easy peasy facelifts

+ I know, I’ve been m.i.a. for a month now. Oops. But, a bad flu, work, and traveling seemed to have taken over April, and now it’s May!

After checking out the Brooklyn Flea yesterday, there were so many fun projects that people seemed to make! I was jealous of all their productivity. I also had to hold myself back from buying random antiques/junk/treasure (though I did let myself buy a $5 gem of a necklace!). As I was longing for two curvy mid-century modern faux leather chairs, reasoning recalled that I still have two chairs sitting in my living room that have been begging to be reupholstered for months now... my couch needs a facelift as well.

So, I was browsing Etsy looking for maybe some new pillows for the couch. Here are a few that I really like:

// love, california // adorable state-themed pillows out of felt

// willa skye home // pretty patterns in tasteful colors

// alison alison // silk screened animals with cute stitching details

Of course, with a sewing maching, some fabric and creativity, you could make any of these on your own!

content-aware fill...pshop magic!

+ I’m not a super tech-y person, though I use computers and design programs daily. But, this sneak peak video of CS5 Photoshop is quite amazing! Seriously, it’s like magic I’ve never seen before. Photo-retouchers, you may have become redundant.

Content-Aware Fill Sneak Peak

There are apparently some nay-sayers that say it’s fake (though I can’t imagine why anyone would spend that much time on a hoax...), but it’s on Adobe’s website as well!

John Nack Adobe Blog

The House of Suh

+ I’ve missed a week or two of posting due to a mini-vacation (which was ahhh-mazing!) and some freelance work. One of which has been working on the visuals for a documentary called “The House of Suh.” It’s a tragic story about a family’s hopes that are never realized, and in fact, completely miss the mark. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but for more information, check out the website here.

Below is the poster for the film.

Check out the world premiere at the Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto, Wed. May 5 and Sun. May 9!

font aid IV

+ I was skimming this month’s My Fonts newsletter when I saw blurb on this cool initiative called “font aid IV.” Basically, it’s a font compose entirely of ampersands {&} designed by over 400 type designers and artists from all over the world—“representing the idea of people coming together to help one another.” And all proceeds of the type go to Doctors Without Borders.

image from My Fonts

This is a really unique and great way to tie in the Haiti effort. To check out or purchase the font, click here (you can also see a list of all the contributors).

shades of gray / grey

+ I’ve been working on a logo for a dear friend of mine who’s an amazing photographer {christine han photography}. She’s starting up her business and luckily, because I know her and her tastes very well,  the logo process was fun and pretty easy! I just finished tweaking some colors and we were down to picking a gray that went with the ochre/gold...click on the image to see it larger.

The differences are really subtle, but the top is more blue-gray, the middle pure gray-black, and the bottom has hints of yellow-green. I love that even a shade like gray can have depth. On the flipside to this clean logo, I’ve been working on a few large, messy paintings which I’m not sure where I’m going with at all...I’ll post some work-in-progress shots soon, so that it will push me to finish them!

miniature fad

+ I was first introduced to Vincent Laforet’s work a few years ago. He’s an amazing photographer with a great, unique eye, often working from a helicopter. For some photographs, he also shoots with a tilt-shift lens that makes everything look miniature, like a toy world. Vincent Laforet

I’ve noticed that I see this everywhere now, in commercials and I think there’s even an option on the iPhone to shoot like that. New trend I suppose! This was a short film I saw posted on Gothamist that uses the tilt-shift technique and portrays “a day in the life of New York City” by VFX artist Sam O’Hare...pretty amazing. Reminds me of the little town intro in Mister Roger’s Neighborhood though that was actually miniatures! (link to short below the stills)

The Sandpit

I wonder why we’re all so fascinated by seeing our world as toys....

stamp crazy

+ A good friend of mine bought me this cool, old wooden stamp set. I’ve been wanting to use them, but hadn’t decided exactly what to do with them. So instead of mulling it over in my head, I just pulled out some paper and started stamping. Why not? I had fun making patterns and experimenting with each of the shapes / numbers / symbols. I filled up a whole page.

 

 

It makes me miss letterpress and all things old. It would make a nice, funky wrapping paper! Or even to stamp your own stationery or postcards.