The Big Notebook home and I was happy at the chance to start a new bullet journal as my explorations deepen. 

Letterpress Planner and Methods

Paper, thinking and writing come hand in hand in planners, notebooks, calendars, journals...  I wrote in an earlier post of the newest wave, the bullet journal, bringing note taking all together. It’s a creative and tidy method to put all your projects, to do lists, sketches, calendar of events into one place rather than having sheets of paper, numerous notebooks or even bookmarked links all over the place. What’s is more, you have more control over what goes into it.

i.e. ABOVE ALL, ME
CUSTOMIZED LETTERPRESS COVER - PLANNER

Happy New Year :: Don’t Forget to Take Note

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and surely we are all now looking forward to the New Year 2017. I like to sit down and review/revise old resolutions. How much do your hopes change over the years? Perhaps leaps and bounds aren’t what we achieve, but change is inevitable and something has happened. Let’s hope for the best or better yet let’s realize what can be!

TYPESETTING
DIRTY HANDS MAKE ME HAPPY

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

Caro Babbo Natale

Kids enjoyed having the chance to dress-up in apron and gloves and play tipografo i.e. printer for a letterpress demonstration yesterday. I helped kids get their Santa letters started and taught a thing or two about letterpress and Gutenberg. In no time, with the occasional backward b and fantastic typographic mix of lower and upper case lettering, kids jotted down ideas.

L-R CHILD CAREFULLY STUFFS SANTA’S BAG,
TIPOGRAFO, WRITING SANTA LETTERS
AT CONFABULA LIBRERIA MONDOVì

Lettera di Natale

Pop up laboratory for kids set for the 4th December at Confabula bookshop. Children and I will write our “caro babbo” i.e. dear Santa letters for the season followed by Christmas stories.
Rsvp!

POP UP WORKSHOP LETTERA DI NATALE
"CARO BABBO” MONDOVI, ITALY

Bon Ton :: Classic Wedding Invites

Maria and Fulvio have officially tied the knot and I had the privilege to print up their wedding invites. In the design process I got to learn a thing or two about etiquette; wasn't the Emily Post type, but the Italian version Donna Letizia painter, illustrator, writer and perhaps better known for her commentary on how to be polite.

IL SAPER VIVERE

Carattere in Cucina Letterpress Workshop

TIFFANY BLUE - HAND MIXED

Carattere in Cucina letterpress workshop round-up. It was fantastic!
The participants were all mostly (graphic) designers or with a serious penchant for paper. They dove into their projects and came out like semi-pros.

Cut It Out Valentines

Happy Valentines. Hope yours was spent imagining ways to say I love You. 

XOXO
PAPER FOLDED ENVELOPE/HEART

Christmas Gifts For Print Lovers

Christmas is close and what I love most about it is giving. Giving a gift isn’t the easiest thing in the world, and it can sometimes turn into a nightmare if you’re not into crowded scenes blustering with promotional sales urging you to BUY. Gifts after all should mean something; it’s personal for the receiver and the giver.

Here’s a collection of gift ideas for those in your life who are graphically, designerly and tasterly inclined. This curated list also happens to marry the digital with the wonderfully tactile medium, print.

MINIMAL PHOTO BOOKS FROM YOUR PHONE
image source Artifact Uprising

Style Your Next Party With Paper Goods

DIY PAPER GOODS: FOXY BABY
FEATHERED HATS, WOODEN CAKE TOPPER,
LETTERPRESS BUNTING & ORIGAMI FOXES

Seems like forever since I last posted, and it’s not for idleness, and actually I like the fact that I don’t have to post (despite the rules of social media), but want to post. My baby girl turned a year and I had a very full couple of months preparing for her party. As the usual, there were some obstacles, like finding the right decorations, cake and outfit. The rest and certainly most importantly fell into place when friends and family arrived and enjoyed the day with us.

I initially started by thinking up of a theme. I turned to Pinterest to gather some birthday themes for kids and created an inspiration board to gather ideas. I really liked the woods animal theme, but I also loved the origami theme too, and I knew I wanted some sort of photo backdrop. I figured out how to fold a fox, a bear, a rabbit, but as time permitted I could only project and letterpress one of them. The deer would have won out, but I couldn’t find a simplified origami version of it, and so my Foxy Baby was born!

We got a cake made, and made a calligraphic cake topper ourselves. I did some freehand calligraphy and my hubby carved it out of 2 mm aeronautic plywood--a nice keepsake for the coming years. The cool thing about this is we didn’t have to stop short with style choices that on-line businesses offer you for calligraphy cake toppers. If you’ve got a flair for doodling, I’m sure finding a laser or wood cutter could help do the job.

TEEPEE WITH STAR RIBBON & POM-POM
BIRTHDAY CAKE WITH WOODEN CALLIGRAPHY TOPPER

My color choices were salmon, gold and a watery green (best way to describe it). The watery green was hard to find in paper. Actually I did find an awesome Japanese paper in just the right color and did get it shipped from Denmark. I absolutely love it, so much I decided not to use it! So, that’s how watery green got nudged out of the design. Surprisingly gold paper was easy to find and got some shimmery sheets in thick card stock by Favini for half the price.

The idea that these party paper goods inevitably get taken out with the biodegradable paper plates and excess cake frosting made me a little uneasy. But that’s what party paper goods are made for, for the sole purpose for party. So I thought it important to weight in equal parts function, design and cost. Best not to spend a fortune on specialized paper for kid parties, but still find the right paper, design and printing technique to make it look good!

PARTY HATS & ORIGAMI LETTERPRESS FOX

I wanted party hats, but I knew I would never find them at any stationery store here. Yes it’s true, online everything is a cinch, but as noted before, most of these novelties come from America...and living in Italy you must tag on shipping costs and the like and decorations alone can push you over budget! The obvious solution was to make my own (with a little help from my friends). After looking at a few tutorials online, party hats, festooning and bunting was made.

For the photo backdrop, we got an Indian teepee custom sewn by a local tailor. We chose a cotton linen blend material for the teepee and some pretty trim and cotton star ribbon to embellish it from La Boutique, a modern old fashioned haberdashery in town.
It was to serve not only as a backdrop, but a cubby hole for our growing girl that can last her long after the cake’s been eaten.

Letterpress Chalkboard :: Beer On A Curve

My recent explorations in chalkboard paper for a client has been satisfying. On an earlier post I wrote about making your own chalkboard paper rather than downloading a digital file. At first I started off with hand lettering and a paper wire bound construction for the drink menu, but with the client we thought it wouldn’t survive the wear and tear. Back to the drawing board...

MY VANDERCOOK MAKES BEER ON A CURVE

DIY :: Chalkboard Paper

I was doing some shop comparisons and recording results. What a fun challenge to find not just the least expensive paper route, but also authentic. I needed to find some chalk paper and realized that most of the chalk paper sold are digitally mastered pdfs. Which got me thinking... Why pay for a digital file when the possibility to make my own shouldn’t be that difficult? After all, I only needed a small quantity and the essentials I already have: black card stock, white chalk pencil and a fixative to prevent my work from rubbing off. It worked!

PENCIL SHAVING ON BLACK CARDSTOCK,
CHALK PENCIL & FIXATIVE FOR ADHERING
DIY CHALKBOARD PAPER

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