there were a small handful of booths that really blew me away at the gift fair and austin press‘ booth in the keena corner was at the top of my list. austin press is the work of san francisco artist kimberly austin and aside from wanting to buy half of her designs on the spot,…
although a lot of the gift fair was about bold color, i really enjoyed the subtlety of the japanese designs in the eastern accent booth. the sweet rubber bookmarks would make such a fun gift (as would those great number cups) and those beautiful paper vines were too lovely for words. i wish i could…
if jonathan adler was colorful, dfc design was positively kaleidoscopic. this design duo from mexico city created a visual wonderland inside the javits center decorated with objects they brought back from a magical world called “mushi mushi”. tony and mauricio explained that each object was supposed to feel as if it was brought back from…
yesterday i packed as much gift fair as i could into two short hours. i had meetings and design by the book filming (stay tuned for final episode/party info later!) so i tried to make the most of my morning there. i was sadly only able to get to the accent on design section but…
when i walked into the bird and banner booth at renegade i felt myself let a totally embarrassing squeal escape. i’ve coveted their work since i first saw it on joy’s blog in 2006 and it was such a treat to meet designer erin and nicole in person- not to mention look through their custom…
this weekend i hopped in a car with julia and caitlin to go check out day one of the renegade craft fair in williamsburg, brooklyn. unfortunately, like last year, the weather conspired to sweat all of us out of there earlier than we hoped, but fortunately, unlike last year, i felt that the show was…
it’s sad to say goodbye to this year’s stationery show, but i left happy and inspired to know that so many fantastic new companies entered the market this year. if one of the four trade shows i saw this season really left me excited for the coming year’s designs and designers, it was the national…
screech owl design had an incredible booth at this year’s show. and after walking 20 rows all i could do was look at that beautiful bench and think “thank you, thank you, thank you”. after a quick sit and chat, i checked out some of their lovely new cards and of course, the bench that…
i may have to continue national stationery show coverage into tomorrow a bit- there’s just so much to see and i don’t want to overwhelm anyone with hundreds of images in one day. so i’ll post parts one through three today and parts four and five tomorrow- along with our scholarship winners! if you haven’t…
one of the new vendors that really stood out to me was fugu fugu press of pasadena (fugu means pufferfish in japanese). after walking about 20 rows of the show they were definitely one of the companies that everyone was talking about. their letterpress designs were really crisp and clean in person- and had such…
i’ve saved the very best for last today. this year’s national stationery show was seriously fantastic. i mean, fantastic. after two solid days of walking i still wasn’t able to cover everything because i kept stopping at all of the incredible new vendor booths- the show was seriously teeming with talent. my couch, dining room…
surtex is always a bit of a mixed bag for me, but i’m always glad that i visited the show when i leave. though the show tends to lean away from the modern look that i prefer in pattern design, there were several booths that had really incredible work this season. if you missed surtex:…
whew! after four days at the javits center i’m ready to say goodbye to overhead lighting and the endless rows of icff and the other trade shows. this will be my final installment for icff, so if you missed any of the other parts you can follow these links to the rest: icff part one,…
today i’m going to be wrapping up my coverage of icff 2008. part five will be up later this afternoon, as well as a new diy project and the rest of my surtex coverage. i took over 1300 pictures at the national stationery show, so that doozy will be up thursday and friday- along with…
i couldn’t resist this shot- we covered bart’s furniture from studio cochineal last week but his facial hair was seriously the talk of everyone i ran into. i always have a big design crush on thomas paul. this time it was for creating a booth decoration (not for resale, sniff sniff) that was one of…
surtex was a really interesting show this year- both for the type of work shown and the difficulty i had getting some of the designers to hand me as little as a business card. the nature of the show is a bit trickier than icff and the stationery show- most of these designers are trying…
man, it’s tough to break down icff into only a few parts! even though the show wasn’t quite what i was hoping for this year, i still came home with around 600 photos i’m trying to edit down into manageable posts. so today i’m cutting things into 2 or 3 parts, with a little bit…
in an effort to not totally crash the site with huge images, i’m going to break down my icff coverage into a few parts over 2-3 days. for me, this year’s show was all about four things: looking for interesting texture, color, pattern and new talent. overall, the show left me wanting for most of…
a quick icff preview and then it’s on to the 2008 d*s scholarship finalists! until then, here’s a preview of a beautiful new chandelier niche modern will be launching at tomorrow’s icff (booth #1844)
last but not least- the final installment of our bklyn designs 2008 coverage. you can see part 1 right here and part 2 right here. the pieces above and below are from john, marcel and max at produce design. i was positively giddy about their sturdy wood and metal pot rack. if i had room…
