The pots are saying: “Hey ya!” Make your neighbourhood more alive

I love this idea! These flowerpots are by Maija Louekari (I’ve mentioned her before). So fun!

What would you make pots on your windowsill spell? I’m thinking “Go away!”, personally, but that’s not very nice of me. Maybe this is an idea better reserved for the back garden for those of us who are less…gregarious.

Los Angeles architect Fritz Haeg narrows the divide between residents and their communities with projects like Edible Estates, an international effort to convert front lawns into working food gardens.

Watch it all the way through. It’ll make you feel great, I promise. (From Dwell.)

I know the term “beautiful dog crate” sounds like an oxymoron, but late last night while obsessively Googling for non-hideous dog beds and houses, I came across the eiCrate from designGO!.

This is the Bertoia chair of dog crates, seriously. Even if I didn’t have a dog, I think I might want this in my house. It’s funny, because when we bought the chairs for our garden, I commented to Evan that they were essentially the same material as a dog crate—but that a dog crate costs $50, not $400. (I realize, of course, that the price is not based on materials alone, and that good design does frequently come with a high price. I accept that.)

Enter the $320 dog crate ($575 if you buy the starter package, which includes a beautiful cover and a shaped bed insert).

I’m pretty sure Bruno needs one, especially since he’ll be getting a little brother in a couple of weeks. (!) He loves his crate (we don’t close the door, he just likes to go inside and be in his little cave when he feels like it), but it’s a real eyesore. I try not to have anything visible in the house that isn’t well-designed, and the shin-killing crate is usually relegated to the basement unless we need it for some reason.

I’ll start rolling spare change now!

I’m feeling really excited about Ellsworth Kelly lately (who, by the way, comes from Newburgh). I can’t wait to see these two pieces in the Color Chart exhibit at MoMA. Has anyone been yet?

Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance II. 1951.
Cut-and-pasted color-coated paper and pencil on four sheets of paper, 38 1/4 x 38 1/4" (97.2 x 97.2 cm).

Colors for a Large Wall. 1951.
Oil on canvas, sixty-four panels, 7′ 10 1/2" x 7′ 10 1/2" (240 x 240 cm).

I’ve added a special I Love Newburgh category to the links.

p.s. I love love love Marilyn Neuhart’s dolls.

The new resident has taken up occupancy in the hallway. Doesn’t it look perfect next to Elisabeth’s amazing poster?

I’m looking forward to the long holiday weekend! Saturday will be very full: picking up the floor tiles for the bathroom (!!!), lunch with old friends, dinner with new friends. By Monday evening, I am determined to have curtains sewn for the living room. The fabric has been sitting around for months, but I’ve been procrastinating because I don’t feel like ironing. Isn’t that silly? I just hate ironing, especially huge pieces of fabric.

Within the world of book cover design (a world I inhabit for at least 40 hours a week), Chip Kidd is both admired and despised (I suspect that a lot of the animosity comes from a secret jealousy that we less-famous book cover designers don’t like to admit to or talk about). There is no disputing, though, that he is by far the most famous, the most rockstar of us all. Book cover design isn’t one of those things you just do here and there on a whim—most people I know who work in the field started out there, and will spend the majority of the duration of their careers there, too. This is especially true for those of us who, like Kidd, work in-house for a publishing company. A book cover designer doesn’t wake up one day and decide to start doing corporate identity packages at an ad agency (or, for that matter, book interiors—that’s a whole different world). I know people who have tried to leave the field, but they always come back eventually.

I think the next step for graphic designers is to figure out how to meaningfully generate their own content. That’s what I’ve found that I have been doing, and want to continue to do. Whether it’s a book, or whether it’s music, or a film, or whatever; I think it’s the natural growth, rather than just strictly working for a client all the time.

Kidd is really on to something with the above quote, and his point absolutely applies to every person working in the field of graphic design, regardless of their field of focus. Working in a creative position within a larger corporate environment can be difficult for a person who is visually expressive by nature. The further you get from the creative freedom of your college years, the more you become entirely directed towards satisfying an outside demand (whether it be from a publisher, and art director, or an author). I don’t think this is a simple as defining “Art” as a separate thing from “Design”; I think it’s about nurturing a part of yourself that will eventually die off completely unless you figure out how to generate that original content he’s talking about, even if it’s just for yourself. I know many, many graphic designers who have struggled with this idea for years.

Chip Kidd also has a FABULOUS apartment, which you can see some of in the video. He’s an avid collector of Batman and other comic book-related ephemera, and he definitely knows how to display that collection in a way that is both sophisticated and accessible. The New York Times ran a great article on Kidd and his home a couple of years ago. The Eileen Gray chairs are to die for, right?

By the way, my apologies to those who are seeing this post for a second time today (albeit in a different form). Technical difficulties and further thought required a total reposting!

From Eames Demetrious:

These stamps were designed by the remarkable Derry Noyes, who design many of the stamps for the US Post Office. The first inklings of this possibility were 10 or 12 years ago when we (I am wearing my Eames Office hat here) first answered a request for research images.

