banjos and bears.

what a lucky day!

so great.

poster design by aaron gresham.

seen first on ampersand design studio

Any moment now, I might explode.

Today has been an inspiring day.

On the interwebs, at work--yes, at work.

We had a lettering designer from

the parent company come and lecture.

All I know right now is that I love letter forms.

I love how they interact,

how you can link them together or spread them apart

and how they can say things differently--

how the same word can whisper or scream.

I guess I'm in the right industry.

above is one of my workshop results

Pretty, pretty Wiksten socks for sale today. Jenny seems like such a gem and, as always, has made such lovely things (bonus: she's from Kansas!!).

I can't purchase these, but I plan on learning to knit my own this fall and I am SO excited for it! In fact, I'm going to pick up the yarn over lunch today. Handmade things are the best, especially if you make them yourself or receive them from someone you love. I truly believe this.

Today has been a day of meeting deadlines, having a clean desk, and time to blog at work again. Glorious. Also time to catch up on some online reading. Take a look at this article on social media in The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell--he has some good thoughts. Namely that Twitter, Blogger, and Facebook are not going to be revolutionizing anything of real importance, ever. I couldn't agree more.

He begins by telling the story of an inaugural lunch counter "sit-in" during the civil rights movement--and of the courage that such an act involved. It made a huge impact, and we see the effect of it still today. Strong ties motivate action. Weak ties seldom inspire anything beyond awareness and sympathy, and seldom bring about any kind of real change. Is social media capable of building strong ties? I like Gladwell's sensible approach of recognizing the value of social media, used in its proper place:

The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo. If you are of the opinion that all the world needs is a little buffing around the edges, this should not trouble you. But if you think that there are still lunch counters out there that need integrating it ought to give you pause.

Open shelving right next to the stove. Pretty, organized, convenient!

This is going in my dream kitchen inspiration.

While I'm at it, that gas stove/oven might make the list too.... :)

image from Traditional Home via Simply Luxurious.

Friedman predicts a third party uprising in the NYT today.

“We basically have two bankrupt parties bankrupting the country,” said the Stanford University political scientist Larry Diamond. Indeed, our two-party system is ossified; it lacks integrity and creativity and any sense of courage or high-aspiration in confronting our problems. We simply will not be able to do the things we need to do as a country to move forward “with all the vested interests that have accrued around these two parties,” added Diamond. “They cannot think about the overall public good and the longer term anymore because both parties are trapped in short-term, zero-sum calculations,” where each one’s gains are seen as the other’s losses.

I'm all for a realistic third party candidate in the next election, and by realistic I mean someone other than Ralph Nader.

(full article here)

I'm obsessed.

With Guster's new album, which you can hear in full on the WSJ. So easy, so wonderful.

They're playing in KC in a week and a half. A Wednesday night trip.
Perhaps I will Zimride my way up for it.