Happy LEAP Day

29 February 2012   //     4 comments   //   design, happy, list, play

It’s February 29, y’all! LEAP Year!

In honor of our special day, we at LEAP Design would like to give you a gift. Are you ready for it? It’s really big. Bigger than a Big Mac. Bigger than a Big Gulp. Bigger, even, than Big Ben.

It’s big.

You guys, it’s a day.

A whole day. Your very own day to do WHATEVER YOU WANT with. So go. Put your phone down, get up from your computer, and go do something unexpected, something inspiring, something that you wouldn’t do on any normal Wednesday.

Need some help? No sweat — we’ve got you covered. Here’s a list of 29 things to do with your extra day:

1. Learn how to juggle.

2. Bake some bread.

3. Get a puppy.

4. Eat dessert for every meal.

5. Call someone you haven’t spoken with in a long time and tell them you miss them.

6. Go to the beach.

7. Go to the mountains.

8. Take a nap.

9. Take a yoga class.

10. Take a walk.

11. Take a friend out to lunch. Your treat.

12. Paint a mural in your house.

13. Volunteer your time.

14. Climb up on your roof and look at your street from a new angle.

15. Bring a picnic (and a friend) to the airport and watch the planes take off and land.

16. Invite friends for dinner; cook something you’ve never cooked before.

17. Write a letter to a friend and mail it.

18. Send a real birthday card (made of paper) in time for a friend’s birthday.

19. Take a long, hot, bath.

20. Read a book you’ve been wanting to read.

21. Fix something you’ve been meaning to fix for a while.

22. Ride a bike.

23. Bake a cake and bring it to a friend.

24. Take a hot air balloon ride.

25. Go skiing.

26. Go to the zoo.

27. Go hear a band.

28. Get a kitten.

29. Sing a song. Out loud. Loudly. Over and over again.

Happy LEAP Year, friends. Go enjoy your free day!

Twenty Twelve’s a Comin’

30 December 2011   //     0 comments   //   design, eat + drink

Well. Here we are again. The new year approaches. And quickly. It’s time for fresh starts. Renewed energy. High hopes. Our annual New Year’s Day bash (back after taking a reluctant year off). And most importantly: Collard Greens.

And as my annual gift to you, the awesome people who live in my computer, I bring you once again my recipe for Collards, which, along with Black Eyed Peas and Pork (hog jowls, ham, bacon, whatever), are the law down here in the South. They’re supposed to bring you luck and fortune, which you can’t say you don’t want at least some of. And, bonus! these collards are crazy good. So go for it — make yourself a mess o’ greens and bring on the luck. Happy new year, friends.

collards

Braised Collards of Deliciousness

- 4 bunches of collards, long stems and tough ribs removed
- Salt
- 1/4 cup brown butter (recipe included)
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1/2 chipotle chile en adobo, all chopped up (to taste — it’s intended to add smoky, not spicy)
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- Pepper vinegar (recipe follows)

Wash the greens thoroughly in a whole lotta water (I fill my sink and wash them in there). Place the dripping wet leaves in a pot of water, add salt (to taste). Cook the greens for about 10 minutes (until they”re all wilted and reduced down quite a bit). Remove to a bowl. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water.

Heat 1/4 cup unsalted butter on medium-low until it turns brown and nutty. Strain off the milk-fat solids. (This is something I make a big batch of ahead-of-time and keep in the fridge.) Increase the heat to medium. Add the onion, garlic, pepper flakes and chipotle, stirring occasionally until the garlic is lightly colored and onion is soft. Add the greens, their reserved cooking water, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Cook for 30 minutes and taste again for salt (they can use a lot). You can continue cooking until the greens are “within an inch of their life” or you can stop here. The longer they cook, the better they”ll taste.

Serve with pepper vinegar on the side.