There is a wonderful familial connection there, as Derry is the daughter of Eli Noyes, who was an extremely close friend of Charles and Ray’s and the director of design at IBM.

Slowly over this time period it blossomed to a full on set of 16 stamps to celebrate the richness of Charles and Ray’s work. We see the Eames House, La Chaise, the Lounge Chair, Crosspatch, House of Cards, the film Tops and more.

Just think: How many Toys are on stamps? How many short films? This is just a great thing.

I can’t wait! (via AT:LA)

I really really love Elisabeth Dunker’s work! Her Tree poster hangs in my front hall, and now she is offering a new one for sale, Krakatoa.

From the description at Little Red Stuga:

Krakatoa is a flirt with the colour palette and graphical forms from the 50’s, a mish-mash of inspirations of Hokusai, HC Andersen and Tove Jansson, created with the help of scissors, pen and vector graphics.

Krakatoa is a volcano between Sumatra and Java, mostly famous for it’s violent outbreak in 1883. You could hear the sound from the ends of the world and the tsunami that followed reached a height of 40 metres. The amount of dust in the atmosphere was so intense that the earth’s temperature dropped the following 5 years.

Enough said, really! Have a look at some of Elisabeth’s other work at Lula.se and at her blog, Fine Little Day. She’s such an inspiration.

Dadel fabric, designed by Maija Louekari for Marimekko’s Spring 2008 collection. Available in pastel (shown), red, and bright colorways. (PERFECT.)

Maija Louekari is quickly becoming one of my most favorite illustrators/textile artists. Nearly every Marimekko print I’ve fallen in love with over the past couple of years is her work! (And she was born in 1982. Gosh.)

I found this old enamel and wood breadbox west of here in Montgomery, NY. It cleaned up nicely, and now it’s holding all of the various printer papers in our office. I’ve always liked the idea of having a breadbox, but I don’t eat enough bread to justify buying one!

The happy yellow Eames shell chair in the corner is also a dirt-cheap scavenged find. Above it is a silkscreened poster designed and printed by Robin Hendrickson. It’s a promotional piece for a hand-drawn font he created based on hockey jersey typography. We traded prints over a decade ago when we were in art school together, and I’ve just now gotten around to putting it in a frame!

(Moomin books.)

(From this guy.)

It wasn’t until I had framed both of these posters that I realized how well they compliment each other and decided to hang them side by side in my front hallway. The one on the left was designed by my grandfather, Robert Dorfman, nearly 40 years ago. Elisabeth Dunker designed the one on the right just this past year. It made me smile to see them hanging there together when I got home this evening!

My grandfather passed away before I was born, but in addition to the poster I have several of his lovely watercolor paintings hanging in the house, as well as the seaside shadowbox he made for my father when he was a child. I am forever thankful to come from a family of creators; these physical items left behind mean so much to me.

Yay! My poster from Elisabeth Dunker of Fine Little Day arrived yesterday. It’s beautiful! I can’t wait to have it framed and find just the right spot for it in my house. The colors (which remind me very much of those on the Eames Hang-it-All) are so beautiful and cheery, and I love (what seems to be) her combination of computer and hand-drawn illustration.

Elisabeth’s posters sold out at her new Etsy shop almost immediately, but hopefully she’ll have more items for sale there in the future. In the mean time, have a look at her blog and this great interview at Design*Sponge. Her style is such an inspiration to me.

In A Quiet Place
The Work of Nicole McConville, Lindsay Pichaske, Alena Hennessy
Satellite Gallery
55 Broadway
Asheville, NC
(828) 505-2225
Exhibit Runs October 26th ­ November 30th, 2007
Opening Reception with the Artists Friday, October 26th 7 pm ­ 10 pm
Satellite Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 11 am to 6 pm

Nicole McConville http://www.sigilation.com/
Lindsay Pichaske http://www.lindsaypichaske.com/
Alena Hennessy http://www.alenahennessy.com/

I’ve known Nicole for over 20 years, and during that span of that time my respect and admiration for her art has just grown and grown and grown. She’ll have 40 pieces in this show ranging in age and size and materials, and I wish very much that I could be there tomorrow night see them (and her!) in person. Good luck, darling!

This is my favorite corner of the house right now. The bird illustration was done by my father, I’m guessing about 45 years ago. To the left of it is a shadowbox filled with collected shells and dried sea creatures, all labeled. My grandfather (who I never knew) made it. The frame is bamboo, the matte is burlap, and the shells are glued into a stationary box marked Charlbet’s, 380 Main Street, Hyannis, Mass. When I was 9 years old, my father gave it to me, and he wrote on the back:
Made by Robert Dorfman
Owned by Bruce Dorfman from 1945–1984
Owned by Anna Dorfman from 1984–

I’m awaiting the arrival of two prints by Yellena, “Bloom” and “No Name Parade”. Visit her Etsy shop to see (and buy) more works.

So beautiful. I can’t wait to see them in person.