Los Angeles Part One

Last week my friend Laura and I headed to LA for a whirlwind few days! Today I am sharing a few photos from our first two days, which included lots of good food, time spent in traffic and an Eric Clapton concert. We started our Tuesday morning with breakfast at Commissary, a beautiful restaurant on the roof of the Line Hotel. Next up we made a quick trip to The Last Bookstore before heading to Alchemy Works for some window shopping. When we noticed a Salt & Straw location right across the street we decided on ice cream for lunch and then headed to our reservation at The Broad. It was worth the wait to see Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room, and I absolutely loved the rest of the museum as well. After checking into our Venice Airbnb and relaxing for a bit we headed to our first dinner at Rossoblu (start with the meatballs!). 

Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles

Day two was all about exploring Abbot Kinney. We went to breakfast at The Butcher's Daughter, another beautiful breakfast spot, and then spent the rest of the morning was spent wandering through all the shops. I was really excited to pop in Urbanic and Burro. We also made our way to the Venice canals and admired all the lovely homes! After a quick stop back to our Airbnb to get ready, we headed out to get sushi at Wabi which had some great happy hour specials. Laura and I ended up in Los Angeles because of the Eric Clapton concert so after dinner we hopped in an uber and went on to enjoy the show! 

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Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles
Letters Are Lovely | Los Angeles

Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

I recently finished reading Bill Burnett and Dave Evans' book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. It's been awhile since I last shared a book, but this was a good one. As someone who went through design school, this book made total sense. I love the idea of approaching the way you life your life with the same lens and tools used in design thinking. The authors believe that:

“A well-designed life is a life that is generative – it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of a surprise.”
— Bill Burnett & Dave Evans

Each chapter of the book ends with actionable steps and exercises you can complete to make real changes in your life. They truly embrace finding problems and deciding upon actionable solutions, not ones that are impossible due to the realities of life. One thing you can always change is your thinking. 

“Life designers don’t fight reality. They become tremendously empowered by designing their way forward no matter what. In life design, there are no wrong choices; there are no regrets. There are just prototypes, some that succeed and some that fail.”
— Bill Burnett & Dave Evans

I won't go into too many details about the exercises, but at one point you are tasked with defining your life view and your work view. The most interesting part of this exercise is seeing where the two overlap. Ultimately, I found that this book opened me up to a completely new way of thinking in regards to goals and long-term dreams in life. By considering different realities, I was able to see that mindset and perception really are the concepts that define how we view our lives. If you are in a period of transition (like I am this year), or pondering your career path, or even happy with your current state of affairs I still recommend this book for the insights it gives into using design thinking and theory to embrace the joy and enjoy the process of life. Happy reading!

Block Printing for #My5Days

Last Thursday I spent the last of #My5Days at a block printing workshop led by Marisol Ortega. She spent the morning teaching us how she uses block printing in her illustration and lettering work, and then we were let loose to create patterns and other lettering or illustration focused pieces. I loved the freedom of creating one small square and seeing the different ways it could be printed to create patterns. In the afternoon I played around with an illustrated letter "A." I would love to incorporate this technique into future lettering pieces! Thanks, Hallmark, for five days this year to make & explore.

Letters Are Lovely | Block Printing for #My5Days
Letters Are Lovely | Block Printing for #My5Days

August Around The Web

Happy Wednesday, friends! This August was pretty work-focused as my team had a big deadline for Mother's Day cards and Dale spent his month on a time-consuming rotation in his last year of medical school. We enjoyed a few lazy weekends at home in St. Louis, and I was lucky to have a visit from my mom last week. Dale and I also traveled to Ohio for our friends' wedding, which was the perfect way to end the month!

This month was full of inspiration around the web – my favorite discovery was the work of Tom Abbiss Smith. I have been really inspired by his abstract collages, and this is one of my favorites. I would love to order one of his prints! Here are a few of my other favorite finds: 

Letters Are Lovely | August Around The Web: Artwork by Tom Abbiss Smith

Enjoy the last few weeks of Summer!