Sneak peek:

Just a little side project I'm having loads of fun with... I'll have more details soon, but for now, you guys will just have to live with this little taste.

Life:

It's been a busy couple of days here at traciedesigns HQ. I have enough work to keep me going, but the kind of busy I'm talking about is life.

Last year at this time, I was the HBIC of the PTA at the 8 year old's school. It was not an easy job, and looking back, I see exactly how much of my time it took up (A LOT). But I enjoy volunteering at the school, I've met lots of great people and I can't even begin to tell you how rewarding it is (seriously. If you're feeling down, go have lunch with your kid at school. Watch their face light up and I guarantee that you will feel light years better). The 8 year old took great pride in my role as president (getting so frustrated with me if I couldn't answer her questions; "You're the PRESIDENT. Don't you know EVERYTHING??!" I wish).

But this year, I'm not the HBIC. Somebody else is running the show, and I'm OK with that. I enjoy having my time back, doing things with my kids, and not constantly checking my email to approve email blasts and flyers (OK, I still constantly check my email, but not for things like that). I enjoy letting the kids play on the playground after school gets out, and not having to run home to... yep, check email. I enjoy coming downstairs in the morning to a clean kitchen, instead of last night's dishes still in the sink. Most of all, I enjoy the sense of order I am restoring to my life.

So this past week, I've been doing just that. I've got work that I'm doing, but I'm really concentrating on a healthy work-life balance. And so far, it seems to be working.

Winning:

When you work from home--alone, for the most part--sometimes simple things like getting the mail is exciting (don't be all envious of my thrilling life). I don't know why I look forward to it day after day, as it's mostly bills and junk (let's play how many credit card offers will we get today!); but every once in a while, you get a pleasant surprise thrown in.

Like, yesterday, for example.

Yesterday was a pretty standard 5:1 junk to bills ratio (I guess it's good that it's not the other way around), with the exception of one Big Envelope. And that Big Envelope had a GD USA return address on it. Which could only mean one thing:

American Graphic Design Awards came in the mail!

The American Graphic Design Awards is a design competition that "spotlights areas of excellence and opportunity for creative professionals... It honors outstanding work across all media." This year's awards attracted 8,000 entries, with a select 15% winning.

There seems to be some sort of mistake on one (2 entries are listed--does that mean they're both winners?), so I may have won 5 total--Wheeeeeeeeeeee! And the winners are:

Melt Sandwich Shop website

Objects blog

Stylesson blog

The award with 2 entries listed:

art + interiors website redesign

Mari the Studio website

I'll find out later this week what the mix up was, but in the meantime, let's start pouring the bubbly and celebrating!

Monogram this:

Fun with monograms? Yes, please!



I'd never be able to pull it off (because I have children who ask questions), but I love the idea of a WTF monogram. Hee hee (or, should I say, LOL?)!

Fresh:

The (powerful) message is clear here: from the great stop motion animation, to the completely appropriate use of Coldplay's The Scientist (chillingly redone by Willie Nelson), this might be my new favorite commercial.

Chipotle, I'm yours.

(via Fast Co. Design)

Friday LOL (nostalgia edition):

This one's not so much funny ha-ha, but funny like, awwww, we used to work on that machine!

Shrine of Apple:


Awesome photos and videos of every Apple product, ever.

Remember the Lisa? Maybe you have a little ipod nostalgia--it's all here (and if it's not, the site says it's coming).

Fun to go through and see how very, VERY far we've come!

Type:

It's a good thing these are on the internet--I'm afraid my drool would ruin them if I had the real deal. Ladies and gentlemen, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map TYpography:



Holy cow, the typography on these maps is CRAZY gorgeous. I could look at them all day. As a matter of fact, if you need me, that's where I'll be...

(via kottke.org)

Inbox zero:

Yeah, I've pretty much come to terms with that never, ever happening.

Like, ever.

How do people do it? How on earth do people stay so organized--so ON TOP of their email--that they can claim inbox 0??!

I try so hard to be good--deleting Twitter notifications as they come in... OK, that's about as good as I get. I mean, I have client folders. I have etc folders. I'm not sure what prevents me from taking the extra 2 seconds to place an email into one of said folders.

This madness has got to stop--I have got to get on top of this email disaster! Internet, how do you keep your inboxes from becoming such a mess, that they end up looking like, well, mine?

