Tuesday Tunes

This is one of our classic favorite songs from the early days of our relationship. Forever if Blue Jeans is a solid mid tempo rocker which makes it perfect for all ages to boogie down. There are also a lot of awful covers of it on youtube. So, you know, if you're lookin' to waste some time...



Tuesday Tunes

You could argue that this isn't Kurtis Blow's best song (but you'd be wrong). This is the song that sold me on his music. David sang Takin' Care of Business at a karaoke night in this style a few years ago and it was a real hit. I'd recommend singing it in this fashion to anyone trying to look cool and impress the ladies.

Jennie's Creativity Tips

I'm sure you've all had instances when you feel like your creativity has taken a hike. Sometimes my creativity sneaks off in the darkness of night and makes me feel like I am the least crafty person in the world. When I feel like I'll never have another good idea (and the world as I know it is coming to an end), these are the things I do for creative motivation. I hope they can help you as much as they help me!

1. Eat as much junk food as possible. I'm talkin' anything and everything you can get your hands on. Stale cookies? Perfect. Chocolate chips straight from the bag? Yes. Candies that you don't really like? Absolutely.
2. Sing songs very loudly and with the wrong lyrics. I prefer to do this when someone that is a real lyric stickler is in the room. Sing your heart out! Serenade that special someone.
3. Whatever you do, don't look up your successful classmates on any social media platform. Stay as far away from Facebook as possible.
4. Go to your spouse, friend, mom, or whoever is near you at the time. Whine and complain until they cave and start saying things that boost your ego.
5. If all else fails, curl up in the fetal position on the couch and watch television until your mind goes numb. Put off all your creative projects until tomorrow.

Some Good Stuff

Even the dogs found some good stuff this week! They have been so happy since they found this old, ratty frisbee in the yard. (We think it was thrown over by one of our neighbors, thanks neighbors.) All they want lately is to is be outside fighting over it.
Here's the good stuff we found:

-Ever wonder what the insides of a flower look like?
-We wish we could find something this cool in our attic!
-The awesome Megan Mulally.
-Hard to beat Kodachrome.
-Which brings to mind that we need to see this sometime.
-In case you need something to help with your Downton Abbey withdrawl.

The Jennie Sans

You may know the feeling: cycling through a list of fonts in your preferred design program, trying to find the perfect one. Eventually, your eyes cross and words lose all meaning. Many designers solve this by sticking to a handful of dependable typefaces. I've certainly been moving in that direction, favoring the classic transitional serif Baskerville, which I find is both elegant and versatile. Helvetica is popular for a reason, and I count myself among its admirers. Still, certain projects require a deviation from the stand-bys. Developing the identity for Terrier Mountain is one such instance.

I knew I wanted to strike a casual, handmade feeling with the type, but I am often let down by handwriting fonts. I played with a slab serif for a while (the ubiquitous Archer, known as the Martha Stewart Living font, is a slab serif), which was nice. But I wanted something different. One day, I asked Jennie, whose handwriting I've always envied, to draw some letterforms for me. The result is a work-in-progress typeface I'm calling, fittingly enough, "Jennie Sans."



I like where it's heading, and though there's refining to be done, I'm going to live with it for a while, try it in various layouts, and see how it all comes together. I want to maintain some of the quirky forms, so it's never going to be perfectly polished. I'm always up for constructive criticism, here or at Flickr, where I post works-in-progress.

One of my greatest pleasures in going back to school has been the opportunity to dive head-first into the history of typography and develop a deeper appreciation for the myriad styles that have evolved over the last half-millennium. It's fun to discern subtle variations in typefaces and see how they play out in practice. And it's always exciting to find a type that clicks into a design to make it come alive and more strongly communicate its message. I think Jennie Sans does the trick here!

Tuesday Tunes

This song has become our jam lately for some reason. Go ahead and have a listen and bust out a dougie or two. Also there is the added bonus of Barack Obama doing the dougie on Ellen (faked, of course). Full disclosure: David and I have stolen all of our best dance moves from the Obamas.

Maple Syrup Festival 2012

This weekend, Jennie and I sojourned across the hills of southern Indiana to the outskirts of Salem, where the Goering family hosts an annual Maple Syrup Festival. This was our fifth visit since moving to Bloomington in 2004. This was the first year I was able to find it without asking for directions, though we had our new androids at the ready if I got turned around in Salem.


