berkeley kite festival

dancing lion chocolate

Dancing Lion Chocolate is open! 917 Elm Street, Manchester, New Hampshire.

More info about Dancing Lion – as well as the process behind building the logo/identity – to come shortly. In the meantime, take a look at pages 48-49 of this article in The Hippo and visit dancinglion.us to learn more about Rich’s extraordinary chocolates.

feelmax niesa

The air is getting colder now (delicious!) so I haven’t been wearing my huaraches as much. I still can’t bring myself to lace up my regular sneakers, but have been yearning to run. My next project is a pair of slightly warmer covered shoes using Vibram material for the sole with added linen, hemp, and [possibly] laces. Laces might not be necessary; we’ll see.

For the past few weeks I have been running/walking/living out of a pair of Niesas (these I did not make, but they are excellent inspiration!):

The first time I put them on I ran around the block and couldn’t stop grinning like something ridiculous. I honestly didn’t want to take them off after my run (coming from me, that means a lot, as I usually quite dislike wearing shoes and socks )

Niesas are designed by Feelmax, a small family-run company in Finland that’s not so small anymore. The shoes are not specifically designed for running but they happen to be perfect for it – the designers were originally inspired from traditional Sami moccasins (of the Scandinavian Arctic). Niesas aren’t easy to find in the US yet but I think they’re truly brilliant.

They’re ultra-lightweight with a sole of only 1mm thick (2mm with insole) and have an amazing barefoot feel, even better than my homemade huaraches. The cold/heat transfer through the sole is incredible, but something to be wary of! On a recent trip to Los Angeles I realized that the city is full of toasty parking lots and that my feet would soon be toast if I didn’t add tar to my list of things not to step on. Frozen earth will be a challenge as well (plus the soles are quite smooth on the bottom, but because they are so thin the muscles in the foot transfer through the sole and compensate pretty well for the traction issue.)

I have tried on a pair of Vibram FiveFingers but I was never really drawn to them – perhaps it was the feeling of my toes being separated and contained. I love that the Niesas are more shoelike and aren’t skin-tight – there is ample room at the top of the shoe so that my toes spread naturally when I shift weight onto them, but not too much room so that the shoes feel too big.

And now ChiRunning‘s got me hooked. [Much] more on that later.

to the forest

Redwood canopy bonsai, fern gardens, tree caves, ancient mosses and lichens. I’m fascinated that other species fo trees – western hemlock, douglas fir – can grow as aerial microforests in the canopies.

“Maybe these trees can teach us something about ourselves, Marie and I and you, we’re nothing. We’re little snapshots in time, and we’ll soon be gone. This grove has burned in huge fires during the past millennia. Redwoods don’t die if they burn. A redwood can be burned to a blackened spar, and afterward it goes, ’Wooah,’ and just grows back. Look at Kronos. It’s hammered. Its dying. And it’s more beautiful than ever. These trees can teach us how we can live. We can be hammered and burned, and we can come back and be more beautiful as we grow.”

–Steve Sillett

There is such a thing as “tree time”. As Richard Preston describes in the book The Wild Trees: “…time has a different quality in a forest, a different kind of flow. Time moves in circles, and events are linked, even if its not obvious that they’re linked. Events in a forest occur with precision in the flow of tree time, like the motions of an endless dance.”

An explosion of reiteration, like fractals.

“A tree creates a complex structure in many scales – an architecture made up of nooks and crannies and shaded, moist spots and fertile pockets where all kinds of living things can become established and interact with one another.”

–R. Preston

Photo found on http://www.gillesebersolt.com/rea/sob.htm

barefoot shoes

Practically weightless at just a few millimeters thick. I can feel everything from tiny pebbles to the ridges on escalator stairs.

I have found that, running, walking, living barefoot – or with ultra-thin soles that protect from glass shards or other sharp objects – better connects me with my surroundings and my own sensitivities. After wearing these all summer I have noticed my feet strengthen and my balance/posture improve. Also… it’s been really fun to make my own shoes (and a lot cheaper than buying a pair at a store).

The first pair I made (4mm Vibram Cherry from a 40″ sheet I found online; hemp string).

Added some elastic I found at a thrift store (it was labelled “ballerina cord”). Incredibly comfortable but wears out relatively fast (after only two weeks of constant wear). I found some smooth, round nylon string I’m going to try next.

