Postcard Happiness

"That moment when you're sifting through your freshly retrieved postbox offerings and somewhere between the flyers and phone bills something other than a speeding fine makes your heart beat a little faster: A hand-written message from a far-away friend"

So, I dragged my heavily pregnant body to the Food Wine Design Fair in Hyde Park yesterday. As usual, there was great food, lovely refreshing drinks and a good dose of well-designed products.

One designer who particularly impressed me was Tatjana Buisson of the Postcard Happiness Project. I don't need to explain too much but in essence this project enables you to send great personalized postcards to loved ones in the good old-fashioned snail-mail way.

Tatjana's lovely illustrated postcards come with a sticker-back called the Postick so it enables you to make the choice of framing the beautiful illustration or sending it to someone. You can also buy separate Postick packs and make your own postcards. We bought a few postcards (a few to frame and a few to send) as well as some Posticks so that we can start to spread the love this festive season.

Come on - get your own, start writing (by hand) and posting (by mail) - a very rewarding activity indeed...

Twenty Thirteen

We are back from our Namibia and Botswana trip. It was truly amazing: green and lush and hot and rainy with the most beautiful skies and clouds. We had a great time and I hope to dedicate a couple of blog posts on reporting back.

No resolutions - only 10 Really Lame Ideas and Beliefs to Get Rid of.

Leave your camera at home this holiday...

For a lot of South-Africans December means holiday, travel, eating out, kicking back...you get the message. 

I am hugely inspired by Tim Baynes.  He has recorded his impressions of more than 20 years of travel in Moleskine notebooks. I think we constantly press the shutter button without really thinking or taking in the spirit of the place. With sketching you remember so much more of the details.

Click here for more inspiring travel sketches. 

All the above images are by Tim Baynes.

Sketchbook Tours

On Saturday, 18 February, we had the most amazing first Sketchbook Tour. It is presented by Christo Harvey and Nicolene Louw. The itinerary is amazing - we met the morning at their studio for a short introduction and then headed off to Church square in a beautiful 1972-VW bus (incidentally the same one we used as a wedding car). We spent a few hours sketching, chatting to the locals and having a picnic. Then we went to the CBC Old Boys Bowling club where we sketched the bowlers in action. It was such a memorable day and everyone's sketches came out so nice in the end.
It made me realize again how important a sketchbook or visual diary is in any designer's thought process.
Here are some snippets of the day:

 Nicolene Louw shared some valuable tips as well as some of her amazing sketchbooks with us. 

There were some animated discussions afterwards and I know that every participant came back inspired. I love this page of graphic design graduate, Caroline Joubert. It made me think that Saturday made a change in all of us. 

Visit the Platform on 18th site to see when the next Sketchbook Tour will take place. And book yourself a spot - you will not regret it.

This city could definitely do with some...

...colour.
I stumbled across Katie's blog and immediately fell in love with the humour and brightness. She is (in her own words) a "24 year old freelance photographer, actress, street artist and fun maker!"
I love her quirky designs and how she brightens up any drab urban environment. I always admire people who manage to create successful interactive art.
Here are some of the inspiring images from her blog:

All images by Katie Sokoler. Visit her blog for more eye-candy and information.

House envy

Whenever I walk into his house, I turn a bit green. And it actually suits the beautiful colours you'll find in this place. My talented friend Pieter hosted his birthday party last weekend and as usual, I was in awe of 1) the food and 2) his lovely house. I love how he is not afraid of bright, bold colours and how his sentimental objects become a part of the quirky playfulness of the decor. He lives in a charming old house in Capital Park.

Thoughts for the week ahead

November is a tough month. It's the crazy season. In our industry this is the month where we need to cram in as much as possible before we go on our much-needed December break. Because yes - the world will come to an end when architects go on leave (slight hint of sarcasm). So, here are 33 thoughts, just to get us through the last bit. Found at A note on design.

With attitude

Creativity with attitude and a wicked sense of humour always gets my attention. I stumbled across Division of Labor via Swissmiss and I'm in awe about their work. I obsess a bit about the two short videos below. It was for an advertising campaign for Nike. This is what they wrote about it:

Nike wanted to promote a new women’s cross training shoe, but had no money. (Yes, Nike, no money. Go figure.) So we came up with a couple video ideas that we thought might get some traction. This is another example of inexpensive content backed by no media dollars that got passed all over the web.

Urban Warrior

Her name is Candy Chang. She does profound work. When I look at it, I can see our city having everything she has to offer. According to her website she "likes to make cities more comfortable for people. She’s passionate about exploring ways we can share information in public space to improve our neighborhoods and our personal well-being. Her background in street art, design, and urban planning have informed many of her projects, which redefine the ways our public spaces can be used to incite dialogue and engage citizens with their cities and with each other."


Look at these images below. They do speak for themselves, but I think South African cities, particularly Pretoria, need this sort of interaction desperately. We are too scared to get out there and engage, we live in our security villages and cars and we isolate ourselves from the dirt, poverty and crime.

I particularly like the next set. You can by these stickers from her online shop and stick them on old shopfronts or basically any urban space in need of remedy. In this way, you get the public to voice their opinion and maybe, just maybe, the bureaucrats and red-tapers will take public opinion seriously.

Lastly, this project hit home big time. I wonder how many of us know our neighbours. These cute door hangers say that you are actually available for a quick hello and that you care about your micro-environment. You can download the pdf files of side 1 and side 2 from her website as well.

All images from Candy Chang.

  

confession #13

I like tattoos. I find the beauty and permanence exhilarating, bad-ass and a bit rebellious. Don't get me wrong, I'm not into tramp-stamps and badly executed home-made jobs. A tattoo must be done by a really good artist and be absolutely perfect. It should preferably have a story to tell - about your life, love and losses.
I don't have a tattoo and I doubt if I will ever get one (for all the above reasons) but some people are lucky enough to have amazing ink...

Above two images: from a cup of Jo.

This one has an amazing story to tell. Go to Neither Snow to read the rest.

Just little things

Wow, two blogs in one day?!
I just had to post about this. Whilst I was writing the previous post, Thys said I must quickly check out this site. It is simply a list of little things about life we all should appreciate. So simple, so inspiring. You can view the entire list here. I chose a few that I like but there are hundreds, so just go to the site and lose yourself in the simple things...

Hope this helps relieve the Sunday Blues. Have a good one.