Yum

I got an email from Coach today (fancy that!), introducing their new Op Art collection:



Hello, beautiful!

I really, really love the black/grey/orange pattern the best. The monochrome patterns aren't really doing it for me as much; but something like this scarf really stands out to me as gorgeous:



Yum, yum, indeed.

Thanks again, Marcy!

Ugh, I've been so neglectful, and I'm so sorry! I've got lots of little things going on, a couple of big things, and major wireless issues (I actually had to--gasp!--connect my laptop to the printer/scanner WITH A CABLE. What on earth is up with that??!) that have been keeping me busy. Then I just happened to stop by Marcy's, and saw this--with my name on it, mind you--and thought... what better way to jump right back into blogging? As usual, Marcy to the rescue!

The Aging Meme
all you have to do is fill in the blanks...

At a certain age women should try not to remember that they are women of a certain age!

At a certain age men should stop combing their hair over--you're not fooling anyone, mister!

When I was a kid I thought I would rule the universe.

Now that I am older I wish I hadn't always wished to be older.

You know you are too old to rock out to Fall Out Boy when your teenager makes fun of you (What? Their songs are catchy!)

You know you are too young to have grey hairs when people look at you like you have five heads when you talk about it

When I was in high school I listened to the music of Alternative: the Cure, the Smiths, Depeche Mode, etc...

Nowadays I find I like the music of "Adult" Alternative. What's up with that name? Geez, nothing like making you feel old...

On my last birthday I was 9 months preggers.

On my next birthday I want to have the cocktail I didn't have last year!

The best birthday present I ever got was my husband--we got married a week after my birthday, so I think of it as a belated gift.

The first time I felt grown up was registering Ashlee for preschool.

The last time I felt like a kid was the last time I jumped on the trampoline.

When I read _________ it changed my life. I don't really have an answer to this one... there are many books I like, many more that I love, but I can't ever say that one of them changed my life. If it did, it couldn't have changed it that much, as I don't remember it!

Last year was a great year.

Next year I hope life continues to get better.

Weekly wrap up

So... This is my second post today, and the second from the rather large computer set up that has taken over our bedroom (I love it. I know, I know, all this computer talk gets old... but humor me. I went from a 15" screen to a 24 in a matter of hours!).

Not much went on this week, to tell you the truth. I have a couple of small things going on:

--The Orthopedic logo sketches I'm working on for the Hospital for Special Surgery got approved. Yay! This means I can move onto implementing them in Illustrator. Once we get close to a finalized design, my logo is going to make it's debut in Zurich (yes, Switzerland!), at some big Orthopedic meeting. Exciting!

--Met with One Kid to discuss future catalog needs. Stay tuned on that...

--worked on some web updates for Tim Coffey

--worked on some new artist updates for art + interiors

--worked on some new scans for Marcy

--oh yeah, I got a bitchin' new computer!

This weekend I am beyond excited: Saturday is field trip day! Marcy, Becky and I have been planning a trip to outlets in NY for about a month now. We have a game plan, and are going to shop until we drop. Sunday is the last game EVER at Yankee Stadium. Mattio is actually lucky enough to be going (I'm trying to convince him to bring my camera--I know it's big and bulky, but for the love! Last game ever! Walking from Monument Park out to home plate! This is huge!!); I will be watching from home.

Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Hello, handsome

This is what my desk is looking like these days... Pretty hot, no?

(I think Dwight is going to get an inferiority complex. It really does dwarf him.)

Before

So I cleaned off my desk this weekend (it was pretty scary... a little like Al Gore's, but much less organization. Or space to put things, for that matter. Or the sweet 3 monitor set up. OK, my desk was just a mess). In doing so, I came across a folder I had created for inspiration. Of course, the folder was buried under so much other stuff, that the last time I was inspired was about 6 months ago.

Getting into artist mode, I realized that I need to be inspired more, find more creativity and beauty everyday. Surely I can't find one thing every day to be inspired by?

So I did it. I challenged myself to find one thing every day that inspires me. And then yesterday I went out and bought this notebook to put together my diary of inspiration:



So I will keep you posted on how it's filling up. I'm sure the "After" picture will be quite different.

Pretty type

Yummmm... I saw this ad in yesterday's Sunday Styles. I love the swirlies in the type--so pretty.

An oldie but goodie

This might be so 5 years ago, but...

The other day I was researching something (I don't even remember what it was! It had to be type-related, though), and came across John Langdon's website. His ambigram work never ceases to amaze me; check out the gallery here. I can't imagine just how long it takes him to craft each letter. For those who aren't in the know, ambigrams are words written so they can be read forwards, and turned upside down to be read backwards the exact same way.

