National Stationery Show 2013
The months leading up to May are always a source of excitement and stress. This year, in particular, I’ve been really feeling it (see future blog posts about my upcoming wedding and home renovation). For those extreme stationery nerds out there, you probably already know that every May in New York, there’s this crazy and beautiful show called the National Stationery Show. This year it runs from May 19-22, which means by now, almost everyone in the stationery biz has packed up and is getting ready to ship off all their goodies to the Javits Center. I’m always amazed how in just a few days, a lifeless looking convention space can be transformed into a paper confectionery. Definitely some wonderful eye candy there. It makes me almost want to start a retail store! Feel free to stop on by our booth (#3150) and say hi! My sister and I will be manning it as always.
For those of you who love the art of title sequences (me!), Check out artofthetitle.com. It has a wonderful collection along with interviews with the creative forces behind your favorite sequences.
Ink as Fragrance?
Thanks! I’ll definitely check out the site. Congrats on your pending graduation, by the way. To answer your question: My business plan was pretty much forged when I traveled. I quit my job and traveled around (jobless) for several months until I decided what I wanted to focus on (stationery with a twist) and how I wanted to get there (really fast!). To be honest, I didn’t sit down and write out a formal business plan. I took it a day at a time, an order at a time. You’re just graduating, which is really the time to dabble a bit until you settle down. After I finished art school, I took on an ungodly number of freelance jobs and internships, but it really helped me decide what I did and didn’t like! It was sort of like dating :) If you feel like stationery is your niche, I’d advise interning first and really honing your typography skills. Type and illustration go hand-in-hand when it comes to stationery design. Anyway, I hope this helped! Good luck to you.
A piggy bank featuring a kitty that steals any coin you put on its plate!
Baskin Robbins, which has been around for almost 70 years, has brought back its take on a Thanksgiving classic. Some people have mentioned that they think this is altogether disturbing. But I dunno. A large number of people eat real turkey on Thanksgiving, and I’m sure some vegetarians think that’s disturbing. But it doesn’t seem to stop the turkey feasts! By the way, the legs of the Baskin Robbins turkey cake are actually sugar cones!
Food Talk: Lucky Peach Magazine
There are two magazines my sister is almost scary-crazy about (“crazy” as in will put off eating, sleeping, and working just to pore over the pages endlessly). This is one of them. If you love talking about food as much as you love eating it, consider checking it out. The Spring 2012 issue is a favorite of ours in the studio—it’s a perfect mix of the refreshingly absurd and the completely earnest. In it, an article on “The Art of Toilet Cleanliness” (as detailed by a chef and restaurant owner) is followed by an interesting note about duck presses (Who knew they go for somewhere in the ballpark of $2,000 or $3,000 dollars? And for that matter, who knew there was such a thing as a duck press?!), which is followed by the strange musings of an Antarctic line cook. Issue No. 5 is due out in November.
Love this clock by designer Kazunori Tashima, and at $45, it’s contemporary design without a hefty price tag.
For Halloween: Edward Gorey and Buffy
It’s the perfect time of year to shiver at some of Artist Edward Gorey’s delicately gruesome works…
or bring some of his macabre illustrations to life with his Dracula Toy Theatre (a gift I gave my sister last year that she still can’t bear to start using).
Gorey once confessed his love for the Joss Whedon series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer—which seems so fitting, considering that Buffy is as fun a blend of the creepily gruesome and the everyday as Gorey’s books. If you’re looking to stay in for the evening and settle down with some especially Halloween-appropriate viewing pleasure (generously spiked with humor), we heartily recommend “Halloween” (season 2, episode 6) and the incredible “Hush” (season 4, episode 10). Keep an eye on “the gentlemen” in “Hush;” they bear a strange resemblance to the sinister minister of death on the cover of The Gashlycrumb Tinies.
Seeing Double
photo via New York Times http://tinyurl.com/9njesxo
Restoration Hardware is facing a lawsuit in the wake of their new release, the “Naval Chair,” (on right) a direct knock-off of the Emeco Navy Chair. The price difference? $421. Not a big fan of flagrant copying— being a designer myself— though I can understand the temptation: nice chair for a fraction of the cost. But the ripple effect could ultimately hurt designers. Why try to be creative when ideas can be so easily (and so visibly) stolen—by big companies no less? End result: less ingenuity, more rehashing.
