It so happened that the main design professor had the year off and a guy called Ronnie Garver was taking his place. He was a young guy who had just gone through the same program himself. Ronnie’s style was heavily influenced by Art Chantry and the Seattle grunge movement.

I instantly fell in love.

We had to keep an inspiration journal, as part of the class. For the first time I was looking at magazines as an artist and not as a silly teenager.

Buying my first copy of Raygun (above, cover by Chris Ashworth) cemented the fact that I was not only choosing graphic design, but I was BORN to do graphic design. I spent the whole semester creating projects in the middle of the night at Kinkos. Making copy after copy, with my scissors and glue stick ready to chop it all up and paste it back together again. I’d rip it up – run outside and scrape it against the asphalt till it was barely readable – tape it back together and make another copy.

A few months into the semester Ronnie announced that Art Chantry was actually coming to the campus to give a talk. The whole dept. would also be designing posters for a Von Zippers show that Chantry would see and discuss. (The poster to the left was designed/printed by Ronnie Garver & Chad Ballard for the event.) The talk Chantry gave was amazing and incredibly inspiring. Later he came into our classroom where a hundred posters were tacked to a large wall… one of my top five proudest moments of my life was when he pointed mine out!


And 13 years later, I just found it under the bed and scanned it in!

Anyways, that’s my story. Shout out to my mentor and the spark to all of this, Ronnie Garver. You rock dude, thank you.

My brother ‘n law Zach, (aka Rushmore Beekeepers) released a brand new cd the end of October. I helped him out with the design and in true diy-fashion printed, cut, folded and sewed the booklets together myself! Zach and Carrie (most-awesome-sister) folded all of the cd cases together drew the RB on the front with a handmade stencil and stamped ‘Rushmore Beekeepers – Throwing Mud at Your Streetlight’ on the case and printable cds.

Cost & Supplies +

Paper and Printer Ink: $70
100 Arigato blank CD cases: $50
2 stamps from Simon Stamp: $11
Blank cds= $30
Total: $161 – for 100 totally unique, handmade cds & booklets… and we haven’t even gotten to the music yet!

Layout +

I’m sure you’re all wondering how I made a ten page booklet out of one sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper right? This is one side of the sheet, the other is the same layout but flipped. Cut along the pink lines and fold all three pieces in half. Ta-da!

Once all the pieces are folded sew them together down inside center with your sewing machine with a colorful thread. If you use thinner paper it won’t be an issue, but if it’s thicker the extra bulk in the middle pushes the inside pages out past the others. So after sewing I trimmed the outside edge one last time.

Gift Ideas +

How much would your family enjoy a little book like this with photos from the year collaged inside instead of a boring old Christmas card?! So much.

Website +

We also wanted to have a website up for the big release – I threw this one-pager together really quick with a short bio and links to all of his social media accounts.

Check out the site here: rushmorebeekeepers.com and swing by myspace to listen to some songs!

Video from cd release show!! +

I had this big plan to do a post of only craftily designed craft sites, I search high and low and only found three! (Well, four if you count Design Sponge which everyone’s seen). Unfortunately, most crafters seem to use blogger or blogspot and only design their headers. Same goes for illustrators – how bizarre, how bizzare! Seems like lots of artists use 100% flash, which you’ll notice is not present in my list (no offense, I’m just WAY too impatient!). (editor’s note: Long load times have been found to drive users away from your site.)

Please let me know of wonderful sites that I shouldn’t miss!

Crafty

Little stitches and notebook paper, that’s all any crafty blog really needs!

Here’s a blogspot that went all out – love the paperclip and little stamps!

Okay, I guess there’s a little bit of flash involved! Collaged papers, pencils and masking tape though, yes! This site was designed by Also, who also designed Design Sponge.

Detailed

My favorite sites are the ones where you can get lost in the little itty bitty details.

Made in England by Gentlemen – In my quest, this is the only site that I discovered I hadn’t seen before, and I have no clue why. It’s really wonderful. I love the texture carried through every image/background and especially the little blog date tags and notebook paper behind the text. Watch the header as you move around between pages and don’t leave without clicking on ‘tutorials’ under categories on the right!

While you’re there, check out “What I need to spin a good website” – really great idea for prospective clients.

Postmodern is cleaner than I usually enjoy – I just love all the boxes, shapes, shades of color and icons.

Artsy

I adore the collage in the top left corner of this site, and everything else about it. He actually has three awesome sites: misprinted type, commercial work, & an old porfolio.

There’s just something about this header paired with the beautiful artwork… lovely!

Textured

These guys have really great articles & I think that might be my favorite background texture ever!

Okay, so I just found this one on someone’s list.  Not sure who, maybe above site?  I just really like the green and texture, plus it’s brand new: so go Base 6!

Backgrounds + Borders = Swoooooon!

Colorful

All of those wonderful colorful o’s & links!

So many ding-dang stripes, watch out!!

THE END