Damn Fine Tea & Damn Fine Design

Series 1 teas in Nepalese, Ceylon & Chinese green styles. (click for more info)

It’s hard to tickle my design and happy feathers more than something like this does. Yummy, carefully crafted teas and super dupes design all smooshed up into one awesome product. Our  design-y peers (nay, HEROES) at Aesthetic Apparatus have teamed up with the folks at Damn Fine Tea to produce a series of limited edition teas, all with an eye as careful on the design as the teas themselves. If you are a design nerd or a tea devotee, or gasp! BOTH well dang, here’s our Nirvana. This is a design dream job.

Series 2 teas in traditional English tea styles. (click for more info or to purchase)

Tea-obsessed Damn Fine Tea offer exceptional teas, sold loose and processed traditionally, rather than industrially with custom blends and styles. All with a keen eye on the quality not only of each tinning, cup and brew, but in the design factor as well. Potentially an endangered cultural species these days. Plus, each style has specific brewing tips tailored for that particular tea for the perfect cup.

We love these tins’ killer flair and style, and of course we do. They are all designed by the powerhouse of fun, rad, and on-point Aesthetic Apparatus out of Minneapolis, MN.

With each series Damn Fine Tea & AA take a fresh approach to the tea’s style and name. This is so apparent with teas such Series 1 and Series 2 pictured above (inspired by British Victorian boxers & the wonders of the Far East) and the below Series 3 & Series 4, respectively inspired by Rock’n'Roll (YES! See? It’s a triple match made in heaven!) and 2010 The Year Of The Tiger.

Series 3 teas in Rock inspired styles. (click for more info or to purchase)

Sometimes tongue-in-cheek comes off poorly, more like tongue-in-cheekiness or it just falls flat. Not so at all with these designs paired so well with these teas. For instance, the Series 2 teas come with limited edition mini-posters, replicating the awesome old boxing posters of yore. A fact that’s coolness is only amplified by the fact that Aesthetic Apparatus are rooted firmly in the rock & gig poster scene as well as the Series 2 mini-poster designs evoke the phenomenal test print style that so many know and love AA for in the first place. It’s like a hall of damn designers, errr, I mean mirrors. With designers in them. Maybe.

Moving on, just peep the below Carävan tea with it’s adorable little blood dripping pentagram, surrounded by a ring of tea like a Dark Wizard waiting for his Master. Hehe.

Series 3 teas come with a freakin’ Tour Patch too. Seriously, if the AA guys weren’t so nice and cool, you want to hate them for being so damn fun.

Hellfire!!!! (click for more info or to purchase)

And finally, the newest addition to the Damn Fine Tea line is the ultra-limited edition tea for Series 4, Yunnan tea, inspired by 2010, the Chinese Year Of The Tiger. Raaarrrrrrrrgh! Amazingly, this tea is limited to just 50 (FIFTY! Come on, that’s crazy!) tins, with designed & hand screenprinted labels by Aesthetic Apparatus. At the time of writing this blog post, only 6 tins remained…duh DUH.

So, these Damn Fine Teas are my current obsessive design and tasty treat geek out. Pass it on if you’re down.

We can’t wait to see what comes next.

Series 4 tea is Yunnan & limited to just 50 tins. (click for more info or to purchase)

CANCELED – I Made It! Mine Market this Saturday @ The Union Project

Click for more info!

*  CANCELED  *

Due to the humongous snow storm that hit Pittsburgh

Awww, just in time for Valentine’s Day sweeties!

The I Made It! Market team has pulled together a great bunch of Pittsburgh artists and crafters for their first show of 2010. This Saturday (only!) check out the I Made It! Mine DIY crafts fair at the historic and always cool Union Project in the Highland Park neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

50 local area artists and crafters will be on hand selling their kickass handmade items and work and hanging out so that they can talk with shoppers and Pittsburghers alike about their process, craft and work. There is a huge local community of crafters in Pittsburgh, many of whom are a part of the fantastic Pittsburgh Craft Collective and this is a great chance to get to see their handiwork up close and personal.

