Dogwood Coffee Company

Dogwood Coffee is my newest favorite place for a mocha. I'm more of a tea person in general, so credit to them for making a drink I've occasionally decided on over tea. The people are friendly, the place is cute, and it's in Uptown. Across from a bookstore. I didn't need another reason to admire them just yet, but Chris informed me that they were recently featured on the Dieline for their sweet packaging design. And boy, do I love the Dieline...



It gets even better. The design and letterpress was done by two Minneapolis based studios: Holmberg Design developed the packaging, Studio on Fire created the letterpress. Now I have a multitude of reasons to get a mocha.

Are We Designer

We Are Designer is a small studio in Germany that does some fantastic work.

I've never seen such a lovely 'Global Trendbook and color chip book for presentation of current collection of automobile color coatings.' In fact, I've probably never seen one of those at all... but I kind of want this one.







You might want to check out their Behance portfolio, as it's a bit easier to look at.

Aesthetic Apparatus

Aesthetic Apparatus has always been an inspiration to me. Formed 12 years ago in Madison, Wisconsin (where I grew up), they started a kick-but studio and moved to Minneapolis around the same time I came for school. I was very into printmaking, and their constant stream of screenprints for rock shows blew me away. It seems like they've always made a point of making cool things for cool people.

Recently they hit the 500 Poster milestone and put together this little montage to celebrate.



Congratulations!

2011 Artcrank Poster

Hey! This year we were selected to participate in the Minneapolis Artcrank. We totally love the show and we are super excited!

We decided to do a collaborative piece that the three of us could work on together. We put our heads together to come up with the concept, then took turns until it was complete. Then we sent it off to be screenprinted by Steady Print Shop Co.

The show is tomorrow night, April 2nd from 5pm - midnight! Here is our piece!


(And here's a slighter bigger version.)



Our studio is littered with prints right now! Some of the detail fell out when we printed, but Lindsay went back in with a brush and some gouache and touched up every print for the show by hand! Now that's dedication!



So if you're in the Minneapolis area, make sure to head out to Artcrank tomorrow night! There will be screenprints by over 40 artists, are they're all only 30(!) dollars! Plus it's a huge party! Be there!

Gift Complaint Form

Wire & Twine is a small studio that works out of shop on a small farm. They found that they were always just making things, so they decided to start a business around that. Seems like they have a cool thing going.

This past holiday season, they shared a free Gift Complaint Form that you can include in the box when you give a gift.



This would have come in handy since it seems like I know someone with a birthday for every day in March (including Lindsay and Francesca!).



Download a free PDF version for your next gift-giving session!

via Swiss-Miss

Art of the Title

I love title sequences in movies. It's like a chance to put a self-contained little statement at the beginning of your movie and a lot of films make great use of that opportunity.

Ian Albinson, Founder and editor-in-chief of Art of the Title, put together this amazing collection of title sequences through the years, aptly called The Art of the Title Sequence.



Ahhh, the memories and good times come flooding back. Also, this video gets a big thumbs-up for using music by one of my favorite musicians, RJD2.

A Graphic Cosmogony

A Graphic Cosmogony is a comics compendium by the ever-amazing publisher NoBrow. It features comics by 24 artists, each telling their version of a tale about the formation of the universe. Or something.







Some of my favorite artists are represented, like Stuart Kolakovic and Mikkel Sommer (previously posted). The whole package is a beautiful thing...

Paperfox Press

Paperfox Press is a team of four illustrators from the United Kingdom. I was drawn to them in principle–a team of illustrators! They do collaborative work! It was even more exciting when I found out they've made posters for Artcrank, their own British version of the thing we know and love.

Ian O'Phelan

I saw this super cool illustration, which brought me to Ian O'Phelan's website.



But I stayed for the awesome patterns! Yesssss!

Mollinex + Kinect

Just last night we almost bought a Kinect, the new motion sensor peripheral for Xbox 360. We had it in our hands; Lindsay was chomping at the bit to play some Dance Central.

But (being the nerd I am) I've followed all the hands-on impressions and coverage since it was launched and I don't think we have the proper space or lighting to make it work right. Although I wish I did.

As cool as Dance Central is, what hackers and modders have been doing with the hardware even cooler.

For instance, Mollinex created this video for their song,Catalina using the data pulled from Kinect's 3-D depth-sensing camera.



I might try to round up a lot of cool kinect hacks for a future post. There's a lot of cool stuff happening around that tech.

Godmachine

As I youth I remember looking at Heavy Metal album covers and being blown away from the combination of taboo subject matter and intricate detail. I was never into the music all that much, but I did love the art enough to own a few albums.

Godmachine (link probably NSFW) captures everything I loved about those strange and dark drawings. As self-taught artist inspired by skateboarding, comics and music, Godmachine obviously loves what he does and draws like a maniac.







Super sick. I love it.