I’m looking around for different lacing materials and am excited to keep experimenting with various ways of tying them up. Invisibleshoe.com has some excellent tips and tricks for huarache-making. Thanks to Barefoot Ted for giving me inspiration to make my own.

That’s the knot that can wear out pretty quickly with the the black elastic. Working on figuring this out.

experimenting with natural dyes

a road trip south

Recently, I had a lovely adventure – I visited a friend in the mountains east of Los Angeles for a couple days. As much as I have loved not driving a car / biking everywhere / taking the train when I need to get across the bay, I had a ton of fun for many, many, many hours on the road with this sweet little machine:

I plan to share more moments from this black and white roll. Eventually.

bicycles

San Francisco, here is yet another reason why I find you oh-so-amazing. This is what valet bike parking looks like at the Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco:

Speaking of bikes in trees, I stumbled upon this recently on this incredible image on the Sierra Club website:

“Decades ago, a child chained a bicycle to a tree on Washington’s Vashon Island. The tree, unperturbed, grew around the bike.” (Photo by Ethan Welty/Tandem)

I think this comment is pretty brilliant:

(I absolutely agree, Terry.)

Two weeks after I moved to the Bay Area was two weeks too long without a bicycle. The abundance of bike lanes in the East Bay (as well as San Francisco) make the transition from rural dirt road mountain biking (with zero cars) to relatively busy neigborhood streets (like Telegraph Avenue) a bit easier. My bike is how I get to the farmer’s market, the subway, the ocean, and how I visit friends. It’s allowed me to find neighborhood secrets and natural nooks / overlooks I likely never would have discovered. I am endlessly thankful for my bike!

When seeking out a trusty steed, I tested out a number of bikes and on a blue and white roadbike that felt perfect from the first pedalstroke. The only thing not so perfect about it was the paint job. So, I decided on a new palette:

Here was the beginning of my  painting design (done in Photoshop):

You can see some of the original blue and white paint poking through from my not-so-careful digital paint job. In real life, though, it’s fully painted – I decided to leave some of the original black paint and fill the rest in with green plus tan pinstripes. It’s amazing how color can completely transform an object and its personality.

On road biking in general: I still haven’t gotten over the SPEED factor. Compared to my old clunker, this bike almost feel like cheating

growing!

latest arrow designs

herb garden: sprouted!

In the backyard sun, having no real idea what I was doing, I put some seeds in soil in a cardboard box: basil (purple petra and Italian large leaf), chives, spearmint, and moss curled parsley.

After just 6 days, I see sprouts! So excited about this pesto-to-be. Here’s the large leaf basil:

And the purple petra:

I’m a little afraid that this California sun will do nothing but good for the plethora of seeds I stuck in the ground and will have me making pesto for days on end. But until things get going, I bought some Thai basil, two types of cherry tomatoes (golden and sweet), Greek oregano, and flat leafed parsley from the farmer’s market.

Here’s one of the cherry tomatoes:

First fruit!:

I yearn to bike, bike, bike…

Grizzly Peak Boulevard, you’re wildly epic.

I admit, walked my bike up a few of your treacherously steep/curvy bits on the way up… but being the highest route I’ve [mostly] pedaled yet, you wore me out.

At the top, I’m transported into ruralesque calm:

Looking the other direction, I can just barely see my starting point through the mist/fog/glow:

And the sweetest rush: a downhill glide home.

A surprise – crickets! (But come on, now – crickets, in early June? Not until late August…?)

arc

Once in a while, it’s nice to have things that connect us, together, to the sky.

lakes

I discovered a secret place to go swimming:

And, a place to relax:

Or, commandeer a Venetian gondola ride through absolutely-not-Venice?

trumpets

local

Local flora, found at a farmer’s market:

Local fauna, seen crossing a sidewalk after a rainstorm:

Local pizza, consumed after I passed by a line of people wrapped around the front of the restaurant and around the block. I joined the line, realizing this must be something yummy (and it truly was). One type of pizza a day. Today’s was organic cilantro, lime, feta, organic corn. Order a slice and you’ll get 1 and 1/4.

Local yogurt. Frozen organic cherry:

Speaking of cherries… semi-local cherries (grown in southern California):

barefoot transience

We wandered to the Pacific.

absorb, ponder, wonder.

bike adventure: sf –> marin headlands –> sausalito and back.

