An old Holga from our previously live, now retired photography portfolio.

Taken on a train ride from western Pennsylvania to New York.

Here it is, nearly March, and—with everything going on of late—we realize we haven’t yet written up this year’s New Year’s cards.

Since 2005, Katie + I have sent out custom holiday cards or new year’s cards (depending on how festive we where feeling…and scheduling). We started off pretty simple, printing  a small run ourselves on our medium format digital printed and cutting + folding ourselves, gradually moving on to more involved designs, like 2006’s squirrel + acorn cards, with hand-cut acorn-shaped openings showing through the design inside the card.

In 2010, we made the move to outsource the production of the cards as our mailing list grew along with our desire for higher quality. We chose to have them printed using a traditional letterpress, which we’d recently moved to using for our wedding invitation work.

Letterpress printing is a type of relief printing—basically creating a surface that presses into the paper or whatever material you’re printing on with ink (or without if you want to create what’s called a blind imprint). It’s the same concept involved in moveable type relief printing presses—the kind originated in the east nearly 1,000 years ago and popularized int he western world by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1400’s; what you’d think of being used for early newspaper printing. Back then, both letters + images had to be made individually out of metal or wood and then arranged by hand. The resulting print—especially on thicker, more impressionable material—is something that differentiates itself from conventional offset or digital printing in both quality of the look and feel.

Today, the concept behind the process is the same, but technology’s made things a lot less arduous. We simply send our design files out to a plate fabricator who uses them to create a flexible relief plate—kind of like a stamp. That plate is then used in a printing press that has paper fed through by a series of rollers.

We had our first letterpress cards printed by a guy in south Brooklyn who used an awesome old, hand-cranked model in a shared space near Bushwick. His quality was superb, but the size and frequency of our orders eventually outgrew his scope, so we moved to press in Ohio recommended by our friend, Jane Buck of the excellent Foxy + Winston.

Following in the footsteps of last year’s card—a tribute to the then recently deceased Lou Reed—we again chose to highlight the lyrics to a favorite song of both of ours—”Under Pressure” by David Bowie + Queen. We usually pull imagery from flora and/or fauna with these and, for whatever reason, the elegance in form of a great horned owl seemed to fit this year. Maybe we were subconsciously channeling Bowie’s Goblin King from Labyrinth.

You can see more shots of the card below—see the relief in the paper?

You can see designs form years past in our portfolio.

An old photograph of Katie’s and one of my favorites, from 1998 or 1999.

Click through to larger views on any image.

I’ll admit it—with a few notable exceptions, I am, sadly, your average, cliché guy when it comes to most any personal care products.

Out of shampoo? No problem, I can use a bar of soap; they’re basically interchangeable, right?

Shaving? Same thing—lather up some soap, maybe throw on whatever lotion’s laying around once I’m done.

Out of bar soap and need to get clean? Dishwashing detergent gets oil spills off baby ducks, man—it’s gotta be good enough to get a day or so’s worth of dirt off me.

So safe to say that, usually, I don’t splurge on skin care products for myself. Which is why they make such a great gift for me, as my generous partner Katie knows full well. She put this knowledge to use for my most recent birthday this past month, buying me what’s turned out to be a pretty stellar skin care set from Vermont-based natural skin care company Ursa Major.

I’ve long been a fan of the company’s logo—simple, striking, iconography with a nice accent color and, most importantly, an awesome-looking bear—but had never really tested their products out. Now, after almost a month of using them though, I can say that I’ve fallen pretty hard for everything I’ve tried.

I honestly did, most times, shave with just soap and water unless I was using a straight razor. So to suddenly shift to using a shaving cream that someone’s taken the time to formulate painstakingly to give that little bit of frothing has been a sea change for my face. And, whereas I’ve never used anything like face tonic before, I have to say, it is a nice thing to splash on after shaving.

Moreover though, the concept behind the company’s very appealing. Thankfully these days, environmentally conscious businesses are a dime a dozen, but, as Ursa Major puts it: “Even products that claim to be ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ often only contain token amounts of natural or organic content. Research now shows these toxins (parabens, pthalates, sulfates, etc) penetrate the skin (or are unwittingly ingested) and accumulate in the body’s organs, potentially causing serious health issues over time (cancer, neurological complications, infertility, etc).”

