“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

- Albert Einstein

I just came across these pretty cool building blocks from House Industries. I love the color palette, the typography styles, the graphics and the packaging. I just might have to get a set of these someday… for my daughter of course. I Imagine that she’ll play with them for a couple weeks… then, voila! I’ll have a new centerpiece for my coffee table!

Eames House Blocks: $175Tours of the Eames House and Studio require a sizable donation to the Eames Foundation, but you can bring the Case Study No. 8 house to the convenience of your coffee table or kids playroom for less cash than dinner for two at the local upscale chain restaurant. It’s a bargain when you consider that each set of 36 replenishable Michigan-grown basswood blocks represents 29 separate hand-pulled screen passes. In the true Eames spirit, your kids can create a ligneous yard sale on your living room rug while youre in deep conversation with your guests, then build this living landmark to demonstrate how you are properly introducing them to important bits of culture. And, as a whole, they take up much less room than those awkward and unsightly Montessori toys.

36 Alphabet Blocks 20 for the house, 16 for the studio

Blocks 1.75″ 4.5 cm square

House 8.75″ x 3.5″ x 3.5″ 22 cm x 8.9 cm x 8.9 cm

Studio 7″ x 3.5″ x 3.5″ 17.8 cm x 8.9 cm x 8.9 cm

Made in the USA!

Replenishable Michigan-grown, kiln-dried basswood.

Printed with non-toxic, lead-free, child-safe inks.

via House Industries – Objects – Eames Blocks.

Risqué or Risky?//0 There is a new campaign on Broadway… Axe took over the old Bailey and Coy Books store front to advertise their “Undie Wear Challenge”. Axe is always raising the bar with risqué and viral campaigns. Students are asked to sign up for the AXE Undie Run Challenge on the Facebook fan-page. The goal of the competition is to donate the clothes you take off to charity. As for now there are 10 colleges sending their students to take part and win by giving more tees, skirts, jeans and shorts.

Are there any Seattle schools participating?

I took Sophia on Forest Queen at Crystal Mountain for the first time. It was a perfect, sunny day, and she did really good! She even got the snowplow down. Pizza and Pasta… she’s learning quick!

I just came across this post from a year ago… but, if you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty cool. Hats off to Sebasian Lange for his creative genius on this one.

Flickermood 2.0 from Sebastian Lange on Vimeo.

I’ve embarked on a new journey. Something I’ve always been interested in, but have never had the space, or tools to do it. At some point (late summer) last year I got the bug to go for it and set up a small wood shop. I basically started with a few old tools, a cordless drill, a great electric drill, a old powerless circular saw, a couple hammers, a plastic miter jig and 2 hand saws. Overall it was a pretty dismal tool arsenal for the kind of furniture I wanted to build.

So the journey began. I started off by doing a bunch of tool research. I took many trips to local tool stores, and spent even more time visiting various Web sites, reading tool reviews on Amazon etc. I began with a list of necessary tools for basic cabinet making. At first, I was interested in redoing my kitchen and bath cabinetry…. so, the obvious was a decent table saw, a miter saw, circular saw, router, compressor, and air guns. I have a two car garage with extra space in one corner, so I began a small shop plan as well. This turned out to be a bigger project than I anticipated, but after wiring several new plugs, a few new lights, and putting up sheet rock, my shop started to take shape.

I still had no new tools. There were so many decisions to make. And, I wasn’t sure how much I realistically wanted to invest. Well, I decided to fill up my Amazon cart with everything I thought I would need. I put more tools in my cart, I’d change my mind, add more items, take items out, and read more and more reviews. This went on for a month or so. It was finally time to commit. My cart was full and my head was spinning! Then, with a click of the mouse, I did it. I hit the “buy now” button. Done. 5-7 days later all that “stuff” arrived on my front porch. Just like Christmas! Boxes and boxes… a lift gate truck brought the table saw. Oh boy… I opened boxes, put workbenches together, assembled saws and cutting tables for what seemed like weeks. Since then, I’ve added a few things to my tool arsenal… clamps, more jigs, bits and finishing tools… gloves, respiratory masks, lint free rags and foam applicators, to name a few.

