New In The Studio - Feeling California

Looking California Feeling Minnesota this December

Available in the shop

Grateful for you!

Thank you for supporting us. Here is a coupon for you!

New in the studio - Invitation Kits

New invitation kits are now available in the shop. A special holiday pack just for the upcoming Christmas season along with 4 birthday celebratory packs for kids big and small.

available in the shop of course.

Rather have the invites typeset for you? We can do that to as a semi custom project

just email us richele[at]richiedesigns.com. Lead time approx 12 days.

Marbled black and gold invites with metallic gold envelopes

Cake themed invite with blueberry envelopes

Jungle themed invite for your little safari guides.

Pink and teal marbled invites for ages 1 - 100

For the little ones

Just for the little ones. Graphic, colorful and happy for kiddos age 1 and up. 

flat printed on heavyweight #130 100% recycled paper.

Now available in our shop

New in the studio - spandex

suck it in, don't breathe, don't drink much liquids for the night but squeeze into that cute dress! 

for your bestie and partner in Spanx 

available in the shop

Printing your own holiday cards with linoleum prints

I thought I'd set up a How To Guide on how to carve you're own linoleum blocks
for the coming Holiday Season. Let's get Inky!

supplies you'll need:

Linoleum Block[s]
Carving tool
brayer
ink
paper [test paper too]
image of your liking

Dick Blick also has a great starter set 

STEP 1

CHOOSE AN IMAGE 

[remember that if you're opting to do words or an image that has a direction you'll need to reverse it prior to tracing it onto your block]. If you're just starting out, bold and graphic images will be the easiest to carve. Images with a great deal of pattern work best on harder blocks [not the soft carve pictured above] and requires time and patience to get the detail you'll want. Start slow and get your bearing before branching out.

STEP 2

Create tracing paper by using a normal pencil and rubbing the back side of your image completely covering the area that you'll be tracing [the pencil will act as a carbon copy] carbon paper can be purchased as well at art supply stores if you want to skip this step.

STEP 3

Tape or hold image to block and trace your pattern onto block.

[after removing, I sometimes go back over with pencil directly onto block to clarify areas that didn't come out clear]

STEP 4

Decide which areas will have ink/color and which areas will be carved away. Remember anything that you carve away will remain the color of your paper.

STEP 5

Carve your block! keep blade away from fingers, carve away from your body and remember safety. The blades are sharp and will cut you. With kids younger than 13 you'll need to sit with them and help each stroke. 

STEP 6 

Dust off all of the little crumbs. Rinse quickly under water if needed but dry well before applying ink. Roll your ink out thinly with your brayer and apply to your block. With a few tests you'll decide how heavy your ink coverage will be.

STEP 7

Use the back of a wooden spoon to apply pressure to the paper and engage the ink. Again, with a few tests of ink coverage and pressure you'll discover the correct ratio to get your desired look.

STEP 8

Gently peel your paper off your block and let dry!

Way To Go! You're a printmaker now!!

tips:

with kids under the age of 8 you might carve the blocks for them and turn them loose with the ink portion. They're more interested in the ink portion and you'll save a few tears from cut fingers.

If you want a really clean, with no "noise" or tiny lines, go back through and carve out the desired areas. I think a little noise looks quite nice though and adds some texture.

Life is Art

yes. to all of this

Post-Punk & Post Rock Albums redone as postage stamps on Swiss modernist design principles.

Swiss modernism and post-punk/post-rock are natural partners. Not long ago the good people of Bleep.com unveiled two breathtaking posters celebrating the landmarks of post-punk and post-rock. For each genre “Dorothy” generated an incredible poster of 42 postage stamps, each celebrating a different album. Both posters are 4 colour print with silver foil and measure 80x60 centimeters. The post-punk poster features seminal albums such as Throbbing Gristle’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats, The Teardrop Explodes’ Kilimanjaro, The Cure’s Pornography, and The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy. Meanwhile, the post-rock album celebrates Slint’s Spiderland, Stereolab’s Dots and Loops, Mogwai’s Young Team, Radiohead’s Kid A, and Tortoise’s Millions Now Living Will Never Die. In every case the album is represented by a spare, “Swiss”-inspired visual motif and lists the name of the artist, the album title, the running time, the label, and the release date—thus proving that the International Typographic Style is an efficient method of transmitting information.

MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT HERE

Pressing On

This Friday July 21, 2017 the Los Angeles debut of Pressing On will be held at the International Printing Museum, Carson. Events begin at 5pm but movie starts at 8:30pm

Bon Jour

Bon Jour my little pups! Tuesday is a great day to show you the second new collection debuting at Las Vegas Market this weekend! The Bubble collection is fun, colorful type, hand drawn by moi.

available here

Beep Beep

new in the shop. what could be cuter than a Fiat 500 and a giant champagne bottle?

Behind The Scenes

How do you start to design? I'm often asked. It varies from project to project but often it starts with the saying, joke or word. What do I want the word to feel like? What shapes would represent that? What color(s)? From there I begin to doodle... sometimes I tape it to the wall and look at it for weeks, sometimes it comes out in a quick and easy idea (I love those). Creativity is a muscle you have to workout daily. The more you use it, the more that springs forward. I want to tell you more about this process this summer, a peek behind the curtain... This is the type I developed for the upcoming new Bubble Collection release we're debuting at the Las Vegas Market at the end of this month. I can't wait to show it all to you.

Vegas Paper Nerds Unite!

Are you a store? A buyer? Hope to see you at the Vegas Summer Market next month!

Can't make it to the show? email me and we can send you a catalog and info about ordering.

richele[at]richiedesigns.com

New in the studio

the perfect gift for the coffee lover in your life

New in the shop - Pastel pencils for your love bug

available here of course.

New in the Studio

New in the SHOP this week

NEW Releases

It's my favorite time of the year NEW RELEASES!!

YOU'RE ONE BADASS PTA GANGSTA MAMA.

This came from a conversation with a friend [and mother] she finally has time in her schedule to volunteer at her son's school and discovered the mommy wars of the PTA ladies. She opted to fight the "we've always done it this way" I told her she was a gangsta.

Parenting looks hard, you've gotta be a gangsta! Make sure to add the wine though. You need the wine to make it through.

available in the shop.

The Introvert's guide to protesting

I haven't ever been an overly political person, I've been a concerned voter in my adult years. I'm deeply democratic in my belief system. My family would probably say I'm bordering on tree hugger status ;) 

I can't really do marches because of my back issues, but I've been horrified beyond belief with our current situation. The "Pay-to-Play" group of mostly white men leading our country, the attempting to shut women up about our rights are just two [there are so many really] of the issues heavy on my heart these days.

 I made up this graphic a few weeks ago and decided I wanted to do something positive with it. I create an activist postcard set that would ship straight to your home, already pre-stamped so all you have to do is fill out the things that are important to you, and leave it for your post person to send to  your State Representatives

Each set is $10 and comes with two postcards, two stamps, and one lapel button. Proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood. Wear your concerns on your sleeve so-to-speak and actually do something positive with it.

Limited Quantities. order quickly!

AVAILABLE HERE.