2008 in pictures

Came across the NY Times Year in Pictures... some are so beautiful, I had to share.

Enjoy. And Happy New Year.

Best/Worst logos of 2008

As 2008 comes to a close, there's a ton of "Best of/Worst of" lists: movies, music, television... everybody has a list. Over on Brand New, they've compiled a list of the best and worst logo redesigns of 2008.

For the most part, I agree with everything they said. I think out of the best category, the 826 Valencia and Mousey logos, and Camel repackaging stand out as the best of the best.

The worst... well, it doesn't get much worse (does it?). 'Nuff said.

In case I don't get a chance to post tomorrow... Happy, happy new year! I'll see you on the flip side.

All I want for Christmas...

Earlier this month, I was asked what I wanted for Christmas (wasn't everybody?). Technically, I never sat on Santa's lap, instead my list was delivered to my pal Amy Graver (of Elements/AIGA CT fame), who was compiling wish lists for an article on conncreatives. And no, I didn't have to sit on her lap.

What We Really Wanted for Christmas! is online now; check out what 7 other Connecticut creatives--along with me--asked for this year. Thanks again to Amy for including me!

And thanks to Chelsea (also of Elements/AIGA CT fame) for pointing out that the article had been published.

Saving this for next year...

I love this idea... but hate that it's A) so late in the game--far too late for me to pull this off; and B) would take much, much longer than writing someone's name on a gift tag.



But still cute.

Actually, I love the idea of using brown craft paper as wrapping paper, with Christmas-themed letters. Hmmm... the more I think about it, the more I think that this might be the way to go next year (provided I start cutting out letters in September).

Christmas countdown

My stockings are not yet hung. My mother in law knit (crocheted? I don't know the difference--but either way they are hand made and I love them) stockings for all of us; and Eleanor's is still up at her house. So one part all of our stockings are not here, one part sheer laziness, I have not hung the stockings yet.

Cookies? Done. Baked, plated, and all but delivered. I even packaged some up for Ashlee's friends at school tomorrow.

Presents are bought and wrapped. The big snowstorm on Friday made me a bit nervous about when we would wrap the kid's gifts--we had plans to do it Friday AM, before the kids got the day off--but we got it done Friday night and this morning. One of my girlfriends even stopped by today with gifts for my kids, which meant that I got to give her the gifts for her kids, so technically you could say that I'm even handing gifts out.

In my errands today, I got tights for the girls, shoes for the girls, and took care of any other Christmas Day outfit finagling that needed to get done.

Cards: personal cards got mailed out weeks ago. Business cards are sitting in a box at my feet. Hmmmm, I should probably do those...

The only other things I have left to do are bake some pies, and make a salad and antipasta for Christmas Day. Oh, and work. Usually around the holidays things tend to slow down for me. Not so much, this year (although, with the current economy, that's just fine by me!).

God, I love Alejandro Paul. For those not in the know, he is the designer of the fabulous Burgues Script font that I love so much (c'mon, who doesn't love a great flourish?). Well, he's gone and done it again, this time, with a little typeface called Compendium.



I know it's a little weird to have reactions like I do over fonts, but man, this typeface really makes me swoon. Such beauty! Such grace! Plus, like it's sister (cousin? friend?) Burges Script, it comes with a ton of swirlies--and God, I love my swirlies.

Says Paul:

Compendium is a sequel to my Burgues font from 2007. Actually it is more like a prequel to Burgues...

...Though Compendium has a naturally more normalized, Spencerian flow, its elegance, expressiveness, movement and precision are no less adventurous than Burgues. Nearing 700 glyphs (ed. note: OMG!!!), its character set contains plenty of variation in each letter, and many ornaments for letter beginnings, endings, and some that can even serve to envelope entire words with swashy calligraphic wonder. Those who love to explore typefaces in detail will be rewarded, thanks to OpenType. I am so in love with the technology now that it’s becoming harder for me to let go of a typeface and call it finished.

