"I noticed, about a year of so, the term hashtag — I didn't think much of it... Until one day I finally took a good look on the computer at a hashtag and I said, golly - that's a pound sign!" Watch the Wall Street Journal video about a shop called Letterpress Things in Chicopee, Massachusetts.
Discovered thanks to a tweet from Brent Wilson.
Here's a lovely video about Anna Church and her Insignia series. You can discover more about Anna in the forthcoming fall issue.
Kai Brach is a designer and publisher based in Melbourne, Australia. He is the founder and sole operator of Offscreen Magazine, a gorgeous print publication that shares stories about the people who shape the web.
For the Makers offers creative kits of supplies to make a curated gathering of themed crafts. Their latest offering is named Veritas and inspired by paper marbling. With the kit, you'll make a marbled notebook, marbled pens, a locket as well as an old school felt pennant. Their site offers all the instructions and the kit themselves are a delight to receive—beautifully curated and nicely presented in small kraft boxes of a limited edition. I received of couple of their previous kits recently and look forward to some downtime to immerse myself in assembling and making.
Booth sketch for Shabd by Caroline Zucchero Hurley.
Shabd's booth at NYNow, a home and lifestyle event on until Wednesday.
Instagram photo by @carozucchero of @shabdshabd space.
Shabd's colour testing for a secret project.
Shabd Simon-Alexander is a tie-dye expert (she wrote the book on it! We feature an excerpt from it in the current issue). She is showing her new products at NYNow, and an email about the show prompted me to head over to her Instagram to see more. Click on the images above to view in Instagram and you'll find some colourful and creative accounts to follow!
Unit Twelve is a contemporary craft workshop and exhibition space in a stunning rural location in Staffordshire, United Kingdom. It hosts a regularly changing programme of exhibitions, with complementary art workshops run by Jennifer Collier, Print Garage and exhibiting artists.
Thanks to Diane at Tag Team Tompkins for the link!
"A short teaser for Greetings From Canada, a limited edition run of fine letterpress postcards featuring the work of 10 Canadian artists, illustrators and designers. The first project of its kind in the country, it aims to elevate the art of letterpress printing while showcasing a selection of some of the best creative talent Canada has to offer."
Back in the day, I had my own set of postcards called "Greetings from Canada." I used to sell them when UPPERCASE was a public gallery.
{ via SwissMiss }
Kirsi Enkovaara‘s Landscape of Gravity:
Landscape of Gravity was inspired by distorted reflections on a surface of water. The phenomenon that enable to capture this almost invisible movement is oil paint floating on top of water. The technique developed to this projects combines this phenomenon and movement of water effected by gravity. All the objects made for the collection are vessels with a hole in the bottom. The vessels are filled with water and topped with oil paint and drained. This phenomenon of gravity pulling the water down transmits the movement of the water to the surface of the vessel while the water level goes down. After this the vessel is transformed in to a object as the inside of the vessel turn inside out revealing the natural pattern.
Read more on Confessions of a Design Geek and the artist's website.
Creativebug is an online source for craft and design video workshops. They have just released a video introducing their June classes with instructors Marisa Lynch, Maggie Pace, Elke Bergeron, and Lia Griffith teaching a range of crafts–from how to make a braided leather bracelet, to knitting a pair of baby booties.
For more information on Creativebug, click here.
Little Gold Studio is a shared creative studio in Brunswick, Australia. Founded by Sass Cocker of the stationery company Ask Alice, Sass and her creative coworking studio are featured in Frankie magazine's forthcoming Spaces book.
Ask Alice's work and that of forty-nine other talented designers are profiled in issue #17's Stationery Guide. Purchase a back issue of #17 while its still in stock (and take a whiff of our special scratch and sniff cover!) or you can read the Stationery Guide excerpt, below.
SURTEX is the only business-to-business marketplace where art buyers and licensees from around the world converge to discover unique, cutting edge surface designs, original art, and design resources. Held in New York from May 18-20, artists and designers will set up trade booths with the hopes of making new contacts, learning about the latest trends in art and surface design, and meeting buyers who are seriously interested in buying or licensing their artwork.
Since many of UPPERCASE's artists who submitted their work to the Surface Pattern Design Guide are either walking the show or setting up a booth, we are featuring some of those hard-working, amazing designers who are adding some finishing touches to their plans, and making their way to New York for the largest industry event in surface pattern design.
Designer Elizabeth Olwen was featured in the UPPERCASE Surface Pattern Design Guide, and you can read a bit about her experience preparing for SURTEX.
"When I decided to do SURTEX, I tried to gather as much information as I possibly could. I read blogs, bought e-books, listened in on SURTEX webinars and spent way too many hours on LinkedIn, then put all of that information through a filter and started to design my whole presentation. My career has been in graphic design up to this point. I've spent years designing brands and presentations for other businesses, so it was such a rewarding experience to put that kind of effort into my own business. I was challenged to create things that I'd never done before: I designed a trade booth, a press kit and a promo video. I had fabrics printed, made a lookbook and put ads in publications. I decided that if I was going to do it, I had to dive in headfirst. When it was all set up, it was thrilling to see the whole package."
Elizabeth Olwen shares her SURTEX story in the UPPERCASE Surface Pattern Design Guide in issue #21. You can read the entire article in the free download of the Guide by clicking here.
Take a look at Elizabeth's promo video and lookbook for SURTEX 2014.
A video Gemma Green Hope made to honour her grandmother:
"My grandmother Elizabeth (or Gan-Gan as I called her) was a force of nature; she was wonderful. As a child she seemed to me like a visitor from another time or place. Her tiny terraced house in Bideford was full of treasures; hundreds of books, a medusa's head, Peter the Great's ivory letter opener, the caul of her mother tied up in blue ribbon, a tile stolen from the Alhambra, a silk blouse embroidered by nuns, deadly poison, beautiful Pre-Raphaelite artworks, a knife carved from the wood of HMS Victory, Granny Green's pince-nez, and diaries full of stories from a hard life well-lived. After her death in 2010, I helped my father and uncle sort through some of her possessions. I inherited some of her clothes to wear, books to read, a bicycle to ride. But how do you make sense of all the other things that someone leaves behind, the things nobody sees, boxes full of photographs, and bits of string? I used these objects alongside images and memories of my own to make this short animation, which I dedicate to her memory."
Cover by Christy Batta
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UPPERCASE is a quarterly print magazine inspired by craft, design and illustration. A playful exploration of creativity, an affinity for vintage ephemera, and a love of handmade are some elements common in each issue. The magazine boasts high-quality paper and printing, a unique design aesthetic and incredible attention to detail.
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