Recipe for Pepper Vinegar: 1 cup white vinegar + 4 oz serrano chiles. Drop the washed and dried chiles into a bottle that has been freshly washed in hot, soapy water. (A narrow neck bottle is preferable so the vinegar can be drizzled rather than poured, but it doesn”t really matter.) Bring the vinegar to a boil in a small pan, then transfer to the bottle (via a measuring cup or some other easy-pouring device). Let it sit uncapped until cool. The peppers will absorb some of the vinegar. Add more vinegar to fill the bottle, then cap and set aside in the cupboard. The vinegar will be best if you make this ahead. But you can speed the process by including one pepper sliced into “coins.” Plus, the discs look cool floating around all the whole peppers.

pepper vinegar

(Thanks to Deborah Madison for the original base recipe, and especially for the brown butter secret. You have been helping me for many years to make people’s New Years just that much luckier and fortunier.)

iPhone 4S Case Roundup

11 October 2011   //     9 comments   //   design, istuff, list

If you know me in real life, you know I am in desperate need of a new phone. My iPhone 3G (yes, 3G, not 3GS) is over 3 years old, has a seriously cracked screen, and decides on a case-by-case basis whether it is or is not going to perform the tasks I ask of it. Needless to say, I was one of the first to login and pre-order the new iPhone 4S and I could not be more excited about it.

To pass the time between the announcement of the new phones and the arrival of my new phone, I decided to shop for a case. What started as an innocent request on twitter turned quickly into a rabbit hole where I explored the world of gorgeous plastic. As a result of the many hours I have wasted devoted, I’m here to share with you some of the highlights of what I found.

First up: Designy.

For starters, you can go with a good looking, pre-made design, like one of these from Uncommon. There are hundreds of designs at Uncommon, so dig deep into their site to find all their offerings. These cases are incredible, too. The designs are essentially tattooed into the plastic, so they never rub off or fade. And the cases offer fantastic protection. If you don’t want to spend a lot of energy finding a case, I would go straight to Uncommon and don’t look back. Some of their designs are also offered at the Apple Store, so if that’s easy for you, go rock it out. A bird in the hand…. right?

Cushi striped soft foam pads from id America are not only bright and happy looking, but they are also grippy and shock absorbing. These adhere to the back of your phone rather than encase your phone. But they fit perfectly with a bumper. They also are easy to remove (leaving no residue) so if there are other color schemes you like, you can easily swap them out. And at $11.99, that’s not out of the realm of possibility at all.

At the other end of the pre-designed spectrum is Society6. Society6 is an art collective featuring thousands of artists from around the world. The artwork found on the site can be turned into all sorts of products, including, but not limited to, iPhone cases. So, although you’d be getting a pre-designed case, it’s going to be something gorgeously created by a real live artist. There are so many great designs here, it was hard to narrow it down to a few to show you, so be sure to go look for yourself. And assume you’ll be spending lots of time there.

Elsewhere in the artist arena, there’s this stainless steel back plate from Luxe Plates, with an etching reminiscent of Calder. (Love the stainless steel — this would look great on a white iPhone.)

Or this rainy case from Atlanta-based artist, Jessica Swift (available at Case-Mate).

Or this engraved, bamboo case from Grove. You can also design your own, or get a blank bamboo case. I love the wood alternative, too. Not only is it not plastic, but it’s also a super sustainable wood. Which means it is made of win.

Gelaskins are like tattoos for your phone. They protect it from scratches (front and back), but they don’t cushion. Regardless, they look crazy cool, and they come in hundreds of different designs. You can also design your own. Which I definitely intend to do.

Next up: Fun stuff!

These cases are the kind that make you go, “Heh” or “Cool!” or “Awesome!”

First in line is this super cool, color theory case from Case-Mate. Yellow + Blue = Green! Blue + Red = Purple!

Jump on the ombre trend with this cool offering from Case-Mate. Six colored modular sections stack together to form a protective case. It comes in 4 different color palettes, and each case comes with 10 pieces (2 edges + 8 centers) for you to express your most modern, creative juices.

