1970 Space Colony Artwork

I love the art of mid century design and in 1970 NASA Ames conducted summer studies where colonies housing about 10,000 people were designed and beautiful renderings made depicting life in outer space and orbital space settlements.

Curated by Al Globus, the collection of renderings are really fantastic. You should check out Mr. Globus' site he has a lot of writings on the subject.

"For me the single overarching goal of human space flight is the human settlement of the solar system, and eventually beyond. I can think of no lesser purpose sufficient to justify the difficulty of the enterprise, and no greater purpose is possible." 

 Mike Griffin, former NASA Administrator, in 2004 testimony before Congress

Pretty cool.

Love this!

Hand Painted Signs by Dusty

Love that there are people still doing this traditional form of Signage. Dan is a 3rd generation sign painter. Sweet.

 

Stumptown 40

Oh I'm so excited to be building a derby car for the Stumptown 40 here in Portland. I attended last year and there were some pretty cool cars..some funny ones and one disturbing one. But the event was a blast and this year Creativegirl is building a car, plus our WeMake will be doing one. If your interested in being on the WeMake team let me know soon!

It starts with a block of wood, four wheels and four axles, and ends Wednesday, May 16th in a 50-car, gravity- and alcohol-fueled double-elimination race.The Stumptown 40 is a lot like a Pinewood Derby, but instead of boys creating cars from blocks of wood, it's Portland's creative types. And instead of a church gymnasium, the Stumptown 40 will be held at Spirit of 77 (where a full bar is available). Car kits are $25 (price includes event admission). Register here. 

Some cars from last year..you can see more here too!

Make Kony Famous 2012

Kony 2012 is a call for help, a social campaign and a worldwide movement to expose Joseph Kony and the horrible crimes he does against the children of Africa. He's been doing them for 20 years and Invisible Children are out to change that with our help.

If you haven't heard of this, please watch the video. Sharing it helps, taking action can help bring justice and change lives. It's a pretty awesome awareness campaign brought to us through social channels like this but also FB, Twitter, You Tube and more. Young people can make a difference.

Dropmark

A friend of mine just introduced me to Dropmark, a virtual sharing and storage system in the cloud. I love the idea of eliminating emails and having presentations via the web. I know I'll be using this for moodboards and sharing progress of projects with folks I do business with.

Check it out.

1. Drag photos, videos, documents, websites, text snippets, and more directly from your desktop or browser.
2. Drop them into your Dropmark collection. They’re automatically uploaded to the cloud.
3. Share your collections with anyone, add collaborators, or keep them private and just for yourself. 

Introducing Dropmark from Dropmark on Vimeo.

WeMake + sketchXchange

I wanted to share with you a little project I've been working on called WeMake and our first event series entitled, sketchXchange.

What is WeMake?
Born from the idea of creating a platform that fosters art and design within our community through hands-on experiences, workshops and design in action.

If you attend a WeMake event or series you’ve opened your self up to exploring…to being an adventurer and charting new territories. Or you’ve been here before and your honing and sharing what you already know. WeMake is an opportunity to let go and dive in with folks just like you.

WeMake it’s about making, making connections, making change, making a difference and make believing.

I've got a great team helping to make it all happen and we are really excited to collaborate and bring a new avenue for creativity to Portland.

The WeMake Team
Myself- Big ideas and make believer
Lizy Gershenzon- Workshops and pixel pusher
Scott Baker- Go to, designer, maker, illustrator
Darren Cools- Go to, designer, maker, illustrator


Come make it happen with us!

And now about sketchXchange!

sketchXchange is a chance to peep into the sketchbooks of some of our favorite local illustrators. Hear what inspires their work and learn about the process they use to create. You’ll bring your own sketchbook and mingle with other participants, have a beverage, and draw in a few sketchbooks. There are no rules, no themes (unless you have one for your book) just pens, pencils, sketchbooks, and friends. This isn’t a slide show event, guest illustrators will be sharing their actual sketchbooks and you’ll have an opportunity to purchase some of their work.

WeMake’s first sketchXchange was with the dynamic duo Jolby
Josh Kenyon and Colby Nichols of Jolby were incredible speakers and so awesome! About 30 people gathered last Friday night to be inspired, sketch in a few books and mingle with other illustrators and designers from the community.

One of the highlights for me was their discussion on creating their first children’s book, “ The King’s 6th Finger”. The book was launched during a Kickstarter campaign and has since been published in hard back. It is a lovely collection of illustration and whimsy. During sketchXchange, the original sketches covered an entire wall, and participants had an opportunity to see the process unfolding in the various sketchbooks throughout the room.

About Jolby
Jolby is the collaboration of Josh Kenyon & Colby Nichols. They try to achieve two goals within the work they create: “Tell a memorable story” and “make people smile.” Check out some of their awesome projects!

You can read more about the night on our WeMake blog.

Photo’s courtesy of Jeff Freeman Photography

Amazing Paper Wonders

If you don't know who French artists Zim & Zou are, you should hurry over to their site and check them out. They do some amazing paper craft work and their latest endeavor for the Somerset House PICK ME UP – A Contemporary Graphic Art Fair, is just awesome! The Cabinet de Curiosités is a combination of meticulously crafted jeweled birds, insects and sea animals...and there's lot's of glitter too! So Fabulous!!!

Pictures by Arthur Janin

Henri's Walk to Paris

Saul Bass' rare children's book is back in print and it's so wonderful! Bass was one of the legends in graphic design and was best known for his work in film posters and motion picture tittle sequences. One of his famous titles sequences' was the animated paper cut-out for The Man with The Golden Arm. But he also designed some well known iconic corporate logo's, including ATT, Jetstream for Continental Airlines and United Airline's Tulip logo.

The children's book, Henri's Walk to Paris was created in 1962 with Leonora Klein. It is so delightful and full of bold colors and simple illustrations. Kept as a collectors collection and out of print for 50 years, this month it is being reprinted and is now available. You may not be a child, but if your like me you will still enjoy owning it! I can't wait for mine to get here!

“Henri’s Walk to Paris is the story of a young boy who lives in Reboul, France, who dreams of going to Paris. One day, after reading a book about Paris, he decides to pack a lunch and head for the city. Along the way, Henri gets tired and falls asleep under a tree. And this is when the story gets really charming. What Henri sees, we see, in a flowing panorama of pictures conceived by the eminent graphic designer Saul Bass.”  

Via Amazon