more book news: there’s another great book out on the shelves, called making mini books, and my *hi* brag books are in it!

and not only are my brag books in it, but there are instructions for how to create your own.

i’m still too scared to read the instructions myself, afraid that i missed a step or wasn’t clear. (silly, i know…)

there’s even a template and i reveal how i make my perfect holes with a japanese drill punch. i was a little worried about telling the world how to make one of my signature pieces, but in the end, i realized that i’d rather inspire someone to create than be worried about copycats.

and in the index, a big bio. i had forgotten about my goofy bio! writing bios is so hard: i don’t want to sound stiff and boring, and yet i want to sound interesting and inspiring without sounding pompous and full of myself. this bio is a little playful, maybe too much so. but it was fun to write. and i’m under kaija‘s bio! i’ve been a huge fan of kaija’s work for years. what an honor to be included with her and so many other great book artists.

aside from my little project, making mini books really is a fun book. there are many different binding types covered: accordion, coptic, stab bound, case bound, match book, and more… there are detailed instructions, diagrams, and templates for over 30 projects. it’s a great add to any maker’s bookshelf. and i’ll use it myself: i sense a mini book themed pARTy in the future.

on tuesday morning, i went to the university of minnesota campus to give a book binding demonstration. i’ve been doing it each spring and fall since november of 2010 for a friend: she teaches a portfolio class for senior architecture students, and they need to figure out a way to present their work for employers or graduate school admissions. the hope is that i come in and show them a couple of ways to create a portfolio by hand.

i’ve gotten pretty good at demonstrating how to cover boards to make a simple folder in which the portfolio would be pamphlet-stitched in… and i do a great japanese stab-binding demonstration. i do feel a little bad, though, because i’ve been playing with my materials and techniques for years and i’m sure i make it look so easy and once they (they’re so young!) sit down to duplicate what i’ve shown them, the frustration and struggle is immense. i wish i could guide them along while they’re making, but i can’t. i can only hope that i’ve engaged/excited them, and presented the techniques and details well enough to get the ideas flowing and their attention to detail and skills will kick in. and i know i made really lame jokes (heh, i went to design school so i wouldn’t have to take math classes, heh, who knew book binding would be so fraction detailed? heh.). do i seem like an old lady to them? am i trying too hard to look hip in an adult way that isn’t weirdly trying to look younger than my age? should i tell them that book binding doesn’t pay my bills and that i’m really an IT nerd by day?

but despite my insecurities about my presentation, i get asked to come back each semester. and i hear from my friend that the students do make some great portfolios. most of the students do seem to listen and take notes while i’m there. and the best part is when they thank me at the end. i think i even got applause once.

a painting from 2002.

i recently moved stuff around on the walls in my office upstairs and now it doesn’t have a spot. so i’ll share it with you while it’s in wall limbo.

a few weeks ago i was contacted by a stationery rep who saw my work in i heart stationery, and she asked if i would be interested in having her represent my work in the east bay, north bay, and san francisco bay areas of california. yes! yes! yes! we played phone tag and finally connected last week. this morning i sent her 1 of each punched card and a wholesale price list, and she’s going to take my work to her clients. if they love it, they place a wholesale order with me, and i pay her a commission. i may never get an order. i may get lots of orders. regardless of the outcome, it’s nice to have someone that believes in my punched card line doing some of the foot work for me!

my vendor application was accepted for craftstravaganza! it’s one of the bigger craft sales in the twin cities, and definitely the biggest one i’ve participated in. i’m used to small fairs/sales, usually under 30 vendors, but on saturday, may 12, i’ll be one of over 140 vendors. and i need my work to stand out and sell! and it’s 8 short weeks away!

