Was just looking through the portfolio of Mariko Jesse (see it all yourself, here) and came across her fantastic illustrated “Pickle Map of New York” - needless to say, I couldn’t get it to the blog quick enough. How great.
I was immediately drawn to her illustrated map of Savannah in the March issue of domino (p. 25) and had to check out more of her work. Her really wonderful, whimsical hand-lettering is what hooked me, and she has quite a range of beautiful illustrations, including a big collection of hand-drawn maps.
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Darling!
Filed under: greeting cards, letterpress, typography | Tags: detroit, lovio george
It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to share pictures of the set of Detroit-inspired notecards designed by Lovio George Inc., an advertising, design marketing, publication relations firm in Detroit. Each notecard features a custom design using type to comprise a handful of Detroit-area landmarks. (Above is an image from the Eastern Market in Detroit; according to the back of the card, Eastern Market is the largest historic public market district in the US!) There are different fonts for each landmark, and I think you could spend quite a while trying to make out the descriptive words - they’re in there! What a wonderful use of type.
Beyond the intricate type design work, even the printing and packaging is thoughtful. Each card is letterpress printed (!) onto environmentally-friendly paper. Originally packaged as a holiday gift from Lovio George, they have a great exterior label (see above) incorporating happy holiday sentiments and other creative words (if you can puzzle it out). You can buy the set of cards locally from Bureau of Urban Living, located in midtown Detroit.
Ed Note: Psst! You can buy the set of cards directly online via Lovio George right here! You can also make suggestions for their next set of cards; how terrific to know there will be more.
The descriptions on the backs of each card do such a lovely job of profiling each landmark and offering a positive embrace of places in Detroit.
Specifically, the cards were designed by Lori Maday, who has her BFA in graphic design from College for Creative Studies. You can see more about the Lovio George notecards and more of Lori’s really interesting work on her website here.
Pictured above (sorry about the lean) is a chandelier in the Fisher Building, designed by Albert Kahn and completed in 1928. I wish you could see the level of detail of the card; there are also barely-perceptible embossed decorative sentences creating further depth. Big time hurrah for such a wonderful collection, truly a treasure for appreciating and celebrating Detroit, and so beautifully done!
Oh, hurrah! I received my first issue of domino today - it’s the substitution for House & Garden, which I had just subscribed to before it ceased publication. (I still received the H&G totebag, which I carry my laptop and junk around in - it seems like a cool collector item now, but I can’t help but think I need something a little more practical for all the toting.)
Anyway, I can’t wait to sit down with domino… Looks like we’re going green and adding color with this issue - perfect! Today I had such big plans to put together some great posts, but ended up getting sidetracked by a flat tire. Argh, those pesky Michigan winter pot holes are dangerous! In the meantime, be sure to visit domino’s website yourself right here.
Filed under: color | Tags: color, color palettes, colorstrology, web colors
Do you know what color you are? Apparently I’m Bordeaux, according to Pantone’s Colorstrology. According to Michele Bernhardt, a healer, astrologer and metaphysician, “the colors that we see all around us are a reflection of the sun’s light in all its glory. It is magic made visible.” We are part of that rainbow.
Our birthdays and their numerological values and our ruling “sign,” “shape [our] personality and life experiences, and, when combined, create [our] personal birth color.” The purpose of this site is to show us our personal color, provide some explanation and inspire. (Read more in Michele’s book, Colorstrology, available here.)
There is also a section in which Michele explains that we don’t necessarily have to like our personal color - that we should be “gentle and nonjudgmental” - which is good, because I am not a big fan of mine (below). It’s not like they’re recommending you go and paint your bedroom your metaphysical color; they’re not even encouraging you to buy anything from Pantone. You’re just supposed to think about what the color means, what other colors make up the color, etc. and how that applies to you and then take energy from that information.
I go back and forth about believing these things… (Well - if you’ve seen my post on fortune cookie fortunes, you already know I can be a bit of a sucker; I just love a little extra hope. Thanks, Obama…) I think it’s good to have something like this to hang on to and give us some inspiration and meaning; as long as we take some of it with a grain of salt. It is, at the very least, fun to check out and just find out what your color is. Admittedly, I find Colorstrology appealing because I simply love blocks of colors, color charts, color wheels, you name it…
…Which brings me to the non-metaphysical section of this post on color! I came across ColorSchemer this weekend and it’s fun to play with online. I love looking at the bright and happy color combos on a grey Michigan winter day - so cheery!
There’s a nifty little gallery where people have posted their colorschemed combinations here and a great run-down of the software capabilities here. The application lets you pull together a selection of colors with similar harmonies, test a range of colors on the same background, pull colors from photographs and provides other tools to create a palette of colors for any type of project.
For now, I just think it’s amazing to see all the gorgeous color combinations, but I think it could come in handy for future design projects, if even as a color “jumping point.” Enjoy!
Want to play with coming up with more color palettes? Check some of these out:
- COLOURLovers
- Palette Generator - works with flickr (or a URL or your uploaded photograph) to use photographs and pull a palette
- Color Palette Generator - uses a photograph to pull together a group of colors and gives you their hex values (see below)
- Color Palette Generator - from DeGraeve.com, similar to above
- ColorBlender - similar to ColorSchemer, but may have a few more “free” capabilities, such as downloading your selections to use in Illustrator or Photoshop (see below)
Above is a photograph (taken by Holga) and the automatically-generated color palette from Color Palette Generator. It also provides the hex values for each color.
Above is a screen shot from ColorBlender. I could play with these all day, I swear. Even the slightest variation in one color changes the entire palette “just so,” resulting in zillions of beautiful combinations.
