We have been having some pretty crazy storms around here lately. The tornado sirens have went off at least 3 times in the last week and I lost power for 8 hours on Friday (of course right as my family who was staying the weekend walked in the door).

Last night was one of the most intense storms I have seen in awhile. Truly what you would call rolling thunder. It was almost one constant rumbling sound. While that happened lightning streaked across every direction of the sky, constantly, for about an hour. I wish I could have photographed it but my balcony is in a very bad spot for that.

I did enjoy watching it. It was slightly cloudy so sometimes it would just be the entire sky turning white as the clouds diffused the energy, then a streak would come down and touch the ground as another snaked through the sky.

Why does all this matter? One, because lightning is pretty cool and that's not my photograph above, but it is pretty great. Second, because I went to post last night and the storm knocked my internet and cable out, better then the power I guess.

I wanted to throw in a non-photograph lighting piece of art too. As always I am a sucker for letterpress, and the above card from Etsy is pretty great too (check out the rest of their stuff, great patterns, love it!).

[photo from Flickr and card from Etsy ]

No, I don't think I am going to post on the new iPhone because most likely you guys have already heard/read about it and don't need my ramblings on it.

Would you hang the above graphic on your wall? Maybe blow it up to nice size and hang it above your couch. When people asked about you could make up an insightful story and how it represents some random thing. Or you could tell them the truth, that you used IOGraph to track your computer mouse's movement for the day.

Yes, that is what it is! The software will track your mouse's movement and create a graphical representation of it. The circle represent the points at where your mouse was at rest.

I am definitely going to try this out because of a few reasons. 1. That is pretty cool. 2. I would like to see what my patterns look like (if you check out their Flickr page you can see someone's photoshop session and what we do over and over again, like go to the layers palette). 3. I am curious at the files it outputs and if it would really be able to blow it up to a giant size (raster vs vector) From the look at a photo on a Flickr Page it looks entirely possible.

[via Unplggd]

There is always the saying the gift that keeps on giving. Do you have someone you know that loves posters? Do they have a nice collection going? Would they love for you to add another to their collection?

Check out the top poster by Ty Mattson. It is just one of many over at Lift Up Nashville and the $10 you spend on it goes towards helping out in Nashville from the recent floods. They have a lot of other posters but that one is my favorite. Go check them out. Get a cool poster and help out. 12x18 and printed on a digital press.

If you have slightly deeper pockets and/or a love for Hatch Show Prints you can pick up their poster. It is $100 (100% goes to flood relief) but it is hand printed in an edition of 250 from woodcuts (no new age digital presses here). That store also has a version of Ty's that is 18x24 if you want to fill your walls a little easier.

Go get 1 or 2 or 5 and help Nashville out

[via Unplggd]

Up for today is the always awesome House Industries. If you need a large cast aluminum ampersand, some designer building blog, or the always sexy Eames typeface they've got you covered.

They used to have a really cool mousepad as well but I don't see it for sale anymore.

Check out the rest of their merchandise.

I am a big fan of the small Moleskine Notebooks, I like gridded page and the Kraft paper cover. I often end up drawing on them or leaving them plain. However, I always thought it would be cool to do some custom ones.

Normally, that would take a lot of work. You would have to buy all the Moleskines (and lets face it, they are not cheap) and then screen print them all.

Wouldn't it be nice if it was easier? BAM Scout Book!

My creative director picked up one of these for me when she went to a printing show in chicago, theirs is to promote AIGA Chicago Design week, and it's pretty snazzy. So I looked up the company on the back.

Scout will print your notebooks with your own graphics on them starting with an order of 50 book (for $195 or $3.90 a book). That pricing can be a bit steep for some, but for a custom printed notebook that really is a steal. You can get the price down to 90 cents a book if you are ordering over 1000 (good for trade show giveaways, or just any promo).

Go check them out. They use 100% recycled papers and soy based inks, so you'll get some green karma along the way.

I'll put them on my list, and maybe some day I could get some cool "The Large Bear" notebooks made up and run a big giveaway. One day...

I brought in my tablet today to work on a project, so for a little warm up (it's been awhile since I have used the tablet) I decided to doodle for a bit.

I don't know why, but I drew a carrot, and then his little friends. But the carrot looked scared, it could be because you are making soup tonight or the fact that something was coming after him. What is the villain to a carrot? A nice juicy steak, since if you have steak, why would you want anything else.

I like the potato too, he just has a simpleton kind of face going, and I think if a potato really did come to life he would probably be an idiot.

