Tonight I was able to attend Juan Carlos Pagan's talk in KC for design week! I haven't been to an AIGA event in awhile and it was wonderful to get to spend an evening hearing about his work. JC is an art director, typographer, and designer who loves to manipulate letterforms to tell stories. His talk focused on doing things the hard way, and his passion for creating definitely comes through in his work. Thanks AIGA KC, and my friend Lila, for bringing another great speaker to KC!
Hallmark CLS Speaker: Gemma O'Brien
Today I received my invitation to Hallmark's Creative Leadership Symposium and I was especially excited to see that Gemma O'Brien (@mrseaves101 on Instagram) will be speaking! I have followed Gemma for a long time and her work is stunning. The whole lineup has not been announced yet, but based off of the few names we did learn I know it will be an amazing day.
The theme for this year's event is "Explore What Else?" and I think each of the speakers will address this in their talk — I can't wait to report back after the actual event! For now, enjoy some of Gemma's beautiful work:
Rome, Italy
Happy Monday! Sophie and I spent our last day in Italy exploring Rome before our flight back to the USA. We woke up early in order to take the train from Sorrento to Rome. It was a rainy travel day, but by the time we arrived the sun was shining. After checking into our hotel and changing clothes we were off exploring!
Our first stop was a walk past the Trevi Fountain before stopping for a late lunch. There were SO many tourists I don't know that I would recommend visiting Rome in mid-July, but we still had a wonderful day. After lunch we walked on to the Pantheon! After taking a few pictures we walked on towards the Colosseum. We relaxed there for awhile enjoying the view, and it was on to the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome for dinner. This was my favorite area in Rome, it was so peaceful compared to some of the more tourist stops and full of charming buildings around every turn. Our dinner was also amazing, if only I could remember the name of the restaurant!
Thanks so much for reading along about our Italian adventure! I have loved sharing each place we visited, hopefully you gained some travel inspiration. For even more photos take a peek at #sophandallietakeitalia over on Instagram. Ciao!
Think.Make.Share. Bookplates
In celebration of #NationalBookLoversDay I created a post for Think.Make.Share. featuring downloadable bookplates by several Hallmark artists (including myself!). Go peruse and download some for your own library HERE. Happy reading!
Letters are lovely recap
Here is a recap of the first nine of my Letters Are Lovely pieces! I will be posting another recap in the future so it will be interesting to compare the two. Any favorites?
Commercial Type Talk: STLDW
Paul Barnes, of Commercial Type, began his St. Louis Design Week talk with a quote:
It's not just about the money, it's not just about the art. It was fascinating to hear his perspective on running Commercial Type, and how he works with Christian Schwartz in their offices in New York and London. A longtime Vanity Fair reader, I loved learning about the process of developing typefaces for their brand, and this was just one example from their impressive list of clients. The historical influences in Commercial Type's work are undeniable, but what is rooted in the classical becomes expressive and modern in personal work like Dala Prisma. I love how their employees get one day a week to step away from client work and explore. I found the entire talk inspiring, thanks STLDW for bringing in such an interesting speaker!
