Resolutions

Usually when I think about resolutions, it’s in terms of dots per inch, the almighty dpi that can make or break a print project or keep things running smoothly on the web.

But for last week’s Spoonflower contest, I had to think about New Year’s resolutions – specifically, hand-lettered ones. I’d been itching to try more hand-lettering, so I came up with my list of aspirations, from the practical (do the dishes more often) to the creative (make art) to the esoteric (let it be) to the probably impossible (get more sleep), and wrote them out in my nicest, funkiest writing. It was fun to explore lots of different styles, and to think about what I wanted to improve this year. So far I’ve been flossing regularly, and making art. The rest of them I’ll have to keep working on.

As a nice bonus, my Manifesto fabric came in 3rd in the New Year’s Resolutions fabric contest. Thanks, Spoonflower voters!

Geek Chic

Hey! I made it to the semi-finals in this year’s Fabric8 contest, with the theme “Geek Chic.” My design is one of 100 semi-finalists (narrowed down from over 750 entries) chosen by a team of industry professionals from Robert Kaufman and Spoonflower to go up for public voting. I thought long and hard about what “geek chic” meant, and I decided that the essence of geekdom is being passionate about something, whether it’s superheroes or knitting or science fiction or typography, so my design is titled “Do What You <3 What You Do” and features hearts with simple symbols in them for all sorts of things people geek out on.

Life in a Jane Austen novel

As an English major and big Jane Austen fan, I’m pleased that my “Pemberley Print” fabric design placed 6th in this week’s Jane Austen-themed Spoonflower contest. The theme was “Living in a Jane Austen Novel,” so I drew sketches of Regency-style furniture and upholstered them with exaggerated floral prints in period colors like pea green, primrose yellow, puce and cerulean blue. I love drawing furniture, and Regency pieces have such ornate lines and details that make them extra fun to draw.

Just add Mr. Darcy and you’re set!

Maybe it’s destiny

My “Written in the Stars” zodiac-themed fabric made the Top 10 in last week’s Spoonflower contest. Yay! The fabric shows the constellations of the zodiac overlaid on their astrological symbols, on a dark blue starry background. The hardest part of designing this fabric was figuring out how to arrange the stars – it seemed like every constellation I looked up had 2 or 3 different versions depending on who was connecting the dots. It was a fun project to work on, though – I love star-gazing and the ancient stories behind the constellations. I’ve had a couple other constellation-related projects kicking around in my head for a while, so maybe this design will be the impetus to finish some other ideas, too.

Stars and stripes

My Starry Lanterns fabric, featuring strings of cheerily retro red, white and blue paper lanterns, came in ninth in Spoonflower’s Stars & Stripes contest this week. All those bright, fun fabrics make me feel like sewing up some cloth napkins for summer parties!