The line of hungry festival goers trying to decide between pancakes, waffles, barbecue chicken, or pulled pork.

Though the fest's popularity has increased since we first went, it's still a family-run operation. They've tightened up a few things to accommodate the larger crowds. It's not all you can eat anymore - but how many times do you need to get a refill on waffles or pancakes loaded with syrup, ice cream, whipped cream and fruit? The popular tomahawk throw is also adequately supervised now.


A view of the grounds from the creek running beside them.

The festival takes place right next to the sugarbush where Leanne and Michael Goering produce their syrup, which is a dark, rich flavor due to the high mineral content in the soil. It's a little less sweet than lighter syrups, but I think it makes it even better. Seriously, once you get a taste of the real thing, you cannot go back to the "maple flavored" stuff. Jennie and I  are really frugal people, but we've found that willingness to spend a bit more on things like maple syrup or spices improves the quality of our meals exponentially.

The festival grounds are sprinkled with tents where vendors sell locally made foodstuffs (we bought a jar of amazing spicy mustard from Localfolks Foods and it's raised our veggie burger game a lot), candles, baskets and the like. A local ranch also brings out angola goats and an alpaca who gamely puts up with the gawkers and photographers.



A local member of the Wyandotte tribe, Crooked Paw, is on hand to give demonstrations of the "stone age method" of making maple sugar, using a radically scaled-down version of a pre-Columbian sugar-producing operation (he uses a small log rather than a titanic forty- or fifty-footer a tribe would need to provide for everyone). He fills a cavity in the log with hot maple sap, partially cooked down to speed up the process, and proceeds to boil it down using large chunks of granite which have been heated in a fire.
Crooked Paw fills the log with sap.


Granite is heated in a fire to boil the sap.


Crooked Paw deftly immerses the stone in the sap.


The sap starts to bubblin'...


...and steamin'...


...until the stones are removed and the sugar crystallizes. Alternately, Crooked Paw said that sphagnum moss can be used to scoop out sap.

Taking place the last weekend of February and first weekend in March, there are some wild cards. Weather can be iffy - even this year, when La Niña gave us an unseasonably warm February, last Saturday was really chilly. But luckily, the ground wasn't soggy with snowmelt or rain this year. But the remoteness of the spot and the cold weather only add to the experience. This festival just wouldn't be the same in middle of summer. You need to be bundled up against the chill to really appreciate that warm syrup, and it makes you feel some small bit of empathy for the Native Americans, pioneers, and farmers for whom maple sugar must have been an even more precious treat.

One thing we've learned is that when we go to the festival, we're not going to be super-productive later in the day. After gorging on mapley goodness and driving an hour and a half back to Bloomington, it's nap-time, so it's best to not expect to get work done. But once that's over, it's time to start figuring out how we want to use up that pint of Grade B Dark syrup throughout the year.

Some Good Stuff



David and I have a big weekend ahead of us. There will hopefully be lots of printing, waffle eating, and unsupervised tomahawk throwing. If you don't have an exciting weekend planned, we've collected a few links for your internet browsing pleasure.

-If you're looking for the creepiest cat pictures on the internet, I think we can help you out.

-Or maybe a tipsy cat?

-Dirk does not have the touch. Sorry Dirk, you just don't. What I'm saying is, you're a crummy singer.

-A cool ad for that staple of the lunchpail, good ol' white bread.
-Project Gutenberg, bless your heart.
-I really hope Aziz Ansari treated himself on his birthday this week! And ate plenty of chicky chicky parm parm.

New Design: Exploring Portland's Natural Areas

This was a fun project. After following his blog for some months, I got to meet science historian Michael Barton at the ScienceOnline 2011 conference. He's a really nice fellow, and we keep in touch via Facebook and Twitter. It's easy to see how dedicated a parent he is by following along with the outdoor adventures he has with his son, Patrick, at his blog Exploring Portland's Natural Areas. As a fellow evolution geek, I also appreciate his work on Darwin scholarship at the Dispersal of Darwin.

