Lovely prints

Prints!

I can't wait to spend some time in my studio and do some art. Seeing this was inspiring:

http://www.stjudesprints.co.uk/

Waterstones new logo

I know it's not new new, but I do really like the colours in their new logo. Lovely.

The word "royalties" and the glamorous life of an illustrator

Seen in yesterdays (swedish) Metro in the column by Stephan Mendel-Enk. He likes... "Ordet royalties. Att engelskan har samma begrepp för kungligheter och artistisk ersättning gör konstnärslivet glamorösare." Translation: "The word royalties. The fact that, in english, it can both mean royal people and the money you get from artistic endevours makes the artists life just that little bit more more glamourous."
I like his train of thought...!

Packaging -- lovely illustration

Lovely use of illustration on packagagng for exclusive handmade chocolate.

http://illustrationweb.blogspot.com/2010/05/yummy-chocolates.html#links

Om tomtarna på Vasagatan

Found an interesting article about the lovely illustrations on a bulding on Vasagatan. Finally an answer as to who the artist is, suprisingly it is not Carl Larsson or Jenny Nyström. (Sorry everybody who can't read Swedish).

http://www.boplats.se/CM/Templates/Article/general.aspx?cmguid=6893b93b-4c14-4c53-b732-0da9b63c79a1

Doodles

Today's crop of doodles. (Well actually not today, but they are scanned today) Perhaps they will crop up as future characters or stories...

Open Type, PostScript fonts explained

Confused about the different font formats? I stumbled upon a good page about this:

http://www.creativepro.com/article/typetalk-opening-up-about-opentype

Article about Adobe vs Apple and PostScript

Article about Adobe vs Apple.
Ever wondered about True Type and PostScript... well here's the story behind the scenes:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/05/14/adobe_apple_war_on_flash_reminiscent_of_postscript_struggle.html

Paper that I lurves

Realised I should share some of the love. Here are two lovely paper types.

Skin is amazing paper. It feels rubbery and is amazing when paired with spot UV-coating/spot UV-varnish (in swedish: partiell UV-lack). It's made by a company called ArjowWiggins. Map stocks this paper and can actually be bought in small quantities at the lovely store Rum för Papper http://rumforpapper.se/ (there are some lovely inspiring ladies that work there and I always come away with a lot more paper than I intended to buy).

There's a Thai restaurant here in town (Gothenburg, Sweden that is) that has a beautiful example of this spot-UV-coating-on-skin in action on their business cards. Managed to find an image of something similar here: http://www.fastkit.com/Spot-UV-Overall-UV-s/77.htm (see image above).

More about skin:

http://www.antalis.com/sitesweb/FO/pages/interne-1922-66-33979-rich_text-105492.html

The other paper i like is actually not really paper, but paper board. The paper family Invercote is great stuff. Great for things like menus or folders -- things that have to open and shut again and again. It also is really good at looking good embossed.

http://products.iggesund.com/ProductInformation.aspx?Profile=en&Product=ICC&status=01123581321345589

If you have a look at this image you can see how nicely it folds.

(see above image)

Oh, oh, just one more. I also really like the paper Silverblade. It's apparenly changed name to Claro during 2007:

http://www.antalis.com/sitesweb/FO/pages/interne-1922-66-31612-rich_text-100534.html#Claro

It seems to be a good workhorse when it comes to being a good carrier for things like illustrations or photography. It has a good neutral whiteness that does the images justice.

Right. All for now. Paper is magical stuff and makes a huge difference.

Back on track

Back on track after a tumultous years worth of stuff going on. My life is still in boxes after my move, but all is well and looks promising and productive. I have had time to visit my friend Lobelia (http://www.lobeliabarker.com/) when she was at the annual Elmia Custom Motor Show 2010 (http://www.custommotorshow.se/). It was an incredible experience and her work looked ace as always.

Quick update: I am half way through becoming a prepress-wiz and am thoroughly enjoying my course. I think being an illustrator and being good at prepress is a powerful combination full of possibilties(!) My fingers are itching... I am also nurturing a more serious than ever addiciton to all kinds of papers. I am even learning the names of some of my favorites. Maybe I should have known this is where I would end up when I started sniffing the binding glue in my books as a kid (I had favorites then too, certain paper-and-glue smells still take me back to primary school and sentences like "the cat sat on the mat").

Currently I am sitting in professional practice at the advertising agency Jerlov and having a wonderful time. So many talented creatives! Very impressed by everbody. Everyone seems to have their own "thing" that they are good at. They are friendly too. I am glad they like my work too.

Lastly I give you today's doodle. A gorilla. He just turned up out of nowhere.