So that is just the random little story I made up as I doodled today.

The internet never ceases to amaze me. When viewing the post on swissmiss yesterday with the typography flow chart, one of the comments pointed to the poster above. This is another designers response to Julian's poster. Instead of giving you a lot of choices, you are left with only one answer for everything: Helvetica.

Love the colors on this one.

I couldn't find a lot of info on Ron, but here is a link to the Picasa gallery that holds the image.

[via swissmiss comment section ]

This is a pretty awesome poster created by Julian Hansen from Denmark. If you don't know what typeface to use you can use this handy flowchart to find what you seek. Click on it to enlarge it or go to Julian's site to see the full version

[via swissmiss ]

This is a fantastic image I saw on unplggd today, which was from a different house tour post over on AT.

I don't think my desk could ever look like this (although I did clean mine at work today, score!), but I really wouldn't mind it looking like this. What really drew me to the photo was the print on the right. The simple alphabet, but with the big yellow V in the background it just makes it so much more dynamic.

So today was pretty much a horrible day... Really all I was in the mood for when I got home was to watch a good movie, and I was in the mood for UP. Downside was it is also kind of a sad movie, not a mood helper.

None the less, I love the graphics for this movie. They have others they used that were more illustrative, but this is my favorite. 1 color (with the gradient) is all you need to convey the feeling of this movie. Also, it is pretty amazing the detail you can achieve with just that one color.

If you haven't seen the movie, check it out, great way to relax.

This is an awesome pearler bead project (you remember pearler beads right? the little plastic cylinders you made into pictures then ironed them to melt them together?)

I saw this and it just made me smile. It is an action sequence of Mega Man. The best part, the creator superglued it to a wall in their dorm hallway. Apparently it is still standing, and that is so cool.

The other part I love about this is because they tried to take part of a hideous dorm and spice it up a little bit. Why would anyone peel it down, would they actually want to look at that horrible wall instead? It also makes me think about tv shows and moves how they portray dorms. I know mine looked more like this. It was a cinderblock L shape. Not the extravagent and spacious rooms portrayed in the media.

The entry is for a contest over on The Happy Seamstress, so go check out it, and the other entires and vote for your favorite.

[via sprite stitch to find out about the contest]

This has been in my "to post" list for quite awhile and by the awesome feature of how Safari fills in your address bar and my need to go to Office Depot, I once again came across The Office of the Tooth Fairy.

When I was a kid and we lost a tooth we put it in a film canister, the black with the gray top, and that went under our pillow. When we woke up the money would be in the canister for us and the tooth would be mysteriously gone. I still remember when I had to clean the tooth up after it came out because it came out while eating a Carmellow bar and it was covered in chocolate and caramel. Great memories (although teeth do freak me out a bit in general) and I will always remember that film canister.

Memories like that are great but on the other hand I can't get over the shear beauty of these "official" letterpress Office of the Tooth Fairy certificates. I drooled over them the first time and once again I am. They thought of everything, the bag for the tooth, extremely detailed record keeping, the deposit envelope (although I might make one out of a film canister, heck my kids won't even know what film is...). I know I am sucker for letterpress in general, but these are fantastic. I have always been tempted to order, and now they have extra sheets so you can keep track of multiple children easily. Which was kind of the reason I held back. To buy for multiple children at $16 a set, was a little pricey, especially when I don't have kids yet. Now with the extra sheets, I can pick up one kit, a few extra record sheets and keep them for the future (plus one just to keep for myself).

You can order online or find a store near you. I just saw that there was one sort of nearby, but since the extra sheets are new, i'll probably order online and save the hassle. $16 for the first set, extra sheets are $6 each or they have packages of 5 and 10. Shipping is reasonable too at $1.50. Go get it!

P.S. Could they have picked better colors! Love the brown and blue. I have been trying to get some clients to use this combo forever.

So this is something I have been wanting to post about for awhile, but it kept slipping my mind. But, yeah, this is totally on my wishlist. Although my wife is not the biggest fan, so it may take longer then planned.

This is the amazing Donkey Kong wall graphic from Blik. What is Blik you might ask (ironically that is their web address too, whatisblik.com)? They make vinyl wall graphics and are probably the leading company doing this. The graphics are fantastic. They have officially licensed graphics from Nintendo, Eames, Threadless, other artists, and tons of other great ones.

