TastyTrailers

Today, with Austin-based developer Josh Kemmerling, I announced the upcoming release of a new app called TastyTrailers in early 2012. The brainchild of Josh, TastyTrailers is a helpful app that lets users find delicious food trailers near their location. Users can browse food by cuisine type and distance, and share their favorites with their friends. I’ll post more specifics and screenshots of the app itself when it releases, but for now, enjoy this initial launch of the branding and webpage!

You can follow @tstytrlrs to get updates on when the app will be available in Apple store, and see more of the work as it unfolds over on this work page in my portfolio and in this Dribbble bucket. Happy eating!

The Holiday Venn

Here’s another print that I recently finished called The Holiday Venn. Loosely based on my original Venn by Penn series, this 5×7 print is the perfect gift that will make your home festive for the holidays! It can also double as a card that can be sent to (and saved by) your loved ones. It’s available for purchase on Satchel & Sage.

Holiday Market + New Products

Hi everyone! My wife and I were invited by West Elm and Etsy to participate at one of the many upcoming holiday mini-markets happening in stores across the nation! We’ll be at the West Elm in downtown Austin on December 1st (Thursday) from 6 pm till close, selling a variety of our design goods to help you in your holiday gift buying! If you can make, sign up on their Facebook event page. Here’s the official poster that West Elm and Etsy put out about the event:

So, today we decided to launch a few new products for our Etsy shop, Satchel & Sage, as we continue to create for the upcoming holiday market! In summary, Morgana created some custom Christmas cards and a new feather print, and I made custom gift tags and some new prints based off my contour line drawings from my Pupils & Ink Tumblr.

Here’s the run-down of this first batch of new products, with links to buy them online:

Custom Christmas cards (set of 4 per pack, 2 of each design).

Custom holiday gift tags (14 originals per a pack)

Black Feather 5″x7″ Print

MAKE 8″x8″ Print

Artifact Series: The Writer 5″x7″ Print

Artifact Series: The Tailor 5″x7″ Print

Artifact Series: The Naturalist 5″x7″ Print

Artifact Series: The Lush 5″x7″ Print

Artifact Series: The Beachcomber 5″x7″ Print

If you want to keep tabs on everything we’re up to, make sure to follow Satchel & Sage on Twitter (@satchelandsage).

P&I: Year 2

A little over a year ago, on November 4th, 2010, I started a Tumblr blog called Pupils & Ink. I started the Tumblr blog to share my weekly contour line drawings of small objects. After 365 days, I had 173 drawings. That’s just shy of about one drawing every other day. That’s not too bad considering I did most of the drawings on Sundays.

Also, I have to point out that the most “liked” contour line drawing I made during this first year of Pupils & Ink was of two Double-D batteries. Pretty strange.

Well, I started giving more thought about why I really started the Tumblr blog, and discovered that my real intention was to create a space that would hold me accountable to practice drawing on a regular basis. So, in order to mix it up and keep myself growing, I’m going to change the style and subject matter of my drawings every year.

For the second year of P&I, I’m going to dive deep into hand-lettering typography. I’ve been doing more illustrative typography in my personal and commercial work, but I haven’t really allowed myself the full range of play and experimentation that I think needs to happen. So, here goes nothing!

Spotlight: Jen Stark

When people tell me that all design is going to be digital in the future, I start digging around the internet for examples that show the potential of print and paper when used creatively. It’s true that the majority of marketing and advertising is moving towards a digital/media dominated landscape; however, printed and non-printed paper design is also moving – towards deliberate and unique artistic applications.

I found the art of Jen Stark and was floored. The rich layering of colors, movement, and space within her sculpted paper compositions is absolutely stunning. Their three-dimensional and tactile nature give the brain playful fodder to contemplate within. Her work is so good, that back in 2008 Banana Republic stole some of it.

Here’s one of my favorites from Jen’s paper sculpture works:

Stark also dabbles in drawing, installation and animation. Go check out more of Stark’s mesmerizing work on her site. In addition, you can watch a video about her work here or dive straight into her Vimeo account and watch her paper sculptures animate to life.

Artists who make complex creative ideas out of paper really fascinate me, and I’ve begun to notice that a new wave of the paper-craft movement has started to pick up steam again recently. With a quick search, I found more than a dozen paper-crafters here for your additional browsing pleasure.

New Work: Poster #2

Well, the 40th poster collection has finally come to an end, and my fourth poster design contribution to the series is up on the microsite; it’s titled “#2 – Building Idea City.” For this poster concept, I hand-illustrated layers of pen work to create a rich and simple look.

New Work: Spruce Invite

To celebrate their 4th anniversary, Spruce is hosting a wonderful party on October 14th at their new store (which is next door to their first store)! I designed and illustrated a small invitation for them to promote the public party. If you’re in Austin, come join in the fun and celebrate this creative upholstery studio this Friday!

The concept for this invitation was to illustrate the new storefront which I also designed, and do add some elaborate typesetting for the party details on the back. I’ll post photography of the storefront soon.

New Work: Posters #27 & #25

Continuing my contributions to the poster microsite collection for GSD&M’s 40th anniversary, I illustrated two posters that are being released today.

Poster #27 – The Good to Great Client Event. The agency had Jim Collins come speak to clients, colleagues, and employees about the future of the business, so I wanted to emphasize the purpose of the gathering with a big, bold typographic treatment that would communicate greatness – aspirational diagonal angle included.

Here are some of the original sketches for #27:

#25 – Our Friends, Bill and Hillary Clinton. I decided to illustrate silhouettes of the former president, first lady, and two of the GSD&M founders. Their relationships started around the ’72 McGovern presidential campaign here in Austin, so I created a frame wall of memorabilia surrounding the time they spent together at the beginning of what is now a long, enduring friendship.

New Play: Bootstraps Shirt

Recently, fires devastated Bastrop and other areas in central Texas. During the fires, I was glued to weather satellites and news channels as I tried to send over information to my mother-in-law who lives in the Bastrop area. Fortunately, her neighborhood were spared, but the overall devastation in the area (and other places in Texas) was alarming. I knew that I wanted to help in some capacity.

Local design agency AIRSHP put together a charity microsite that is selling designer shirts to raise relief for the victims of the fires. I contacted them and was able to contribute a design titled “Bootstraps” for the second batch release of shirts, which is happening today!

Order one now here!

ATX Dribbble Meet-Up #4

Last meet-up, the kind gentlemen of Paravel asked me to plan the next ATX dribble meet-up by throwing up a shot. So… here it is!

The next official ATX DRIBBBLE MEETUP will be Thursday, September 29, 2011 @ 5:00PM at the Ginger Man.

I’m still hoping Dave will bring a small pink basketball to the occasion, so we can stupidly toss it at each other. Come on, Rupert. Make it happen.

There will be an undetermined number of free pitchers of tasty, seasonal beer purchased by me, courtesy of the recent release of Prova.

If you’re part of the Austin design community on Dribbble, I’d love to meet you and buy you a beer. Let us know if you’re planning to attend in the comments on the Dribble shot here.

UPDATE (Wed, Sept 21) – Thanks to some extra work by Phil Coffman, this Dribbble meet-up has joined forces with another pre-planned happy hour by the folks over at 5by5 Network. Check out the updated details here.