Moving further into the DIY vein is this cross stitch case from Connect Design. Choose your case color and pattern and cross stitch your own iPhone case. Now even your phone can get in on the Christmas sweater action!

Who doesn’t love Lego? That’s right — no one doesn’t love Lego. So what could be better than a Lego iPhone case? That’s right — nothing could be better than a Lego iPhone case. It’s not actually made by Lego, but it is compatible with their bricks. Which pretty much rocks.

Have you heard of Quirky? They make cool products, you get to vote on them. The ones that get the most votes get produced. So it’s no surprise that their iPhone case is, um, quirky. It looks like something from Star Trek. Which is a good thing. I love the idea that the case doesn’t need to be form fitting. And it has its own built-in stand. Extra awesome.

Talk uncomfortably loud in public, old skool with Marty McFly’s cell phone case. From Urban Outfitters.

If you have ever wondered what kind of iPhone case Holden Caulfield would have, look no further than this Burton designed case for Speck. Rubbery protection on the edges, flannelly fabric goodness on the back and sides. Holden said that “People never notice anything.” But you can prove him wrong with this preppy case.

With vintage-effect post-processing photography apps taking the iPhone world by storm (I’m looking at you Instagram, Hipstamatic, ShakeItPhoto and CameraBag), why not take the extra step and make your your phone match. There are lots to choose from out there, but this Leica replica from Etsy is about as analog fabulous as it gets.

Sticking with the camera theme, get right to the center of it with this aperture case from Threadless and Griffin. I Phone, therefore I camera.

Last but Not Least: Utilitarian

Elasty is just a prototype (I think) but it is an awesome idea. The case includes 5 elastic bands that can accommodate headphones, credit cards, keys, cash, pens and so much more. For those of you who want to carry nothing but your phone, this is for you.

Do you routinely run down your battery before you’ve run down your day? I know — me too. I once plugged my phone in at a restaurant, at a table someone else was sitting at, on the other side of the room from my table. Classy. But with the Mophie Juice Packs, scamming power on the go is a thing of the past. Slap one of these colorful (or basic black) packs on your phone and get a complete full charge in addition to the charge your phone already has. It’s amazing. And not that much heavier than a regular phone. I’m very leaning toward the yellow, myself.

Third Rail presents a patent pending variation on the “extra battery pack” case that’s pretty darn brilliant. The system uses what looks like a regular ole iPhone case. But it also includes a slim battery pack that snaps into the case on an as-needed basis. And? The battery pack serves as a stand-alone charger for any other usb device. And and? If you have multiple batteries, you can stack them on top of each other, on the phone, and charge them all at once. I told you it was brilliant. Do you know anyone who has this? I’d love to hear some real life stories.

Bonus!

I went through the process of designing my own so I could tell you about it. I chose Uncommon because their cases came extremely highly rated from twitter. For my design I chose the always fun Stackadogs art. But you could also upload a photo, or your logo, or whatever else you might like to wear on your phone.

The process was super simple. If you’re a graphic designer — grab the template off the screen and make your art match the size (and resolution). Save as a JPG and upload. Done and done. If you’re not a graphic designer, just be sure to use a vertical photo in which most of your subject matter is toward the center of the frame.

So there you have it. A billion awesome iPhone cases for you to choose from. And clicking on any of those links will, no doubt, lead you down the very same rabbit hole I fell into. Show me your favorites. And then, when we have our new, pimped out iPhones, let’s send each other pictures!

