Ginga Squid

Ginga Squid: beautiful, eclectic and organic jewellery from New Zealand.

Shop and blog and flickr photostream

BrisStyle

Gotta love a bit of local content. Until recently I had no idea there were so many excellent crafters in Brisbane. I don't remember how I found the BrisStyle blog, but it's a regular read for me now, and an inspirational one, too.

BrisStyle is a cooperative group of artists, crafters and artisans all living in the Brisbane area (Australia), who sell their wares on Etsy.com, the biggest online marketplace for all things handmade.

The BrisStyle blog will keep you up to date with all the latest news and products, upcoming local markets, and behind the scenes views of our many talented members. We also hold regular giveaways on this blog each month, so follow us, or subscribe to stay in the loop!

As well as telling you about this top-class read, I have an ulterior motive: by mentioning their regular give-away here (where a member or two donates some of their wares for the cause) I get a second entry in this month's draw! But now that I've told you, you're all going to rush in and enter yourselves, thereby lessening my chances!

One of the things I most enjoy about BrisStyle is the list of upcoming markets that BrisStylettes are appearing at. I've discovered markets all over town that I never knew existed -- including a very charming one just a ten minute drive away in Grovelly -- and they do a great job of keeping the listing up to date. Hooray for BrisVegas!

Eric Carle's Blog

What a find! What a treat! The author of (most famously) The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a regular blogger. He discusses his work process, promotional work, and his life generally.

Eric Carle's shoes

His writing is sweet and thoughtful. I hope you enjoy it.




(...and something I meant to post ages ago, when it appeared on the Google home page. )

Tool: Identifont

And the answer is...Gill Sans!

With the help of the wonderful Identifont, I managed to identify a seemingly non-descript font from tens of thousands of others. It saved me a lot of time, and a lot of hair pulling.

(I should have known it was Gill Sans.)

Site: Grain Edit

"Grain edit is focused on classic design work from the 1950s-1970s and contemporary designers that draw inspiration from that time period.
Site content includes interviews, articles, designers’ libraries as well as examples of rare design annuals, type specimens, Ephemera, posters and vintage kids books from our bookshelves."

I stumbled across this site by happy accident as I hunted for something else for work. I'm a big fan of this style of design, so I'll be visiting here often, and my design work will be morphing accordingly.

Link.

Artist: James Jean

Books full of beautiful sketches of the everyday.

Link

Digital Foundations

There is some good stuff online, some bad stuff, some mediocre stuff... every now and then, though, I'm lucky enough to stumble upon something really sensational. Digital Foundations is a design course that combines the foundation course taught by the Bauhaus, with the Adobe Creative Suite. And the big juicy cherry on top is that the whole thing is available online for free under a Creative Commons license.



I'm very excited about this. I've been in need of a bit of graphics skills development, a bit of a refresher, but haven't been able to find just the right way to go about it. This may turn out to be not the right thing, either, but so far it looks almost freakishly tailor-made for me. I love it when that happens.