{ How can I get that goodness on here? }

Last night I took photos of my portfolio pieces in a make-shift studio in my kitchen. All in all, they turned out alright. It wasn't until after taking them, however, that I realized I have neither a mini USB cord nor a card reader to get those lovely photos from my friend Nate's super deluxe camera onto my computer. I will be borrowing one of those shortly to remedy the problem, so until then, anticipation can take their place. Pictures soon to come.

{ Give 'em the bird }

Sometimes work can get pretty fast paced around my office. Therefore, designing can get pretty fast paced too.

The other day I got a proof (a pre-press doc showing what the product is going to look like when it prints, just to be sure everything is in order before giving the "ok, go to print" signal) from our press only to discover that one of the illustrated people I had hurriedly grabbed from an istock drawing was actually flipping off all of our readers rather than merely pointing at her cohorts. Needless to say it got fixed before we went to print. But talk about an awesome oversight. Whoooops.

{ Dinner with Gary }

This weekend was really picturesqe (bike ride to a frozen lake...striped pancakes...etc). Unfortunately, I had no camera to capture most of it.

Thankfully, however, my friend Gary did capture one weekend happening when he came over for dinner on Sunday (whew). So, here is Sunday dinner according to Gary and his camera.






Kates with our dinner of pesto pasta, fresh bruchetta, yellow & green squash and garlic bread.


And a little bit of post dinner guitarring.

{ Just a weekend }

This past weekend was full of things: pizza making, a gallery stroll, a vintage flea market (pictured above is blurry Angela Tam trying on a retro puffy vest at the flea market), a Cinco-de-Marzo celebration (robot pinata included), an 80's skating party, lots of design, a trip to a natural-hot-spring-filled swimming pool, Italian biscotti making, self hair-cutting and a bit of guitar playing/song writing. Kind of full, but kind of fun. Here are a couple photos. It's crazy how much can fit into 60 hours.


On the left, the awesome Robot pinata made by Mike. And on the right, the awesome Katy and Clay dressed up for the 80's skate party.


Self cut bangs. I cut them Sunday morning with my paper scissors. Subtle, but perfect. They were getting all long and stickish.

{ Sold by packaging }

Sometimes I find myself buying things simply because I like the packaging. I don't necessarily even need to know what the product is. If it's cheap and looks lovely, I may find it walking out of the store with me.

Such was the case two nights ago at Good Earth Market. I spotted Ines Rosales' Seville Orange Sweet Olive Oil Tortas in their lovely euro-style influenced packaging, and I had to buy them. Did I know what the enclosed torta was? No sir. Was it on sale for $3.50? You better believe it. And out the door with me they went.

Turns out a "torta" is a large, pancake-shaped, olive-oil based cracker imported from Spain. And the ones I got are infused with an orange taste and sprinkled with raw sugar. Pretty tasty. The packaging is still my favorite part though. I love the classic simple fonts, both outlined and solid. And the little illustrated olive oil branch is prefect. Great text placement. Great small details. And for a plastic package, not bad. Not bad at all.


The outside packaging


Each torta comes hand wrapped in one of these printed wax paper wrappers. Especially more charming than if they came in little cellophane pockets.

{ Up to letterpressing }

I finally got some pressing done a couple nights ago, and I LOVE IT! Such a great idea to get into it. Such a great idea.

I pressed the lettering for some wedding invites, and with only a few minor hiccups, they turned out great. Hiccup #1 -- my press was a little too weenie for the hard paper the bride had given me for the invites so ... I rented some time on my friend Lee's Vandercook letterpress (such an incredibly fun press to work on. I may need to purchase one of these in the near future) to get the heavy-duty job done. And hiccup #2 -- the ink I ordered was supposed to be a pretty, chocolatey brown, but came in as a so-dark-brown-it-is-almost-black color, so I learned to mix my own ink too (thanks again to Lee at Rowley Press). I don't have any fun photos of the actual pressing process, but I'll post what I have.


4.5 parts yellow, 3.5 parts red, 3 parts black, 11 parts white, and some added black and yellow to sight = Pantone 4635.


After Lee putting all the ink down, I mixed it up, which took a surprisingly long time to get a good, streakless mix.


And the final product.

So so great.

Coming soon: Erin and James' letterpressed wedding Invitations. I'm in the design process now, fiddling around with yellows, grays and patterns. Final product postable in a couple weeks. And hopefully I will get to photograph them with something a little more profesh than my iphone.

{ The palette match & handwriting twin}

Me and Mike don't match exact outfits today, but our twin palette was random enough to make note of.
Palette: Brown, black, blue and red. Mike's watch looks kind of orangey in the photo, but believe you me, it's red.

Also noteworthy: the other day I was walking around Gardener's Village with my friend Sue when I spotted a "No Strollers Please" sign in the window of a yarn shop.

At first I swore I must have written the sign but just couldn't remember doing it. "Maybe they found it on the floor or something" I thought. But when I asked where they got the sign, the shop keeper told me her daughter had written it. Crazy. See the resemblance below.


The sign from the shop is on top, and below I wrote the same phrase, in my normal handwriting, on my notepad at work. How crazy is that? If either I or that girl ever need an uncannily close handwriting double, we know where to go. Well...at least I do.

{ Fanfarlo }

Puts on a pretty great show. With only one CD released, and based out of England, this band ventured to SLC last weekend to grace us with their greatness. Me, angela and a group of others took the trip up to see them. You can listen to their stuff here. Or on any other music site you like, I suppose. But they are definitely worth a bit of your time.

All the members of the band sang at the show, and their musical quiver includes, along with the standard drum set, guitars and base, a mouth piano, mandolin, violin, trumpet, bells and a clarinet. A great musical treat for Saturday night. Enjoy.