i’ve played around with displaying my work since my first sale in 2010. i first started with rigid piles that were geometric and neat, but then i was told that people were afraid of messing up the order and weren’t picking any of my work up. so then i tried putting my work into bowls and platters, which i think worked better, but still makes for sensory overload. i really need a better way to display my work (and to maybe pare down the options?), so i started sketching ideas over the weekend:

i really need a tall display to grab people’s attention. i’m thinking about a small sandwich board that could display my cards on the table? i also need depth on the table… maybe a little shelf to stand books on might catch people’s eyes? and there will be a white wall behind me… colorful bunting (or is bunting getting old/over-done?) and/or a big orange fish might help bring people to me…

i did buy some boards/panels after drawing my sketches. unfortunately the options weren’t available in the same type of wood, so now i’m debating if i’m going to want mixed woods or if i should spray paint? maybe gold would be fun, especially with my orange table cloth.

i’ll share what i come up with!

so there’s a really great new book out, called i heart stationery…

and i’m in it! there’s a whole page devoted to my punched work!

AND! i’m in the introduction, too, with my chartreuse hi brag book and a quote! i almost fell over when i saw my name in print there, too!

it was last january when charlotte (of lottie loves) contacted me and asked if she could include my work in her newest book. i said YES and i kept it under wraps. i may have mentioned it to one or two people, but i kept quiet as i really needed to hold the book in my hands before i made any announcements. i heart stationery was released in the UK last month, and i checked amazon daily for the US version to become available. last week it appeared and i ordered 2 copies: one for me, and one to give away!

this book is FULL of amazing work from artists around the world. and you can win my extra copy by leaving a comment below (tell me what you’re most looking forward to in the month of  march!). the giveaway will be open through the weekend, and a winner will be picked using the random number generator when i get up on monday (3/5) morning around 6:30am. 1 comment per person, please.

if you are not the lucky winner, than ask for i heart stationery for your birthday. and if you don’t get it then, ask for it for christmas. and if you’ve got a friend that hearts stationery, now you’ve got a great gift idea! you can order it on amazon!

update: the giveaway is now closed. the randomly chosen number is 25. congratulations, kristin!

i can’t help it, they’re so fun to design and make! they’re in my etsy shop.

since i have most of my production work for the weekend arranged into piles on my dining room table, i figured i do a repeat of last friday and give you a visual of my weekend to-do. this work needs to be done by monday, so it can be sent off to spain. here’s what i need to do:

• fold and package polaroid cards
• punch and sew 4 orange burst journals (the last 4!)
• finish cutting covers for triangle jotters, then punch and sew 10 of each of the 3 color studies
• cut steel book cloth, then glue and punch covers for burst photo albums, and assemble

happy weekend!

new in my etsy shop: pixel cards! a set of 3 blank cards, using the same color palettes as the triangle jotters, but a different shape. the set contains one of each color study.

(i’m still not happy with the quality of the images, even after 3 photo sessions. go away, grey days! we need sun!)

here’s my weekend to-do list:

1. pick paper colors for a new project i’ve been wanting to do for months
2. make a batch of cherry & almond granola
3. figure out what to  make with the paper beads pARTy newbie sarah gave me
4. work on finishing 2 books i am currently reading (why am i reading 2 books at the same time?!)
5. do some block printing with gold ink
6. count and fold paper for triangle jotters for my first big wholesale order (!)
7. design and create new greeting cards using my jotter colors but with squares instead of triangles

happy weekend!

i think the end is near for my punched coptic-bound journals.

right after the holidays, the very first shop i left my goods with asked me to come and pick up what wasn’t selling. i returned from my trip with a variety of journals, about 12 total. i was a little sad to see that so many didn’t sell, but i do know that my work isn’t an impulse buy, so i don’t take it personally. i love making them. if others love them, too, that’s so  awesome. and if they don’t? i still have my day job.

around the same time i picked up the unsold inventory, i finished a batch i had started months ago. all told, i have 38 journals in stock (most are in my esty shop), and i have enough paper to create 4 more. once those last 4 are produced, i think that’s the end. i love the designs: burst (which debuted in october 2008), bike, and hello. and i love the colors i’ve worked with. they’ve had a great run! but all good things come to an end… it’s time to make room for new goods.