John's work also enjoyed some time in the spotlight many years ago, when the DaVinci Code was the hot book to read. He had worked on some ambigrams for one of Dan Brown's previous books, Angels and Demons. I remember finding his website back then, and being utterly amazed. As I said above, I still think his handiwork is incredible--so cool, in fact, I think it warrants a little more time in the spotlight.

In celebration of Fashion Week...

Walking along Mulberry Street on Saturday, I came across the Malia Mills store. Two things came to mind: remember how ground-breaking Malia Mills was when she first came out? For those that don't know, in the early 90's, Malia Mills pioneered selling bikini pieces separately (a small top doesn't always mean a small bottom). The second thing I thought, was Oh my gosh, I totally love her logo!



That M is so decorative, so pretty, so fun!

This, of course, led me to think of just how much I love the Tory Burch logo as well:



It is honestly, one of my favorite logos out there. It's so graphic, and so striking; and the designer brilliantly made patterns out of it to use for bags, wallpaper, etc. And, thanks to the success of the Riva ballet flat, with the double T medallion on the toes, it's instantly recognizable.

I tried to find other graphic fashion logos, but I couldn't. I resisted putting up classic fashions symbols such as Louis Vuitton, and the Chanel double C's; only because, while I think those logos are certainly iconic (and widely recognized), I feel that the above logos are very distinct in their design.

So... anyone out there want to share? What's your favorite fashion icon (in logo terms, not Marc Jacobs)?

Can I get a Woot! Woot!

Just the other day, I thought to myself, hmmmm... it's early September, the American Graphic Design Awards should be coming out soon...

Well, cut to today, and the bulky white envelope in my mailbox...

(drumroll, please!)

I am very happy to announce that I was the recipient of 4 awards! I don't believe I've shared these on the blog yet (and actually, I wanted to save the Glow logo until the packaging printed--because I'm so WAY excited about it!--but I'm even more excited about winning the awards). Ladies and gentlemen, I present:

art + interiors, monthly favorites:



This is the monthly "e-newsletter" (for lack of better term) from my pal Cyndy. Each month, she sends out an email featuring a couple of her artists, and a quote. It's so simple, yet so graphically powerful. I enjoy sitting down with Cyndy each month as we select artwork (and a quote) for Favorites (and, of course, dish the dirt!).



Glow Gluten Free, logo:



My pal Jill was so much fun to work with. She has such a passion for her product (delicious gluten-free cookies--you'd think that was an oxymoron or something, but so not the case with her cookies). I'm even more excited to feature the packaging, once it prints!


Lush Floral Designs, website:



Zoe's flower arrangements are so breathtaking, it wasn't hard to design her site at all! You can see the site in it's entirety, here.


The Portrait House, pro bono website:



K, so Justin and Mary keep giving me these awesome projects, and I keep winning awards for them. Seriously, this is the third site of theirs that's won (so what's on tap for this year, guys? :) All kidding aside, I was so happy to help out and design the site for this charity they've started, benefitting Habitat for Humanity. Check out the site here, or the blog here.

And as Mary and Justin would say, PHantastic!

Stop! And shop...

When I was a child, the Stop and Shop logo made so. much. sense to me. You stopped, and you shopped. Red light, green light. The 5 year old me thought it was brilliant--just brilliant!--to use a stop light to convey stopping and shopping (Thank God I've moved on).



Well, Stop and Shop has recently rebranded itself (with a logo designed by Interbrand), and I can't decide if I like it or not.



The designer me hates the type--the ampersand and S in shop need to stop flirting and just hook up already. The icon itself has grown on me; at first I was not a fan (looks a lot like TBS, and I'm not an incredible fan of their logo either), but seeing it animated in their new commercials, I'm starting to like it. I really like that it can be interpreted as many different things: food, fruit, a basket...

However, the logo needs to look good and be appealing as a static entity, as well as animated. Had I not seen the animation, I'm not sure I would feel the same way about it.

Brand New has a good post, as well as some interesting comments on it here. You can also see some screenshots of the animation, and see how--in my opinion anyway--it makes the icon more appealing.

Introducing...

Christy Murray's new logo!



Christy is a wedding/baby/family/life photographer (whew! She wears a lot of hats!), and found me through the Portrait House website. Just about her only request for her new logo was that she liked the thought of adding something natural to it; she included the Papyrus logo as an example.