So come check it out! For fun previews of who and what will be there, look over here at I Made It! Market’s Blog for artist spotlights.

The details:

What: I Made It! Mine Craft Fair

When: This Saturday (only!) February 6th, 2010 from 12-5pm

Where: The Union Project, 801 N. Negley Avenue (visit The Union Project website for more info here)

Why: On account of handmade being awesome!

Phoenix’s magical Blogotheque Take-Away Show

Click to watch Phoenix play live, outdoors in Paris.

Un, duex, trois, quatre!

It’s not secret that I love the band Phoenix, (they’re the best) nor the fantastic paris based music blog La Blogotheque and their signature Les Concerts A Emporter, or Take-Away Shows. If you are not familiar, the basic premise is always the same, where French filmmaker Vincent Moon asks a band to play a short set, often consisting of just 2-3 songs, at an impromptu and outdoor location, usually accoutically, while he films the moment.

The Take-Away Shows are often really lovely and intimate, almost always with small surprises and little treats that can only happen with the unplanned & gentle collision of a band suddenly playing live in public spaces not typically made for such moments.

Click to watch Phoenix play live, outdoors in Paris.

A perfect case in point are the most recent 4 songs on La Blogotheque featuring the French band Phoenix, (who sing just about exclusively in English), and are perhaps better known outside of their home country than withing their native France.

In this heart melting set of 4 songs for Take-Away Shows (or more rightly Les Concerts A Emporter), quite possibly my favorite band Phoenix performs  1901 at Trocedero Square, close to the Eiffel Tower, with lots of passersby simply stopping to get an ear and eyeful of the band. There’s even a freshly married couple among the gathering crowd, and it simply couldn’t be more romantic.

Click to watch Phoenix play live, outdoors in Paris.

Phoenix then moves onto a crowded Parisian tour bus, taking seats at the back of the open upper deck and play 2 songs (Lisztomania & One Time Too Many) while the bus and it’s happily surprised tourists take a ride through Paris streets. The final show is Long Distance Call, played beautifully under a stone bridge along the Seine, complete with a sweet echos from the pigeon encrusted columns of the bridge. My favorite band + my favorite city = I’m done for.

Basically, it’s all awesome and you should watch ‘em all. Click the images above or here to watch & listen as well as read a bit more about each performance. Phoenix!

Click to watch Phoenix play live, outdoors in Paris.

BookBook = lit geek meets computer geek, falls in love.

BookBook's cool MacBook cover, click for details and info.

This might be the coolest thing I’ve seen all year. And yes, I’m aware that 2010 just began. And yes, I’m still saying that this might be one of my favorite things for the entire year, already. Yes. I really might be.

BookBook is a rad Apple MacBook laptop case and cover designed exclusively for MacBooks & MacBook Pros, from Twelve South (whose self-proclaimed motto is: “We’re not just Mac friendly, we’re Mac only.“)

There is little more depressing and somewhat sad to me than a dullard, run-of-the-mill laptop cover. Seriously. Those of us who use (and love) our little super machines develop an emotional affinity with them, so why encase that in something that says: “Do you have those TPS report cover letters?” Yuck. I am currently rocking a custom made laptop by the sadly now defunct Flicka bags, but I’m mega tempted to add one of these awesome cases to my gear.

BookBook disguises your laptop neatly. Click for more details.

The old book cover style evokes a Robinson Crusoe/Great Books Of the Western World vibe to it that I just adore. It reminds me of perusing used bookstores for hours with my mom as a kid, being held in reverie by older, fantastically bound books that had clearly seen better days, yet seemed all the more loved for their reading wear.

From Twelve South’s site, they describe BookBook’s protective qualities of the hardbound book and soft interior:

Protecting your MacBook is a top priority and it’s job one for BookBook. Slip your Mac inside the velvety soft, padded interior. Zip it closed and your baby is nestled between two tough, rigid leather hardback covers for a solid level of impact absorbing protection. The rigid spine serves as crush protection for an additional line of defense. BookBook creates a hardback book structure that safeguards your MacBook like few other cases can. Far better than any floppy neoprene bag ever will. End of story.