on an uplifting note: yesterday i had my 500th sale in my shop! thank you so much to all of you, for your support and cheering and buying of my goods. i greatly appreciate it!

warning! this is a long post about the history of painted fish studio’s identity…

i really don’t know where my fish “thing” came from, but it made itself known in my late teens. when i was a sophomore in college, i started making handmade greeting cards and was selling them in a few stores, thanks to a friend’s mom that liked them and had a few retail spots. i decided to call myself “painted fish art & design” after a friend told me she wanted to open a b&b and call it painted pillows or painted eggs… i can’t remember which, but i liked that use of the word “painted” as adjective, especially paired with fish. i added “art & design” to the name, thinking that i could use it not only for my greeting card biz, but maybe also use it once i finished with my graphic design degree as an umbrella for design work, too. i think i still have the different fish sketches i made for the logo somewhere, but here is what i ended up using:

i decided to hand write the name, since the chosen fish was very sketchy. i was also very new to design, and believe it or not, i was just learning how to use a computer and graphic design programs (this was 1994, people!) and i hadn’t taken a typography course yet. so hand written it was, and i had a stamp made that i used to leave my mark on the back of my greeting cards.

when i was a junior in college i took a required business course, and i used my little greeting card business as my main project, and it became a legit business. i registered the name and everything.

but then a little thing called the internet appeared, and in my last year of design school i learned how to program HTML and i took a job at a dot-com as a web designer. also around that time: i met a nice boy, i bought my house, i subscribed to martha stewart living, and i stopped creating for a few years.

then the boy and i broke up, i lost my job when the dot-com bubble burst, and i became a self-employed web/information designer. gradually i began creating again, and in the summer of 2003 i made a ton of books and i revived painted fish, but this time i dropped the “art & design” and went with “studio”. i created a new logo, using emigre’s font dalliance, and i designed a website. here’s what my site looked like in 2004:

not much came out of all that work, though. my books were boxed up (i was too shy to walk into stores and peddle my wares), and they sat for a few more years while i worked on my career. i took classes occasionally (painting, collage, bookmaking, pottery…) and i hosted pARTies, but that was the extent of my creative life.

then in the summer of 2007 my grandfather passed away, and i needed to focus on something besides that event and the eventual end of my relationship with the boy (we were on round 2). a friend suggested i put my work on etsy, and after a few weeks of yes i should/i don’t have time/are you crazy?/yes i should, i decided to open the shop and i started this blog. the font dalliance was still my choice for the logo, only this time the layout was simple and a lighter grey:

when i realized i needed an avatar to represent painted fish studio elsewhere on the internet, i struggled a bit to figure out what it would be, because typography alone would be unreadable/unrecognizable as a small avatar. then i remembered a page from an altered book i work on occasionally. i had cut out an orange fish from decorative paper and pasted it onto a page:

i took a photo of it, scaled it down, brightened it up a little, and that’s the fish you’re all very familiar with if you visit my etsy, facebook, and/or twitter pages:

now it’s time for something new! i’m a little tired of the painted fish studio name, and sometimes think it’s silly and stupid. but there’s good brand recognition with it, and to abandon it at this stage would likely set me back. and i don’t have a better name in mind, and i don’t feel comfortable just using my name. so painted fish studio is sticking around. i also want a new avatar, something that is truly my design, and less collage-y.

. . . . . . .
when i sat down in june 2010 and carved a couple fish stamps in erasers, i had no idea that one of the fish would end up being a favorite, and eventually become my symbol. (graphic design lesson: the image in a logo is called a symbol or icon. when you add typography to the symbol, then you have a logo. if you have only typography, like i did when i used the font dalliance, then technically what you have is called a logotype or wordmark.)

i started using the fish stamp with orange ink on my packaging, and it grew on me. then heather’s dad created a big wood version for me, and it sank in: this fish is it.

at the end of last year, i started doing design mockups with the fish front and center, and i revisited another old font favorite: meta. meta brings back fond memories of my first design job in the late ’90′s, when i was bright-eyed and ready for the world.

