Over at our print portfolio, we just added some collateral work we recently created for longtime collaborator, NYC-based creative collective, Pel.

The work covers coffee labels we again did for Pel’s annual caffeinated client gift and some new print notecards. Both designs revolve around an idea we came up with involving brightly colored powder—we wanted to play with the concept of vibrant, real world elements coming together to form and enhance Pel’s existing branding. With the postcard, we accomplished the goal by taking three separate shots from our shoot of the powder and having them come together to form the three blocks or pixels (also known as pels, or Picture Elements), playing with transparency on the blocks to further the impressions that organic is coming together to form the digital.

Then, with the coffee labels, we further the concept by subtly bringing in our photography of New York and Los Angeles to tie the coffee blends to the city themes Pel’s principal, Paul Singh, communicated to us in the early stages of conceptualizing the designs.

You can see more work for Pel in our portfolio and then check out our 2014 and 2015 write-ups of each label on these pages.

Still kind of amazed this snow-capped paradise is a mere 2 hours from downtown Los Angeles.

Yesterday’s mixtape featured a song from a Los Angeles band—Harriet—who first caught our attention with a pretty great video for another track, “American Appetite”.

The band, fronted by Alex Castoff (formerly of Dawes and Papa), just released a debut LP of the same name last week and everything we’ve heard from it is pretty damn dope.

Watch their video for “American Appetite” below and keep an eye on the band’s Facebook page for coming live shows.

New month, new mix—that’s how we work it.

February’s mixtape features a pretty eclectic array of songs from an equally eclectic group of musicians. We’ve got a brand new one from Canadian electronic duo Junior Boys—a welcome return from a name we haven’t heard in a long while—two songs from two new Captured Tracks artists,  B Boys + Charlie Hilton, a crazy 8-bit-y love song from Perth, Australia’s Sable (via Mark Redito), a beautiful, not so new song from a Montreal band I’m late to (and that may not exist any more), The Luyas, a haunting start from Christchurch’s Doprah, and a really, really superb debut from Vampire Weekend bassist, Chris Baio, who’s going by the simplified Baio as he ventures out on his own—Bio plays Los Angeles at the El Rey tomorrow night for anyone interested, by the by. And a ton more, of course.

Give the whole thing a listen below or on our soundcloud page any time.

Yesterday, we received a very generous gift from a printer we’ve worked with for years now. The printer—Orton Tofte at Park Printing—is based in Minneapolis and he also happens to be a fellow corvidophile…. Yes, I totally made that word up, but it’s a pretty good guess as to what lovers of crows and ravens might be called were there more a need for such a word.

Orton’s other business is woodworking, which he does under the name Raven Construction, and he made this beautiful wooden raven sculpture which he was kind enough to give us.

Raven Construction doesn’t have a web presence, but let us know if you want to put you in touch and we will.

My friends are far too kind.

I recently celebrated my 40th birthday, and, though they shouldn’t have, some of my friends brought me some really wonderful gifts. One such gift from our lovely friend, Maureen—a bottle of Akashi Japanese whisky from the Eigashima Distillery in Akashi City, Japan, near Kobe…where they massage cow because they like them so much, right?

Eigashima claims the dual titles of Japan’s oldest and smallest distillery, having been founded in 1888, thought the distillery has spent the large portion of those years producing the traditional Japanese spirits of sake and shochu sake and shochu. Eigashima only started making whisky in 1984, building a new facility for it as it became more popular in Japan and imports from the west more in demand. The distillery’s whisky season is only 2 months long, lasting from May 31st to July 31st, with the rest of the year being dedicated to sake and shochu. They import specialty barley from Scotland and make use of the same water from their underground spring that they use to produce their traditional spirits. From Caskers: “This, combined with the fact that less than five employees handle all of Eigashima’s whisky production, makes the distillery’s signature Akashi White Oak Japanese Whisky some of the rarest in Japan, not to mention elsewhere around the world.”

The end product is beautifully rich and insanely smooth lending a “malty, citrusy aroma with scents of black cherry, toffee and oak. Notes of vanilla and pine nuts dominate the palate, and lead to a long, malty finish” (again, Caskers).

Highly recommended as a lovely sipping whisky and makes for a nice citrusy Manhattan with orange or yuzu bitters.

Light-leak-filled, slightly scarred Holga print from a trip to Italy some time back.

Going through old files, we came across these two album cover design drafts we did for my old band, Speedwell. A few years back, our old drummer, Jon, had a bunch of songs remastered and released as limited edition discography through Coolidge Records.

We’d designed these two cover options that, in the end, we didn’t end up using, which is totally understandable—I think they both convey much more our current-day design aesthetic than they do the sound of that band in the nineties and early aughts. The final design came from Jon’s now wife, Laura, and convey that time and sound much better. We like these nonetheless, removed from that sound, and thought we’d share.

You can listen to and download the tracks from the album via iTunes and Bandcamp and read a way too long interview we did with everyone on the event of the release back in 2013.

Moon reflected on ocean, flipped.

We just added some print work did with UNICEF’s polio team to our portfolio.

We’ve been working with UNICEF for a number of years now on communications strategies to help end polio worldwide. Though the disease is now only endemic to three countries in the world—Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan—differences in culture, lack of education on the disease, and lack of access have made it extremely difficult to address in those countries. In an effort to help UNICEF and their partners eradicate polio worldwide, we created this ‘Passport to a Polio-Free World’—an education print piece that, along with its inserts, follows the theme of an oversized travel passport, with stamp-style callouts, passport-like page imagery, and the distinct rounded page and cover corners.

You can read more about the piece and see additional images of the finished product in our print portfolio.