Michael and I had a brief email exchange last fall in which he wrote about some graphic ideas he had to promote the Nature Play movement. Bringing children into nature is something I wholeheartedly believe in, so I was thrilled to design something for him. After much hemming, hawing, and doodling, a strong graphic idea hit me. Many of my own memorable moments in nature had to do with little things: finding a beautiful fungus, coming face to face with a box turtle when cresting a ridge in Morgan-Monroe State Forest. Or the time I was captivated by a brilliant blue ribbon winding through blades of grass, followed it, and welcomed a Five-Lined Skink into the palm of my hand. One of Michael's ideas was a child with a magnifying glass, but none of my attempts in this direction worked. That day with that skink was stuck in my mind, though, so I decided to bring focus tightly on the connection between child and environment.



Since Michael writes about his local adventures, I placed the silhouette within the shape of the state of Oregon. You can see it in his blog header, which incorporates the classic typeface Clarendon to evoke the signage of the National Park Service. I had strong memories of visiting parks as a child. Since starting my studies, I've taken every chance I can to hone my ability to communicate efficiently: designs that work well with a minimum number of elements. This was one of the most satisfying projects I've done in the last year, and the fact that it's for a good cause, well, that's the mashed potatoes and the gravy.

Tuesday Tunes

This song is one that I used to listen to a lot my first semester at college. I had the record, Bridge Over Troubled Water, and a wonky old record player that was a hand-me-down from my brother. The record player played a little slow and so to this day I imagine The Only Living Boy In New York a lot different in my head. But I think it is a great song slow or at it's intended speed.

Tuesday Tunes

Here's a lovely song for your Valentine's Day listening pleasure. The Troggs really know how to sweet talk a lady.

Also, if you enjoy Bill Nighy as much as we do, you might like this version of the song. It definitely deserves a spot on your holiday playlist.

Tuesday Tunes

We're going to start posting some tunes for you to listen to on Tuesdays. We like to call it tunesday. Dorky? Yes. Awesome? Yes, indeed. So, we'd like to start off with a bang (pun intended). This is a song that we entered in our local oldies station's "That's Our Song Contest." We really hope we win and everyone can cringe and giggle a little when it is announced on the radio. Oh and this video is of a middle-aged man in a sweatervest playing acoustic guitar in his kitchen. We feel this is the best video of this song ever made.

Ring Ring!

Well, David and I have finally broken down and purchased new phones. You know, the smart kind. So, in honor of this special occassion here's... ABBA!

I probably sound more like this when I sing along though...

Chunky toon animals!

Meet Mr. Gwumbles, a grizzly bear who is, objectively speaking, awesome.



Jennie just cut the linoleum to print this guy in two colors. I hope that it comes out - we wanted it to be small enough for a roughly 3" x 5" note card, which meant some very fine detail.

I've got a bit of a dinosaur problem, so I was driven to render a feathered dinosaur called Caudipteryx in this style, which is totally new to me. I'm digging it!



Mr. Gwumbles got his name from when our dog, Mitzie, was growling for some reason or another the other night and Jennie took the chance - as she often does - to tease her with a baby voice. "Ooooh! Miss gwuff gwumbles is mad!"

Jennie hates baby talk, except for when she's teasing Mitz. It's a double standard, but then we all know that two standards are better than one.

Sneak Peek: Indiana University's MFA catalog 2012

One of the nifty opportunities I've come across in my MFA career is the chance to design the catalog for the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts' 2012 MFA class. I presented three ideas to the committee in charge of the publication last week, and based on that meeting, they picked their two favorites. I got the final decision today, and I'm pretty pleased about it.



I recently shared a bushel of sketchpad ideas at Flickr, and this was present in a slightly different form. I don't do a ton of custom letterforms, but as I've been fairly typographically obsessed for the last year or so, many of my better ideas sprung from the sheer pleasure of playing with the letters M, F, A and seeing what interesting shapes I could conjure. Looking back at the last few years, I wanted something that differed quite a bit. In color palette, it's close to what my friend (and graduating MFA) Gatis created two years ago. The big "MFA" staring from the front seems to have my flavor in it. I've been favoring pure, flat color lately, departing from a long period of experimenting with blending modes and textures in photoshop. The typeface accompanying the artwork is U-bahn by Manfred Klein.

