Up. Uptown. Uptown Dubonnet? 19/02/2009

Dubonnet?

This has nothing to do with my own work but made me laugh and think of my History of Design professor, Prof. Dooley. I bought a cup of tea at Uptown Espresso “Home of the Velvet Foam” in Seattle during a recent hiking trip in Olympic National Park and chuckled at the appropriation of A.M. Cassandre’s ‘Dubonnet’ wine advert. I always wonder about artist and designers’ intentions with using obvious references to other works. Ah, but this one has a french press! Tell your class I already found this one Dooley, its taken.

Dubonnet?

Uptown detail

Cassandre’s advert

Who Says Valentine’s is a Sacred Day? 11/02/2009

Since St. Valentine’s Day currently could be no further from a liturgical calendar holiday (they don’t even know anything about the guy, or if he was just one guy!) we at Scattergood decided there was no use for Valentine’s Day in its current form. Our first step towards its devolution: Valentine’s Day cards, of course! We had planned on shunning Valentine’s Day altogether in favor of a rad Bill Murray-themed Groundhog Day card(!) but complications arose. So we forged ahead with a Valentine’s Day card because it gave us an extra two weeks to get them together. Time rules this life. Tory Van Wey illustrated these raucous little numbers and we screened them in our lab (read: dining room). Hope your day is bright and cheery!

Vday Cards!

notebooks galore! 11/02/2009

I have had these ridiculously cool elementary flashcards lying around for too long, and decided to do something with them the other day. So I used some paper from a failed project, some leftover fabric lying around, and a couple of my roomates amazing illustrations, and BAM!, wait, no, that’s copyrighted….. and ZOINKS! a really cute inspirational notebook!

Bacharach remixed! 11/02/2009

I recently lifted and remixed an idea from my lovely and talented neighbor Emily May. She makes amazing journals out of old record sleeves. I rediscovered recently a gem of an album I have had since I got my turntable hand-me-down from my ‘ole dad when I was 15, Burt Bacharach Plays His Hits. (And no, I didn’t buy it to be ironic – we hadn’t covered irony in lit class yet.) I decided to turn this work of art into a journal for a music journalist friend of mine and also used a great illustrated page from a Rolling Stone article on David Byrne as well as pages from the most excellent book on the Austin independent music scene (other than my high school senior thesis, of course) titled Dissonant Identities: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Scene in Austin, Texas. Other materials included: electrical tape and string. I think it turned out pretty cool.

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges! 11/02/2009

I did it! I fulfilled my life long dream of owning my own buttonmaker. My good friend Craig alerted me to a ridiculously cheap one including all the fixin’s and I snagged it! Everyone who enters my living room has gotten the button fever. Pins are being cranked out at a ridiculous rate here.

I’ve come up with two lines already – both made from reusing items found lying around my house. The first is named “What The Phonebook?!” – It features things I cannot believe people use a phonebook to look up – all found in the local Portland Metro phonebook. I hope to branch out to other metro area phonebooks and find even stranger things. Already, I cannot (but now do) believe that someone would use the phonebook to look up “Slaughterhouses” or “Toilets – Portable” or my favorite, “Bridge Clubs.” The other line of badges are made of fabric scraps I have collected from various other fabric-based projects. Pretty straight forward but I think they make really cool, unique, non-plastic-y buttons. I hope you concur!