We recently finished a couple of posters and realized that they were somewhat related, both featuring women with superpowers of one sort or another. Must be all of the Twilight Zone episodes we’ve been watching lately? I will say that I am personally drawn towards the surreal, the strange, and the mystic, just outside of the realms of our understanding. So are these ladies, apparently.

First is this Prefuse 73 poster we did for Applied Pressure (we have the pleasure of being their official design house, so we get to work on a bunch of rad shows as a result). With this one we decided to try some different techniques than usual, more focusing on directly photo manipulation and overlays.

Then, we just finished up this Crystal Method poster for the Beauty Ballroom. This ended up being a really fun project as the whole time I was working on it, I was thinking about how excited the 17-year-old me would be about the 29-year-old me making it, as I was a big techno baby when I was a teenager and definitely loved The Crystal Method. It’s funny how things work out that way… all I know now, is that I would love to be able to make this into a screen print someday.

Psychic powers are go! Over and out!

Recently we’ve had the very distinct pleasure of being able to work with two incredibly lovely ladies on their websites, who share a wonderful space on the East side of Austin called Maison D’Etoile. The location is also home to a salon, & with Charm School Vintage and Coco Coquette is a one-stop shop for vintage clothing, wigs, makeup, jewelry, and general beautification.

First, we completed Shari of Charm School Vintage‘s new site, powered by WordPress. Many of her posts consist of Instagram shots, so the idea of having a grid format worked very well for her content, while the site also creates a clean and minimal backdrop for her gorgeous image saturated lookbooks.

Then, it was on to Allyson of Coco Coquette‘s site, converting it from Blogspot to WordPress and giving it a fancy updated feel. Allyson puts on the most fantastic events and we wanted to be able to showcase the photos from them prominently by using a slider on the front page. We’ve also set up a shop for her gorgeous custom wigs, which you can expect to see more of soon!

Maison D’Etoile is also teaming up with Kevchino for a huge SXSW day party at their space, which we also designed the poster for. You can check out the full details of the event at their Facebook Event. And if you’re in town for the festival, or are a local in need of some sparkle, be sure to stop by Maison D’Etoile at 2109 E. Cesar Chavez.

Exciting stuff! We’ve got some new things for your walls + wears for sale in our shop. First, we’ve decided to print and sell some of our most popular posters from the last year (and some older than that), and will hopefully continue to make these series for sale each year. You can buy them individually, or the whole series at a discounted rate. This is what we’re really excited about, though…

It’s our first Recspec shirt! After being in business for 5 years, we’ve finally designed and made a shirt for ourselves. We’ve got one left after giving them out to our Recspec crew, but we more made them for promotion and just for the sake of having them. Yay! So if you’re an XL, snatch the last one up before its gone!

And that’s not all…

We also received a small stock of shirts of the shirts that we designed for Ume now for sale as well. They used a gold ink that is just beautiful and we couldn’t be happier with how they turned out. So yes, exciting stuff!

We were honored to be featured last week on Dsktps.com - a great site run by Jason Krieger, featuring a new Desktop image every Monday. Our desktop is called Five Points and features five birds, five stars, and five points in space.

Click above to go to the release page, which where you can download many different resolutions custom built for your different desktop sizes, phones, tablets, etc. And be sure to check out the other releases and even submit one of your own!

Thanks for featuring us, Jason!

For over 3 years, we have worked with the fine folks at one of Austin’s premier music venues, ND Austin, to create all of their branding – from their logo and website to signage and event posters. Recently, we’ve even opened our first food venture, Tamale Molly, within their doors and in partnership with them. So it came as no surprise that when they decided to open their new, sister bar to ND, that they approached us to do the branding and design for it as well. This project went further than just pixels on the computer, however. We built furniture, picked paint colors, and generally massaged every inch of the space into a cohesive entity. It was, without a doubt, our biggest undertaking yet!

Welcome to The North Door.

It was also incredibly fun to work with the owners of the space to take their ideas and make them a reality. The objective was this: make the sort of bar that undercover spies would stop to have a cocktail at while plotting their next feat of espionage. The bar itself is off the beaten path, down an alley on the side of a building, so we starting coming up with ideas based on the need to make our presence and location obvious while also subconscious, the kind of thing that sticks with you over time, without even realizing it. This is where the big red X comes into play, and the tagline of “x marks the spot”. Secret maps passed between agents, the red X always leading the way…

The inside is nothing but slate gray, deep blacks, and reds. Spy ephemera and posters are on the walls — all pulling the viewer in with little bits of information and details: we wanted to let the patrons the bar leave with a little more information than they had when they came in. Spy intel, for the taking, if its wanted.

As mentioned above, we even helped construct some of the furniture in the space, the bench below being one of the main pieces, and tables with spy plans inlaid in them.

