Sarah

Did a shoot with Erin Knipp of Rosehip Flora for Cinco de Mayo. 

This is an out take of my beautiful friend Sarah. You can see more here or on Camille Styles blog.

young jerk

designer.

At last...

Yes, just as Etta James said it best...at last. At last, I took action to exploring an avenue I've been pondering for the past 5 years. Graphic design classes. Woot. Woot.

Ideally, I'd love to go back full time to achieve the knowledge/training/confidence I'm hoping to achieve quickly but baby steps come to mind. So for now, I've enrolled in just two courses. Enthusiasm did kick in when I left my first class this morning thinking, "I wonder if anyone will drop in order to enroll in more classes." Slow down, Sally. For those of you that don't know. (Which I don't assume is very many.) Time management is not my strongest suit. And this is also something I hope to gain through heading back to school. I also feel thankful to be able to really devote myself into the projects assigned. And this is optimism speaking...we'll see how it pans out.
Here is an interesting post about developing your b&w film in coffee. Wha Wha What!? My friend Logan tipped me off to this a long while back.

Inspirational image found in a book at the library today.

Mt Inadale 7" Release is finally here!

A year in the making! Mt Inadale Records will release it's first split 7" vinyl featuring Thrift Store Cowboys and One wolf!
Derek Pierce, a lifetime music enthusiast, is the master mind behind this release and Mt Inadale Records itself! Pierce worked for Texas Tech's college radio station, KTXT as not only a DJ with his very own specialty show, but the Promotion Director where he booked local shows and single handed turned the music scene in Lubbock, Texas right around and made it something to talk about. Don't get me wrong, the history was there...but I watched this young gentleman contact and develop relationships with several different artist from across the board, putting Lubbock's name on the map for future bands touring through Texas. Here's another testimony from Al James of Dolorean to further prove my point. Keyword, wunderkid under the Lubbock/Dan's backroom paragraph. Very cool.

All that to say, if you are in Austin, Denton or Lubbock, Texas over the next three days...and you enjoy toe tappin', heart-pounding, hell-of-a-good-time music, come on out and make history with us by celebrating Mt Inadale's very first record release!!!

6/4/09-Austin, TX Thrift Store Cowboys with Cory Branan, Lambert's 10pm
6/5/09-Denton, TX Thrift Store Cowboys with Rodney Parker, The Boiler Room, 9pm
6/6/09-Lubbock, TX Thrift Store Cowboys, Jake's Backroom, 9pm

PS. I designed and screen printed the album art!!
PPS. Feel free to contact me for more information on how to purchase one or several records. They're very affordable considering they're collector's items!

Cheers.

To my good good friend Cyndi!

On her 25th birthday. March 3, 2009 Happy Birthday!


image from graphic exchange by Jordan Michael Gray. please check him out as well, he's fantastic!

Stay Sharp.

Poster Design by Olly Moss via flickerdesign.

deVotchKa

yesssssssssss! It was everything I hoped and dreamed it would be, thank you for asking.
Please read this interview with the violin virtuoso, Tom Hagerman, my favorite.
Please listen to their music. It will knock your socks off. Old world classic meets new age feel=indie-tastic.
Please know that we may or may not have gotten to go on DeVotchKa's super fancy bus.
"Fan girl" is right.
And one last side note:

Their promotional photographs are excellent, by Gary Isaacs. I wrote an earlier blog about this talented photoghapher...here.

Poster by Dirk Fowler of F2 Design.

Emmanuel Polanco

2 examples from a set of tarot cards designed by the very talented, Emmanuel Polanco. Found in personal work.

Images via Emmanuel Polanco's site.

Mysteriously Awesome.

Images via ffffound.com

letterpress love.

I was always wondering how this was done.

did you hear that? they love puns too!

Hello Lucky podcast found here.

Amanda Shires & Rod Picott's Album Design

Here is the latest album design I completed for two incredibly talented musicians, Amanda Shires (aka "Pearl Reams") and Rod Picott. Their album is titled, "Sew your heart with wires" and I really enjoyed working on this, thanks to Rod and Amanda's patience and non-stop jokes. 

I can't say enough good things about these two. Their music is literally delivered to your ears from the soft and gentle breeze of a passerby that turned out to be an angel . Both have solo albums that are equally delightful on the ears. These two are a pair of fun loving, honky tonk, musical geniuses. Additionally, if you're from the great flatland that is West Texas, you might know Amanda as the fiddle player from the Thrift Store Cowboys, another wildly talented group worth checking into. 

I love you a whole lot Rod and Amanda!

Images © 2008 Julie Cope Photography

Solitude.

I just found this print by Aaron Jenkins and let me just say...it.is.beautiful.  

oh and..I want it.

CU-Eco Star Challenge

I recently was given the opportunity to design a logo for a Colorado University's conservation and reduction program in their residence halls. The program, named 'Eco Star Challenge', is geared to create awareness among students in regards to their "behaviors associated with excessive consumption" and really, to get back to the basics by reuniting them with the good ol' phrase Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The logo design went up on bulletin boards across campus' in the residence halls and was also used for t-shirts!

I was thrilled when Heather called upon me for one, the opportunity and two, it's something I'm really passionate about. Design, yes...absolutely. But I'm referring to the environmental issues.

I have this book. And here's a little secret, if I read too much of it's 'totally in your face facts' at one time, it'll keep me up all night thinking about what it is I haven't been doing to help this beautiful world you and I live in. A little goes a long way, in both reading the book and putting it's knowledge into action. 

So if you pick it up, and I hope you will, consider this your forewarning.
Here's some text from a few well known concepts:
Recycle.
If everyone in America simply separated the paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum products from the trash and tossed them into a recycling bin, we could decrease the amount of waste sent to landfills by 75 percent. Currently, it takes an area the size of Pennsylvania to dump all our waste each year.

Water Filters

If you want to be sure the tap water in your house is clean, try installing water filters on your faucets instead of buying bottled water-you'll save money over time and get better-tasting water. You can buy a water filter for as little as $29, or about a month's worth of bottled water (if you drink a liter a day). About 1.5 million tons of plastic are used in the bottling of 89 billion liters of drinking water each year. That's enough plastic to make two water filters for every household on the planet. One billion people around the world lack access to clean drinking water.
Lighting
Install more efficient lighting systems, such as those with motion sensors and dimmable lighting controls. And, of course, go fluorescent. You can save $35 annually if you replace just four standard incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent lamps, which use 66% less energy. If every American home replaced just one light bulb with a more energy-efficient one, we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly eight hundred thousand cars.
Set your thermostat a degree higher for air-conditioning and a degree lower for heating, and you could save $100 per year on your utility bill. Keep adjusting and you'll save even more. If every home in America turned the dial, we could save more than $10 billion per year on energy costs, enough to provide a year's worth of gasoline, electricity, and natural gas to every person in Iowa.

Quote provided by Lynne Harrahy in the "Zero Waste" article by Emily Zarka.
Environmental facts provided by 'The Green Book' by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen

Thanks Heather!