renegade craft fair: san francisco 2009

checked out the renegade craft fair during its final hours last sunday. surprised to see it was still well attended so late in the day, but that's definitely good for all the artists who dedicated their weekend to it.

came away with a few fun finds/reacquaintances ...

dee & lala ... perfectly sweet and simple
(source)

dutch door press ... great colors and very distinct vintage dutch aesthetic
(source)

mehoi ... super cute designs in a more refined and practical format
(source)

molly m designs ... such natural and intricate designs, but what to do with no functional earholes??
(source)

twinkie chan ... the original too-cute crocheted food
(source)

colors of san francisco ... inviting colors and sweet illustrations
(source)

how was your weekend?

fun ... we went up to marin to play bocce ... no, didn't win, but i did have a really good time. i'd never played it before so it took a while to get used to the court and the balls. but i couldn't stay out too long because it was so hot. i kept putting my sweater back on so i wouldn't get burned, but then i kept taking it off because it would get too hot. i ended up getting darker again. can't escape it. A was really good. he's apparently a natural.

and a bunch of the people in our group decided to wear all white. but i don't think bocce's one of those sports. i think it's more croquet that's like that, but i think they did it just for fun anyway. it was cute. no, i don't really have all white clothes.

how was your weekend?

great ... i tried archery for the first time on saturday. i don't know if i was pulling on the bowstring right or not, because the tip of my ring finger is still kinda numb. or tingly, at least. and it's been a few days now.

but i did do pretty well. we started at something like 10 yards and moved to twenty. it was pretty fun. nobody was hit by an arrow, so i think it was a success.

similar to my targets, but imagine more arrows in the yellow ... maybe =P

how was your weekend?

pretty nice actually ... did another barbeque with a bunch of friends on saturday out at lake merced. they roasted two whole pigs. i went early so we were all kinda gathered around the roasting area to stay warm because it was so cold and foggy. but it definitely warmed up closer to noon, and i just lounged on the grass for the rest of the day.

[and these were my favie treats/moments of the day.]

summer fruit pastries made especially for the early crew

crazy good fried chicken ... they disappeared as swiftly as they hit the serving tray

the pièce de résistance of the day ... 1 of 2 crispy-skinned piggies

paps swarming around the pig's unveiling

how was your weekend?

it was ... ok. i got like a 24-hour flu or something. all day saturday i felt like crap. my body ached all over and i kept getting hot flashes. so i just tried to rest the whole day. then sunday i was a lot better. and now i just have residual coughing ... yep, pretty lucky. sounds like most people are getting it for a week or two ... fun how the flu bug was so considerate of my workweek.

not us, but pretty close to what our saturday looked like (source)

how was your weekend?

if to one of the fatherly types around the office ... not too much. took my dad up to napa for brunch for father's day. it was nice. we didn't get to do much else though because there was tons of traffic, so it was kinda late once we were done ... there was one pretty long stretch of 80 that was just PACKED like a parking lot. we were delayed like 45 minutes. can you guess where everyone was going? ... we thought everyone was going up to see the nascar races at infineon. totally wrong. apparently, THE place to go for father's day is marine world.

the view from our table at brunch

or if to a non-fatherly type ... not too much. drove down to san jose to watch one of my friends in a women's hockey game. it was pretty fun. first time i'd watched a whole game. and they were pretty good ... no, they actually have a rule against checking ... and it's funny, the friend who was playing, i've never seen her in normal clothes. the first time i met her was at her wedding, so she was in a gown with her hair up and everything. and this was the first time since then, and she was in full hockey gear.

can you imagine, with all this action, we were the only ones in the bleachers

how was your weekend?

this weekend, i have two options for a response.

one ... i became an aunt! my brother's wife just had a boy on saturday. he should be coming home next month, so i'm really excited. it should be interesting with a baby in the house ...

welcome to the world, alex!!!

two (if i don't feel like getting too personal) ... went up to napa for the day. there's a really cool new hotel up there. bardessono. we didn't stay there, just got drinks. but they were really nice and let us walk around. if you end up in the area, you should check it out, especially the pool. that was our favorite. we almost wanted to hide out and stay there the whole night.