Bicyclelove.

miniature treehouses!

At a garden center nearby. Lovely!

hours

ubiquitous type

Growing a type collection: ubiquitoustype.tumblr.com

on type

Anca by DizajnDesign, from the FontShop June 1 Newsletter

Type is personality, presence, and reflects what we see in our lives in an abstracted and simplified form. A typeface can represent a cultural movement, a period in history, or an emotion, just as a song or album can – typographic style can be compared to the melody, tone, and rhythm of a song, while words and language enforce the meaning of that song.

I think a lowercase ‘a’ could be viewed as a work of art in itself – a representation of a sound, a gesture, a small piece of linguistic history, a snapshot of something static yet ever-evolving. A particular script typeface might remind you of the organic, sweeping limbs of a willow tree, while another face may be reminiscent of the rough geometric forms of a cityscape. As a graphic designer and someone conscious of social and environmental sustainability, I think an appropriate use of a type treatment in a design (even a subtle change of face, noticeable only on a subconscious level or to the highly-trained eye) can inject added meaning into a message in order to more effectively bring about positive change.

Somehow, type is distinctly human. It’s easy to forget that the fonts you use on the computer were actually created by a person, since they are so meticulously refined and digitized. But every letterform, mark of punctuation, or glyph is essentially derived from something natural – such as the proportions of a nautilus shell, the anatomy of the human body, or the linear, chiseled marks on a rock-cave wall. Perhaps a typographic specimen blatantly explains the way in which it was created: by the splattering of hot orange paint on concrete, or by the sweeping motion of a finger through sand on an ocean beach, or by a series of italicized marks produced as a result of flowing ink through a steel nib onto paper. The process, end result, and lifespan of type can be both beautiful and meaningful.

ubiquitoustype.tumblr.com – Type is truly ubiquitous.

There is much to see in day-to-day urban wanderings. But there are letters to be found elsewhere, as well – in the branches of trees, in architecture, in the spaces between clouds.

This is my ongoing collection: for inspiration, for study, for what you will. Included are ‘specimens’ I have encountered in my everyday and in my travels, as well as interesting lettering spotted found while navigating the wild and ever-changing seas of the internet.

hello, california

View from a hill in Berkeley, looking across the bay towards San Francisco and the Golden Gate.

And hello, new telephone. A welcome replacement for my old dead Motorola dinosaur. I put off buying a smartphone for as long as possible – it’s the map/GPS feature that drew me in. It empowers me to explore new areas safely.

Life updates: DC -> NH -> CA and everything inbetween

She’s holding up the world:

…I gave it a shot as well.

Yikes. A lot has happened since I last sat down to write updates on life, which was before I left Washington, DC. Now It’s over a year later and I feel that I should attempt to fill in the gaps! Here are updates in rough.

I…

So, I packed a few meaningful things in boxes, bought a one-way ticket, and am now settling into the Bay Area.

I sleep pretty soundly on planes but was pleasantly surprised at the landscape out my window as my 737 passed above Colorado:

apple quandary: speared by a twig! lucky or unfortunate?

I recently stumbled across kuler.adobe.com, an incredibly dynamic and useful color tool for original palette inspiration, color matching, cmyk>hex conversion, etc. Speaking of apples, here’s a screenshot of a color theme, Apples, uploaded by a kuler user. (I’ve taken a liking to the feature which allows kuler users to export swatches to PhotoShop or Illustrator).

Now my mind is spinning autumn hues…

Scarlet blueberries.

shadowplants

Iceland

It’s just about a year after my trip to Iceland and recently I have been revisiting photos and memories. I thought I would share a few of them here; it feels nice to reflect on things-passed once in a while.

As I was waiting in line at the post office last March to mail my application to join a group of volunteers working on a conservation project in the west fjords of Iceland, Eyjafjallajokull jostled itself from its smoky sleep. Project plans were put on hold and many of us opted not to participate in the project. But, I held on to my plane ticket–just in case.

As my June Boston-to-Reykjavik flight date drew nearer, skies over Iceland were clear, and the volcano appeared to be resting again… but for how long? My choice: take a loss on the non-refundable airline ticket, or take the chance and travel my own, with the possibility of being stranded there for a while if Eyja started herself awake again.

