crazy beautiful – fabric designs

2010 March 9
by design lotus

Flea de Corps (big!)

Dancing Blossoms Small

Whimsical Trio

multi_owls_-_white_background

Nasturtiums

L

You’ve got to check out Spoonflower!  These are just a few designs I found in the first 2 minutes!   I’m in love with illustrations and colors…  You can create and print your own fabric now!   What will they think of next?

dear typography…

2010 March 7
by design lotus

What a great poster.  Couldn’t have said it better myself.  You can buy it at thebirdsandthebeasts.com, along with some other really cool items.

so excited for this year’s national stationery show in nyc

2010 March 5
by design lotus

I cannot wait to go to the 2010 NSS this May!  Here are a collection flicker photos from shows past.  Minties we have to meet up for a photo-op!  Please let me know if you’re going.

mintie meet-up with amanda larsen

2010 March 2
by design lotus

After emails back and forth for a while… I finally had the chance to meet up with my fellow Mintie – Amanda Larsen of Amanda Larsen Design.  We both shared our love/addiction for all things Minted.  We talked about the whole gamut – our favorite designers, favorite challenges, winning, which of our designs are selling or NOT, the forum, resources, and new Mintie friends.  It was so wonderful to finally meet her and share ideas.  I’m trying to encourage her to enter something for this challenge!  She’s a part-time Mintie with a REAL j-o-b.  We’ll see if her schedule allows it.

One of the interesting things that came up was the topic of the “Minted Alums” coming in last minute with their gorgeous designs, dashing your hopes of a win.  HA HA!  I’m sure they will not disappoint this time either.

If any fellow Minties  are ever in our neck of the woods make sure you give me and Amanda a holler.  We would so much enjoy getting together.

hand-picked free commercial use fonts

2010 February 24
by design lotus

Yay!  I love it when someone else does the dirty work… THANK YOU Font Squirrel!

P.S. – Minties you can use these fonts for the challenges and not worry about them having to be swapped out due to usage issues.

from curlz to archer

2010 February 24
by design lotus

From Jessica Hische’s blog – It just hit home with me.  I still cringe when I see Papyrus being used…

Jessica Hische is a one of a kind typographer and illustrator.  Her work is incredibly detailed and intricate.  She’s the perfect example of the difference between and graphic designer (such as myself) and an graphic artist.

inspiration ‘&’ inspirational

2010 February 22
by design lotus

Umbrella Type - Coming Together

Take a new perspective on the ampersand.  The “Coming Together” font contains over 400 glyphs and is an OpenType font and is well worth the twenty.

This font was created exclusively for Font Aid IV to benefit the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. The font consists entirely of ampersands, to represent the idea of people coming together to help one another. Type designers, graphic designers, and other artists from around the world contributed artwork to the font.

The font is being be sold for $20US and is available through  Veer and other font distributors. All proceeds from the sale of the font will go to Doctors Without Borders, to help with their relief efforts in Haiti.

ta da! – my breakout challenge designs

2010 February 20

Wedding Invitations - Vintage Luxe
Wedding Invitations – Vintage Luxe

Wedding Invitations - Frolic
Wedding Invitations – Frolic

Wedding Invitations - Summer Gardens
Wedding Invitations – Summer Gardens

This was actually really fun.  I think the hardest part was nailing down what ideas to use.  I still don’t know how I feel about limiting the number of entries per designer thing…  I don’t know how much self editing this cause me to do.  We’re these the best design I would have put out there really?  I guess we may never know.  I think limiting the number of designs may cause you to test the waters more, but then you’re really just wasting time waiting for comments.  Go design something.  I’m going to sleep. =)

summer garden invitation – minted design challenge

2010 February 17
by design lotus

Summer Garden Wedding Invitations
Summer Garden Wedding Invitations

Finally!  Here’s my first entry of three for Minted’s – The Breakout Wedding Challenge.  I am seriously intimidated by wedding anything.  It’s such a special event and there’s no do-overs.  I have a bunch of designs in the works but the schedule around here has been all sorts of crazy…  Get back to work – go design some more!

happy oddest valentine’s day ever

2010 February 15
by design lotus

my melonball design from Minted.com

Valentine’s this year was on a Sunday, before a federal holiday, on the same day as my great uncle’s wedding, in the middle of a family reunion weekend, amidst the aftermath of the biggest snow ever.  So far my sweet hubby has bought me roses and a new all-in-one printer/scanner/copy/fax to replace my paperweight from hp.  (I will never buy another hp printer for two main reasons: paper jams and expensive inks.  The list goes on and on but I won’t.) Something is getting delivered today because no one delivers on Sundays.  So exciting….