So I have been craving the Kong one. It is made with reStik, which is the kind of vinyl you can take down and put back up. How awesome is that? It is $65 for a set, but if you can reuse it, it's worth it. Unfortunately, the image at the top is most likely made with multiple sets. They recently redid their website, and I miss 2 great features it had. 1. It used to have more photos from people who have bought them, there was a great donkey kong one on a light grey wall wrapped around a corner (they have it as the icon if you search "kong" you'll see it) Found it! 2. It had a little graphic that showed what you could do with one kit, then two, then three, to show you how elaborate you could make it. Essential for this type of kit where you really need to see what you could do with one if you are on a budget, obviously not making the show stopper above.

What is with the Mega Man picture you ask? Yeah that's right, Mega Man coming soon, killer. If I had a perfect world, I would have my own studio, old school Mario in one room, Kong in another, Mega Man in another. I doubt I would get any work done though, since I would just sit there and play my NES on the biggest TV I could while blasting the Double Dragon theme song.

Ok, back to a point. If you have checked them out in the past, go again, because they are adding amazing things. If you haven't been before, go now, and see how you can spice up your place (these are key for rentals since they are removable). I would really like to see how the reStik works, how many times you can reapply it etc. One day, my wall WILL be Donkey Kong, one day. The wall behind me is begging for it right now...

I saw this website the other day, Simple Desktops, and loved it. They feature really simple backgrounds that won't clutter up your screen so it can look great and still function. I picked a few out that I really liked above but they have a ton more.

Now the only thing I need to do is not have a desktop that looks like a bomb went off. I honestly don't use it, except for a dumping ground. I always have something open so I hardly ever see it and it is just completely full of files and folders. Maybe one day it will be night and tidy...

[via How About Orange]

Things don't always have to make sense, ands that is why the world is awesome.

Lunasaurus by Aesthetic Apparatus. $20 

I have been hearing from my friends and family in Michigan (where I am from) about the storm that hit them yesterday, and it has me thinking about snow. I love the stuff. I don't mind driving in it, if no one else is on the road to hit me, and if the city plows the roads (but they never do, do they own a plow? I don't think so). I wouldn't have minded to get some hear instead of the rain that we got.

This is a great poster called First Snow by Power Slide. It encompasses probably a perfect day for me, and while some might say it looks bitter and cold, I feel that it looks refreshing. Amazing what you can do ith just 2 colors, gotta think outside the normal realm of color (since when you screen print, every color means you gotta print the entire run AGAIN).

When I saw the Collect bookcase from Normann Copenhagen I was instantly drawn to it. The fantastic color, the woodgrain showing through, how smooth it looked. It just made me want to touch it.

It looks like it could be at home in a cabin, in an office, in a sitting room, kid's room, anywhere. Although I would like to see how it looks like filled with books or whatever else you would put in it. It is such a beautiful object right now, I hope it wouldn't detract from it.

Once again, this is why I need a studio space and/or workshop. I want to run out there grab some plywood (although this is made with green pine) and make one. One day...

It is 55" x 55" and 2,700 Euro ($3700 USD, another reason why I would like to go make one)

[via Design*Sponge]

Free Font Week - Monday

I've posted a few fonts here and there that are available to you out there in the past and I thought it was about time to give you an entire week of it. There are always those projects out there that need a typeface that is slightly different, something out of the norm, but they're not always easy to find. So hopefully these might help you on your journey

P.S. As a personal note, I often feel that the "Q" and the "&" make me fall in love with a font. Doesn't hurt to have a really good looking font poster either.

Above is Quicksand, looks great, can't wait to use it. As with any free font make sure the usage license on it if you plan on using it commercially. You're safe with Quicksand, a note from Andrew "Feel free to use it commercially as it is license free. Cheers!”

I often read a great design blog called AisleOne, written by Antonio Carusone. He is a great designer, blogger, etc, and recently he also has started designing skateboards. His first one was the Hello and the new one is the 39 Longboard.

I love this board! I don't skateboard, I have trouble staying on things that aren't attached to my feet, but I love it. The shape, color, type, wheels, everything is fantastic. Looks like it would fit right in with the color scheme here too.

If you've got some free time, go check out his boards, and go check out his blog. Lots of great info and work being shown over there.

$160 + Shipping for the complete board

The always popular and always amazing Feltron Annual Report is back. Nicholas records pretty much every aspect of his life and then at the end of the year produces a visually stunning annual report cataloging the previous year. Each AR is slightly different and always great.

This year is is letterpressed on French Durotone paper, and I bet it looks fantastic in person.

Available for Pre Order right now, and will be limited to 2000 copies.