Kapitza talk in London May 30

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The Kapitza office, photos from issue #9 of UPPERCASE.

The sisterly dynamic duo named Kapitza, will be giving a talk in London. We've mentioned them a few times on the blog and have an article in issue 9. You can read the article here.

Wednesday 30 May 2012 at 7pm
St Bride Foundation, Bride Lane, Fleet Street, London 

They will share their experiences of the ins and outs of self-publishing, the creation of pattern fonts, how to start a font foundry, designing an app, book design and working with a worldwide audience. Kapitza collaborate with a variety of international clients to create exhibitions and products featuring their distinctive artworks, such as stationery, canvasses, calendars, wall stickers and tiles, textiles and postage stamps.

Click here for tickets.

Horn tooted

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It's lucky that Janine has a team working with her now. It makes bragging about her nomination in the 2011 National Magazine Awards MUCH less awkward. Janine has been recognized in the Art Direction for an Entire Issue category for issue #9. The winners will be announced in Toronto on June 7

I know all of you know just how special UPPERCASE is. But, why not share this story with your circle of friends and tell them what you think of us. Or better yet, pick them up a copy.

Subscriber No. 13

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Nikki Sheppy wears many hats around UPPERCASE. She's a subscriber, a contributor, and an entertaining party guest. Nikki was profiled in issue #9 but, since she is our thirteenth subscriber, we asked her to share more with us.

Subscriber Profile: Nikki Sheppy

How are you creative in your daily life?
I dabble in cake-baking, doodle on napkins, and compose palindromic poetry (in which the word “the” never appears because I spurn interjections that make me seem too Canadian).

What are you most curious about?
Beautiful or unexpected forms. I like poetry, maps, data graphing, and architecture. I like abecedaria, altered books, and the sculptural potential of new paper and textile technologies.

What is your most prized possession?
Access to the world. I’m constantly grateful for the fully functioning faculties (motor, cognitive and sensory) that allow me to explore what’s out there. I think this is so basic and necessary that many of us take it for granted.

What is your favourite letter of the alphabet and why?
Usually, it’s Q – a smooth face with a single pubescent whisker; an O that forgot to shave; an R&D developer for the British Secret Service, slyly packing an arsenal of deadly gadgets: quirky amphibious cars and quinine-tipped darts. But today I prefer Z, a letter with a lot of razzle-dazzle, a zany gonzo journalist unafraid to veer boozily into the most improbable reaches of a story, taking every s-curve like a zed.

What is your favourite colour?
Cherry red - Visceral, as deeply satisfying as the fruit itself, bloody, not for the faint of heart, and the main contender in so many of those brisk plaids of the fifties.

What is your preferred creative tool?
Language. Its plasticity, its resistance, the coy, coltish way in which it refuses to let me write like wunderkind Karen Russell. The alphabet contains only 26 letters. How hard could it be?

type tuesday: pod and iPad by Kapitza

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This may not look like a font, but Kapitza's vector art is set up as a font file so that you can customize to your heart's content. Rather than providing predetermined arrangements like typical clip art, the font format allows for more creativity.

Click to read a review on Eye's blog.The Kapitza sisters have a new book featuring their organic patterns (and a pattern-generating iPad app as well.) You can read our article about Kapitza in issue #9.

New in the shop: Christmas Gift Pack + Subscription

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It's really cold outside today and now it is snowing. The malls have their Christmas decorations up. Next week is American Thanksgiving. So I guess all signs point to Christmas! So in preparations for gift-giving season, I've uploaded a special item to the shop: an UPPERCASE Christmas Gift Pack + Subscription. This includes all available back issues (#7-#11) plus a subscription mailed to the USA or Canada for $150 (you save $20). I have VERY LIMITED QUANTITIES and once these are gone, that's it for issue #7; it will be sold out. (Issue #7 is only available as part of this pack. You might try the workroom for single copies of #7.) Please order your Gift Pack here.

Contributor: Christine Chitnis

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Congratulations to UPPERCASE contributor Christine Chitnis on the release of her new book Markets of New England. We've been priviliged to have Christine's words and images grace the pages of UPPERCASE a few times—and in the current issue, Christine takes us behind the scenes of the making of her new book:

"Good things seem to come in pairs, so when I found out I was pregnant with my first, it seemed only fitting that an offer to write my dream book would shortly follow.

Combining my love of writing, photography, and travel, I set out to unearth the top fifty markets—both farmer’s markets and art markets—in New England. Although this was to be a travel book, I wrote it with a greater purpose in mind...."

"When we use our collective consumer power to support artisans—beekeepers, cheese mongers, weavers, and woodworkers—we are insuring that our communities remain unique, thriving places to live. In this age of big-box stores and mass-produced items, it has become all the more important to invest in our local economy. . . one artist, one farmer, one shop at a time."

Markets of New England is published by The Little Bookroom, a fine publisher of travel guides, journals and notebooks. Coincidentally, we also have a profile of Louise Fili in issue #9, the design director for many of The Little Bookroom's lush typographic covers.

Christine Chitnis is a writer, photographer and environmental educator. She lives with her husband and son in Providence, Rhode Island. Her writing has appeared in Country Living, Time Out New York, ReadyMade and The Washington Post. She has a degree in Environmental Science from the University of Colorado. 

Eat cake.

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When planning a new issue, I don't always start with a defined theme, but as content is considered and gathered, connections are often made that lead to interesting people, places and things. The themes emerge organically. The current issue has two major themes: creativity expressed through food and gardening. In researching the topic of food and creativity, we asked our blog readers "How has a love of food inspired your creativity?" Janice of Papier Valise and Scissor Variations had an excellent response that we also printed in this issue:

"I get excited about food and cooking the same way I get excited to start an art project—the finished ‘project’ is the sum of its parts and the end result is always satisfying. A willingness to try something new, whether it be a recipe or art medium has always taken me to interesting places creatively. And what's not to love about an edible mistake?"