Taylor James

Taylor James is a Creative Production Studio, which basically means they create stunning imagery for print, motion and web.

I was really impressed with some of their amazing photo manipulations.







The woman shedding her skin is actually a 3D model and can be viewed from all angels. Creepy.

Jason Pollan for West Elm

West Elm has a HUGE array of amazing things this season - including surface designed bath, tabletop and decor pieces by Jason Pollan.

Jason has a really awesome naive and human style and I love the simplicity of his drawings. My old drawing teachers would have swooned over his gestural style. I remember trying to draw with a piece of charcoal attached to the end of a huge stick.

THAT's how I feel about his drawings. They look easy and hard to draw at the same time.



Jason runs a blog called everypersoninnewyork.blogspot.com where he's drawing... yes, you guessed it... Every person in New York that he can possibly catch. There are some great loose drawings of the colorful characters of the city.

I love the small details about where and when they show up. I hope he manages to reach his goal!

We went over to West Elm on a chilly Saturday and ran into these amazing bath accessories by Jason Pollan.



Right now they're lying about on our huge white table, collecting random things, rings, change, pencils. I'm apparently not going to use them in the bathroom (we have a shared bathroom with the rest of the 6th floor here at PB), so I think I'll just admire them as "Stuff Holders".



The tumbler is already my pencil cup of choice.



We also grabbed this amazing mustard pillow with a HUGE faceted burst on it. I know the dogs would like to use this as well, but for now I'll keep it far far out of their reach.

Röyksopp - Album art + Fantastic Music

So, somehow I stumbled upon Röyksopp - a Norwegian Electronic Group - one night while I was listening to LastFM. I immediately fell in love with their upbeat, intricate music and have had their new album 'Junior' on repeat since then.

They've been active and making great music since 1998 (what took me so long???).
I love the album art. I love the music. I love the lyrics. Everything about it is just what I need right now. When I've got my headphones on and trying to get some serious work done, it's energizing, silly, and they switch it up constantly. There are some songs that are strange and ethereal, others are meditative, others are perfect for my mid-day dance parties.

Since my two year old European Electronic Music kick started, I feel like it's harder to find sweet music that doesn't sound like it came straight out of the house package on Garageband.


Amazing Royksopp video featuring awesome type and even better space invaders

I love their poppy electronic awesomeness - plus, it seems like they've had non-stop great albums with more than their share of memorable, dancey songs.



The Girl and the Robot - Best song ever

This is my favorite song of the moment. Can't stop dancing.

Cute Bikes = all the rage @ Paper Source

I went to Paper Source on Saturday after picking up Chris's new and improved* Macbook Pro from the Apple Store in Uptown. It's funny that right now, we seem to be swept up in the bicycle-themed trend of the moment!
Paper Source is stacked to the brim with bicycle themed EVERYTHING including some really adorable calendars, some great stationery, rubber stamps and even scrapbooking paper. I wonder if our sweet sweet love of bikes has finally caught on?

I ended up picking up a few things while I was there including some amazing recycled leather calendars (one for creative things, and another for work things) that are also in the cutest of the Paper Source colors.

It was awesome - while we were there I ran into a past student of mine and had a great chat! Small Small world!
I'll have to refrain from getting bicycle themed everything - unless I want to look like a nut!

*One of our cats tap-danced all over Chris's laptop and did a flying kick that slid it right off the kitchen counter! Some curses and tears later, Chris finally brought it in to be fixed; it's been a painful week for him without his computer.

Alberto Seveso

Alberto Seveso took some really slick photos and turned them into desktop wallpapers. The best part is he was nice enough to post them all for download on his behance page.

Amazing Candy - United Noodle

I've been holding on to these amazing treats for a week or two, and FINALLY took some pictures of these amazingly illustrated packages! I love marshmallow anything, so for me to hold out and not eat these until I posted them!



So here you have it! They are so cute, and incredibly tasty!



United Noodle, the cute world/Asian grocery that is here in Minneapolis (Hidden in the depths of Midtown) has a huge aisle or two filled to the brim with amazingly cute packaging! Besides that, they also have a ton of really tasty imported teas!



Here are some more marshmallows.



I can't wait to go back and get some more! Stomach Ache, here I come!

Words are Pictures

Words are Pictures is a collaborative studio founded by Craig Ward. They make a lot of awesome type pieces using traditional, digital, photography and programing techniques.

There's a ton of great work on the site (although I had a little bit of an easier time sorting through it all over on Craig's Behance page), and I'd love to decorate the studio with some prints of his work.

Serial Cut

I noticed the always-inspiring Serial Cut recently updated with some new work! As expected, it's pretty dope.

Justin Mezzell

I am completely drawn to these designs collages by Justin Mezzell. They are mysterious, spiritual and sci-fi at the same time, perfect for a cryptic message from future. Or maybe a prog rock album cover.