Some butterflies, birds, flowers and dragonflies later, she decided she was leaning towards the lotus. But then she had an "AHA!" moment when she went to look for the meaning behind the lotus:

"...lotus is symbolic of the true soul of an individual."

...which, as she explained, was exactly what she was looking for when photographing her subjects.

Christy is an absolute doll to work with, and her photography is amazing (check out her blog here for some examples of her work)! She was very easygoing throughout her logo design process, and I can't wait to collaborate on more projects with her!

Weekly wrap up

Wow--I can't believe it's Labor Day weekend already. Wasn't it just June? This summer really flew by (for me, anyway), part because of how busy I was, and part was due to lack of vacation (major home renovations put the kebosh on that; and added to my stress--causing me to, you guessed it, need a vacation even more).

Anyway, this week I kind of laid low... not much going on, but I have lots of exciting stuff on the horizon:

--This week I received proof approval on the One Kid catalog. This is usually very, very stressful as the color has to be 100% dead-on, and usually takes several rounds of back and forth to achieve color perfection. Oh, and they usually need the catalog yesterday. This time we only had one back and forth, and the folks over at One Kid are very happy with where we're at. Now, on to printing!

--Worked on One Kid hangtags and advertisements.

--Got some new work from Marcy.

--Received design approval from Kate over at Greenwich Dance Studio. I am so excited about this site; it's not quite a departure from my normal "look", but it's definitely a little different for me.

--Put up a temp site for HB Home; it's not much, but it's keeping in tune with the site design I'm working on. Check it out here: hbhomedesign.com

--Met with my pal Tim Coffey, regarding some website changes and direct mail work.

--Finalized some business card designs for a pal who's opening up her own shop (I can't get into specifics now, but I will brag on and on about her once said shop opens). We were actually supposed to meet this week to go over the designs; however the printer at Kinkos had other ideas; we're meeting next week, instead.

--Sent my middle child, Madeline, to kindergarten. This was probably the hardest thing I did all week (although, she thought it was pretty simple. When it was time to go into the classroom--without me--for the first time, she just grabbed her friend's hand, and walked in). While it breaks my heart just a little to see my baby grow up like that, it is nice having the kids back in school. The house--during the day, at least--is much, much quieter.

This weekend we don't have a lot going on: we laid low today, picnic tomorrow, and no real plans Monday. I'm hoping to get ahead on some projects, so next week I'm not completely overwhelmed.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Eleanor's conquest

Our baby, Eleanor, is 10 months old. As mobile 10 month old babies are wont to do, she gets into EVERYTHING. Her latest thing is trying to get into the refrigerator to grab at the wine housed in a Pellegrino bottle on the bottom shelf of the door. Mind you, there's also a jar of mayonnaise, as well as a tub of maple syrup on that shelf.

But she just heads for the wine. Every time.

Each time she hears the fridge door open, she tears into the kitchen to try and worm her way in before we shut the door. The other day, I just left the door open and caught her on camera:

The wine! She left the door open, and now it's mine! I can't believe my luck!


I'll just grab it and go...

Hmmm, maybe it'll work better if I stand up and take it.

Man, this stuff is heavy!

If I could just bring it to my lips...

Wait--what's that clicking sound? Oh snap! I got caught!

Let me act all innocent and cute--this works every time!

Tracie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I woke up this morning to the garbage men and their truck was loud and they made a ton of noise and then I went back to sleep and kind of overslept just enough to have to rush around getting myself and the kids ready for the first day of school and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

At breakfast Madeline got to have a bowl of Cheerios and Ashlee had a bowl of shredded wheat and Eleanor had half a waffle and Mattio got to eat to but I didn't get to have breakfast this morning because of the aforementioned rushing around.

I think I'll go shoe shopping.

The kids got off to school and Eleanor got off to the babysitters and Mattio got off to work and I went to Kinkos to print some stuff out all nice, but the printer there decided not to cooperate and wouldn't print my files.

I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

At home we needed a new color printer cartridge.

Fed Ex didn't come this morning with the package I was expecting.

At lunch Roly Poly put cucumbers in my wrap.

I hate cucumbers.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

That's what it was, because at Kinkos in Westport my file didn't print either and I made a PDF and that's when I found out that it wasn't the printer, it was the file that I had worked so hard on building and now I was going to have to spend a lot of time rebuilding it in another (printer-friendly) program.

I am having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I told Mattio. He said some days are like that.

Even in shoe stores.

