Design Salon 2009 Holiday Sale

Save the date for the new event by the Boston Design Salon at the Kingsley School on Saturday, November 21st from 10 am to 5 pm. Kingsley School is located on Exeter Street between Newbury and Commonwealth Avenue, in Boston. For the full list of exhibitors follow the link. Looking forward to seeing you there!

A short presentation from their press release:"
The Boston Design Salon began in 2007 by a small group of local female design professionals. At the first Salon gathering, there were about six women sharing a bottle of wine and their realization that there really could be a design community in Boston. “I just wanted to get to know more designers in my community. All types of designers:graphics, fashion, architecture, web. Knowing each other helps us to help ourselves,” says founder and ceramist Jill Rosenwald. Within a relatively short amount of time, membership has grown to over 200 women. Design
Salon gatherings have become a cozy sharing of ideas, opinions and business discussions. Female industry experts, such as Boston Home Magazine Editor Rachel Levitt, Mariposa’s founder Livia Cowan, and Design*Sponge founder Grace Bonney have been invited to speak to the group. “We have been able to grow our network while keeping an underground, hip edge to The Design Salon” says Jill Palese, fashion designer. “There are no dues involved, just talent and the desire to inspire and to become inspired.”

A book about philosophy

This book just came out from Italian publisher Laterza, with the title Stramaledettamente Logico, by Armando Massarenti. I worked with designer Silvana Amato and illustrator Susy Pilgrim Waters on their communication and connecting my two friends, that have never met, by working together on this project. Not easy when we are across the ocean from Rome and they don't share the same language, but I think the result was a successful book cover design. You can see more of the design process on Susy's blog. Personally I'm happy to own a copy of the book, as I believe, I'm not alone in judging a book by its cover!

Bianco e Rosso Twine

From today, back in stock!

The Museum of Printing Attic Sale

To remain on the letterpress and printing theme, I think some of you will be interested to hear that the Museum of Printing in North Andover, Massachusetts, is offering an Attic Sale on November 6th and 7th, from 10 to 4 pm. Everything there is antique and you can find type, tools, cases and presses for sale! The wood type are always my favorites! This is where I bought my table top Kelsey Press last year, with the great advise of my friend Shelley. The Museum has now a new administration, so more and new lectures and workshops are getting organized and offered to the public. So happy to read all about their progress on their newsletter!

Letterpress and Bookbinding Workshop No. 8

Beautiful fall weekend here in Boston and inspiring class! The Lotus book structure almost seems to go with the theme. Shelley made available drawers and drawers of wood type, to use as a background, printed with Pantone 610, combined with a wine color text of different fonts. We made at first a miniature accordion book, to practice the panel binding. Both books present hard covers and hand- marbled paper. The collaboration of the students was stunning, as in only two days were be able to design and assemble together such a beautiful edition. The Lotus book structure is so inspiring and playful, it leads to many other ideas to explore!
For further pictures and comments on the workshop visit Shelley's blog.

Un-Limited

I have been fortunate to work on the design and binding of fifteen portfolios with a limited edition of 15 prints by a very talented group of six artists. Each of them producing one to three images for the suite, hosted at Julia Talcott's studio and under her supervision of the entire project. The result is a beautiful set of prints, different in style and technique, consistent by the dimensions, the paper and the use of the same two colors, red and blue. Leo Espinosa, first involved in the project, had the desire to not be limited by a theme and gather the edition with the title (Un)Limited. The following is the list of artists that contributed to the edition:
Julia Talcott, Alan Witschonke, Susy Pilgrim-Waters, Annie Silverman, Annie Bissett
and Rob Dunlavey.
I'm sewing the portfolios with Indigo Cave Paper, red linen thread and cotton ribbons closure. The prints are protected and wrapped in Japanese kozo paper. This project started months ago, during the cold months of winter and it has been an honor to work now on the final step, after a long and evolving plan.
Rob Dunlavey made available a comprehensive set of photos of the work in progress, from which the last two pictures on this post come from.

Portobello Road

Last week I delivered several spools of cotton ribbons to Portobello Road, a store near by my home. They will use them for holiday packaging and flower arrangements by Andrea of Table and Tulip, that operates within the store. Her beautiful plants and flower arrangements are spread everywhere in the large space, with high ceiling and the perfect display. While I was there, I discovered some delicious soaps and perfume by Tokyo Milk, the packaging was lovely with vintage images and a little sparks. In addition, there is a possibility of a trunk show there in December with other designers, stay tuned for any update!




Last photo by Table and Tulip.

A day with Jill Bent

There is much to get ready for the upcoming holiday trunk shows and I always feel overwhelmed with a long list of things to do. Thought today, I had a peaceful time at Jill Bent's house, taking photos together for the upcoming Paper and Fabric event. We styled some of our products and hopefully we will find one of two photos we like from the hundreds we took today, to use on the invitation. So inspiring to see where she works, I took some quick shots just before I packed everything and left!

A day printing at Albertine Press

The other day I was lucky to have Shelley assistance while reprinting my Alphabet Cards on the Vandercook. For a few hours I was alone in her studio, took a few pictures and enjoyed the quite noise of the roll moving in the press.
Some spots are still available for our upcoming class schedule for the end of October, I might see some of you soon at this great studio!

Said ~ Roma

A friend of mine recentely told me of a new, restored cafe` in Roma called Said in zona San Lorenzo and I already add it to my favorite spot on the city guide. It's an old chocolate factory, family owned since 1923. I love the way they combined the old and modern into one inviting space!

Things are better with a Parrott

Sarah of Parrott Design Studio, just completed to design, letterpress and bind her limited edition calendar 2010! The Pool cotton ribbon application is a real delight on such a delicate design. I also love the picture of the entire roll of ribbon, used as a background for the business cards she printed. A lovely combination of different elements together!

New in the shop

Just arrived from Italy, large spools of very tiny cotton ribbon in Red, Neutral and Black. Every spool has 400 meters of ribbons, equal to 437 yards, 5 millimeters width, suitable for almost endless packaging and gift wrapping!

Sandra Juto

How inspiring is the new site by Sandra Juto. Absolutely love her illustrations!

Purl Bee project

Purl in Soho, New York, is one of my favorite shop that retail my line of Alphabet Brocaded Ribbons. On their lovely Purl Bee, they always feature beautiful projects with the use of fabric and supplies they carry in the shop. I believe the recent one of an hand-made dog leash is a fun one to share here too!


Photos by Purl.

Flea Design co-op!

If I was a little bit closer to NY I will go straight away to this market in Brooklyn. Who would like to miss this?

Letterpress and Bookbinding Workshop No. 8

Coming up is a new workshop, in collaboration with Shelley of Albertine Press, schedule for Saturday, October 24th and Sunday the 25th. We designed a new weekend class, by using an hard-cover book structure based on the origami folds, as shown in the picture. As I follow the description that Shelley posted on her blog, it's a collaborative artist's book workshop. On day one, participants will each design, typeset and letterpress print an edition of one book page. On day two we will learn the construction for the origami-style accordion book and assemble the editioned pages. If interested in signing for class, please follow this link or contact me or Shelley with any question. Thank you!