these days of converse

I think my feet are trying to tell me something.

I've come across not one... not two... not three... but FOUR (!!!!) sightings of Converse shoes in the past couple of days. Four Converse sightings that've made me stop and say yay.

1. Nina Braun's knitted sneakers. I love how specific they all are: particular styles and brands. She even sewed a pair of baby Nike sneaks!



2. Vichi in Buenos Aires has been staying up late at night to set hightops on fire.




A few other pairs got torched, too.

3. Swedish artist Camilla Engman's design was chosen for the Converse (RED) program. So not only can your feet be super styley, they'll also be making a donation towards helping to reduce the effects of AIDS in Africa.



4. And yesterday morning on my way to work, I spied a bunch of shoes thrown over a telephone wire... painted pink with white polka dots!



So are these converse omens? Can a shoe store be in my future? Hmmm.

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julie morstad wallpaper

Hot damn. Julie Morstad wallpaper!



Julie Morstad is one my fave artists. I first saw her beautiful, eerie fairy tale drawings at the Atelier Gallery in Vancouver. Her picture book, When You Were Small, which was written by Sara O’Leary, is a brilliant concept, beautifully executed. Drawn & Quarterly recently published her mini-comic, Milk Teeth, which you can catch a sneak peek of in this PDF. And now you can have her work all over your walls.

Turns out the company printing her wallpaper, Rollout - like Julie - is based in Vancouver. Way to go, Canada! Most of the fancy wallpaper companies I read about on design blogs are American or British - it's nice to see Canucks in the game, especially when they're highlighting contemporary Canadian artists and illustrators.

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matte stephens placemats

I am in love. Look at these placemats! (Matte Stephens!)


Available at Modern Twist, along with these little guys and this pyjama hider (!). I like the squirrel pattern on the lil' ones.

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all dressed up and everywhere to go

It snowed yesterday, here in Vancouver. (Unsurprisingly, it only snowed for a few hours, and it's already all melted away. Boo!)

After I got back from my walk in the snow, I warmed up next to a roaring internet, and came across an oh-so-thematic project by Riitta Ikonen, who's studying at the Royal College of Art in London.



For her Snowflake project, Riitta dressed up in a snowflake costume and lay around in the landscape of Finland.

Why? My answer: cause it's awesome. Her answer (which is much more well though out):

For two years now we haven't had snow in Finland for Christmas. This is very unusual and worrying and prompted me to start an ongoing site specific project looking at the effects of global warming.

Riittta likes to dress up a lot. For various projects, she has dressed up as a bird and leaf, roadkill, a bright idea, and even Slovenia.

I adore her costumes - they are playful and really well designed - and most of all, it looks like she's having so much fun. My favourite her costume projects is Human Nylon:

Life jackets, bulletproof vests, seat-belts etc. are made of Nylon. As a final project in Brighton I explored the protective qualities and the safety in this amazing material. I became a Human Nylon to find out more about how and where Nylon is protecting us.

The results are just hilarious...





Keep up with all of Riitta's stealthy disguises on her website.

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wallpaper for typography geeks

Another case of the explosion aesthetic that I love, check out this amazing letterpress block wallhanging. Interior designer Andy Beers installed 150 (!!!) letters on his office wall, using just some double-sided foam tape.

Get the whole story on DesignSponge (and - surprise bonus! - get a sneak peek into Andy's fun and beautiful home.)

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flickr loves you. and the library of congress, too.

The Library of Congress has teamed up with Flickr to share some of its massive photo collection.

The LOC has about, ahem, 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials. So far, they've uploaded 3,115 of their photos (with no known copyright) to Flickr and created two albums: 1930s-40s in Color and News in the 1910s.


Painting the American insignia on airplane wings is a job that Mrs. Irma Lee McElroy, a former office worker, does with precision and patriotic zeal. Mrs. McElroy is a civil service employee at the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas. Her husband is a flight instructor. 1942 August.


Jim Norris, homesteader, Pie Town, New Mexico. 1940 Oct.

(Hee! Pie Town!)

LOC's photos are part of Flickr's project called The Commons.

Here's how Flickr explains the project on their blog:

There are two main aims to The Commons project, starting with the pilot: firstly, to increase exposure to the amazing content currently held in the public collections of civic institutions around the world, and secondly, to facilitate the collection of general knowledge about these collections, with the hope that this information can feed back into the catalogues, making them richer and easier to search.

And here's the Library of Congress' take on it:

From the Library’s perspective, this pilot project is a statement about the power of the Web and user communities to help people better acquire information, knowledge and—most importantly—wisdom. One of our goals, frankly, is to learn as much as we can about that power simply through the process of making constructive use of it.

The crazy thing is, the LOC has had over a million photos online for about 10 years, right here. But I think being a part of the Flickr community is definitely helping spread the word about the LOC's wealth of treasures - as well as spreading the love.