Six:

This always slips my mind, because this time of year I am in full-on back to school mode, but--you guys, this week traciedesigns is 6!

Now, traditionally, the 6th anniversary gift is iron. Boooo-ring. The modern gift is a wood object. I'm sure if I went through my bookmarks, or scoured the internet I'd probably find at least 20 wood objects. But do you know what the traditional UK gift is?

Sugar.

Ah yes, sugar. The stuff my dreams cupcakes are made from. Mmmmmmm, cupcakes. The perfect 6th business anniversary present, ever.

Friday LOL (baseball edition):

More Alec Baldwin/John Krasinski funnies.

"Call 912! Call 912!"

"What is 912?"

"911 for rich people!"

Shop:

Well I guess now I HAVE to shop at Saks to get one of these fun bags:



Designed by Pentagram, the new bags encourage shoppers to follow Saks on Twitter. The custom @ symbol has been integrated into their print campaign, and will be seen in an upcoming catalog. Read and see more here.

Type:

Cape Cod is one of my favorite places; it's got nothing but charm, everything is SO laid back, and--most of all--ice cream. Lots of ice cream. Like, I'm seriously going through withdrawl now, there was so much ice cream.

Besides ice cream, the other thing the Cape has in abundance is hand-lettered signs. Because you're hard-pressed to find a lot of chain stores (save for Subway and Dunkin Donuts, at least in our neck of the woods), most of the stores are mom and pops, complete with hand-lettered signage.


Mmmmm, fudge. In addition to ice cream, there's no shortage to fudge on the Cape, either. I know. Too bad, right? Love the "mouthwatering fudge" lettering. Oh, and the fact that THEY MAIL CANDY.



I think I drove by this book store about 20 times a day, as it was right around the corner from where we stayed. It is the cutest little bookshop I have ever seen, and made me want to not order from Amazon and stay there and browse all day. True story. Love the flourishes.



Love the Agro Dolce--not so much the hologram effect, but the lettering is nice.



The first time I saw this sign, I swear I almost crashed my car, craning my neck to see it. Flourishes, script, gold detail... I loved it so much that I went WAY out of my way to snap this pic.



What can I say? I'm a sucker for Bodoni poster, even more so for hand-lettered Bodoni poster.



Come on, it wouldn't be a trip to the Cape without a weathered lobster sign!



Finally, I snapped this at the Brewster General Store. It's not hand-lettered, but Oh. Em. Gee. I love it.

Come on, Irene:

Wow.

So first things first: pardon my absence last week--we took a much needed week off and spent it on lovely Cape Cod. Yes, the Cape was all kinds of lovely... up until we left. We were supposed to stay into Saturday, but because of the hurricane that was due to arrive on Sunday, we left late Friday night.

After planning and prepping all day Saturday (which included the most insane trip to the grocery store I have ever taken, AND an unsuccessful attempt to get batteries [DANG! Why didn't we think to bring those back from the Cape??!]), Irene hit, taking our power with her--but that's it. And as much as I like to whine about not having electricity, that was the worst of it. Our cellar didn't flood, our house didn't collapse... our friends and family were safe, and we had to live like the Amish for a day and a half. Big whoop.


Post-Irene, Sasco Beach in Fairfield


It was still super windy when we went down, way after the storm left us...


...So windy, in fact, the intern almost got swept away!

Friday LOL (Jersey edition--part II):

So this is my second Jersey Shore-themed Friday post in as many weeks (also, apologies to those who follow me on Twitter, as I announced this the other day and now it's just old news). Why? Because these people are funny. Well, maybe not. But their circumstance is.

I have never watched the Jersey Shore. I know the characters have nicknames, like, the Situation, and Snookie, and J-Wow; but I couldn't pick the Situation out of a line-up. Apparently, these characters--the Situation in general--like to wear Abercrombie & Fitch. Problem is, A&F doesn't want their brand associated with this cast of characters. So much so, that they are willing to pay them to NOT wear their brand:

"We are deeply concerned that Mr. Sorrentino's association with our brand could cause significant damage to our image. We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes, but believe this association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand, and may be distressing to many of our fans. We have therefore offered a substantial payment to Michael 'The Situation' Sorrentino and the producers of MTV's The Jersey Shore to have the character wear an alternate brand. We have also extended this offer to other members of the cast, and are urgently waiting a response."

