happykatie :: katie rocks out the interwebs

Manufacturing your creative genius with Ponoko

Ponoko (the world's first personal manufacturing platform) announced the winners of their Jewelry Design Challenge today. 

If you've never visited before, Ponoko is essentially a simple way that designers can get their designs (whether jewelry, house or other functional or decorative ideas) created out of a variety of materials.  Apparently, it's all about the laser beams which, in my opinion, makes this portion of the rise of the creative class that much more exciting :)

I'm always amazed at the creativity I find on their site - it's pretty cool to see what happens when designers take their brain candy and bring it into the physical world. 

However, their site takes it even one step further allowing designers to network and collaborate on projects and discuss fascinating things like the difference of flexibility between styrene and PET (which is actually fascinating to me as I am a Chemical Engineers daughter after all...).  Lovely.

Some of my fave pieces:

• Neural neclace
• Tree Oddity pendant
• The Facebook necklace
  

Threadbangers - DIY with love from YouTube

I'm so in crafty-love with Threadbangers - a killer online DIY network full of how-to crafty videos, forums and brain candy for those that want to re-fashionize their wardrobe and look fah-bulous doing so. 

There are oh-so-many dedicated crafty and DIY fashion sites out there right now, both for selling/purchasing handcrafted goods (or gleaning ideas and inspiration from) and for learning how to make them yourself. 

Here are just a few of my fave Crafty/DIY sites (don't hate me if I left you off - this is seriously off the top of me noggin):

• Etsy (www.etsy.com)
• Get Crafty (www.getcrafty.com)
• Burda style (www.burdastyle.com)
• The Anti Craft (www.theanticraft.com)
• Not Martha (www.notmartha.org)
• Fitz Patterns (www.fitzpatterns.myshopify.com/collections/free)
• Pink of Perfection (www.pinkofperfection.com)
• Craft Sanity (www.craftsanity.com)
• Shana Logic - formerly PixelGirl (www.shanalogic.com)

How to customize your Typepad design (even when you're a slacker like me)

I have to brag on my company's Creative Director Tim Newton, as he has pumped out a couple of really killer tutorials in the last week.

First it was How to Design Email Newsletters for Outlook 2007 and more recently he threw up a super-easy Typepad Blog design customization tutorial.  As long as I have been using Typepad (since back in 7/2003... how the years do fly) I have consistently gone the easy route and used the standard layout with a random happykatie header.

Actually, I kept the exact same look and happykatie header for years and years and years - you remember the one, the 50's diner-esque with hipster kids in cool sneakers hanging out?  Good times.  Now I'm stuck with 2006's autumn theme (my plan was to change seasonally like the always adorable ljc and other fave blogs), but my how seasonal I look now!!  Right?  Right?  Anyone?

Sooo...  check out Tim's great Typepad design tutorial.  And don't judge me for last year's Fall colors.   Mmmmkay?

Words you find on the things you buy

Chocolove
Originally uploaded by cknlomein

Packaging matters to me.  A lot. 

Unique touches and good design sway me greatly in my purchasing choices - I will be far more likely to spend a little more cash if a product is thoughtfully constructed.  Yes, I'm a sucker like that.

Here are 2 swell examples of unexpected packaging that made me sublimely happy this week:

~  A silk black strappy tank top from Talla (a birthday present from my mom :) ) had a nice size-card attached to it by a white silk cord that told me this:

'May you have enough happiness
to make you sweet, enough trials
to make you strong, enough sorrow
to keep you human and enough hope
to make you happy.'

~  A dark, dark Chocolove bar flavored with hot chilies and sweet cherries was housed in a wrapper that brought us the voice of Oscar Wilde, quoting his poem In the Gold Room:  a Harmony - full excerpt after the jump:

Her ivory hands on the ivory keys
Strayed in a fitful fantasy.
Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees
Rustle their pale leaves listlessly,
Or the drifting foam of a restless sea
When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze...

I like it when my purchases speak to me, thank me, befriend me and joke with me.  That's why I'm also a huge MOO cards fan, Threadless lover and Jones Soda junkie.  Those brands love me; they tell me so regularly and that makes me want to give them part of my paycheck :)  There's a reason they call them Lovemarks!

Going deeper

Fave ad of the day:  the new advertisements for the Diário de São Paulo 'The newspaper that goes deeper' campaign (check out the Bush/politics/oil/war ad as well).

I love the twisted, intricate cut-out graphics and the message really pops.  What appears on the surface is just the tip of the iceberg and we all know what happened to the Titanic...

POTUS typographicus

I ran across a very awesome AIGA article a while back covering the ins and outs of the Bush administration's atrocities (of a typographical nature, that is).  Nice to have the blatant disregard that the Presidential office has for leading, drop shadows and the Photoshop using community as a whole out in the open!  :)

The most persistent is the use of Roman-like faux intaglio and engraved letterforms to give an air of authority and truth—although the effect is more Las Vegas casino. To celebrate the fourth anniversary of the “No Child Left Behind” act, someone got a little creative and added a drop shadow to a font that fakes the look of chalk or crayon lettering. This is only one evolutionary step away from introducing the Lariat font (novelty letterforms made from rope) whenever W is speaking from Crawford, Texas.

On second thought perhaps we should be happy for the level of consistency that the President and his cohorts bring us.  After all, it would be far greater of a heartbreak to me at least to see false messaging and blatant lies cloaked in beautiful Frutiger font.

Should you ever decide to run for office, please remember:  a political intern does not a graphic designer make.  Especially if they think that Comic Sans or Papryus fonts are under any, any, any circumstances even remotely acceptable.  Be kind to your constituents and just say no to garish typographic obscenities!  It is the patriotic thing to do...

One more reason why it would be cool to live in Rotterdam

The annual Rotterdam museum night brings a pee-your-pants-cool event called ArtRave.

Dutch hipsters and graffiti-heads get to mingle and view work from Carli Hermes, French Jansen and others.  Undoubtedly, awesome music will be pumped, sweet-ass graphic designer goodie bags will be distributed and many cool things will transpire.

And it's free.   Hook me up with some frequent flier miles, yo.

Oh - and lest I forget the other wonderful thing of my morning...  Paperdoll is now selling Perplex and Lola, the urban-fabulous Milano designer.  Huzzah!!

Ralph Robot saves the day

Virgin Atlantic Airlines is holding a sick bag design contest called Design for Chunks.  The final 20 contestants' entries are wonderfully cute - with #1 and 12 being especially precious.

 Unnecessary personal anecdote: The last time I was sick on an airplane was in 8th grade on my way to Rome from NYC.  I had a migraine and no one seemed to believe me when I said I was about to die and/or puke everywhere.  They should've moved out of my way a little faster because I was forced to projectile vomit on the lady in front of me.  I felt really badly about the whole thing.  8th grade sucked.