May 2013: COLOR from designsponge on 8tracks Radio. This week marked the beginning of May and we could not be more excited about it. Trees are beginning to bloom on the street and jackets are no longer a requirement—it seems that spring is finally here! In addition to the delightful warmer weather, though, we’re also…
No cat blog, new or old, would be complete with a playlist of songs to get you in the right frame of mind to truly love and appreciate cats. So to kick off this new age of DesignCat*Sponge, we thought we’d dedicate this month’s playlist to songs about, inspired by or dedicated to our favorite…
I still can’t believe March is here, but we’re excited and ready to celebrate a new month with about a billion fun themes to play with on the site. Because this month contains one of our favorite holidays, St. Patrick’s Day, we decided to dedicate this month’s D*S playlist to great Irish and Celtic music….
We’ve had so much fun throwing ourselves with reckless abandon into the fun and craziness of Valentine’s Day. Everything has been pink, red, heart-covered and oozing the sort of happiness that only comes from taking the time to treasure the people and things that mean the most to you. And while the mood of the…
Illustration by Julia Rothman After throwing our own D*S version of a Super Bowl party last week, we decided to celebrate the big game in one more way that felt right to us: with a Beyoncé mix! Amy and I are big Beyoncé fans, and Max is an even bigger Beyoncé appreciator, so we thought…
January 2013: Clean Start Mix from designsponge on 8tracks Radio. This year we’re starting a new tradition at Design*Sponge: a playlist to match our monthly theme. I’ve always looked for ways to infuse music into the site because it’s a huge part of my life. I spend most of my downtime listening to music and singing…
Outside of design, my biggest passion is music. I’ve always been interested in finding ways to connect design with other communities, and I’m happy to find a musician who is as into home design as I am. I connected with musician, performer, DJ and songwriter Hesta Prynn (aka Julie Potash) on Twitter and was thrilled…
I’m taking a quick design break this morning to share a link to a little sale I curated over at Insound, a Brooklyn-based music e-store. While design is what I spend most of my days writing about, music is a huge passion of mine and a very big part of my life. I was a…
Amy, Kate and I started working on our next Design*Sponge newspaper last week (I’m so excited for this one!!), and one of the things we were most excited about was making our second music mix. Our last mix (download the digital version here) was summer themed, so this Spring/Summer CD at TenOverSix reminded me of…
New York City is one of my favorite places to be in the winter. The holiday lights line streets in all five boroughs, the glow inside restaurants looks inviting and each shop is lit up like a little gem waiting to be discovered. So many of you have mentioned that you’re heading to the New…
As soon as Amy and I set foot back in Brooklyn, I started planning to pack up and head out again for the first-ever Portland Bazaar, which I organized with friends and all-around awesome dudes, Matt Pierce and Greg Hennes. We’ve been working overtime to get the final details together, and this week I’m posting…
This weekend my parents were in town and we ended up talking about music. My dad was lamenting that no one bought albums or non-digital music anymore, which got me thinking about how much I miss record and CD packaging. My first job out of college was with a small record label in NYC and…
Today I’m thrilled to offer a special twist on our traditional Tuesday city guides. For years, I’ve wanted to offer a second (and third and fourth) take on a city from the perspective of one of its local talents. The book sidelined us with work for a bit, but we’re finally back on schedule and…
It’s weird to think that I was born the same year MTV started, but today marks the network’s 30th birthday. So many of my earliest music memories were courtesy of the fledgling channel and I can still remember staying up late to pop a tape in the VCR so I could record Nirvana, Pearl Jam…
Cello print by Heather Webster at Etsy I’m dedicating this week’s music mix to a seriously fun show I saw last Friday. The Doug Fir in Portland hosted The Portland Cello Project’s “Extreme Cello Dance Party” (yep, you read that right), a celebration of old and new music arranged and played by cellists who were…
I’ll be the first to admit that I know way more about the music coming out of speakers than the speakers themselves. But maybe if I had speakers this gorgeous, I’d pay a little more attention. These concrete speakers are designed by Shmuel Linski as part of his graduation project from Shenkar College in Israel….
Print above by Sarah Marshall at Etsy There are few things I love more in songs than a good hand clap. I naturally want to tap my feet or clap my hands when listening to music, so I appreciate when musicians build that right into the song so I don’t feel like such a doofus…
Image above: Portland print by Nathan Trivette at Etsy Today, Amy and I are hopping on a plane to San Francisco to work on a special summer project with our DIY queen, Kate Pruitt. After we cram in a few days of fast-paced work, we’re heading to Portland to finish the project, visit some of our…
Print above by Blimpcat at Etsy The last few weeks of have been a blur of tagging, coding, and de-bugging. So much so that music was sadly the last thing on my mind. My head felt like the picture above, except that instead of words and lyrics all I could see was HTML and the…
Hi everyone! Today, I am thrilled to welcome new D*S guest writer Rachael Maddux! Rachael was an editor at Paste magazine until its recent print closing and I was delighted to discover that she is equally passionate about music and design. So today she’s joining us for a guest column called “Sights & Sounds” that…
