Liz From St. Louis

– WATCH THIS SPACE –

I can barely contain my excitement as I will be attending the Chip Kidd lecture and book signing, presented by the St. Louis AIGA chapter, tomorrow evening. CAN’T WAIT!

Photos and full review to follow…

Pretty much awesome, if only they weren’t out of stock in my size.

I want that shit so bad I even sent an email about special ordering one, only to get a response from Mr. Johnny Minardi himself. They’re going to reorder, I should send them a reminder in two weeks.

Speaking of awesome tshirts… Johnny Cupcakes, I LOVE that they use House Industries’ House-a-rama font League Night all over their site. It’s one of my very favorite fonts; looks great in a bright color paired with extra black weight Univers in black, (but of course)!

Leaving for Las Vegas Wednesday morning. Woot-woot!

Also, I have developed a tiny crush on MC Serch of 3rd Bass, The (White) Rapper Show and Miss Rap Supreme fame. What can I say… I think it goes back to the fact that I have a 3rd Bass cassette tape circa 1991, yo. Because I liked to dance to “Pop Goes the Weasel” like no other, yeah, I was a weird kid.

This episode ends where the last one began…

Chip Kidd. ‘Nuff said, right?

The Cheese Monkeys was a book I read at a professor’s suggestion a little over a year ago. Being a busy/stressed/over-worked/walking zombie of an art student I didn’t have time to read books for lesiure, but I found spare minutes and read Monkeys and fell in love. A book about a fellow stressed/etc… design student? Um, of course I loved it. And hello, the writing was just as fantastic as the book design.

I didn’t know there was a new book out until last week, I immediately reserved a copy at Borders while I was at work and picked it up on my way home that evening. I’m still reading The Learners and thus far I really like it, surprise surprise, HAHA. It’s about the same design student that Monkeys was about, now post-collegiate and attaining/starting at his first job. How apropos!

A few drops of this stuff, Pineapple Orchid oil from Bath & Body Works, in a little round pink ceramic warmer makes my entire apartment smell so fresh and lovely for hours. The fragrance is longer lasting that any candle and the perfect spring scent to boot!

Gimme that Scion booty, baby!

Mine is the Blackberry Crush xB on the left, I was at the post office and found a little twin and just had to park beside it. Okay, so the other car had some sweet customizations, including some chromed out blingin’ wheels that had me all kinds of jealous. My Frankenberry may have a sweet Sirius satellite radio and Mizzou Alumni sticker but he’s lacking that shine of chrome. Some upgrades are in order!

No matter, my car still got the invite from Scion to participate in the Scion United event in Las Vegas in two weeks. I’m beyond excited to go, not only is it going to be a nice long road trip but Scion knows how to treat it’s owners (Last event: Miami. Rainn Wilson. Ludacris. Scion Luggage.) and I’m sure there’s one hell of a weekend in store for the other lucky owners and I when we get there. Yeah, my car’s going to be famous (hello tv commercial, print ad, web use!) Being put up in Vegas for 3 days isn’t too bad, either

Work’s going well, but man, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m looking forward to this weekend.
My Chemical Romance in St. Louis! – After a more than 2-year absence from the ‘Lou!

It’s no secret that I am a font snob, and any designer worth their salt has their own preferences. It’s a general rule that you can categorize a designer by said preferences. “Oh, get a load of Mr. Helvetica over there, thinks he’s so hip! Papyrus, well you must be trying to advertise a tasteless new restaurant! Comic Sans?! Toss that portfolio straight in the trash!” And I play into it just like everyone else.

Snobbery aside, the simple fact of the matter is that you’ve got to have the right tools for the job and I’ve been a baker without flour, a carpenter without a hammer, a painter without a brush… a designer without fonts.

CS3 will get you nowhere if you’ve got a meager 15 or so typefaces on your machine, so while there was a bit of sticker shock over Adobe’s FontFolio 11 it finally arrived for me this morning here at work and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

My own personal machine boasts about 300 or so typefaces, which is decent I suppose, but having FontFolio for my work machine feels like a whole new planet has been discovered. There’s so many to choose from that I’m sure I’ll be exploring and sampling my many options for a long time to come, oh Type Reference Guide I love you! Look how lovely all these typefaces are… I’m gushing.

The moment a text & typeface are chosen, two streams of thought, two rhythmical systems, two sets of habits, or if you like, two personalities, intersect.

In non-type related news, I think that my resolve to speak my mind about things has already found me in an ‘argument’ of sorts. I’m none too fussed, the Liz who doesn’t worry about other people’s opinion of her is back in full effect and subsequently I feel empowered.

I finally broke down and bought season 1 of The Tudors on DVD and have only gotten through the first episode. (Yes, yes… I watched them all when they originally aired but that was months ago and after reading The Other Boleyn Girl I wanted to watch it again). Season 2 begins the 30th of this month but I don’t have Showtime, though I did watch the first episode of the season on PinkIsTheNewBlog and whoa, let’s talk about getting back into the drama! Sure, I know what’s going to happen but the stellar cast along with the costumes and perfect way in which history is punched up with all of the drama you’d expect… it’s really a captivating show… Jonathan Rhys Meyers aids in the appeal as well
Despite the Drama Llama rearing its ugly head, I’m having a good day.

A few thoughts to expand upon
- Pier 1 Card – good idea or disaster waiting to happen?
- Politics and being jaded on the hype – enough Obama already!
- Gym Class Heroes & Hall and Oats – genius or just trying to be?
- Chipotle’s guacamole – I seriously think it contains crack.