I swear, you can't make this stuff up! How funny is this? What tickled me even more, was that A&F is calling this a "win-win" situation. Hysterical.

(You can see the full text of the statement here: click on 8/16, A&F proposes a win-win situation)

Wednesday LOLs (Andy edition):

Mattio and I just watched Wet Hot American Summer for the first time last week (I know, we're pretty late jumping on that bandwagon, huh?), and by far and away, the best part of the movie is Paul Rudd. I mean, duh, who doesn't love Paul Rudd? His character, Andy, was the best. My favorite scene in the entire movie is this one:



I love it. Of course, I immediately thought of my children, and their hissy fits. But now, every time I have to do something so stupid and useless and expend even the slightest amount of energy doing it, I think of this scene. Case in point: I went to wish somebody a happy birthday on FB the other day. I wrote HB on their wall, and hit return. Nothing happened. I hit return again. Nothing again. I realized that I had to physically take my mouse and click on a button, and I was so. put. out. I immediately watched this scene, and giggled not only at Andy, but at my own silliness.

Lessons:

You get what you pay for. I think this is true for a lot of things, but lately it seems to especially ring true in graphic design.

Last week a new DIY logo design site was launched--LogoGarden (I'm linking to their FB page here. Check out the wall full of designers saying LG ripped off their work!). The premise is, for $69, you can choose from a bunch of pre-designed icons, slap some text on that bad boy, and call it a day. Or a logo. Whatever.

Sounds like it's too good to be true, right?

Yeah, that's because it is. See, these pre-designed icons? They were pre-designed by other graphic designers. Who designed them for other clients. And LogoGarden just took them, and started selling them as icons to be combined with text to make your own logo. Only, LogoGarden doesn't own these icons.

Steve Douglas has a really great post about it here.

Lesson learned? If you're starting a business, and need a logo… hire a professional, for the love. You can work with a professional graphic designer and get something completely custom--not predesigned (and, er, stolen). Yes, it will cost you more than $69, but if you're investing in your business, isn't it worth it?

Want:

OH. EM. GEE. You guys, Target has partnered with Missoni to bring us all affordable zig zag goodness!

Debuting on September 13th, the Missoni for Target line includes clothing for women, men and kids (natch), as well as accessories, housewears, and a bicycle. Yes, a Missoni bicycle.

You can see the entire collection (and read some of the hysterical comments--"This doesn't look like something I can wear to a PTA meeting or soccer game!" Ummmm...) on Target's Facebook page.


Hello, adorable. Seriously, I think I might just go broke buying this stuff (not to be worn together, natch. I think it's a little much if you're piling Missoni, on top of Missoni, on top of Missoni).


There is a very blurry line between want and need when it comes to these shoes.


As with these great winter accessories. Hurry up and get cold so I can wear these!


OMG My kids are going to rock the socks off the world in this adorableness. Seriously. How. Freakin. Cute. Is this??!


Home accessories? Yup, I'm in.

Friday LOL (Jersey edition):

I love that somebody matched the skin tone of the Jersey Shore cast to actual Pantone colors.

The second guy down (I only know Snooki) is looking pretty light. Obviously he's not concentrating on the T part of GTL (which I totally had to look up what that stood for. OMG that makes me feel old!).

Photo:

Here I am, riding my bike in the CT Challenge with a big 'ol smile on my face (OK, so this was clearly taken at the beginning of the Challenge, not sure how much I was smiling at the end). Behind me is my friend--and CT Challenge mentor--Ed. Such a fun day!

Faux real::

When I was a child, I wanted to grow up and be an artist--but not just any old artist. I wanted to be the artist that Hollywood producers called when they needed artwork for their movies (as in, the lead character is an artist, but my artwork would be shown as theirs). I had no idea how that all worked--I really thought that was a specific job you could have ("What do I do for a living, you ask? Well, have you ever seen critically-acclaimed, box office smash Movie About an Artist? I was actually the artist behind the Artist.").

Alas, I'm not working for a studio, and my artwork doesn't appear in the movies. But, there IS hope. Check out Fauxgo, a Tumblr of logos of companies that exist only in the movies. Lots of Pixar love here, Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Up and Wall-E are all represented; as well as huge pop culture icons Dunder Mifflin, Sterling Cooper and Oceanic Airlines.

I'm checking back regularly to see what else gets added. Who knows, maybe one day that will be my claim to fame.

(via swissmiss)