Letterpress Video

I found this great letterpress video today. The video takes a look inside a very traditional press shop named Firefly Press in the New England area. This printer is very experienced too; he even casts his own lead type!!! He has some valuable thoughts on type, and the direction of letterpress in the future. Anyways, you can check it out here... and let me know what you think.

Fun Interactive Site

As I was surfing on the Commarts website today, I started reading about one of their design features on a creative firm called Struck. I believe they are out of Salt Lake City... but the point is, they have a very cool website. The image below is from a client project, Gcycle.com. This is such a fun website!! Click on the image below to check out.

HOT, HOT, HOT...

Today and over the past weekend in Chicago, it has been extremely hot outside. I would say it's roughly 95 degrees with 90% humidity! Yes, it is yucky and sticky out there! It also doesn't help that we don't have air-conditioning in our home. Boo hoo for us.

Anyway, I wanted to post up these fabulous pillows and a great website that I found while surfing around the design*sponge blog. First, the website which is called 2modern. This site has some great and unique home furnishing items with a modern flare. Rugs, furniture, lamps, and the list goes on. Now for pillows, these are made by Amenity. This is the particular pillow I like, but they have all different colors and styles on the website. Let me know what you think!

Update on my printing press...

Happy Friday everyone! Sorry I've been somewhat M.I.A. lately... I've been VERY busy on this 4th of July week. I did want to post a brief update on what's going on with the Kelsey printing press I got a few weeks ago. Recently last week, I finished the cleaning of the type cabinet and press. It was dirty job, but look at it now!


I'd like to get the press a little more cleaner, but that would require taking parts off, which I don't feel comfortable doing right now. Maybe that will be a project I take on later when I get more experienced with the press. If anyone has ideas on this, please let me know.

I had ordered some supplies from NA Graphics a few weeks back, and finally got those supplies last week. NA Graphics was very helpful, but I learned you need to be patient with your order especially if they don't have the item in stock. I would advise you to call NA Graphics before you place an online order, as they won't notify you if they don't have it in stock. But the owner, Fritz, was very helpful when I called.

Unfortunately, I'm still waiting on the new rollers I ordered a few weeks ago. They are being shipped from the UK, so I'm unsure on how long it's going to take. I feel like it's taking forever. I ordered these rollers off of Ebay. There's a store called Bakers Row, where they sell a bunch of letterpress supplies and equipment. They seemed much cheaper than some of the other makers. I got my rollers for $100 and that's including shipping costs. The other rollers I was looking at were priced at $140 and that's not including shipping cost.

WAIT! NEWS FLASH. As I was writing this post, my rollers were just delivered. Oh hallelujah!

KULER FUN!

On a design note, I got these new Kuler cards in the mail today which I was really excited to see. If you haven't checked out Kuler, you NEED to. Whether you are a creative designer, a stuffy business man, or a crazed house wife, I have faith you will like this fun site. For designers, it makes our life a whole lot easier since you can download the swatch samples right into Illustrator... PERFECT!

I've been on Kuler regularly designing new color themes. One of the themes called Tech Office, actually got quite popular. How do I know it's popular? People can rate your swatch and leave comments. Recently, a representative from Kuler contacted me since they were making small little swatch cards for the highest rated and most poplar cards. These cards have the RGB, CMYK, and web safe coding for each color; plus they give the username of who created it, and a quote that creater developed for the theme. So here is mine... YAY!

Happy belated Midsummer!

You always know summer is here with the inaugural Midsummer party. I had mine over the weekend, and boy, it's always so much fun. This year I celebrated with a bunch of Swedish friends, who really know how to celebrate!

For the Swedish, this holiday is arguably the most important holiday of the year for them. The dance around the maypole is probably what comes to mind for most people. I, unfortunately, was not dancing around the maypole, but more like dancing around the toilet after drinking lots and lots of wine and AquaV (not a good combination too). This Aqua V is Sweden's 'special' liquor they drink... and let me tell ya, it is strong and they can drink it all night like it's water! Personally, I think it tastes disgusting. You are suppose to drink it a shot glass and sip it, but all I wanted to do was finish as fast as I could. Gross...

Anyways, it was a fun weekend overall. I'm slowly but surely getting organized, as we took a trip to the container store this weekend. It always feels good to know where things are ;)

Logos, websites, even flash intros... all $100!!

Ok! I just have to post this because it's absolutely hilarious :)

Check it out: Crap in a Box!