Living in Portland, but originally from Mexico- Illustrator Alberto Cerriteño is “strongly inspired by urban vinyl toys, alternative cartoons, and the pop surrealism movement. He has developed his own very personal technique and style, having always present a delicate hints of traditional Mexican artistic influences in his management of rich textures and decorative patterns. These contrast strikingly with the blending of desaturated colors and ink, sometimes featuring a vintage coffee finish.”

I love the mixture of simple whimsy and detailed textures. I am also impressed that some of this work is done by hand- ink and paint on paper… I think the ones I have shown here are all digital illustrations. (Go check out his Galleries though. There’s lots more to see!)

So stinkin’ fun. I want him to illustrate a children’s book. Has he? He needs to. Also, he sells prints on Etsy!

I designed this shirt for my client BURN Lifestyle Renovations. {new website, by me, coming soon} They are awesome people and I love working with them! They live in LA now, because they’re going to be famous. Anyway, the shirts turned out pretty nice. I’m so very glad I got to keep one!

{ this is the first post about something I, myself, have actually designed… for the record.}

Other interesting fact: The real shirts are American Apparel V-necks. Which means they are slightly more attractive than pictured here.

My office / home in general is in need of rad designery. We have some great furniture and accessories, but for some reason I don’t ever hang things on walls. Every designer has prints of other (more famous) designers work on their walls.

I’ve been frequenting the blog ISO50 for a really long time – mostly to drool over the posters and t-shirt artwork in the shop. The blog usually consists of music news/samples, technology finds and product / graphic design. The guy behind all of this is Scott Hansen (amazing portfolio). You might have seen the really wonderful poster he did during campaign time for Obama… Scott aslo has a music project called Tycho. Never listened to the music, but I want all the posters. Mostly retro, but awesome dirty colors and love the patterns and textures. He has a great deal where if you buy 3 or more prints, you get them for $14 each instead of $17.

Perfect… I need exactly 3 or more!

I don’t know why, but I always get nervous about posting some of the things I find. I don’t want to get in trouble, blogs are tricky. So just in case I would like to make a disclaimer on this particular post.

*The pictures in this post are not my work, but the work of Feric. I think they are wonderful illustrations and want to share them, not sell them for proffit or bash them.*

Amazing huh? I’ve been a fan of this guy for a long time. When I was in INDD at Auburn University, I constantly struggled between wanting to make my project look pretty on paper, and wanting it to actually work right. In the end, I think I was more concerned about the layout of my presentation boards rather than if my lounge chair model would in fact be able to hold a person’s weight. Thus, I am a Graphic Designer. Anyhow, Feric was a big inspiration for sketching boring mechanical details in a beautiful way… way. back. when.

So I was going to post this on Earth Day. Oops. Cool Isreali Stamps from 1975, via NOT COT > via this guy. They show the three major kinds of pollution { air, water and noise } … then the absence of such on a tear off portion at the bottom. I think the illustrations are lovely. { the orange thing is an ear. -least clear illustration }

The US has always had really awful stamps- with very few exceptions. The US flag has had the stage for far too long in stamp world. I only get stamps twice a year, and it always seems like I don’t have much to choose from. I always get stuck with old lady sunflowers or something. I’ll blame Email and the Internets. Please go see how absolutely sad our country’s stamp selection is… and lets work on this people.

Today David and I took Olive (she’s almost 4 months old) up to Mt. Lemmon to go on a little hike. She’s been on some long hikes behind our house in the desert, so it was something new and different for her to experience. We found some water to play in! It was very fun and dirty. What a fun puppy. So I’m soaking up my last 4 hours of weekend before another busy week… sigh.

Succulents! Ok, so maybe you don’t live in a desert where the average annual rainfall is 1.04 inches. Yeah, that’s ONE inch in ONE year. Succulent plants are super desert friendly because they actually collect and store water in their stems and leaves because they are used to going without water for long periods of time. They are also “green,” obviously-literally, but also in a earth friendly way, because they aren’t thirsty plants. But they tend to be heartier, beefier plants and often have a waxy or fuzzy appearance, to protect them from the hot climate. There are all different shapes and sizes and colors. Most of them don’t flower, but hey, they are so funky looking you don’t really miss the blooms.

Anyway, I came across a great post on Design*Sponge about Flora Grub, who is a creative genius when it comes to these unique little plants, and gardening in general. She owns Flora Grubb Gardens, all things garden + accessory store,  in SanFran where she has designed some beatiful vertical gardens and living wreaths using succulents of all colors and textures [pictures @ the top]. Amazing, huh?. I’m really inspired to try something like this. I loved reading her Q+A with D*S … there’s also more pictures with that link.

Yulia Brodskaya makes graphics… out of paper. Cutting, folding, layering, rolling. A very unique craft. I’m amazed at how perfect the lettering is. And I can’t see any glue or tape. Props.

Design advice to live by… from This Guy. Who is he? I don’t know…

I am slightly frustrated. I just deleted 193 comments from my blog. I wish it was because I had that many people hanging out here on a weekly basis. But it was stinkin’ spam.

Spam. I don’t get it. It’s not like it was an advertising thing or a link- ping- track back- thing. It was just lorem ipsum-like nonsense. I’m going to have to beef up security around this place. So if your are a real person, not a bot, and you ever want to make a comment and it asks you to sign into an existing account, verify an email addy and then ask you to type some skewed words…  (a process which takes a few semi-annoying minutes) well, I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to have to come to this.

Hopefully someday I’ll have real comments to read!

So, Happy Easter! [ in a “He has risen kinda way”… or in a “hope you find the plastic egg with money in it” kinda way. I like to celebrate both.