i heart orange ...

... and this super bright handbag by Marc Jacobs. It's available at Neiman Marcus.

travel: san francisco

Today I'm traveling to San Francisco for a quick work/fun trip. One of the things I am most looking forward to (besides visiting my cousins, of course) is a visit to La Boulange for a cannelle and café au lait. Thank goodness nobody in my neighborhood makes these or my pants would never fit again.

inspiration: factory orange and yellow

A recent visit to my dad's factory (top images) inspired the factory orange and steel grey color scheme for a project I'm working on now for Strathmore (bottom images). When I was a kid I loved visiting my dad at his factories and walking the floor with him. I inherited an appreciation for mechanical equipment, which, I think, is the reason I was drawn to the craft of letterpress.

kids party: scooch is 5

big boy orange birthday party

Last week our son turned five. I can't believe how quickly the time has passed. When I was trying to come up with a theme for his party, he told me he wanted a "Big Boy" party. To him, "Big Boy" means this big steam locomotive; to everyone else it means, well, Big Boy! I put a picture of the train on his invitation, and on the goodie bags, but otherwise I went with orange as the theme. It's his favorite color and his favorite fruit. He loves to pick oranges and tangerines from our orchard, so we gave a sack of them away to all the guests (pretty and free!). The kids drank clementine Izze soda and at cocktail hour the adults drank ruby red and clementine martinis. I made cupcakes with an orange-flavored icing, and decorated the table with all the orange things I could find in my house (which was not difficult, since it's one of my favorite colors and was the theme of a few of our delphine trade show booths).

happy birthday, big boy

logo crush: jin patisserie

la vie revee tea gift set and orientchic tea tins from jin patisserie

While driving around Venice on my way to visit a client a few years back I spotted the lovely Jin Patisserie logo and have been ever smitten with it ever since. It's such a lovely logo--especially when blown up. The simplicity of the mum is really pretty, and I love any logo using the color orange! I've never had the time to stop into the patisserie, but I've found a few teas that I would buy for the packaging alone on their website: I'd love to try the Orient Blends Orient Chic tea. It's a blend of green and black teas, scented with Osmanthus, lotus and jasmine flowers, combined with pepper. Sounds so romantic, doesn't it? I love teas scented with pepper and with jasmine, but have never tried them both in one tea. But the tin is so gorgeous (and my very favorite shade of green), so even if the tea stinks I'd be happy to just look at the package!

client (and store) we love: orange & pear

all gifts shown available at orangeandpear.com

When Jennifer came to me asking for help with a logo for her new business I was intrigued. She promised a "fresh perspective on gift giving." Interesting, but possible?. She said her favorite colors are green and orange. Yes, yes. My favorite, too. Go on. Please add shades of grey, she said. No more brown ... happy dance. She said it would be the END of boring hostess gifts. Hmmm. Really? She was so sincere, so lovely, so darn NICE. So I spent hours sketching and playing with type, tweaking and improving, until I designed a fun, sweet, colorful logo for her. I had a blast working on this logo with her ... all the while I had yet to see nary a peek at her website, which was still in the works.

But guess what? She delivered!!! Not a one ordinary gift to be found on her site-- everything is carefully curated. Perfectly wonderful. It's the end of boring hostess gifts for real! Yay! Congratulations, Jennifer, on the successful launch of your shop: Orange and Pear.

orange logos

community food & juice

10 cane rum

I'm loving ORANGE for logos--I think it adds a cool masculine, downtown vibe.

pumpkins

photo: delphine

It feels like Fall now that we've made a trip to the pumpkin patch. I picked up one of these minis pumpkins for my desk for a little pop of fun color.

bridesmaid dress bliss

photos by Kate Benson Photography

"Bridesmaids dress" ... two of the most dreaded words in every woman's lexicon. Everyone in the same dress = everyone unhappy (SORRY, D, R, J & D!). A great alternative is something like what Katie's bms did: pick a great color palette and a fabric type & let the ladies pick a dress they really love. Aren't these dress colors (and flowers) simply lovely?!?

Being able to wear the dress again is really not the issue ... feeling great about the way you look on your best friend's big day is! Fab photos by Kate Benson. Found on the Southern Weddings super cool blog!

bouganvellia orange

bouganvellia photo: delphine Casbah print Jessie blouse: J.Crew

The orange color of the bouganvellia in the studio courtyard is going to drive our pressman nuts. We're determined to capture this color in an ink! I love the same color applied to this J.Crew shirt, too.