For now, my plan is to design and build custom furniture for myself. And as I get more experience, I might take orders! Until then, I just want to get some experience under my belt. I should mention here that I do have 3 years (in college) of woodworking experience where I repaired and built European Pine antique reproductions. So, I have a pretty decent understanding of the craft. In any event, I decided that I should build a reproduction of something I really liked. I did more research and found a few existing pieces that fit the bill. Below I will show a photo essay of the project.

Believe me, there has been plenty of planning and research just to get this project underway. It took me several hours over the course of a couple weeks to source material (plywood, hinges, cork, finish). It’s not easy for a DIY’er or a small shop to get the same quality material a cabinet shop might get. Big box stores don’t have it and I don’t want to get into doing my own lamination/veneering. There are minimum orders for certain materials and the good plywood is $130 (walnut ply) to $180 (bamboo ply). I’m sure that this process will become easier over time.

Here’s the project. A center piece for my living room. I chose this, not only because I really liked it, but because building it would engage many skills that I wanted to explore. A basic cabinet with shelves, a base structure, edge banding, doors and hinges, working with cork, and a rubbed on poly finish. Building this would utilize most, if not all, of the tools I had invested in. I’ll post the finished product and status updates as they are completed.

This is some of my planning. A good notebook comes in handy!

This table is a must. I read about it on another blog. It’s perfect for cutting full size sheets.

I made these, but have yet to use them.

I built this straight edge jig using a metal straight edge, and 1/4 inch melamine. It makes it super easy to cut long straight cuts.

This is 48″ and can attach to the other 48″ to make a full 8 feet.

My handy Iron for pre-glued edgebanding.

Trimming the walnut edge. Go with the grain!

Putting the base on.

Shelf holes created with a Rockler shelf hole jig and bit. Get one.

A Kreg pocket hole jig works great. I can’t recommend it enough for joining.

The assembled cabinet.

I ordered the cork in 5 different styles. It’s 1/4 inch thick. I’ll mount it to 3/4 inch plywood. So my finished door size will be 1 inch. Blum makes a thick door hinge (inset and overlay).

Taking the time to plan the pattern.

The cork cut easily (after some practice) with a utility knife. Several passes around each piece seemed to work the best. I have a few pieces that don’t fit perfect. I plan to create a glue filler with cork dust.

More cork cutting.

All the cork pieces, ready to glue. I’m hoping the low VOC contact cement is the way to go. I’ve yet to test it.

Began the finish process… 2 coats of wipe-on poly (planning to do 3 total, plus 2 coats of paste).

Stay tuned, I’ll update the post as the project is completed.

The following pics show the final steps to completion!

Gluing the cork to the doors.

Rolling the contact cement on to the door.

Clamping the cork and doors

Just about ready to leave the shop.

Finished and in room

Finished and in room

It looks awesome!

Phinney Bischoff Design House recently refreshed the The Washington Department of Licensing’s Web site. I was the lead designer along with a handful of other team members from development and client services.

The DOL site was redesigned in the past few years to provide a much more intuitive experience for users. Leveraging the improvements that have already been made, the creative objective of our work was to capture the attention of visitors to the DOL site, and make them aware of the online option as well as communicate both the personal and greater good benefits of choosing this option. We worked within the existing structure of the DOL Home Page and refreshed it to prominently feature a “promo” area to generate awareness and highlight the benefits of performing transactions online. We also added a new area that integrates some aspects of social media as well as educational videos.

We released working HTML/CSS templates to the DOL Web team and they took it from there. They integrated and executed the update well. We think it’s a vast improvement in usability and brand. Nice work team!

New Design

Old Design

I really like having this collection of logos in one place. Thanks to Alex over at ISO50 for the original post. The Fashion Center logo by Pentagram is sweet. Also agree that the simplicity and color of the Tom Ford logo is super nice. Enjoy!