(pictures from here)

[seriously, check this place out. the hotel's lobby with its vertical garden has been blogged and written about tons. it's definitely neat to see in person, but because i'd already seen tons of pictures, i wasn't wow'd. but the pool area was awesome. there were rows of cabanas lining the long, narrow pool. the lot of us piled into one of the larger cabanas and shared daydreamy what-if scenarios of spending an entire day lazing away, being fanned with palm fronds while sipping champagne. that is, until we had to hop out and jet to our dinner reservation.]

it's summer!

it's different for everyone, that specific something that signals the beginning of summer. for me, it's the posters and banners for the stern grove festival

it will be the 72nd year of free summer concerts in stern grove. since stern grove is within walking distance for me, every year i say i'll go check out a concert. and every summer passes by so quickly with packed weekends. so i still have yet to go. we'll see if it changes this year.

this year's poster features illustrations by spanish clay illustrator irma gruenholz. you'll have to hit the streets to see it larger.

the style kinda reminds me of a clay version of jessica hirsch's work. check out her site. super fun stuff.

how was your weekend?

i've never really been one for small talk. that, coupled with having pretty terrible memory (both long-term and short-term), i always find myself stumped on monday mornings when faced with the seemingly simple question, "how was your weekend?"

i typically answer with something like, "good!" and leave it at that. or when i'm feeling extra talkative, "pretty relaxing. only had a couple hours of work." neither response really encourages conversation, as you can imagine. instead, there's an awkward silence while my colleague waits for his coffee to finish brewing and i wait for the copier to cooperate.

so anyway, i've decided to come into the office prepared each monday morning with something interesting to share when i inevitably get asked "the question." (and trust me, i really do need to prepare, due to my aforementioned terrible memory.)

so this past weekend ... really nice. the war memorial was doing a simulcast of the opera tosca at at&t park, so i went to that. they were doing a live feed of the whole opera up on the huge hd screen. it was almost like we were there, except we were huddled up in our blankets, sitting on the grass way out on right field, eating hot dogs ... even my friend who was home for the weekend from des moines came out for it ... they just started doing it recently and not super often. you should check it out. i think the only other one this year is in september.

this was similar to our view, except we were on right field, not left. (source)

filled stadium ... more or less where we staked our area (source)

[it was superfun. we were there from 6 until around 11. and it would have been a perfect night with great weather, free entertainment and good friends, if it weren't for the jerk who kicked me in the arm. he was trying to show off his acrobatic deficiencies or something, and succeeded and essentially hammered his heel into my arm. and the jerk didn't even apologize, at least not until we prompted him to. and he was in his late-20s, early-30s, by the way. so he obviously should have known better. seriously, who acts like that??]

a weekend in chicago

suitcase art installation in the james hotel lobby

spring arrangement from a new leaf

fish fresh out of the smoker at calumet fisheries

frank lloyd wright's robie house

cloud gate in millennium park

one of the 68 thorne miniature rooms at the art institute of chicago ... crazy!!

our seats at the violet hour (picture)

business card holder by delphine press, found at paper doll

lemongrass shooter at alinea (picture)

cards and goodies stuffed in card catalogs at greer chicago (picture)

curious construction banner in millennium park

champagne chairs tucked away among the 3 floors of a new leaf

portion of the el rail

a fun owl door along n wells st in old town chicago by edgar miller

pasolivo: part 2

and i totally did just buy some pasolivo olive oil this weekend. just the classic one. bottled in dec 2007.

feltron annual report

i kinda glanced at this a couple weeks ago on twig & thistle, but didn't really take a closer look until this weekend when we were talking about visual representations of qualitative/quantitative attributes (will make much more sense in a later post). anyway, immediately upon that conversation starter, we dove into the obsessive mind of nicholas feltron, or at least his websites.

feltron is a ny-based graphic designer who does all sorts of fun stuff like editorial layouts and logos and website design. he also started a side project in private beta called daytum that tracks any type of data imaginable, from something as simple as miles traveled over time (actual or in virtual games) to something as unique as, perhaps, how often a person sneezes including at how many decibels and whether it was covered by a tissue, a shirt sleeve or a bare hand. don't steal that idea! ok, you can.

