I picked up these gold seals and foil letters at an estate sale this weekend, they seem very fitting for fourth of July party invitations. I wish I had about five more boxes of these letters!

Isn’t it amazing how something so simple as a ticket stub can be so beautiful? I wonder if we had a collection of ticket stubs from today if they would look so nice. Found via flickr.

I stumbled on the work of Stephanie Posavec and was taken by her beautiful infographics. She takes sentence diagramming to a new level. Stephanie is a book designer living in London–this piece is part of her series Writing Without Words which explores different authors and writing styles. It is worthwhile to go to her site and see her work (in larger sizes).

Precious is collaborating with Linnea Osterberg Photography on a new line of baby announcements. Stay tuned for more details!

Edible crayons from Luxirare, it’s kind of amazing that no one has done this by now. I love that their list of ingredients ranges from dried vegetables to fruity pebbles cereal. You can read and see more about their process here.

I tested many different paints, then washed them all to see how they would hold up. The fabric paints ended up fading too much. In the end, I used fluid acrylics with a textile medium which gave it a nice watercolor look.

Because the banner was already made by our friend Marcella, I couldn’t risk messing it up. I scanned the hand lettering and blew it up to make a stencil.

The banner was really huge! I’m kind of more of a no-stencil type of gal, but because of the size, the stencil really helped. For smaller pieces I think it would look nice to just paint it right on.

The finished product!

Click on the image above and it will take you to Patrik Ervell’s new online store–a refreshing, animated storefront that we love. The designer wanted a modern approach to selling his clothes, his goal to make his online presence stay true to his brand and reflect his style, which we think he does pretty darn well. Found via the new york times.

Tomorrow Jessica Hische will be in town to lecture as part of the PSU’s Friends of Graphic Design Be Honest event, and you can be sure that we will be there. It is hard not to adore Jessica’s type and illustration work, and we are so lucky to get to listen to her talk about her design process and work in person! This lecture is open to the public, so get on down to the Ford Building at 7:00 if you are in Portland.

Just picked up the new good magazine today, am loving this typographic display from illustrator Micah Lindberg. Many great Portland people in this issue as well, and if you haven’t ever taken a look at good, it’s chock full of great design and smart thinking, so pick one up.

For a special wedding suite we have been working on, we have had to do research on wax seals. Wax seals, surprisingly, come in many forms–the original sealing wax with a wick, wax sticks that you can apply with a glue gun, and wax seal stickers (not a preferred option, but it does exist). At first, we were a little skeptical about the glue gun wax, but it is the most widely available in town, and it comes in so many different colors that we decided to give it a try. Some of the colors came across too plastic-like for our needs, but we finally found one that worked. It will go perfectly with our custom stamp (the stamp below is one we use for testing, not our design)!