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rainbow remix

I once heard about a friend of a friend (etc?) whose job it was to predict and talk about colour trends. As in, companies would consult with her about what colours to make their new line of clothing, cookware, luxury condos, whatever.

Sounds like one of the best jobs ever, right?

If you just said "Right!" or "Hell ya!" in your head (or out loud), then before you rush off to google "how to become a colour consultant" (ahem), check out these sites for the similarly colour-mad...

Wear Palettes uses photos from the ever-great style-spotting Sartorialist and extrapolates the colours used in the outfits. It's kinda like showing which brightly-coloured lego blocks were used to make up that totally rad castle you built.



Kris's Color Stripes is another blog with that also uses colour bars. The blog's not entirely about colour, but Kris keeps a colour diary that highlights the beautiful palettes found in photographs. Separating the colours like this really makes you notice the beautiful parts that make up the whole as well as how they interact with each other.



COLOURlovers is a community site that brings together, um, colour lovers, to talk about colours and palettes. It's a great resource to check out colour trends and just to get inspired.

All these sites are ripe with inspiration if you're planning on a little home makeover, or even just to help you get dressed with a lil' more sass in the morning.

Think of them as the next generation of those paint swatches you pick up at the hardware store.

Also related: Big Huge Labs' Palette Generator.

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wanna play?

Do you play well with others?

It's time to join in the fun with a few projects that you can get involved in...

Post-It Note Project
Ever wonder what Post-It Notes around the world are doing - right now? On February 1st 2008, draw on a Post-It, photograph it and email it in.



Postcrossing
A flash back to old-school pen pals, Postcrossings allows you to sign up to receive postcards from strangers (aka new friends) all over the world. You can see all the postcards sent and received on the flickr pool - 29,782 photos and counting!

Faces in Places
Do you see faces in inanimate objects? Post your photo of that smiling parking meter or frowning light socket in the flickr group, and check out a parade of faces on the blog.


And last, but CERTAINLY not least...

Bears In Ill-Fitting Hats
Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. Draw a bear in an ill-fitting hat, and add it to the flickr group. How can you resist this challenge?

The three pictured below were drawn by Subspace, Halcyonsnow and Wonderland42.



ROAR!

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everything in its right place

Awhile ago, I posted a movie focused on numbers from 100 to 1 as mentioned in movies. It was pretty neat, but this is way better. People in Order is a short film by Lenka Clayton and James Price that puts people in four orders: age, birth, love, and home. Below is the part that shows people in order by age, from 1 to 100. You can also watch the Love section here.

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and if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float

A lot of people have been talking about the excellent credit sequence to Juno, with the lovely hand-drawn typography, but what I really have it for is the song. All I Want Is You was written by Barry Louis Polisar, a children's entertainer/singer who began his career in 1975. He's also written such excellently-titled gems as "My Brother Thinks He's a Banana," "He Eats Asparagus, Why Can't You Be That Way?," "The Dog Barked: A True Story," and "Don't Wake Up The Baby or The Baby Will Get You."

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2008 is gonna be great

This year, I'm not making new year's resolutions. But I am making new year's projects.

Like NY's resolutions, these are things that I want to do, but somehow end up procrastinating over. Let's see if I can get my act together and actually do things that I know I'd love to do. In no particular order, here goes...

1. Silkscreen. I have the stuff. I have designs. Why haven't I been doing this? I'd also like to get set up to do photo-transfer silkscreening instead of just stencils, which I find a little frustrating/limiting (though not more so than my procrastinating!)

2. Learn to crochet. I've had Lesson One already in the fall, but then life got in the way, and I haven't practiced since then.

3. Food. Cook more. Cook more interestingly. Make (good) lunches to bring to work. Dinner parties.

4. Draw more. Make this a habit. Draw with friends. Go to some illustration meetups or something.

5. Paint something. Painting is somehow intimidating for me. Get over that already.

6. Do more design classes. I'm already signed up for three (!) this semester.

7. Go to yoga classes.

8. Start my Etsy shop.

9. Get something published. Either an article or illustration. This is the "that'd be nice" item on my list, though maybe I'll actively pursue it at some point in the year.

10. Practice French and Italian more.

11. Learn to make jewellery/jewelry. (Learn to spell jewellery/jewelry.)

12. Photo projects. I have a few ideas for series of photos that I'd like to work on. Time to get them started.

13. Make a project board to keep track of what I'm working on and would like to work on, and maybe to set some goals and deadlines.

I'm sure there are others, but a baker's dozen's a good start, and probably enough to keep me busy.

Speaking of bakers, that reminds me of another one:

14. Bake bread. Oh, and bagels would be fun to try make, too.

I hope you all have a great 2008.

What are your NY's projects?

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