Beast Pieces » Completely Unrelated

Target: Design United

admin — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:25:24 +0000

Earlier this year we were asked to participate in Target’s Design United campaign. Target made use of the massive street level windows of their corporate location to showcase their bullseye logo as interpreted by 51 local artists. We were thrilled to be included and submitted a dozen prints for them to choose from. The display was up from April to October in downtown Minneapolis.

Our process started with a hand drawn mehndi inspired pattern that we scanned in and cleaned up to create a photopolymer plate. We also created a plate of the solid Target logo which we used to lay down some background colors, allowing us to utilize the transparent nature of the inks and achieve some great overprinting. Our pressman went to town and applied most of the inks by hand directly to the plates or paper, resulting in dozens of completely unique pieces. Some of our favorites are below, along with some shots of the installation that we took while it was up this summer.

AIGA MN Design Camp Event Recap

admin — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:12:06 +0000

Yesterday we posted about our involvement printing the materials for AGIA MN’s 2011 Design Camp, but we thought it would be fun to share a peek into the event itself.

Ben (Principal), Selina (Studio Director) and David (Pre-press) were all up north participating as campers and Sam (Designer) was on the committee running the event, so Studio On Fire was well represented over the weekend. We had a booth up at the Friday night Business Expo where people were able to snag a paper airplane and pet assorted samples that we brought to show. Keynote speakers, a networking dinner, a variety of workshops, collaboration lunches and late night bonfires quickly filled the rest of the weekend.

Keynote speakers included Peter Buchanan-Smith (Best Made Company), Jamie Koval (VSA Partners), Michael Osborne (Michael Osborne Design), Jan Wilker (karlssonwilker), and Josh Kenyon and Colby Nichols (Jolby), it was great to meet each of them. Special thanks to the dudes from Jolby for stopping by the studio after camp and going with us to grab patio beers- good times.

Enough chatter, on to the pictures! David took some great shots throughout the weekend (on actual film!) and Phong Tran (of dblthink.com and official AIGA MN photographer) was gracious enough to share some of his photos, since we were too busy playing with wild cats to bust out our cameras most of the time.

Iron and Ornament in New Orleans

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:45:33 +0000

My wife and I did our first visit to New Orleans on Friday the 13th this last month to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary. Stayed in a condo in the French Quarter that was on the haunted buildings tours. Weird how that stuff lines up, ehh? Despite that uncanniness, it was an excellent trip. New Orleans has such a rich texture and patina of ornament everywhere. The food was amazing. Three favorites you must check out if you visit are Eat, Elizabeth’s, and Willie Mae’s Scotch House.

The beautiful iron and flourishing ornament of the area had me transfixed with everything I passed. Here are some photos I took for graphic inspiration.

Letterpress Poster Sesame Street Circa 1970′s

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:50:52 +0000

via Twin Ravens Press

Typography for Breakfast

admin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:25:07 +0000

It is usually bad form to blog or tweet about your breakfast. But sometimes it’s just too gooood. This morning a few of us from the studio went over to St.Paul for breakfast at the Copper Dome Restaurant. The type is served up hot as the walls in this place are covered with vintage flour milling ephemera. The pancakes were good as well.

(These are some of my first iphone pictures, so forgive the quality.)