(via grain edit)

This killer example of mid century graphic design (along with many others) was found and documented by London Underground workers in an long abandoned part of the Notting Hill Tube station in London.

I love that the patina of age and neglect has only added to this poster.

There’s more amazing treasures from the past to be found in the set on flickr.

(via thoughtful day)

You already know that I love carnival and and circus imagery, and that I think it’s even more lovely when it’s used for a wedding. Well aren’t these invitations just the prettiest you’ve ever seen?

Ultimately, I’m happy with what we had, because they were so “us,”  and these are a little, well, neon and girly for us. But I’m still a bit jealous.

typography of indecisivness

(via Friends of Type)

Always lots of good font-spiration over at Friends of Type. 

sweet pink stamps

(via fieldguided)

These are the loveliest stamps I have ever seen. Of course they’re from Sweden, where else?

It’s been awhile since this blog has gotten a good scrubbing and spring cleaning. I’ve updated a few things here and there, but there’s still a lot hanging around gathering cobwebs.

So, it was more than time for a redesign.

This design is based on a couple of things:

Firstly: Mathew Buchanan’s genius Esquire tumblr theme. I was exploring tumblr (more on that in a minute) and came across his designs, and was more than impressed. He’s managed to explode my notions of what a blog (or tumblr) can look like. His designs are very magazine like, and driven more by classic modern graphic design than web-design – hence the drop caps (although they’re not quite working perfectly yet), and the floating elements.

Secondly: Paris (I’ve been there, you know!) by way of French Children’s books. I was thinking specifically of the colour schemes of something like Babar. Soft, friendly, sophisticated primary colours in particular: coral red, emerald green (sometimes called French green!), and French racing blue.

But more than just a pretty new design, I realized my blogging has been sorely lacking. I know, and I’m sorry. Twitter updates do not constitute a blog.

So I’ve done two things: I’ve moved twitter updates to be once weekly instead of daily (and even that, I might get rid of) so they don’t get in the way as much and I’ve signed up for a tumblr. You can find it under my name (bethmaher) if you have one too, but it’s not necessary as I will be syndicating my efforts here in an attempt to rev up my blogging.

I will always love WordPress because it makes blogging so infinitely customizable, but I will concede that tumblr is way, way easier. So combining the two is ideal: I can post big long rambling posts like this one from the admin of WP every once in a while, and the rest of the time I can be sending little brilliant little tidbits of found images, video and links from my tumblr.

As always with a redesign, I will be tweaking things for the next little while, and if you find anything that’s not working, please do give me a shout in the comments!

Lookit’ everybody!

It’s our Save the Dates!

The turned out really, really well. Everybody who’s seen them has gone a little ga-ga. I’m a little ga-ga.

How did they come about?

Well, we needed save the dates. They’re not a necessary thing, you can totally just send out invites once and be done with it, but since we have so many guests coming from very far away (Australia and Korea far!) we thought they’d be a nice gesture so people have time to make plans.

Then I realized that half my friends are Graphic Designers and artists. This thing had to look awesome. No pressure or anything.

Well, blame it on me reading too many wedding websites, but I was drooling just a little too much over all the crazy-gorgeous engagement photos I’ve been seeing. I also find them just a little ridiculous. Spending all that money on a bunch of professional photo shoots, a year before you even get to the wedding? Seems a little much to me. But at the same time, a nice photo on a postcard seemed liked the easiest route for a save the date.

So we put together our own professional photo shoot instead. We found cute little vintagey outfits (mostly from our own closets), found an atmospheric – but free – location ( which was admittedly a little tricky in the middle of dreary March – but the loading dock at Liam’s former work worked out surprisingly well), posed cutely and got our sister to press the button on a borrowed DSLR camera.

There’s nothing pro about what we did, except for the polished, editorial-quality results. I think they even get across the vibe we’re going for perfectly – vintage, thirties-era whimsy. Which just proves that there’s no need for a fancy-shmancy photo shoot. All you need is a camera, a location and two people in love (although cute outfits help too!).

Oh, and there’s out-takes. Lot’s of them. Good ones. Expect to see them sometime soon, as well.

Weddings seem to be all about lace and pearls and all manner of frippery, and for those of us who weren’t all that into the girly stuff to begin with, it can start to feel pretty suffocating:

Frankly, drowned in a sea of pink roses and satin ruffles is not exactly the way I want to go out.

What about the kind of girl who prefers typography over calligraphy, functional over fussy, prosecco over champagne, thank you very much? For the unfussy, design minded bride, it can seem like there aren’t a lot of options.

It takes a little time and effort (although if you’ve ever spent a day kerning letters that’s not really a problem for you) but options, they can be found. So thank your lucky stars for Etsy, and the fact that, going for the unexpected and original is massively, makes you spit your celebratory prosecco out, affordable.