Each BookBook case is individually hand crafted, and with design details like the ability to keep your laptop plugged in and charging while in use. If you can be a hardcore laptop user, that’s a really great feature. Clever + good looking + functional = I’m all about it. As to Twelve South’s claim that the BookBook is a more secure way to disguise or prevent the theft of your laptop, well, I don’t know about that. Especially if this sucker gets as popular as it should, but then again, I’m not one to leave my laptop out in the open in public much anyway. Still, it is a clever disguise.

Like a laptop at Vincent Price Halloween bash, it’s BookBook. Nifty and cool.

Click for more information about BookBook from Twelve South.

Win this print at Design Crush!

Click on this image & enter to win my 6-color all hand screenprinted print: "Going To See My Baby Sage" from the blog Design Crush. It's free to enter. Good luck!

Free stuff is rarely this easy.

This week the fabulous Kelly from the awesome design & style blog Design Crush is featuring one of my prints in one of their fun Win It Giveaways (<–click for details and to enter.) Kelly is not only fun and funny and cool, but as it turns out, she is also from Pittsburgh, and now living in Oklahoma City, OK. Yinz rock!

Design Crush is a really super dupes blog, so definitely check it out while you are there. Kelly posts new things just about every day, and it’s all stellar picks from around the globe.

Starting yesterday Monday, January 25, 2010 (I’m late to post this, I know, I’m sorry! But there is still plenty of time!) and running through this coming Monday, February 1st at 9am CST you can enter into Design Crush’s Win It contest and get your very own, pristine copy of my “Going To See My Baby Sage” print. Just for you! And just for entering.

The entry rules are simple:

1. Head over to Design Crush to enter.

2. Post a comment THERE, as per Design Crush’s instructions, before the deadline and BAM! You are entered and ready for Lady Luck.

One winner will be chosen at random and that winner will receive my print (shown above). Yep! It’s that easy. I will ship directly to the winner, so no worries, the winner will get my usual treats and tricks in their tube too

There are already 73 entrants, so go on with your bad self. Enter today!

Artful way to help Haiti, beautiful print by Judge

Beautiful 3-color fund-raising screenprint for Haitian earthquake victims' relief screenprint by Judge. 100% of the proceeds are donated to help survivors. (Click for more info or to purchase and make a donation to help!)

Our good friend Judge, an incredibly talented illustrator and printmaker from Chicago, IL has done something awesome and in lightning speed. She’s turned her immense talents into doing something good to help the Haitian relief efforts for those millions devastated and effected by the January 12th earthquake and on-going aftershocks.

The above print is a limited edition, 3-color screenprint available at Judge’s web store here. All proceeds from the sale of this powerful print will go to help the victims of this overwhelming tragedy. Proceeds will become donations to 2 excellent charities:

Doctors Without Borders

Partners In Health

Also, for those interested in finding other ways and charities to help do the greatest good, check out the fantastic Charity Navigator site for in-depth information about over 5,000 US-based charities.

And, of course The American Red Cross is still utilizing the very popular and easy Text “Haiti” to the number 90999 to raise $10 per text with ALL proceeds going to help the Haitian people. For a really cool FAQ about that system please click here.

For more information, or to make a much needed donation purchase see below or click here for Judge’s website:

PRICE: $30 USD + shipping (note: buyers OUTSIDE of the US please e-mail Judge for a shipping quote)

SIZE: 13″ x 20″, EDITION: 130 signed and numbered, COLORS:  3 colors, PAPER: Brick red heavyweight

Judge uses a very distinctive and labor-intensive method for many of her illustrations and designs, (you might recognize her work from the numerous pieces that she’s produced for the musician Neko Case), and all of this work is BEFORE she gets to the also labor-intensive process of screenprinting her prints. If you would like to see a great step-by-step process thread about this piece, click here to visit Gigposters.com and read the thread, with photographs, descriptions and questions & answers about her work in this piece.