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The origianal post via ISO50 – The Blog of Scott Hansen » Typography of the Fashion World. By alex 09/17/09

The Fashion Center

In honor of the currently unfolding (ha) Fashion Week in NYC, I thought I’d post on some of the terrific typography at work in the fashion world. When I first got into design, I used to think the typeface for the Louis Vuitton logo was the epitome of graphic design. I remember writing everything in Futura Medium for a good month (even research papers, nothing was spared). These days, I still to pick up the occasional GQ or etc just for the ads — usually can pick up a few interesting things. There are always a number of logos that catch my eye, continue reading to see some of the marks that resonate most.

The mark for The Fashion Center (above) is perfectly simple. How brilliant to utilize the button holes to form the F! This is probably one of my favorite logos of all time. What it comes down to for me is that the 5th button hole is slightly smaller than the rest — this subtle scale shift makes the whole thing. Developed at Pentagram.

Selected Typography of the Fashion World

Iceberg

You don’t see too many slab serifs in the fashion world — this one for Iceberg is my favorite. Bally is OK too, but I prefer the “B” in the Iceberg mark for the details (no bottom slab). Also, it’s sort of unfair, but Iceberg is a cooler word and thus I find it more appealing.

img014

Tom Ford probably has one of the most photogenic names in the business. The two words strike a great balance and convey the boldness of the brand very effectively. It announces itself proudly and authoritatively, and is somehow able to be colored pink/violet and still seem completely bad ass.

yves

This one is an uber-classic. Designed by Cassandre in 1963, the Yves Saint Laurent lettering has always had a mysterious air to it for me. Maybe it’s because I could never figure out how to pronounce it. Anyway, the kerning in this one is masterful — just look how smoothly the letters flow into one another.

Helmut_Lang_Logo

One of my favorites for its simplicity. The Helmut Lang logo says to me that they don’t mess around — they make classic and quality clothes without comprising their core principle of (stylishly minimal) utility.

dunhill

Dunhill takes a slightly different approach than most. Seeing the ascenders ascend to new heights is certainly a nice change of pace. It stands out amongst the more typically “restrained” fashion logo. Whether accurate or not, I get the feeling that (like a Paul Smith) there is some extra dose of personality and flare to what they do.

truss

Trussardi has one of the best crests. I’ve seen other brands try this approach (see Juicy), but rarely are they able to achieve such a sense of heritage and refinement like Trussardi. There is even a little touch of playfulness if you look closely at the greyhound in the middle; he looks like he’s up to something.

Hermes

I love the Hermes identity. The logo is great — especially love the rendering of the horse and buggy — but the real winner for me is the color. If you walk into a Hermes shop, you know you where you are immediately because of the crazy and unusual blends of colors you find yourself surrounded by. A nice contrast to the muted tones of some of the above.

Paul_Smith

Of all the script logos in the fashion world, Paul Smith is my favorite. It’s hard to imagine the brand without his signature color rainbow, but I think the lettering alone still does a great job summing up what the brand is all about. Seeing this lettering inside of an extra sharp suit somehow makes complete sense, especially when you see that the lining is bright purple.

ferra

I know I said Paul Smith was my favorite hand written face, but Salvatore Ferragamo comes pretty close. Each letter is wonderfully drawn if you take them individually — they all have interesting little quirks and imperfections that come together nicely. It’s hard to tell if I like this one because of the actual rendering or just prolonged exposure.

zadig

This condensed face is not the official logo of Zadig and Voltaire, but I enjoy it anyway. Their current logo (which you can see on their site) is great, but my love of condensed type always led me to prefer this one. I suppose the current one has more personality (especially in that “g”!) in the end.

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Definitely left a few out I know; Chanel, Louis Vuitton, maybe even American Apparel. Let me know if there are any others!

Agency: Phinney Bischoff Design House
Project: Logo and Brand Development

This is a small brochure that I just wrapped up for The Regional Athletic Complex (The RAC). Located in Lacey, Washington, The RAC is a 68-acre athletic complex with five softball/baseball/fastpitch fields and six regulation-size soccer/football/rugby fields, as well as picnic and outdoor facilities, playgrounds, concession stands, two miles of walking trails, family restrooms and much more.

Romancing Your Soul Absolutely Brilliant!

This is a well thought concept and well executed. Nice work.