Saturday, October 30, 2010

My first book cover!

"The Forgotten Frontier" by Andrew C. Hess. It was a really interesting and enjoyable and frustrating and rewarding and super exciting process and I'm really happy with the way it turned out! And the first book with my name on the back!

I love the internet!

I have friends living all over the world right now and I am so thankful for the internet because it's so simple to keep in touch! (Don't get me wrong, I'm a real-mail advocate, too. Dave and I primarily wrote letters to each other while he was living in Zambia for six months.) I took these screen shots recently while chatting with Christa (who is living in Bangladesh) and Justine (Brazil) and Kari (Michigan). It's not quite the same as hanging out in person, but "snapshots" like these make me a big fan of the internet. :)
P.S. Isn't Christa so encouraging? I'm saving this picture for "one of those days" - you know what I mean?

Friday, October 29, 2010

Cute, yeah?

"O Happy Day" print from Keep Calm Gallery.
[via swissmiss]

Hi, I'm alive!

Happy Friday! Did you miss me? (Rhetorical question. Please don't say no!) Life has been busy and full and tiring the last two weeks. I have been storing up lots of pictures and fun things to share but then the amount of things I hadn't posted began to overwhelm me so I just avoided it like the plague. (This is also why my room gets so messy. Sorry about that, Paige!) Hopefully I'll be sharing from my "to-post" list over the weekend - this may include the two book covers I've designed over the last few weeks! My first two! So exciting!

Two photos to share. ABOVE: Marissa came to visit me and we spent a full day walking/shopping/eating/talking and it was glorious. BELOW: We celebrated Ashley's 24th at a swanky gastropub. Good times!

Happy Friday! Chilifest today at work!

P.S. It's 31 degrees outside!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Happy Friday!

Hi friends. Happy Friday to you! I just want to say that I have had the best afternoon. Dave came to have lunch with me, Chicago is having the most gorgeous weather, I got some fantastic encouragement at work, and now... the weekend! I hope you all are having a glorious day as well! Happy weekending!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Gap logo fiasco

Gap debuted a new logo on its website last week and the new icon was met immediately with criticism from customers and designers alike. Gap initially defended it, then back-pedaled a bit by encouraging submission of designs (a no-no in the professional design world), and now has officially gone back to the previous logo. Thank goodness. I hated the new logo so I'm thankful they've done an about-face. Seriously, it reminds me of something Microsoft-esque (did you want to sell clothes or computers?).

[graphic from the chicago tribune article]

Typographic Maps

My friend Adam pointed me to these awesome typographic maps designed by Axis Maps. They make so much sense in that the street names are easy to read and the important things are easy to locate. How many times have you lost your place as you tried to figure out the name of the street you're looking at? Happens all the time to me. You can purchase prints of these posters for Chicago and Boston (NYC, SF, and DC are in the works.)


via fastcodesign

Friday, October 8, 2010

Friday!

Today I'm full of energy and raring to go. (I'm going to thank the coffee for that.) I've got a whole list of things to get done at work today and I'm going to check, it, off. Yay for a beautiful day! Yay for Friday! Yay for coffee!

The picture above is from Kate's birthday celebration last weekend. :)

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

An Autumnal Outing

Let's face it, 'autumnal' is just really fun to say. Last weekend on the day of Kate's birth (!!) we went apple picking waaay out in almost-Wisconsin. It was gorgeous (we missed the nasty rain in Chicago), cold, and delightfully autumnal. (Say it with me, "autumnal, autumnal, autumnal.") Edwards Orchards is a family owned place with amazing donuts that are the closest thing to malasadas I've tasted on the mainland. Perhaps they have some Portuguese in their background?