Branding 10,000 Lakes

03 October 2011   //     0 comments   //   caught my eye, design, nature


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Minnesota’s nickname, The Land of 10,000 Lakes, is no exaggeration: there are actually 11,842 lakes in the state. In fact, the name Minnesota comes from a Dakota word for “sky-tinted water.” So you can imagine what sort of undertaking it might be to create a logo for each and every lake in Minnesota. Yet Nicole Meyer is doing just that. And to showcase her work, she has launched Branding 10,000 Lakes. It looks like she’s done about 80 so far. And they’re all gorgeous, ranging from conceptual (like King Lake, above), to vintage (like Gull Lake, below), to just plain nice typography. I love her use of backgrounds to enhance the different logos.

Here are some of my favorites. But they are all so great, you really should check them all out.

Which ones are your favorites?

Metropolitan Etiquette Authority

29 September 2011   //     8 comments   //   caught my eye, clever, design, signage

Have you ever lived in Manhattan? I have. And as much as I loved it there, one of the things that can be challenging is the sheer number of people — and their habits — you have to interact with every time you walk around. The lack of courtesy you might encounter on a 2 minute walk to the deli is astounding. Well artist Jay Shells has launched a guerilla art project that addresses just that — street etiquette. The signs are now popping up all around Manhattan. In addition to the fantastic “Pay Attention While Walking” sign he had a few others addressing some of the pet peeves bound to eat away at New Yorkers.

I hope this is an ongoing project. Do you have pet peeves that could benefit from some well-placed signage?

(Found at The Daily What.)

Some Recent LEAP Work

16 August 2011   //     3 comments   //   design, leap work

I can’t believe I forgot to show you this work we just did. For two amazing Catherines and two amazing websites.

First up: Closet of Style.

Catherine Horgan came to us in desperate need of a new logo and a new website. What a treat it is to work with a client as stylish and savvy as Catherine — we loved the challenge of creating for her.

For the logo, Catherine wanted something clever, colorful, and sophisticated. The mark we came up with makes a ligature out of the C and the S. They’re conjoined in a way that suggests that perhaps the S is hanging in the C. (You know — like in a closet.) It’s playful and clever, but also sophisticated. It feels like so many fashion logos, yet doesn’t resemble any one in particular. Wouldn’t that mark make a great silver key fob? I know, right?

 

 

With the website, Catherine wanted something that she’d never seen before. No small order. What we created has many references — tear sheets on a work table, layers of clothes, swatches of cloth — but feels like a new thing. A design that was made just for Catherine and no-one else. We also had gorgeous photography to work with — from Ellen Yale. It was important to showcase that in a way that made you stop and look at it. Also, the photos are super clever. Catherine is a problem solver, and these photos do a fantastic job of showing that off.

Most of all, it’s a site that achieves a tough goal — there’s a lot going on, but it doesn’t feel too busy. We’re so happy with how it all turned out and we hope to get to work with Catherine forever and ever.

On that note, if you’re looking for a personal stylist, someone to help you figure out what you should be wearing, or just a great fashion blog to add to your daily reads, you really need to check out Closet of Style.

You’re welcome.

Next up is Her Bad Mother. Catherine Conners came to us not knowing exactly what she wanted, but knowing she needed something. Once upon a time she “just” wrote a blog. (Get it? Just? Like that’s some easy tiny task?) But now she is writing about all sorts of weighty issues that needed their own space to grow and thrive. Yet it needed to still be readable and easy to navigate. We had to make sure the gorgeous writing on the site didn’t get buried in the design.

We decided to give the site lots of clean, white space to make sure it was easy to find your way around. With one, big, featured post a day. And cool accordion-like content areas just under the featured post. We also ended up shrinking the height of her header a good bit to give more “above the fold” goodness. But we made darn sure not to take away the fantastic (and iconic) surprised baby. The green and blue serve to punch things up a little. With a “lots of white space” site, it doesn’t take much to breathe some life into things. Subtle use of bright colors worked well for this site, adding to the clean, crisp feel and giving you some points of reference as you move around the pages.

All-in-all, we’re thrilled with how the site turned out, and we loved working with Catherine who provided us with such great work to design around. If you want to read some amazing writing, be sure to visit Her Bad Mother. But be warned — hours will pass like minutes and you’ll look up after breakfast to find that it is now dark outside and where did the day go?

