Recently in Design Category

I'll be at BoxEight for the Spring 2009 Collection. I still need to post photos from the last gallery event...

Color Overload is a very cool Tshirt blog by Gino Orlandi, the talented designer who also runs one of my favorite design blogs, You the Designer. Color Overload is not your standard Tshirt or fashion blog - created with the designer in mind, instead of latest trends or "what I wore today"-type posts, you'll find an organized collection of very well-designed Tshirts that are presented in a fresh, inventive style. Tshirts are presented by category or color, and it's really inspiring to see what other designers are creating. If No Talent Hacks with Too Much Cash represents a bad direction in fashion and "design," Color Overload is a refreshing reminder that good design is alive and well, so be sure to support small, independent Tshist makers and designers with actual talent and quality products!

Here it is, the Rudyland FW08 collection of designer Tshirts! The Men and Women's tshirts are based on a custom pattern that is unique to Rudyland; they're not prefabricated shirt bodies from a generic wholesaler. The collar shirts and tshirts with stuff on them already are part of the "Rudyland Recycles" program, where I take existing garments and print my art on them, making something cool that is also good for the environment!

On Saturday I loaded my car with the Rudyland FW08 samples, camera gear, plenty to drink, and my awesome friends, and we headed for the BoxEight Factory in Downtown LA to take some pictures. I'm currently in the editing process right now, but the collection will be up by the end of the week, I promise! (see Photographer's Dilemma)

The Consumerist recently ran an article about how Delta is no longer offering ticket jackets to travelers, and while they lament the loss of the jacket, along with it's "foldy fun and secret slots," they touched on an interesting point - ticket jackets used to be well designed. Perhaps some still are, but I fly American (for mileage rewards) and their ticket jackets are boring. For a glimpse into the once glamorous days of air travel, before security checks and other inconveniences, peruse the Ticket Jacket Museum. Matt has an extensive collection of ticket jackets that I'm guessing range from the 40's to the 80's and include a bunch of most likely defunct airlines I've never heard of. Western Air Lines (right) was bought out by Delta in the 80s, but during their post-WWII heydey travelers could read the beautifully-designed Flight Report. I am in love with the script treatment! This is certainly better than SkyMall and other airline magazines, although one time American Way had some good drink recipes. Bust back to ticket jackets and design, I've collected some of the more interesting examples to present here, and there are many more on Matt's site.

In preparation for the blog redesign I have planned to feature Rudyland FW08, I will be slowly making changes to various page elements. Besides, any excuse to post a picture of David Bowie is a good one, right?

Currently, Rudyland FW08 samples are with the silk screener, and I'll be shooting the Look Book the following weekend. In the meantime, there is a secret painting project that I am working on...

My most recent photo adventure was covering the Music Loves Fashion party during Coachella. Fortunately I managed not to get sunburned! Photos are here.

The Rudyland Premier Collection for FW 08 is in production right now. By the numbers:

• 9 original designs
• 2 unique patterns exclusive to Rudyland
• 50 shirts total - 25 Men's & 25 Women's
• 4 colors - black, white, and two pantones
• 3 special thread colors used, since having black thread on a black shirt is boring!

Art Preview: Days until LA Market: around 50

I am currently experimenting with the blog design in MT 4.0

I changed some stuff. MT really doesn't offer a lot of support for designers (although their developer community is great) so it takes me a while to figure everything out and get the display to be perfect. There are still a few bugs (such as weird title text on the Category and Search pages) but the HP looks good and that is the most important page.