anyway, one of two main attractions is his 4th volume of the feltron annual report, which is powered by the other main attraction, daytum. so clever of him.

it would be so neat to be able to make my own annual report, but it would probably take way too much of my time to track all the random stuff i can imagine including. it might make more sense and might be more meaningful to track a year, or a month, or whatever, for an actual reason ...

like tracking a baby's first year, which would be so neat for the kid to look at when they get older ... or for a couple's first year of marriage, which would be fun to look back on at each anniversary ... or a report to share with parents of a student's semester spent abroad ... or tracking progress of an intense weight-loss regimen ... or as a hygiene diary ("itchy today, not itchy today") ... or, well, that's enough examples for now

seriously, i track so much stuff in my life already, i can't believe i didn't think to develop daytum myself. although i guess i just never imagined that other people might be as obsessive.

pasolivo

it's not too often that i respond so intensely to product packaging. but while browsing through the aisles at rainbow grocery over the weekend, i came across pasolivo olive oil. i had never heard of it, but was really drawn to the packaging. its simplicity, the font, the kraft paper, the glass.

and apparently, in 2005 and 2006, they won awards for their label and brand design, which was put together in 2001 by 300feetout. nice job! i guess i'm not the only one who likes their packaging. they even sell posters of their labels!

these bottles are a bit on the pricey side, but if i keep obsessing, i may just break down and have to buy one. then the challenge will be to decide whether to get the classic, the california blend, lemon, orange or tangerine.

japan: paper goods

i should really put each of these following items in separate posts, but it's just so much quicker to dump everything all at once. so here goes. too bad i'm lacking motivation in make separate posts, because i really was trying to save the best for last. and japan's paper items were definitely my favorite. oh well.

papierium in ginza is two floors of paper mania. the ground floor is very much like paper source, down to the color collection and shape selection for cards and envelopes. the second floor is geared towards scrapbookers with shape punches, fun scissors, scrapbooking papers, stamps and more. reminded me a lot of scrapbook territory out in berkeley.

the only thing i picked up there was some brown flower tape by space-joy or o-check design graphics. very difficult to tell which, since the websites aren't very straightforward. i'm going with a joint effort.

another fun set of tape i came across was mt masking tape. it's basically masking tape made from washi-type paper that comes in 20 or so different colors, plus several seasonsal patterns. and you can also order custom logo tape. they're sold in single rolls, two-packs, and ten-packs and fun coordinating variety five-packs. i was about to buy the pastel ten-pack but thought more practically and ultimately went with the gold and silver combo two-pack.

and i know i'm not the only one enamored with this masking tape. because there are entire books (multiple) and blogs dedicated to the many uses of mt masking tape. and i've also come across a few japanese magazine articles featuring the tape.

the main stores that carried mt masking tape were loft, ito-ya and papierium. other fun stuff we found at ito-ya were animal d-clips by midori japan. those japanese folks are so innovative though, that the site no longer features the cow-shaped paper clips we picked up. found some pics online though.

source: bundoki

these shops also had tons of calendars. ito-ya even dedicated their 9th floor to all calendars. here's a quick look at the calendar section of shibuya loft's basement.

my favorite paper store though was winged wheel in the omotesando area. there's a huge column right by the front door where they display a portion of their cards.

and the perimeter of the store is made up of shelves holding various papers and cards, but mainly their "plainer" stuff.

and then there are two long display cases in the center of the shop where you can see their designs through the glass.

the extra special surprise is that below each display case is another three or so drawers that you can thumb through. they featured their entire lines of designs as well as example books for inspiration. so basically i studied all 48 drawers in addition to the shelves on the wall.

i left with a few choice cards and envelopes, the distribution of which will require careful decision.

postcards, with the pretty bag they came in in the middle.

little business card sized cards and envelopes

the cutest shop card ever. folded like an envelope, revealing the shop info inside.

and finally, i thought their bookstores were fun too. they print a good portion of their books in small handheld-sized versions so it's easier to read on train commutes. they also color code the books, although i'm not sure what the color system is. or if there even really is one.

but unfortunately, when you buy a book, they wrap it neatly with a bookcover. so much for the cute colors! and i noticed shops sold lots of bookcovers, so many folks just like to keep their reading materials private.