Next, I'll be laying out the rest of the book, which is a 10" x 8" landscape format, to be printed by World Arts in nearby Spencer, IN. I'll be sure to share photos of the final product here.

Illustration: Crikey the Turkey Vulture

On my first visit to the Indiana Raptor Center's Nashville HQ, I met Crikey, a turkey vulture. Turkey vultures are some of my favorite birds, so pretty soon I started illustrating her. Part of an ever growing series of birds, dino-birds, and bird-dinos.

Sneak peak: The "Vulture Thief"

I've begun work on a series of illustrations of birds and bird-like theropod dinosaurs. I'm almost done with Buitreraptor, a little critter from Argentina. It's fairly closely related to the popular Deinonychus, but is smaller and has a greatly elongated snout with tiny little teeth.

Buitreraptor means "vulture thief," named for the fossil site it was found in, La Buitrera, or "vulture roost."

These pieces are going to be exhibited next August here in Bloomington. I'll have more information about that show, which will combine art and science, in the coming months. Right now, I'll be steadily working on these illustrations as I work on my class projects. Never a dull moment.

New Work: Concert Poster

Bauhaus! This was fun. On Wednesday, I got an email from my superiors at the IU Art Museum. They needed a concert poster, ASAP. I was given the copy and a Kandinsky woodcut to work with.

The Kandinsky was the guiding light here. It wasn't provided at a terribly high resolution. But as Kandinsky was associated with the Bauhaus school, that was okay. I'd use it as one element on a grid of black and red elements. I used the dull, newsprinty color from the woodcut for the rest of it, which might be why I felt so good about red and black. It's not a choice I make often, for some reason. Some people would think I'm crazy.

This is the sort of thing I'm really enjoying about school: the opportunity to put on different masks, to break out of old habits and impose some rules for myself on projects. Having the time to do the research necessary to pull it off (which I hope I've done here) helps a lot.

This one time, the internet went out...

This weekend was packed with activities. Jennie and I printed up some letterpress prints we'll be using to start up the Etsy shop, and I took a bunch of pictures of those as well as an earlier poster we designed. We also had a serious scare. Our router's adapter went out, so for a while we were without internet access, crossing our fingers that a totally new router wouldn't be necessary. It wasn't, and the world is a safe place for happy people again.

While the DVD extras for the Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading played in the background on Saturday night, I played in Illustrator and made this.



I made another one of these recently. The text is by me, too. I'm into working fast, working simple, and following the voice in the gut.

Sometimes I'm Unproductive.

I figured, I'll work on some sort of cool graphic of a dessert food for one of Jennie's lino blocks. I've done a cupcake pattern already, and it's nice, but it's not single color. So, I set out to revise it.

1. Changed my basic cupcake icon to one color. Not too difficult.
2. Maybe I should do something other than a cupcake? I start thinking of other options.
3. Cake, pie, candies of various kinds. Yeah, yeah. I need some inspiration. To the internet!
4. I visit Flickr and search for "dessert." Meh.
5. I try Flickr commons instead. Lots of good photos to peruse, but none of close ups.
6. I know, we'll look at old magazines from Google Books. I type "pie" in the advanced search, using the date range 1940-1950.
7. The ads are great. Whoa! There's one for Dove soap with a little lady in a bathtub. She would be awesome all blown out with a chunky half tone.
8. Screengrab, put in Photoshop, blow it up to 12 inches wide, 300dpi, with a color halftone to get rid of the pixelization.
9. What the heck am I going to do with this?
10. I'll write "Take my soap... Please!" Heh.
11. Meh.
12. Browse, browse, browse. Ooh! That's a nice Chevrolet ad. That car would be really cool to Live Trace in Illustrator. I'll have to crop it from that gray cityscape in the background.
13. Screengrab, paste into Photoshop, start masking the car. Color range selection doesn't work well. Try the old magnetic lasso.
14. Ack, these settings are lame.
15. Change the lasso settings, mask the car.
16. What the heck am I going to do with this? I've got so many other important things to do and I don't have a clear idea of why I'd need this dumb car, anyway.
17. This string of decisions would be a funny blog post.
18. Oh! I'll photoshop the car into the bathtub scene, instead of the soap.

I'll let you know how that goes.