Boulderspace Blog Launched

We’re really excited about boulderspace, a blog that we helped conceptualize and launch as a forum for discussion relating to development, land use, design, and other community issues here in Boulder and beyond. Prices downtown are creeping toward $1500 / sf, making living even in the most dense parts of town unaffordable for the average citizen (poor graphic designers included). When combined with the apparent lack of foresight and desire to create architecturally interesting structures on the part of the developers, lots of folks I know have been waving red flags for a while now. Hopefully the bouldersace blog will give people the opportunity to express their thoughts and concerns about the face-lift of our town that seems to be happening with very little community input.

 

Naked Online

 

Neighbor just launched version 2 of the Naked Candles website. Naked is now fully up and running in their Boulder production facility, making 100% natural soy candles out of 100% domestic ingredients and materials–0% Bad Stuff.

 

Fully Caffeinated

We recently wrapped up yet another coffee shop I.D. project over at Neighbor. It never ceases to amaze me how many great coffee shops can peacefully coexist in this town. It seems to all depend on a variety of atmosphere, and the Cup seems like it’s going to fill the lofty, downtown niche well, something no one else is really going for right now. Not to mention they serve some of the best shots in town, and that’s saying a lot.

 

Haute-cakes and Tee-shirts

Fellow Boulderite and designer-of-things Brian Wood is hosting a party later this month to celebrate the launch of his new apparel company, Side B Apparel. New boutique bakery Haute Cakes will also be showing off its goods for the first time. Stop by Cafe M (formerly Traveler’s Coffee Shop) on 14th Street in downtown Boulder on Saturday April 28th for Cocktails, Cakes and Clothes.

Quick thanks to Brian for the mention of T2P in his report back from SXSW in the Daily Camera a few weeks back.

 

Austin, SXSW, Back to Work

Back from South by Southwest and busy at work. We had a great time on our first time around at SXSW and plan on doing it again, hopefully with some sort of wristband or badge. Without one, it took us two of the three days just to figure out the system and how to finagle our way into a couple of shows. We ended up seeing some good music though: Daniel Johnston through the open door of some industry-only gig at the convention center, The Black Lips and Deerhunter at a free daytime show, and The Black Angels (picture above) at the Flatstock Music Showcase on Saturday night. I would see all of these bands again the next time they pass through CO.

Tending the booth at Flatstock took up most of the day Thursday through Saturday and we met some great folks: Dirk Fowler, Bryce from Isle of Printing and Jon Smith from Seattle, who’s stuff we admired from across the aisle all weekend.

 

Naked Candle Company

Neighbor just wrapped up a brand identity project for Naked Candle Co, including logo development, naming and package design for 29 candle scents, and environmental graphics for the Natural Foods Expo in Anaheim, where NKD will unveil it’s product line this weekend. Brian also kicked ass on the website, which launched at around 4:30 this morning, just in time for the first day of the trade show. A few more photos:

 

Sidney’s Cafe

There’s a great little coffee shop hidden away in downtown Boulder that more people should know about. It’s one of those places where they know your name and what you want to eat or drink after the first few times you stop in. After a while you might get a nickname or have a sandwich named after you. My kind of place. Regular customers know how to navigate there, but they were in need of a little more presence on the street so that passers-by might drop in and realize what they had been missing out on. Neighbor created a new logo a while back and we all stood on the curb and got a little teary eyed when the sign finally went up in the window. Sidney’s feels all grown up now–hopefully not ~too~ many people take notice.

 

Flatstock 12 | Austin, TX | March 15-17

We’re heading down to Austin for our first pilgrimage to Flatstock, the big poster convention put on each year at SXSW by the API. We’re hoping to sell some posters, swill some margaritas / eat real mexican food, and attempt to see some music.

Some of the people who’s stuff we are looking forward to seeing: The Decoder Ring (these guys actually did the graphics for all of SXSW this year–way to go, F2 Design / Dirk Fowler, Lure, and Methane Studios.

We’ll be printing up some of the above posters to send down to Austin ahead of time to promote the show. If you live in Texas you should come.

 

Ozo Coffee Co. is Open for Business

Our good friend and former coffee shop co-employee recently struck out on his own and opened Ozo Coffee Co. We’ve talked for years about how when this finally happened (we always knew it would) that we wanted first dibs on helping out with the identity of the shop.

The Costa Rican heritage in the family of the owners, the custom blened house espresso (part Guatemalan) and the name Ozo led to a final logo reminiscent of a Maya glyph, and leaves the door open for further expounding on this theme on the interior.