Hello, coffee table

In the world's quest to make me poor, fate has gone and opened a Crate and Barrel down the road in Westport. The store actually opened just last week, so we got all kinds of happy inserts/mail/catalogs/etc. saying, "Happy happy joy! Crate and Barrel in Westport! Come visit us! We loooooooooooove you, Ms. Tracie Valentino!"

(I know, who can resist a little CB love?)

I confess: I haven't been yet (Look at me and my willpower!), however, I have a feeling that once I do go to the store, should they have this table in stock, I might just be less $900 or so. You win again, fate.



Oh, what's that? It looks like an ordinary coffee table? Oh, I might have forgotten to mention that it's not just a coffee table, it's the Alpha Coffee Table, "inspired by a Paris flea market find, then designed exclusively for us by a London graphic designer with a penchant for, and a large personal collection of, antique printers' blocks."





God, I love stuff like this (truth be told, I'd love it that much more had I found it somewhere like a Paris flea market. Shhhh, don't tell Crate and Barrel). I love all things to do with printing, the more old-school the better. So a table inspired by antique printers' blocks flies high on my radar.

(Although I think I could do without that hideous rug beneath it.)

Silly Saturday

From Mattio, via Twitter:

3 fonts walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out! We don't serve your type in here."

Altogether now: aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhaaaaaaa hhhhhhhaaaaa hhhhhhhaaaaaaa!

Weekly wrap up

Ahhhh... this week was such a break from the madness that was the past few weeks. What's been going on? Let's get to it:

--finished up and sent the One Kid catalog to the printer (this took up a big chunk of my week). Next week I'll be stressing over colors and proofs, as well as working on ads and new hangtags.

--Christy Murray finalized her logo (unveiling next week...)

--Hospital for Special Surgery: worked on some more logo sketches.

On a personal note, back to school fever in my house has reached an all-time high, as this is the first September I am sending two kids to school. We were very busy making school supply purchases, as well as getting new clothes and shoes (Madeline, who's apple did not fall far from her mother's tree, is already after me to wear her new shoes. In her words, she "just. can't. wait.").

This weekend, after having to work the past 5 or 6, I plan on relaxing. We have a birthday party to go to tomorrow, but other than that, not much is on the agenda. Hope you all enjoy your weekend!

Wait, huh?

So remember how I said I was going to be blogging more? Well, this week the blog gods have been generously giving and giving; I've had each post just about gift-wrapped for me.

Case in point, this ad:



Now, one might notice this ad and think, "clever, clever... this agency was being ironic with the whole, Jessica Simpson, be smart thing." Right? I mean, surely, that was their angle... wasn't it?

But then read the copy at the bottom:

"I work out and take care of myself. But I also like a cold beer once in a while. That's why I made the smart choice with a smart beer. Stampede Light, it's beer plus."

Who wrote this??! Clearly this was written circa 1978, because... who writes stuff like this? "I work out and take care of myself. But I also like a cold beer once in a while." That is straight out of, "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."

There was much hype surround Jessica Simpson's decision to be the "face" of Stampede Beer--and quite frankly, in my opinion, anyway--the ad agency could have had a lot of fun with it. Sure Stampede is getting a ton of press no matter what... but this ad could have been executed in at least 10 better ways.

Do YOU suck at Photoshop?

My pal Tia emailed me this link, which is, by far and away, the funniest Photoshop tutorial I have ever watched.

The language is very NSFW, but by God, it is so damn funny that you almost just don't care. If you have about 20 minutes to spare, definitely watch 1-4. 5 is funny, but the first 4 are definitely the funniest.

And, by the way, you totally suck at Photoshop.

Happy Anniversary, 64 box!

When I was a child, there was nothing that could beat the smell of a new box of crayons. Perhaps it's the arteeest in me, but I loved just about anything Crayola (keep in mind, my childhood was during the late 70s, early 80s; back then, Crayola made crayons--maybe markers--and that's it). I loved my crayons--the way the wax would glide along the paper, the names of the colors (periwinkle! maize! burnt sienna!)--and I could spend entire afternoons arranging and rearranging the colors in the box (good God, it's a good thing I went into the arts!).

So this year marks the 50th anniversary of the 64-crayon box (with the built-in sharpener!). As part of the celebration, head on over to Crayola's website, to play the color quizzer game; essentially guess the name of the color x 64 (Which, by the by, I totally nailed--almost).



Hint, to totally rock at this game, you'd best check out the 2008 Kid's Choice colors first--I didn't, and therefore was completely unaware that someone would think up the name "awesome" as a color.

Wait, scratch that. It was probably my kid.