Janice very generously brought two slices of her amazing cake to last night's First Thursday. Mmmmm! So delicious, thank you Janice. {photo from her blog, I already ate mine!}

Signs of spring...

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Cover illustration by Work/Life 2 participant Andrea D'Aquino

Sorry for the blog silence these past ten days, but I have been a busy busy bee. After returning home from San Francisco (to more snow, ugh!), I have been steadily designing the forthcoming spring issue, number 9. NINE! hard to believe that we're almost into double digits...

Today was nice and sunny and the snow is starting to melt. And even better, the files have been uploaded to the printer! Please be patient with me as the magazine works its way through prepress, proofing, printing, binding, inserting, mailing... It will be a few weeks yet before this issue is complete in all its print glory. In the meantime, please subscribe/renew so that your name will be on the master mailing list and you'll be first in line to receive it.

Here's a synopsis of Issue 9:

Food provides us with so much more than basic survival. From harvesting your own vegetables, shopping at the local farmer’s market or cooking a homemade meal—the day-to-day involvement in the gathering and preparation of food can be delicious and fun. For many, though, a love of food is taken to other creative levels. Through packaging design, food-inspired photographic pursuits, gardening, sumptuous cookbooks or even blogging about what you just ate, we celebrate your passion for the edible. We hope to whet your creative appetite with this food and gardening-inspired issue!


Also coming up: Work/Life 2 is now shipping and the book launch is slated for April 7 from 5-9pm as part of the First Thursday celebrations.

Lisa Congdon's A Collection a Day will be shipping in April but when exactly is still to be determined. Soon!

Tif Fussell is off visiting her English homeland, but I have the pleasure of reading through her first draft of the Suitcase Series Volume 2: dottie angel while she is away. Tif and I are both very excited that Emily Chalmers will be penning the foreword! I've just purchased Emily's latest book, Modern Vintage Style, and can't wait to spend time with it.

Each and every book and magazine issue is a deeply personal experience for me. I put everything I've got—and then some—into creating things that I am proud to publish. The year so far has tested my abilities and energy on all fronts with two books and two magazine issues to complete in the past four months! Working from home has meant fitting projects in between the activities of motherhood. My baby is now one and quickly switching gears into toddlerhood... there's a lot manage around here. Thank you to Glen for being so helpful and letting me head down into the basement to get things done. You make the impossible possible.

With issue 9 off to production and (hopefully) a bit more time to breathe, I look forward to springtime with my family. I'll still be a busy bee—it's just my nature—but I plan on making time to smell the flowers.

Letterpress real and virtual

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The Letterpress Sampler and Matchbox Labels exhibition will be on display for another First Thursday next week if you'd like to stop by in person. In the meantime, if you wanted to enter the giveaway for the Letterpress Sampler, I will be drawing from our current subscribers as well as new subscribers at the end of February. Subscribe or renew today!

Speaking of letterpress, check out this AWESOME app in development for the iPad and other platforms. Glen and I were discussing this very concept of a virtual letterpress on an iPad and it looks like these folks have already been working on the idea, and most impressively!

Cereal Box call for submissions

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Here's a teaser of some of the cereal box designs I've received. Keep them coming! The deadline is February 20. More details below and on our participate page.

Issue 9 (spring) explores how food inspires creativity. For this open call, you are invited to submit your cereal box designs and illustrations! Are you a fan of the sugary sweet cartoon-character puffs? Or perhaps a grown-up granola inspires a more typographic solution? You can redesign an existing cereal box or feel free to come up with a new name and concept for your cereal.

I plan on making mockups of the best submissions and photographing them for inclusion in the magazine. Please download a template (illustrator file or pdf file) and design the front, side and top flap. Files should be submitted as 300dpi jpgs or pdfs and named with your last name. Please include your full name, address and email in the design file. Files can be uploaded here.

DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 20

Sampler winner

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Thank you to all for your great comments. There are really so many deserving recipients with sincere and sweet ideas, but I was intrigued and amused by the idea of a Letterpress Gang in Nova Scotia! Though there are plenty of greeting cards in the Samplers, a lot of the samples are very design-oriented which would be most appreciated by other designers and printers. I hope the Letterpress Gang can be inspired by the sampler and in turn create more letterpressed items and continue to spread the letterpress love across the nation! We need more creative letterpress printers in Canada.

Sarah wrote: I know if I won the designer in me would be tempted to keep them all to myself, but I'd have to share them with my fellow letterpress lovers... I belong to a small group of dedicated letterpress enthusiasts (the Letterpress Gang) who meet every Monday, rain, hail or snow (we're in Nova Scotia) to create letterpress art to share with the community and raise awareness of the wonderful art of letterpress. We're always looking for, and sharing, beautiful and inspiring samples (we are anxiously awaiting delivery of our new Uppercase magazines to see which sample we get!). Maybe one of the pieces could find it's way onto my wall!

Call for submissions: Cereal boxes!

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Cereal box illustrations by Roger Bradfield
Issue 9 (spring) explores how food inspires creativity. For this open call, you are invited to submit your cereal box designs and illustrations! Are you a fan of the sugary sweet cartoon-character puffs? Or perhaps a grown-up granola inspires a more typographic solution? You can redesign an existing cereal box or feel free to come up with a new name and concept for your cereal.

I plan on making mockups of the best submissions and photographing them for inclusion in the magazine. Please download a template (illustrator file or pdf file) and design the front, side and top flap. Files should be submitted as 300dpi jpgs or pdfs and named with your last name. Please include your full name, address and email in the design file. Files can be uploaded here.

DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 20