One of the most fun parts of the project, however, laid in the details. Secret messages left for people to find, if they want to. The image directly below is of a Dukane Fliptop Filmstrip Projector that our good friend and Recspec ally Seth found for free on the street, which we cleaned up and made a custom transparency for. It is definitely one of our favorite parts of the space.

The space is still evolving and changing, which makes it even more exciting. The spy posters will change often with new spies and information, a mural is about to go up, and we’re constantly on the look out for as much intriguing spy paraphernalia as we can find (which, you’ve got to admit, is a pretty great job requirement). We’ll continue to post updates on the space as we continue working on it, so keep an eye out.

A few more shots can be seen over at our flickr, and you can visit The North Door online at TheNorthDoor.com. Thanks for reading! And don’t forget, if you ever lose your way – X marks the spot.

What better mail is there than the House Industries Plinc Catalog? I can’t think of any. If you sign up on the Photo Lettering site, they’ll send you one too, for free. You’ll also get one free usage of one of their photo lettering, as well. How generous!

I was really inspired by the color and texture in the catalog, a feast for the eyes. Even the textures of the cover and pages are pleasing. As always, their work is tops. Oh, and the envelope is awesome. Go figure.

Edited to add, also so, so in love with these new tables they are creating with Herman Miller. Especially the amphersand!

Recently, we were very lucky to work with Marc Bianchi (aka Her Space Holiday) on the design for the final Her Space Holiday album (self titled), released last month. Her Space Holiday has been delighting listeners (ourselves included) for over 15 years, and this final album is the end of the Her Space Holiday chapter as Marc continues to make music in different forms and new ventures. Because this is the final album, the design is simple, deeply personal, and classic – focusing intently on the person behind Her Space Holiday, Marc himself.

If you listen to the entire Her Space Holiday catalog in chronological order, there’s a distinct progression not only in songwriting, but in personal perspective as well. There have been moments of optimism, delusions of grandeur, greatness, failure, self-indulgence, bitterness, humor, finger-pointing, compassion, stupidity, wisdom, joy, and loss. But for better or worse, each moment was part of the experience. And with Her Space Holiday, Marc has distinctly wrapped up one life chapter, while simultaneously and optimistically venturing onto the next. (Source)

We couldn’t be any happier with the outcome of the album artwork, which we worked with Marc directly on, every step of the way. Both Recspec and Marc’s own style come through in the design, and is a direct reflection of both the music, and the man behind the music. The music itself is beautiful, and the perfect sort of goodbye – not one you want to make, but since we have to, it couldn’t have been any lovelier.

The album is released both on CD and a beautiful limited edition of 75 on clear virgin vinyl. Both can be purchased directly from the Her Space Holiday web store, here.

Photos by Gabriel Darling / Marc Bianchi

Here’s a great video of an accoustic, live version of the first song from the album, Anything For Progress:

While I have never designed wedding invitations before and was somewhat intimidated by the prospect — insomuch that it is something so special and significant towards what can be the biggest day of someone’s life — I was incredibly flattered to help Tamera with the invitations for her wedding this past October.

Once hearing her concept for them, with individual gifts for the guests and a story woven throughout, I got even more excited, and the final results with everything put together are so beautiful that I just feel lucky to have been a part of the process. Finding a balance between having the design be interesting while also easy to read and classic was a nice challenge, and I believe we were both quite pleased with the results.

The invitations were gocco’d onto old book leaves with shimmery gold ink, and the RSVP cards are printed onto vintage postcards from Vermont, where the wedding was held.
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Concept, construction and photography by Tamera Ferro (Verhext). Calligraphy by Linea Carta.

More details here.

And of course, congratulations to Tamera and Sean on their new life together. Mazel tov!

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Update: The invitations have now been featured on Brides.com as one of the top ten wedding invitations of 2010! Click below to view the feature.
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Sorry for the radio-silence on ye’old blog — we’ve just upgraded WordPress making the whole process that much easier (and prettier). We’ve also got a new website in the works, so once that goes live, you can expect a lot more bloggery (Is that a word? We like to think so.) So for some fun blog-filler, here are a few of our recent poster designs to feast your eyes upon. Keep an eye out here, as we’ll be announcing our new fun Halloween party that’s currently in the works in the next few weeks as well.

Until then…

More posters on our Flickr.

Dia de los Muertos is one of our favorite holidays, and for the second year in a row, we’ve carved a pumpkin depicting some skellington friends. This year we decided on making a skeleton lady (last year was the Duke), as inspired by a mural put up on 5th street downtown for the Dia de los Muertos festivites a few days ago. Sadly, I didn’t have our camera on hand, but the lovely Angeliska got a couple of beautiful shots:

(Another view)

These beautiful ladies made me want to make one of my own, and below are the results. A little rough, but this is only my second (!) pumpkin carving ever – with the help of Dave of course. We also found this wonderful Santisimia Muerta (The Holy Dead) candle that seemed all too fitting for the festivities. You can view the whole set on flickr here.

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