The first pieces were in place on opening day–a freshly-skinned awning with a hand-painted version of the logo and an open channel neon sign. Ozo is also the only shop in town that can boast hand-printed punch cards, but we’re realizing quickly that our squeegee might not be able to keep up with their volume. Next up is a custom menu system. More photos:

 

50 Posters Checklist

Brad and I spent the last couple of days leading up to our show putting together a letterpressed, oversized “matchbook” that contains a checklist of our first 50 posters. We finished these about 20 minutes before 7:00 on Friday night. Click here for more pics

 

Ray Fenwick Draws Well

Check out the illustration, posters and hand-lettering of Ray Fenwick. These party posters from Trinidad & Tobago are also worth a quick look.

 

Big Diffy World Premiere / T2P Party

Big Diffy was a hit (check), we sold a couple of posters (check) and people appeared to be enjoying themselves(check). Friday night at White Hills was fun. Thanks to everyone who came out. Click here for more pics.

 

New Neighbor Digs

Finally coming up for air after office-scramble-Sunday. We’ve settled in, at least temporarily, to our new home in the Smokeproof Press / Neighbor letterpress shop. It should be a creative, albeit cozy, solution while we look for something a little more permanent. Regardless of how long we keep our day-to-day operation here, this is where the letterpress magic will continue to happen. The photo above is a panoramic shot of the shop, so imagine yourself looking from left-to-right and then continuing from left-to-right through the bottom photo. Click ‘more’ for more photos.

 

50 Posters by table2press

To celebrate our 50th screenprinted poster and our new print studio digs, we are throwing a little shin-dig at White Hills on Friday February 9th. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by for a beer or four. We’ll have everything we’ve ever laid down put up in chronological order, plus a couple of test prints and art prints just for the show. You’ll also be able to check out some of Dovetail’s handmade wares and see the world premiere of the Big Diffy live musical act–singing and song-writing by 1/2 of our friends over at Milk Baby.

White Hills Living 1143 13th St. Boulder, CO

 

Ye Olde Desk

I’ve become rather attached to the current incarnation of my desk…views of the foothills out the window, exposed brick and ceiling beams, and what might look like a mess to most people, but to me is a beautiful system of organized chaos. But change is good and Neighbor is on the move. We found a nice turn-of-the-century row house and it feels like a good move that should allow for a little growth and a little more breathing room. We’re also trading second floor anonymity for street level signage and a toilet that barely flushes for a full bathroom with a clawfoot tub. And the beautiful thing is that it’s only about a half block away. Maybe I can move my desk without disassembling a a year’s worth of clutter after all.

UPDATE: Scratch the row house. Despite being over 100 years old, the City of Boulder apparently sees very little historical significance on the enitre block (surprise), which we just found out will eventually be completely demolished to make way for more million dollar yuppie huts. Even worse, the people behind the project are the same ones responsible for all the other god-awful new developments around town.

I’m actually looking forward to Plan B–working out of Brad’s / Neighbor’s letterpress studio on Arapahoe. It’s an inspiring, albeit cozy workshop that should get the creative juices flowing as we hopefully begin thawing out a little bit around here. I’ll post some pics when we get settled in.

 

Soul Fabric Films Identity System

We just wrapped up a project over at Neighbor for our friends at Soul Fabric Films. Neighbor created the new logo, a letterpressed business card set, and a stationary / envelope that uses a custom-made rubber stamp to keep costs down.

 

Bygone Beers

I’m just old enough to remember pull tabs on beers. This was when “micro brew” didn’t necessarily mean a quality or specialty crafted ale; in fact, it was more likely to mean generic and less-than-stellar. That doesn’t mean that some quality designs didn’t grace the shelves of the local Drive-Thru Beer Barn, which apparently still exist in some places. In fact, some of the most generic sounding beers are some of my favorite cans. If you want to seek out that can from your childhood that Pops eventually abandoned in favor of a more convenient and readily available Coors product, you can probably find it here.

Now for some beer trivia. A case of Karl’s K to the first person that knows which former president’s brother had a beer named after him? Click “more” for the answer.

 

Stefan Bucher’s Daily Monster

I’ve been enjoying Stefan G. Bucher’s Daily Monster illustration series. You will too.

 

DeMaria Construction Business Cards

We recently created a logo and designed / screenprinted some business cards for our friend and do-it-all carpenter Dave at DeMaria Construction. If something looks like it’s less than 4″long, don’t be afraid to use the back of Dave’s card to get a precise measurement.

 

Route 66, Tucamcari, NM

There are parts of I-40 in New Mexico where you can drive parallel to the highway on historic Route 66. Kind of like a time machine to a road trip from 50 years ago. It doesn’t hurt that a lot of original signage is still right where it has always been, even if the business along the road died when the insterstate was built. I’m a sucker for old signs–it seems like everyone had metal and neon back in the day and now everyone is too cheap to pay for it. Here are a couple of pics from the part of Rout 66 that runs through Tucamcari.