Detail of the 3-color, gorgeous hand screenprinted print by Judge, with 100% of proceeds going to help Haitian survivors. (Click for more info and to make a donation purchase & help!)

Twin Soul Art Studio & Chris Bryant Guitar School opening!

This is one of those stories about when two souls meet and see their counterparts in one another. It really is.

A couple of months ago I was contacted by a lovely woman & fellow artist named Jeanne on Etsy.com (check out her shop Three Paper Pigs here! and her beautiful collage below) who had some questions about a few of my posters.

"Circus Everywhere" by Jeanne of ThreePaperPigs. (Click for more info!)

After conversing back and forth, she placed a rather large order (to my amazement and delight) of posters and told me that she and her partner were opening up a brand new art & music space in Los Gatos, CA, in the greater San Francisco Bay area, in the form of a new guitar school and art studio. I was thrilled and honored that these two artists chose a bunch of my work, from all of the talent they saw on Etsy to help decorate their new endeavor.

At the time, they were still working furiously to completion, but now, it’s all done, ready, and up and running so I’d like to introduce you all to the Twin Soul Art Studio & Chris Bryant Guitar School.

Twin Soul Art Studio & Chris Bryant Guitar School open & ready for you!

Twin Soul Art Studio & Chris Bryant Guitar School open & ready for you!

Jeanne (an artist and designer) and Chris (a musician, ceramicist and guitar teacher) describe their new venture as a true labor of love here on Three Paper Pigs blog:

Chris and I just had our grand opening last weekend and it was truly a blast. We celebrated the opening of Chris Bryant Guitar School and Twin Soul Art Studio in downtown Los Gatos, CA. We had two weeks to prepare the school and studio before the celebration, so you can imagine how busy we were after Christmas until the day of the event on January 10th. I took care of putting up all the wall decals (Dali Decals on Etsy) and my sister helped me design the Twin Soul Art Studio logo as a main focal point for the back wall. I prepared the appetizers for over 100 people and loved how everything came together. My family was a great support and they flew out from Hawaii just for the event. The weather brought sunshine, lots of traffic, happy hearts and awesome music. Chris put together a five-hour playlist of Indie artists – The Decemberists, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Brett Dennen, Tristan Prettyman, Meiko, Joshua Radin, Belle & Sebastian, Matt Costa, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, The Dandy Warhols, We Are Scientists, Bishop Allen, As Tall As Lions and Ben Harper to name a few! And, I was happy to also put up tons of gig posters by the talented and down-to-earth artist Strawberry Luna on Etsy.

Artists an co-creators, Jeanne & Chris.

Yum! And so much natural California light too.

As you can see from their photos for the opening, they’ve created an incredibly positive and warm space to foster creativity on many levels. We here at strawberryluna wish them the best of luck and are so honored to have  such an array of our work gracing the walls of the Twin Souls Art Studio and the Chris Bryant Guitar School.

If you are in the Bay Area in California, please check them out! Get a guitar lesson, or schedule a time for a fantastic hands-on art learning experience. The new Twin Soul Art Studio & Chris Bryant Guitar School is located at:

644 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Suite #9

Los Gatos, CA 95030

40-354-7400

More details for you and websites about this rad couple that you should check out:

Chris Bryant Guitar School – all information about schedules, hours, Chris, the guitar school, directions and more are here.

Three Paper Pigs – Jeane’s line of custom stationary and her super cool collage pieces in mixed media and more.

Three Paper Pigs on Etsy.com – a good selection of Jeanne’s currently available collage pieces are here.

Three Paper Pigs Blog – you know what a blog is! Lots of great stuff to be found there.

Chris Bryant’s pottery can be found here.

Stunning animation: Maurice Gee’s “Going West”, by Andersen M Studio

(click to watch the animation)

So, here is a really cool animation that I found through my friend Standard Design’s Twitter feed today (Tom Pappalardo) and I’m just unable to stop watching it.