After thorough research, corresponding with a few locals, and researching ferry transportation from Iceland>Scotland>United States if airlines were to go awry, my gut was absolutely decided. Even my worrisome mother (well, worried when it’s reasonable to be worried) thought there wasn’t a risk (and at the time of my flight, there absolutely wasn’t), and she encouraged me to go. So I threw myself into a two week personal adventure of wandering, photographing, absorbing, writing, being. I was thankful to meet a few amazing people with whom I shared the experience.

Below are a few of the photos from a few of my favorite moments/places. You can find more photos here (northern Iceland) and here (southern Iceland).

This is an inlet in Akureyri, Iceland’s “arts capital of the north”.

Spiral staircases, everywhere. I have always had a quirky sort of love for them.

Wandering the outskirts of town with Tim from Taiwan who I met at the hostel when I first arrived.

We went on a hike to a lake in Engimyri.

And found a glacier to roll down.

The wildflowers here are the heartiest I’ve seen.

Strongly rooted, yet stretching up…

We explored Lake Mývatn.

The skies were incredible and unlike anything I’d seen.

Before heading to the south of Iceland, I decided to go as far north as I could go. I took a bus to a ferry to the island of Grímsey, where I met Tommy from Canada.

Sailing north, away from Iceland.

We saw a whale. Then, we saw the island. It’s bisected by the Arctic Circle.

Looking north.

The seabirds had no fear of attacking you. Locals hold a long rod above themselves to trick the birds into attacking the rod instead of their heads.

These puffins, looking south across the ocean (see Iceland in the distance), sounded like chuckling clowns. Not at all what I had expected–but it was awesome to hear their little voices up close.

I took a bus across the center of the island through miles and miles of farmlands and uninhabited moss-covered lava fields. To prevent landslides:

Even garbage and recycling trucks are beautified. I noticed Icelandic advertising often has no text.

Reykjavík.

View from my hostel at around 11pm, light all night long.

I stumbled across the women’s national soccer team having a rigorous practice session.

Abstracted Viking ship at the waterfront.

I found a Viking Festival in Hafnarfjördur, part of the Summer Solstice celebration!

Downtown concert.

At the pier.

Espresso, people-watching, attempting and failing to pronounce Icelandic correctly.

I will have to share some of my found-typography photos in another post.

Alley apartment.

So common to see metal roofs, metal siding, (sometimes even metal shutters). And red Xmas lights to match.

Skogafoss, just south of Eyjafjallajokull. I climbed to the top but didn’t think it wise to go any farther.

There was ash thick on the ground like a moonscape and the air smelled of stale smoke.

On the bus to the falls, we whizzed past this little grass-covered house–actually a cave for storing hay to keep it dry for the winter–and walked quite a ways back to find it…

Once the fog lifts, the land spreads so far, in every direction.

So many places had qualities of abandonment and solitude, yet were unabashedly inviting.

So many hues of green.

I met Anne, from Germany, and we shared a lobster soup.

We explored the Golden Circle, and on our way, saw this geothermally-heated greenhouse full of tomatoes:

A geothermal power plant.

Near a hot spring.

It’s soothing to breathe the steam from boiling water bubbling up from the ground, but it certainly makes you watch your toes.

This is the mid-Atlantic rift. Two continents meet here.

A two-hour swim in a geothermal heated pool with more minerals than you can name does the trick for pretty much any ailment–mental or physical.

The water was 95 degrees and the air 40.

Hair still wet, I boarded my plane and fell asleep. I couldn’t believe it when I woke up a few hours later, looked out my window to see icebergs off the tip of Greenland:

fletcher’s fletchery: create your own arrow tool

Something exciting is in the works in the world of arrow-making: we’re developing an interactive “Create your own arrow” tool for Fletcher’s Fletchery online. This tool will [eventually {once we get the Flash working}] allow an arrow-seeking customer to create their own original designs by picking the shaft color, nock color, feather styles, as well as their own crest pattern. Type in the quantity of arrows you’d like and submit your design, easy as that. Master Fletcher will make them for you and ship them right to your door!

thank you for the play doh, julie!

Julie, a good friend and fellow designer, works at Hasbro doing packaging design, branding, and other nifty things for toys. She has recently re-introduced me and my roommate to the joys of Play Doh. Ah, the joy!

Bee and flower: inspired after watching the wonderful documentary film Queen of the Sun, which I would highly recommend.