OMG, how can you not totally love this guy? To see more of his fonts, visit his site, Sudtipos. To see the rest of Veer's Top 10 of 2008, go here. Actually, there's actually a bunch of fonts I like out of the list... but Compendium was the only one that made me swoon.

Inspire me now!

Being the art-eeest that I am, I'm always looking for inspiration. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes I have to go searching for it, and sometimes--OK, a lot of times--it's from the internets.

Ladies and gentlemen, inspire me now!

A simple site, with almost no text (save for a link at the bottom of each photo), chock full of interesting things, products, ads and photography.

Very, very cool.

Schweddy balls

Since I was baking Christmas cookies all day today, nothing seemed more appropriate than this Saturday Night Live sketch (Ed. note: boo on Hulu for not letting me embed the video). I'm pretty positive I posted this last December, but sorry folks--it's just that good.

I seriously don't know how they keep such straight faces.

SANTA!!!!

I have a couple of things I *could* post... but, it being December and all, I felt this was a little more appropriate:



Elf is, hands down, one of my favorite holiday movies. Will Farrell gets completely lost in the role of Buddy the Elf. He's fantastic, the concept is incredibly clever, and the movie just all around rocks.

Shameless client/self promotion

One of my more fabulous clients, Jill, came to me way back last winter with an idea that was going to rock people's socks off: gluten free cookies. Yeah, yeah, yeah... There's nothing new about gluten free cookies. But have you tasted a gluten free cookie before? They're pretty awful. Try chewing on a sponge--that's about what they taste like.

That is, until Jill came along. Her cookies are delish! And gluten free! Seriously, my kids--who have no sensitivities to gluten at all--love them. Ashlee actually requests them. We love Jill's cookies in our house! (And no, it's not because of the most awesome packaging. Or the sweet-looking logo. Or the gorgeous website that, ahem, was just launched. Don't get me wrong, I mean, sure... we think EVERYTHING associated with Glow Gluten Free is beautiful. But that in NO WAY affects how we feel about the taste.)

Anyway, Jill is going to be at ShopRite down in Stamford tomorrow (Thursday) promoting her cookies. Stop by, say hi, tell her how much you love the packaging, buy a box (or two) of her cookies, and then immediately go run to the store manager to let him/her know how great these cookies are.

ShopRite of Commerce Street
1990 West Main Street
Stamford, CT 06902
(203) 978-0464

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Popup by Marion Bataille

When I was a kid, nothing would thrill me more than coming across a pop up book; it was just. so. cool. I'd amuse myself for hours turning wheels, pulling tabs, and examining the book, wondering how on earth did they do that.

To this day pop-up books still fascinate me; so it shouldn't come as a surprise that one designed by a French graphic designer consisting of nothing but the alphabet would keep me occupied for quite some time; especially, ahem, when I was supposed to be Christmas shopping.

Alrighty, then

Well, that was a little more blogging vacation than I had anticipated... I had taken off all last weekend, with the best intentions to return on Monday.

Then, the baby got sick.

Yep, our little Eleanor has a double ear infection; diagnosed on Wednesday. However, she was home with me most of the week. Which meant that I was taking care of sickie most of the day, catching up on work at night.

I'm not quite caught up, but I am getting there. In the meantime, Thanksgiving was lovely here; we did our annual tour of CT, ending up home (and quite full) by 9 that night. Thanksgiving eve was spend watching Helvetica (finally!) via our new Netflix subscription. I was very wary of giving up HBO for Netflix, but, tired of watching the same 3 movies over and over (and over), Mattio had had enough and put the final nail in the HBO coffin.

I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised by Netflix. First of all, you can stream a decent amount of stuff (very nice on the 24" monster screen)--which is how we watched Helvetica--and second, you can stream movies while you have a disc out on loan.

So now Eleanor is on the mend (I can't say the same for other members of this household), and life is slowly coming back to normal--well, as normal as it gets for us. Which means that I'm back up and blogging. So apologies for the little hiatus, but I'm back.

For now.