1. Custom Cake Toppers by Goosegrease

   These little wooden dolls are adorable cake toppers – personal, but modern, in a clean-lined Scandinavian sort of way.

   Even though wedding toppers are perhaps, a little old-fashioned, and a bit of a silly indulgence, I really love them because I think personal ones are an awesome keepsake to remember your day. A little statue of you and your boy in your finest sitting on the mantle is a much more unique than the ubiquitous, over-sized, wedding portrait.

2. Ruffle Dress by Lisa Rietz

   This dress is just plain gorgeous and that’s the bottom line. A wedding custom dress, in your size, for that price? Even more amazing.

   It’s white and it’s satin, and it’s got ruffles – so no ones’ going to think you’re a guest at your own wedding – but it does all of those things in a way which is fresh, clean, modern and just a little unconventional. It’s a dress that does everything the best graphic design should do – it expresses itself in a precise but intriguing way.

3. Unpearl Necklace by Smashing

   If you’re a designer, you probably find it a lot of fun to play around with, and subvert cliches, and the pearl necklace at the wedding certainly is one.

   This handmade piece brings a certain, unexpected, industrial, edge to the old-standby, and I love it.

4. Felt Fascinator by Chirichi

   A girl’s gotta have something silly and pretty on her wedding day, and what better way to fulfill that need than with this little concoction?

   The use of graphic black and white felt keeps it from straying into fussy and froofy territory.

5. Flipped Black Diamond Ring by Kate Szabone

   This is by the gal who did my engagement ring (and wedding band), and can I say?

   Genius.

   If I were a little more gutsy, I totally would have gone for something like this. It’s completely the opposite of what’s expected (a black diamond? Up-side down? Whaaaaat?) but gorgeous. Your friends will work themselves into a tizzy when the see it (PS: Black diamonds are dirt cheap, so you can rock something the size of a babies fist for the same price as somebody else’s boringly tasteful ring).

P.S. I avoided the whole invitations quagmire, because I’m thinking this bride has already got that down. This bride’s already got a signature typeface and monogram picked out, and knows her cardstock will be a pale blue Strathmore watercolour paper, and could also tell you the paper weight and envelope size, if asked. She does not need help with graphic design projects.

… She = Me, obviously.

I just added him as a flickr friend. He’s so web 2.0!

I would also like an Obama 08 t-shirt at some point, because I think his campaign logo (you know, the O with the swoop?) is some of the sexiest logo design I have ever seen. I like this version, in particular (but for the record, I also like this one, which has nothing to do with politics, it’s just super cute).

Gah. I wish I was American so I could vote in their exciting, history making election instead of our boring, boring, boring and depressing one.

Stephen and Stephane’s respective charisma combined couldn’t match the charisma found in Obama’s left pinkie.

Well, it’s the first long hot weekend of a long hot summer, so we are going to take advantage of it.

Our weekend is going to be positively packed with farmers markets, and golfing, and shopping, and eating, and probably a little bit of gardening (although, other than a little watering, things are looking pretty self-sustaining at the moment).

To celebrate, you should watch this clip of a pretty good old movie (with a script by Billy Wilder, and opening credits by Saul Bass – how can you go wrong?) about the beginning of another long hot summer in the city (just ignore the slightly racially offensive bit in the middle – kinda hard to find an old movie that doesn’t have a couple moments like those, unfortunately).

And then Marilyn Monroe shows up. You should really hunt this down and watch the rest of it though. It’s one of those classics that’s a classic for a reason.

Guess what?!?!?!?!

I just had a MAJOR celebrity sighting.

Not major as in: they are my idol, I love them and I care though.

Major as in: Perez is the new fugly.

Major as in…

Wait for it…

Mr. Ex Hilary Duff…

Nicole Richie’s rumored baby daddy…

Mr. Joel Madden himself!!!

I think he was with the rest of his band too, but I don’t recognize them because I don’t see their faces plastered all over the checkout aisle when getting groceries.

I did not break out my camera phone, because I am a nice Canadian girl and we don’t do things like that.

In other news that I actually care about: that charity I might be building a website for might want me to do a whole full blown branding as well! I can not tell you how exciting that is to a fledgling designer. Can not even express it. Can’t. I’m getting started RIGHT NOW.

I’ve finally finished with the one project I’ve been steadily working on the past few months (a wedding invitation for friends – much more complicated and time intensive than you’d think – certainly than I thought) and I may have another project in the works (building a website for a local charity).

But I also finally have a workable idea for a project for ME to work on. I think I’m gonna keep that one under wraps for a while. But I will say that I’ve realised that I need to work on something I can split into very small little managable chunks (that will eventually build into somthing large and impressive). So it’s not gonna be some huge graphic novel, I’ll tell you that much.

