6/20/10

Being that today we're headed over to my good friend Michelle and John's wedding, I'm posting something I did a while back - their wedding invitation design.  If you're wondering why there are weird blank spaces, it's cuz they're getting married at a residence, so yeah.  I also designed a map card, but since it's basically all about their address, it will have to remain a secret.

I also had to design a Chinese language version...not the easiest thing to do when you don't know kanji.

These were actually letterpressed on Crane Pearl Lettra, so the blue gets toned down a bit on the soft creamy paper, and you don't get such a crazy bright look. 

Anyway, congrats Mitchelle and John!  Woooooo!

05/07/10

I'm probably going to try and turn this into a wedding invitation. Just saying.

5/02/10

Eve and I are watching the old X-Files episodes thanks to a generous someone letting us borrow a certain online viewing account. We recently watched the Season 2 episode on voodoo. Here's a voodoo alligator priest ready to fuck shit up, voodoo priest style.'

PS - Hey all you people getting married! In my other, less vulgar alter-ego of Monkey, I'm releasing a little e-book (for FREE! get that shit now!) on how to save money and save time when ordering wedding invitations, aptly titled "7 Ways to Make Ordering Wedding Invitations Easier (and Cheaper)." You can download that shizz over at Monkey + Seal.

New wedding invites up!

So over at the little yeti cave, some new(ish) wedding invitation designs are finally up! Yay actual pictures to sell!

Other than that, hopefully I'll be posting some of the paintings/prints I finally got around to photographing recently. However, the cleaning of the apartment (in past days known as hosing down the pigsty) takes priority, as the Eve's parents are staying with us on Friday. Eep! Time to clean!

Art on sale, finals madness

So I finally put some paintings and prints up on our Etsy site at www.monkeyandseal.com. Huzzah! I'll be posting some more affordable art up very soon, as I just did a large 3-color edition of a jackalope and some quick monster paintings on paper that will go up as soon as they're scanned/photographed.

Anyway, I just had a 22-hour day yesterday, 15 of those either screenprinting or painting, then another 8 of those doing an illustration and a wedding invitation design. When these roughs are finalized, I'll post more.

So this swine flu thing is just stupid, btw. People die of the regular flu everyday. No biggie, and when you can report the individual cases on a daily basis, IT IS NOT A PANDEMIC!

I want to start coughing on the bus and then muttering "..hmm, that chorizo I just ate isn't sitting well..."

Anyway, time to do some painting, then I have a meeting with a wedding client. Yosh!

HEY PEOPLE, COME WIN SOME FRICKIN CASH!

So those that are artistically inclined should think about reading this (direct from the CEO of my company):



Minted is a new online store offering fresh, modern custom stationery and invitations. We believe that great design lives and thrives in the hands of independent brands and designers that consumers may not hear about or have access to through traditional retailers. For our launch, we've handpicked a selection of the best independent stationery brands, known for their artistry, exquisite printing, and superb papers.

We also want to enable talented designers everywhere to gain prominence and be compensated for great designs without having to manage a full-time stationery business or take on the challenge of printing and shipping to customers. We want to offer modern, unique customizable cards to the public. To this end, we plan to host continuous, themed design challenges named “Freshly Minted” where designers can submit designs into competition and the Minted community will select winners. Winning designs will be printed by us and sold on Minted.com.

Why participate?

· Prize winners will be awarded cash prizes and will be featured prominently throughout our site, and will earn a percentage of every sale of their design sold at Minted.

· From among those who enter, Minted will choose outstanding designers to commission further work from.

· Through our PR efforts, we build recognition for our designers in the press.

· The designer’s name and the month they became a member of the Minted community will always be printed on the back of their winning card design. Because the average card order will be around 75-100 cards that are sent out to the purchaser’s friends and family, this means that thousands of people will hear about you and your awesome talent if we end up selling your designs at Minted.

Our Current Design Challenge

Our current challenge is seeking really unique, modern, chic holiday photo cards and the deadline is Saturday, June 7^th at 11:59 Pacific Time. Submit as many designs as you like! One request – please don’t change your style just because this is a holiday card challenge and you think that the community might want something more ‘traditional’ for the holidays. Think about what you and your friends would personally like to send out as a holiday card. This time there are two $1,000 prizes, one chosen by David Turner of Turner Duckworth and the other chosen by the Minted community.

Prizes: $1000 for 1st place winners; $250 for 2nd place winner; $100 each for 3rd, 4th, and 5th place winners. All top 5 designs will be featured and sold on Minted.com, with the winning designers receiving 4% of net sales of the products sold, in addition to the cash prizes. Winners' names will be printed on the back of each of the cards they design and we sell. Finally, we are thrilled to announce that David Turner, the principal of Turner Duckworth, the renowned international brand design agency, will be choosing a design to receive a 2nd, separate $1000 award.

Please see www.minted.com/contest for details and to enter. Good luck!

Save the Date

Sooo, 2 things:
1. Save the Dates
As some of you may know, I work in the wedding invite industry, and thus I was informed of a contest on minted.com to design Save the Date photo cards. I thus entered in order to try and win $1000 and have my Save the Date designs sold on their site.


Sooo, here are my two designs. I could talk about the design process, but the basis of this post is to go to http://www.minted.com/vote and create an accout and vote for my designs. Please feel free to vote for the other designs as well, but since you're my friend, vote 5's for mine!

I do realize that mine are a lot simpler than a lot of the others, but I tried to design mine with flexibility in mind. A lot of them are cool, but would they really look good with any photo in them, or just the ones that were provided? Eh, whatevs. I don't really expect to win, but any help is helpful! Thanks much!

2.
So thanks to Diana, I heard about this one woman fighting against the corporate crapface known as Louis Vuitton. She's trying to make a socio-political art campaign to get America to stop following idiots like Paris Hilton and start following huge global crises like the genocide in Darfur. And thus, using a LV-styled bag, she's getting sued. Super.

Thus, with the minted contest going on, and thinking on how sick it is how much money people pay for wedding invitations is, it got me thinking. Well, why don't I start my own wedding invite company that gives a portion of the profits to charity? PS - if some bastard reads this and takes my idea, I'll be sorta pissed, but if you do you had better be giving a shitload of money to charity. Anyway, all sorts of ideas are brewing in my head. Gotta go do some hw and do some research.