Papercut World Map
Love this whimsical print of a handmade papercut map by Famille Summerbelle.
Available at Famille Summerbelle.
via Design*Sponge
Well Said >> Thank You Note
Best thank you note ever.
Stationery + Snark >> “Mean Cards”
Mean Cards combines snark, humor, a little meanness, but still a little sentiment in their playful cards…
You must know you’re really good friends with someone if they give you a card like this… it at least means they know you well enough to know you won’t take it the wrong way.
Mean Cards here. They also deliver iPhone cards, making it even easier to deliver some snark.
The Official Mfg. Co.
The Official Manufacturing Co. (OMFG), a collective of designers, describe themselves as “thing makers.” After working separately for the Ace Hotel and Wielden+Kennedy, they came together to unite their creative abilities.
Below, some of the marketing collateral and identity work they have produced…
Their work, including the indoor and outdoor signage for the Ace Hotels, has a wonderful retro quality that manages to be evocative and authentic feeling, rather than kitschy. Or at least when it is kitschy, it is in a winkingly ironic way.
Doesn’t the sign above just do it for you? The marquee lighting is so simple, yet so appealing.
An album cover design for Black Prairie.
They also designed the packaging and marketing collateral for Stumptown Coffee (yum), which has a similar retro feel and looks awesome.
OMFG.
See more of OMFG’s work at their website here.
via Secret Forts
Field and Sea
Loving Field and Sea’s tiny note cards– their straightforward messages are perfect examples of the kinds of things you just might rather say in a note than in person…
Also love the ones that say “You’re right, I’m wrong,” “You’re an amazing human being,” and “I have lost the right words, will these do?” Many more here.
Google Maps + Snail Mail
Ahh I love maps, and I love snail mail, and the intersection of the two is almost too much.
Right now it’s just a concept, but if it happens, you could print these envelopes from Google Maps showing where you are and where your recipient is, and the route between you two. Pretty cute.
via SwissMiss
Monogram Collections
Did you know that people in the early 1900s used to collect monograms?? I didn’t, and I think it’s so cool!
Elizabeth Hildreth II, 1914
Below is the description of this monogram scrapbook page, by Scrapbook: An American History author Jessica Helfand. I’m still not sure though what these monograms were pulled from– are the cut from stationery? Or are the sewn?
Elizabeth Hildreth’s book begins with a blurry snapshot of a kewpie doll surrounded by a whirling constellation of monograms, which were themselves highly collectable by both men and women during this period. (The English writer Evelyn Waugh had several such scrapbooks, which may have been compiled by someone other than he: they are meticulous, fastidiously — and densely — arranged on the page.)
Indeed, while many collectors pasted their specimens into an alphabetical taxonomy, young Hildreth operated under no such apparent editorial constraints. Like many young people, her interest seems to have been based on creating pleasing compositions. Nevertheless, her pages display none of the polite placements that so consistently characterize many other nineteenth century scrapbooks. Collaged elements in Hildreth’s book are more playful, and include fragments of letterheads and other typographic miscellany.
I’m also intrigued by this girl because her name is Elizabeth Hildreth II — “the second” — a girl with a generational suffix. That’s cool. Girls don’t usually get to take part in that tradition. But, it’s also intriguing that she’s not “Elizabeth Hildreth Jr.” — she’s “II.” But that’s cool with me.
Chez Panisse and Alice Waters Menus
Just came across these wonderful menus done for Alice Waters and Chez Panisse
by Cynthia Warren, and I am in love with them! The design and typography are always spot on, and they clearly communicate the tone and look of the evening.
Above, a New Year’s menu.
A going-away party at Alice’s house. Love the font!
This was for a dinner held by the Chez Panisse Foundation’s organization The Edible School.
Love this birthday dinner menu.
Bastille Day menu
Valentine’s menu
another Bastille Day menu
another Valentine’s menu
a New Year’s menu and noisemaker
I like Alice Waters even more now knowing that she had all these beautiful menus made for special occassions!
Cynthia Warren here
A Gift From My ‘Stache
Artist Annie Stanger sent these as her holiday cards– they are usable temporary mustaches! Pretty funny.
By artist Annie Stanger.
Paper Pastries
I have a thing for stationery and paper products, and these might be the best house-warming invitations ever??
And a few more invites to love…
Pretty custom work by LA-based Paper Pastries.