I haven’t slept in days.
So now that my classes are almost (so close) over, right now I’m looking up my professor’s websites.
(The internet is a wonderful thing.)
Check out some of my Design Process prof’s stuff here. As someone who grew up visiting a ridiculously quaint and pretty much iconic little 100 year old log cabin cluttered with mid-century-design cast-offs, ancient (museum-quality) comestibles, lost cross-country-skis and rock collections – I gotta say I really love the idea of riffing on cabin culture as an aspect of Canadian identity. So I think this is a great idea for a collaborative/concept design show.
And my very own, Prof. Erdmann’s designs are pretty much the best ones.
And his head-shot makes him look ridiculously adorable (which I don’t remember from his class).
Now I understand why he gave me such good marks. I think we have a very similar approach to designing things. He’s all about repurposing and whimsy, and being self referential, while at the same time juxtaposing contrasts. Mee Too (for example: I just did a project in my Graffiti class, where I stuck Marie Antoinette on a skateboard – figuratively and literally. It was a skateboard design, so I put her on a board, and gave her a little I *heart* sk8rs* t-shirt and pink converses, and drew her in the style of Mary Blair).
Sometimes, Liam works with my Graffiti prof’s design studio, and doesn’t even realise it, which is weird. They both do treatments for the same production company. What’s also weird is how corporate a lot of their design work is – nice clean graphic work for big companies – but he’s teaching me Graffiti. Although, I think he keeps trying to push old school methods (like not using a computer for anything and actually breaking out a pen and paper) on us ’cause in the real world he’s forced to go digital so often. Vector work is technically convenient and is pretty hot right now, but it lacks soul – and again this is where he and I get along very well.
I’ve spent the last 2 months thinking of nothing but how I can get myself out of Art School, but occasionally I am reminded of it’s advantages… Even if it is that I have more in common with my Professors than my fellow students…

Back when I actually had the time to be bored this summer, I went on a hunt for new blogs to read.
I love my new finds so much, I sharing them, because they are becoming a major source of inspiration for me (when I can find the time to actually be on my computer doing something other than schoolwork).

These blogs are pure escapism. I could never hope to live the halcyon life these girls manage to create around them. I am astounded by the depth of thought that goes into the aesthetic beauty of every little domestic moment captured in images. These blogs have become my muses, inspiring me to create art from the life I live, by seeing EVERYTHING I create (from the way I make a bed – or don’t – to how I make dinner) as creative in nature.

little birds
Domestic bliss in Portland (my dream town) in saturated colours, glimpses of nature and carefully chosen vintage prints.

a bird in the hand
The literal sister site to little birds (no really, it’s her sister). Just as much about vintage finds, but more about pastel colours and collaged art pieces, and life in San Francisco (a very nice city indeed).

oh joy
How this blogger finds all these beautiful things everyday, I’ll never know. But there’s a wealth of links here to all things design and feminine (especially cute jewellery, fashion, home decor, stationary, party planning and weddings). And it’s all sooooo delightfully girly.

everybody likes sandwiches
I love cooking, and I love food, but I’ve had a hard time finding a food blog that actually offers me something new, and captures my attention.
This one does.
The food is simple, but beautifully captured, and imaginative – and the blog is well written to boot. It’s like an elegant cookbook in blog form! I especially like the focus on fresh in season ingrediants, and things that are relatively healthy.

cork board, originally uploaded by beth maher.

In a bout of “out with the old” I re-jiggered my inspiration/cork board. It was getting a bit cluttered and dusty.
The phrase “inspiration board” sounds so silly, but in reality it does indeed function as such. When I get bored of typing and clicking away, I look up and get rather mezmorized by pretty colours, and happy memories, and eventually inspired.
If you know, or have met me, you may indeed find little bit’s and peices of things you yourself have contributed to me have found their way up there.

I took this picture at the cottage last weekend. I think it’s time to clean out the medicine cabinet. Or donate it to a museum – check out that retro packaging!

In order to keep myself busy, I offered to help out the Brock Press by whipping up a little newspaper-design style-guide.
So today I sat down to work on it. At which point I realised it’s a beast of a thing. There is a lot to keep in mind when laying out the various elements of a newspaper.
Not only is it a complex and precise art, but each part has a specific name to it, a technical name that the average person would not know or understand.
Do you know the difference between a deck, a flag and a masthead?
I certainly don’t know why everything newspaper related is nautical themed.
When I disagreed with my editors, was that mutiny? If so I should have walked the plank long ago.
Hmmm. Seems all this design rules and nonsense is driving me a little loopy.
Alas, I must soldier on.
Why do I volunteer for these things anyways?