still life with color

I’ve had lots of inspiration lately for various greeting card lines, and this helps to balance the production-centric work I’ve been doing lately. Design lines include:

• Food
• Judaica
(lots of overlap in the above two!)
• Floral & Herbal
• Coffee & Tea ….

Let’s see how much I can get done in time for the holidaze….

day of the dead in san rafael

Always love working with great material, and this is great material! “Odissi, Oriza and Original Dance in celebration of Day of the Dead” unites different cultures to honor our ancestors and the eternal cycles of birth, death and rebirth. This wonderful event, organized by Nubia Teixeria, takes place November 1, 7 PM at Open Secret Bookstore in San Rafael. I’m looking forward!

georgia on my mind

Would love to see Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction at the Whitney in NYC. In the meantime, since I’ve been creating lots of decorative borders lately anyway, thought I’d have some fun …. Okay, I really must get back to work!

a flourishing new year!

dance & yoga

Designing this new postcard for such an inspirational person is, well, an inspiration. I’d love to try out Nubia’s dance classes!

kol shofar fall program guide

Fresh from the print-house!

One of my favorite parts of being a graphic designer is getting material back from the printer. In this case, it’s the new Fall Program Guide for Congregation Kol Shofar.

Lots of great new programs, with good imagery to work with, and I was able to use some of my own Judaica images to fill in the gaps. Working with the staff at Kol Shofar to get the material for this booklet was a breeze. Next stop: update their website, as new programs are being added, and the high holidays are around the corner.

what really inspires me

Yes, yes, yes, I’m a big fan of espresso….  Diplomatico in Toronto is one of my all time faves…. but there are many cafes than can serve up those delicious velvet, bitter shots and help give a great start to the day.

Above, from left – Toronto’s Diplomatico, San Anselmo’s Roasters, Sydney, Nova Scotia (don’t remember this fabulous cafe’s name), Sausalito’s Divino (they’re grrrrreat!), and espresso with butter tart in Charlottetown, PEI. And here’s a macchiato from this afternoon – the best.

It’s truly the small things in life….

going live!

Been working on this website for Marin Psychotherapist Liz Kughn. It’s been a fantastic collaboration with Liz – she does lots of the text editing using wordpress, and will be able to make changes and additions very easily, and I’ve created the design, graphics, and customized the css from the original template. It’s great to go live!

earthy spirited graphics

Fresh from the bakers oven….

Have just created this new marketing material for Ruach Ha’Aretz, (Spirit of the Earth). This branding campaign includes a new logo, program postcard, and html email, as well as website update, all describing the wide variety of programs Ruach Ha’Aretz – which has become Aleph’s mobile retreat center – is currenty planning. These include a wisdom school, two summer retreat programs, a mid-winter retreat program, a chanting program (kol zimra), a sage-ing program, and more.

Nice to be able to include a wide assortment of photos for the email especially, showing various aspects of the programs, including locations, teachers, the land, and of course the attendees, including many kids in the summer retreat. Hoping to capture the multi-faceted nature of these programs, which take place in beautiful locations around North America.

elegant, safari!

The new Top Sites view that the latest Safari browser shows makes for an interesting layout. I like the three-dimensionality of it. Looking at it makes me want to “design it”, i.e. place pages, and create a little movie showing my work. I especially like the reflection at bottom. (Empty cell at bottom’s for a new website just for you!) Just updated – to have this site within a site….