Special stuff on this one ladies and lumbergents! While on our cross country trip this summer we visited Morgan’s Nana’s cabin in the wonderful Fishtail Montana. We made loads of new friends and had awesome adventures. While prowling around on the cabin property I checked out the garage… It was a virtual treasure trove of awesome looking tools. With hungry eyes I snatched em up to immortalize them on the blog. I conferred with Nan and some of these tools belonged to her father, Bopo (dating them back to nearly 1940!). Look at how sturdy all the hatchets are. Check the awesome leafy embellishments on the saws. Behold the magnificent patina nearly 70 years has put on the tools. Get this sucker quick for yer’ desktop. By special request: room for your icons on the right! (You are welcome Mr. Rockwood)

Download the desktop here:

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Ahhhhh fresh air.

It was so nice to go to North Carolina and take a little break from the usual. Its funny how my perspective has changed of the place I’ve been going to since I was very young. Since getting into the program in college, I see everything through design goggles. Driving through the mountains makes me wonder where the art of the hand-painted sign has gone? I wonder why we’ve lost the creativity that is required of living a country lifestyle. With all of the flashy neon and sell out advertising, it is nice to go to a place where there is no flash required and loyalty is a priority. It is less about having the newest, fanciest product and more about the relationship and experience of actually getting a product that will do the job just fine. Could I get a good greasy breakfast sandwich in Orlando? Yes. Could I go to a local breakfast joint and watch customers interact with such intimacy? No. Not in these here parts. The difference between here and there is the service, the history, the community, and the people. The simplicity I used to know of the country has now become a complex mecca of design and psychology.

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So anyone who has watched any sporting event with me in recent months knows a rather disturbing fact/fetish of mine. I am in love with… luxury car leasing screens! When a good Mercedes or Lexus leasing lock-up appears on screen, I jump up and yell something dorky like:

“Look at that grid, suckers!”

-or-

“Well kern my letters those Germans can sure make a handsome leasing screen!”

Yeesh… It’s really embarrassing. I scoured the web for examples for a good half hour and got nothing (I guess you need a camera, big TV, and great reflexes to catch one of these beauties in the wild.)

Now that my confessional is out, I used this sordid love affair as inspiration for a hatchet desktop. It was a really fun exercise and I hope to do more in the future. For now though you can plaster my self-indulgent lock-up on your computer screen and save up your pennies for a Hatchet brand Hatchback (obviously). Props to Mr. Neubau for the car.

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I have a mall right down the street from me that keeps me entertained on the weekends. No, its not Millennia Mall or the Outlet Mall. Its Halley’s Antiques Mall. The fact that this mall is my favorite supports my ongoing reputation as a total grandma. I guess I matured early; broke my hip by age 14 and started knitting around that time, too. Hence my nickname in high school, Mamaw (or Mams, for short).

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Work from the artist Mark Weaver, one of my new design inspirations. He has an amazing knack for color and typography, and his exploration of space and time make for really interesting commentary on our cultural past and how it relates to the future. Definitely worth a look, take a peek here.

Kelsey Brookes @ Quint Contemporary Art from Zack Nielsen on Vimeo.

Well here is an artist I had never seen but am diggin’ his work in a major way right off the bat. Insane detail, bright colors, angry animals, and even some custom type thrown in for good measure make me wish I were in California for his upcoming show. Watch the video above (cool music too, how could you not love “watch out for the falcon, you’re booty’s in his talons”?) and read more about the show opening here at sezio.org. More pics after the jump.
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