As always, we’re so lucky to have such great clients who let us do fun work. Do you need a logo or a site redesign? Get in touch - we’d love to talk to you!

A New Kirtsy

28 July 2011   //     1 comment   //   announcing, design, kirtsy, leap work

Super exciting news to share, y’all! Kirtsy relaunched yesterday!

I’m one of the co-founders and we’ve been working hard for about 5 months (or 3 years, depending on how you want to look at it) to get a completely new site up. The old site was a great experiment in crowd-sourcing. But as the web has become more crowded, Kirtsy became less of a resource and more of a, how shall we say, crackhouse. For spammers. With the new Kirtsy we wanted to preserve what we loved about the old Kirtsy (finding great stuff online) and present it in a way that wasn’t so spamgasmic. What we came up with was curated slideshows.

Every day, the new Kirtsy will feature a slideshow curated by some of the most interesting people on the internet. The topics will be all over the map — fashion, design, food, people, crafts. Our hope is that the slideshows will inspire you. They’ll be full of links to interesting articles, images to pin, projects to try, people to meet.

Yesterday’s big slideshow was a set of 10 easy one-day crafts — with step-by-step how-to’s — curated by Blogstar. I’ve already bought the supplies for the tie-dye bags because my kids are required to carry tote bags to school this year (instead of backpacks). I’m excited to help them make their own awesome looking bags this weekend. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

We partnered with Giggle.com for the launch, and to celebrate, they’re offering $10 off when you sign up.

I’d be honored if you’d take a look and let me know what you think. I’m kind of crazy excited about it all.

 

P.S. — Don’t know what Kirtsy is? No worries — here’s a short history.

Revival Market

25 July 2011   //     0 comments   //   announcing, design, leap work, save the world, vintage

 

Friends. Texans. People who love food. I’m excited to show you something we made. It’s a logo and a website. For an amazing place: Revival Market. Revival is a locally-sourced grocer, butcher shop, coffee shop, and restaurant all wrapped up in one hip store that opened in March, in Houston. We had the great honor (and luck) of getting to design for these folks, and we couldn’t be happier with how it all turned out. Co-owners Ryan Pera (from Charlotte, y’all!) and Morgan Weber were the best kind of clients: smart, interested, opinionated and creative. No wonder the store is so filled with awesome.

The website just launched and let me tell you — it seriously makes me wish I lived in Houston. Drought be damned.


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I hope you have a chance to take a look at the site. And if you live in Houston and have not been to Revival yet, please. PLEASE. Do yourself a favor and head over there this week. I promise you’ll thank me for it.

 

I Am Not An Artist

16 June 2011   //     0 comments   //   caught my eye, design

I’ve spent the better part of this morning staring at and playing with this site. I Am Not An Artist is a big ole page of animated gifs, or, as it says on the site, “An Animated GIF Paranoia about Nonstop Design Workers.”

Commissioned by ELISAVA School of Design in Barcelona, and designed by Soon in Tokyo, the base 56 animated gifs were directed by Johnny Kelly and Matthew Cooper. But the fun part is you can add your own animation to the tapestry with their handy, built-in, GIF Generator. Go have fun!

I love it when someone takes “old technology” and makes it look new, don’t you?

(Thanks for the tip, Photojojo!)

Should I Work For Free?

03 June 2011   //     3 comments   //   design, information

Having a hard time deciding if you should do that project for free? Now you can consult this extremely handy flowchart from the oh so great Jessica Hische.

When I first visited I thought it was just going to be another well-designed, funny infographic. Which would have been great too. But as it turns out, it’s actually really helpful. Much to my surprise, Jessica agrees that there are times you should work for free. And the chart explains exactly when and why. Very smart.

Check it out here.

(Thanks for the heads up, Liquid Treat.)

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