Current Inspiration 10.20.11

These are just a handful of things that have been inspiring me in my work lately.

1. Moonshine. This is a short film (about a to-be-released book) on the artists at dreamworks studios and their personal artworks. It's beautiful and inspiring to see that even once they come home from a long day of artwork in the office, they relax with working on their personal pieces.

Moonshine : Artists after dark from alexis wanneroy on Vimeo.

2. All about the printing press. I love this guys dedication to his work. And it's true, after printing on almost toilet paper, there is something amazing about printmaking. It might be time to carve another print...

Trip Print Press & The Making Of FreshSox from Brought To You By ... on Vimeo.

3. On that note... here is some prints that I adore from one of my best friends favorite blogs, grain edit.

4. Kathleen Hanna is probably one of the sickest punk rock feminists out there. They've already raised what they needed in order to make this documentary, but check out the preview anyway. Seriously, any movie endorsed by joan jett has got to be awesome!

The Cloud Maker

[me. not the cloud maker]

A while ago, I ran across a post on swiss miss about a designer named Duncan Shotton who made this amazing way to keep track of your keys. I thought to myself... oh, clearly this is some famous dude who somehow has extra time and resources on his hands and thought he'd knock out a few thou of these and swiss miss probably picked it up by chance while reading his personal design blog, because this designer has time to write his own blog while running his comany too! AND I bet he never writes run-on sentences.

I was wrong. Again, while reading swiss miss I ran across another post regarding this same designer. This time it was a video of a talk he did explaining how he came about the idea of the cloud key holder and the steps he took to make advertise and sell his idea. 

What I find fascinating is how what we see perceives how we think about a certain designer. I love that he tells us how the night before he left to sell his work he had them all laying out on his bed and how he took a picture of them at 6am because he was up working on them all night. How he sent it to swiss miss because he wanted some publicity - yet he didn't just send an image he gifted her with the actual object. 

This is how you can tell the difference between true passion and the generic designer. It makes me question myself. Do I have what it takes? Do I want it enough? I think if you take the amount of want that I have and add in the drive to do what it takes... things are looking pretty good. I just hope I have the skill and mastery required to stay as motivated as he was.

You can watch the video here! 

Seriously, it's worth your time!

Soak Up Grace Bonney and her Design Sponge

From the heart of Brooklyn comes a blogger who’s love of design in all aspects has FINALLY resulted in a book! This is the woman who made me think, “hm, maybe blogging isn’t all that lame after all.” (That was a long time ago, btw. way before I saw all of your amazing blogs!) 

This power house woman is all I want to be! She has worked for many major companies including (but not limited to) In Style, New York Home, Everyday with Rachel Ray, Archinect, Better Homes and Gardens. She wrote a design column for two years for the Philadelphia Inquirer. But the ULTIMATE resume booster, the show clincher, the supreme collection of words found on her about me section of her blog; “has been featured on... The Martha Stewart Show and the Martha Stewart Radio Show.” How do you know you’ve made it in design writing? BY being published in a major literary magazine or paper. How do you know you’ve made it in how-to’s and crafts, by being a guest editor for HGTV. How do you know you’ve made it in life?

The Martha Stewart Show. 

To top it off, the New York Times labeled her blog “Martha Stewart Living for the Millennials” 

If you know anything about me, you now understand why I love her. 

Not only is Grace Bonney one of my favorite crasign (craft + design) people out there. She makes herself even better by hosting free meet-ups for women in the design industry. Offering advice on everything from running their own business to financial planning and wholesaling. To be just like her one day, that would be making it. 

Am I gushing too much?

Maybe.

Here is a clip she posted all about her new book. I’d check it out if I were you. And by check it out, I really mean “hey, check that book out” “looks good, I’ll go buy it right now.”

Abi Learns Design Thread

Where I “nerd out” on you based on articles or other design blogs that I see. Only about design of course.

testing abi learns design

This is a test. test. test. abi learns design test.