Unless prolonged exposure to bar soap causes any chronic health issues, I should be good, but, now that I’m older and living in a place that has roughly no cloudy days ever, I am taking this kind of thing a little more seriously. So why not support a company that makes the health of its consumer a priority.

What’s more, the products are really nice to use. Most of their featured ingredients read like very intense salads—Aloe, Birth, and Sunflower; Cedar, Spearmint, and Lime; Aloe, Bamboo, and Lemon. But what appeals to me most—in addition to them working well—is the unique, earthy scents of their products, each using a wood-based ingredient to give everything that comfortingly wild, sylvan aspect. Like I’m at a forested fairyland day spa.

And, according to Carmenat Ursa Major, “all of our products are in fact vegan and cruelty-free”.

So consider me pro-Ursa Major, both in terms of their superb branding and their superb product.

For the record, I’m pro-fairyland day spa too if those exist.

Below, Ursa Major’s Stellar Shave Cream, 4-in-1 Essential Face Tonic, Fortifying Face Balm, and Fantastic Face Wash; branded packaging; and a great canvas gift bag for the set.

Let’s take this sign—found while walking around the StubHub Center in Carson, CA during halftime at the USA vs Panama friendly inter nation soccer match a few weeks back—as a lesson in design + perceived meaning to your audience.

Is it telling you, as a stadium attendee, “Hey, there’s a public water foundation over here if you’re thirsty, friend”? Or is it saying, maybe depending on exactly how many $15 beers you’ve had, “Hey, buddy, come throw up in this trashcan; it’s totally cool, man”?

I’m afraid the latter perception may have started to prevail the nearer the end of the game we got.

USA!

The beauty of color gradients in nature, in this case exhibited by a blood orange from the Hollywood Farmers’ Market. I’d say roughly Pantone 1665 -> Pantone 1805 -> Pantone 506 (at the deepest red on the left).

Which reminds me—the Hollywood Orchard is holding it’s first pick of 2015 this Saturday. I’ll be in attendance along with Katie, who’s now on the board of the organization, and we’ll all be gleaning fruit from participating members in the Beachwood area, donating the majority of the fruit to needy agencies in Los Angeles and making fun things from the rest.

We’ve written about the Orchard in past pages, but you can also find out plenty more about the group on their/our Web site. The pick starts at 845AM Saturday though, details here. They’re a ton of fun and totally worth the relatively early weekend morning.

A shout-out to both the new waxed canvas Sinclair boot from LA shoe-maker Nicora Johns and the modeling prowess of the studio’s better half, Katie Frichtel.

We really love Nicora Johns because they’ve made it a priority to manufacture in America, which can really, really tough after so many years of outsourcing to oversea markets and (importantly) having American consumers get used to lower prices that result.

As founder Stephanie Johns puts it:
“Happy shoemakers and earth-friendly products are just as important as aesthetics! Since each pair of shoes is made of sometimes 25+ different parts and materials, it becomes very difficult to trace each part back to its origin and certify that it was produced sustainably and without harming any shoemakers. I decided to forego the giant question mark of purchasing or producing abroad, so all of NJ’s parts and materials are locally sourced from factories and the shoes are made 20 minutes away from my house.”

Pretty cool. And the shoes themselves are beautifully designed and made to last. I personally have to make a conscious decision to not wear my black faux leather Sinclairs daily, not to sound like a commercial for Nicora Johns.

But come by MooShoes Los Angeles, check ’em out for yourself, and say hey.

Came across this ripped out page the other day from an old, droll book of cartoon cat puns that we used to have in the Brooklyn studio. If memory serves, the exterior and spine of the book was beginning to deteriorate, but I couldn’t help keeping some of my favorite pages.

So, you’re welcome.

This quote, from the truly excellent movie Dear White People, so very succinctly explains this basic concept that seems to elude most of us Americans.

Next time someone spouts some bullshit about King Obama or reverse racism, just repeat this calmly and clearly.

And seriously, this movie is awesome. If you haven’t already seen it, please do watch it at your earliest convenience. It is that beautiful, rare mix of entertaining and important.