It’s from an outfit called The New Zealand Book Council, a not-for-profit organization that serves to promote more reading, foster a love of  books and promote New Zealand authors. I think it’s just completely riveting, beautiful, eerie, and downright superb.

(click to view the animation)

Paper cutting, stop-motion, and plain old lighting are 10,000x more mysterious and lovely looking than computer-generated work. As a fan of very old Disney (just about only the old stuff) and more so Warner Bros. classic Looney Tunes work, I’ve said it a million times before and I’ll probably be saying it in my grave.

(click to view the animation)

This piece, “Going West” is based on a novel by New Zealand author Maurice Gee. Produced for The New Zealand Book Council by the Andersen M Studio in London (a multi-talented brother & sister duo), the aim is clear as the NZBC’s motto at the end of the animation suggestion, to bring books to life. This piece is a stunner in that attempt.

(click to view the animation)

The NZBC’s mission statement reads: “Bringing books and people together. Like no other human activity reading opens up our imagination. It enables us to understand those around us. It allows us to project the future and reach back into the past. Reading can entertain, challenge and educate. We believe that reading can transform people’s lives.”

Having never heard of Maurice Gee, I can assure all that I will be seeking out his work based purely on the animation done here from his novel “Going West”, so it appears that their aims have worked a bit already. And, I’m now a HUGE fan of the Andersen M Studio, who’s range of work runs from animated pieces (as evidenced here) to commercial photography, music-making, and music packaging to book design. Perhaps I’ve found new heroes.

To learn more about the novel “Going West” click here.

To learn more about Maurice Gee, click here.

To learn more about Andersen M Studio, click here.

To learn more about The New Zealand Book Council & it’s projects, click here.

(click to view the animation)

Criterion Collection films now on Netflix “Watch Instantly”

Click for more info and full list of available films

And it’s pretty darn exciting. The Criterion Collection of films has been an outstanding aggregator & distributor of excellent movie-making from around the world for over 2 decades. Keeping pace with the advent of DVDs and now more online film viewing, Criterion has released 35 movies for Netflix online streaming tool “Watch Instantly”.

For someone like me, who uses the heck out of the “Watch Instantly” feature on Netflix, often while printing or otherwise working the studio, these releases are a welcome addition.

The list of Criterion releases is impressive and not at all a slacking one. The complete list (with links right to their corresponding Netflix pages) is here at the Criterion Cast podcast site (or by clicking the above & below images). It’s also worth noting that Criterion’s standards include routinely fantastic renderings of poster and cover art for their releases as well. Some of my favorites are below.

Christmas Vinyl, nifty web radio station

In keeping with the previous post today, I thought I’d share this quite cool internet radio station that I found today, called Christmas Vinyl, When Music Was Music, where the only music is Christmas related fare recorded on vinyl. I have to say that I sort of love the somewhat cranky implication that music released on vinyl, and in vinyl’s heyday is better than more recent music. There is something to be said for classics and tradition and sticklerhood.

Beyond that, this station, Christmas Vinyl is really cool for mixing all sorts of vinyl recordings of Christmas songs from Burl Ives (!) to jazz artists like Bing Crosby or Ella Fitzgerald to lesser known, session & pop singers, as well as instrumentals and choral works. Basically, if a Christmas song was recorded on vinyl? They’re up for playing it over there. The site itself  Christmas Vinyl is only able to handle 500 listeners at a time, but! Fear not. I actually found the site via Shoutcast.com Radio, and they’re listener capacity is much larger. Just search for “Christmas Vinyl” in Shoutcast.com’s search box when you click here. If you do listen to Christmas Vinyl’s stream from their website, you get an accurate current and upcoming track listing that’s pretty handy too. Also, it’s really nice when you can hear little noises that you only get with vinyl. Very warm and cozy.

I’m listening to a lovely recording of Louis Armstrong singing “Christmas Night In Harlem” and not only does it give the phrase “all lit up like a Christmas Tree” an added meaning, it’s the jam.