and that brings us to the new design:

i’m really happy with it. the look is a little more modern and clean, which reflects my aesthetic in my work. and i love having an orange fish! i’ve had new stamps made, i think i’ve updated all my online presences, and i’ll be phasing in new printed materials (invoices, moo cards, etc.) as the old ones run out.

and that’s the evolution of the identity of painted fish studio. if you made it to the end, bravo! happy weekend!

i’ve created a new logo for painted fish studio! you may recognize the fish design, and you’ll see more of the orange little guy when you visit me at other social media spots.

i’m heading to las vegas today for a 4-day weekend, but i do have a nice long post in the queue for tomorrow! i’ve written about the evolution of painted fish studio’s identity, and why i made the change. i hope you take a peek tomorrow. and please let me know what you think of the new logo!

ps: i’ll be posting about sin city on facebook and twitter while i’m in there. follow along, and be the first to see photos from my saturday trip to the neon boneyard!

i’m very happy with the design of my triangle jotters inspired by my college color studies, and if they prove popular in my etsy shop, then i’ll work on better/more efficient production methods. for now, i’m printing the covers on my color printer and hand-cutting the paper. i guess it’s a little experiment, really, to see if i should proceed… or move on. and the interwebs has the best test subjects!

playing around with colors and shapes…

every year i send out handmade holiday cards. this year i’m sending out cards i’ve made, but they are painted fish studio cards that i made to sell last year. i started thinking about holiday card design ideas in early november, but nothing stuck. and then life got crazy and i realized it would probably be better for me to use what i already have in stock. they’re still handmade, and designed by me! they just might not be new to every recipient. and i’m ok with that. (see previous year’s cards: 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007)

does it feel like november to you? i’m still stuck in october. but thanksgiving is next week so i really need to get my brain to realize that the holidays will be upon us soon! i’ve been adding holiday-themed goods to my etsy shop for the last 2 weeks. i had inventory from last year, so you may see some familiar pieces. but i’m not tired of the snowflakes yet! they’re all right here!

… at the nokomis urban craft fair this saturday, november 12, from 9 to 2…

and if you can’t make it saturday, you can find me virtually on lottie loves! charlotte featured me in her creative loves yesterday. savor the rare photo of me, and see my workspace!

when i was in new york last month, cindy and i were in the flatiron district and we decided to go to paper presentation. i had stumbled upon this awesome paper store a few years ago while trying to find something else, and what a valuable find! i buy all my envelopes from them online — their selection and bulk pricing is perfect for the cards i create.

sooooo, as i mentioned, cindy and i were in paper presentation, and i’m like a kid in a candy store and i want it ALL. but i also know that i have limited room in my suitcase, and i try not to buy paper goods unless i have a specific project in mind… but the little grey envelopes practically jumped off the shelf begging to go home with me. and then the orange envelope liners joined in! i decided at that point a new line of cards would need to be designed, but i still wasn’t sure what exactly i was going to do. i picked up a couple packets of little blue rectangles with adhesive on the back, paid for my purchase, and practically ran out of the store to keep myself from rationalizing further purchases…

once home, the ideas churned: a new word? a design? date/holiday themed? i finally settled on a simple “thanks”. i used helvetica neue as the font base, and there’s a blue block in the inside center of the card that allows “thanks” to pop. $8 for a pack of 3, in my etsy shop.

i opened a shop on cargoh exactly one year ago today. after the holidays, i contracted a case of the blahs and i took a little time off of self promotion. and then i forgot about my little cargoh shop until a few weeks ago. such a shame, as the site is curated and the cargoh team is so dedicated & wonderful about promoting its artists (i’ve exchanged emails and tweets with them during hours when i should have probably already been in bed and they’re up! manning the machines!). and while that other online marketplace (which i will not name right now out of respect) has been good to me, i am one of a bazillion random sellers. at cargoh, i am one of a many that they have approved. plus, look at this team! i want them to succeed!

and seriously, how damn awesome do my goods look in the shop?!

happy weekend!