AmDC Pops up in SF

Wish we're in SF for this!  Kiel from American Design Club is working with  Rand + Statler in curating a pop up shop this coming Saturday, August 27th with bunch of designers we adore.

List of designers includes:

Kiel Mead, Silva/Bradshaw, Emily Rothschild, Fort Standard, Kai Williams + Chen Chen, Annie Lenon + Valerie Gnaedig, Lara Knutson, Jill Peterson, Studioooij, Iacoli & Mcallister, Steph Mantis, Pat Kim, Alexandra Snook, Chuck Routhier, Andie Olive, Mark McGinnis, Grain, R&L Goods, Ladies & Gentlemen Studio, Michael Cummings, Thomas Im, Marianne van Ooij, Evan Clabots, Seldon Yuan and Annika Jermyn.

If you're in the SF area, go check it out!

Crafting a meaningful home book par-tay!!

I'm totally stoked about the opening book launch party this Thursday, Oct, 21st at Rare Device! And I was more than surprised to see the Mega Doily on their flyer!! Woo Hoo!!
I'll be there to show the projects that Chika & I did...the Mega-Doily rug from Ladies & Gentlemen and also a Coat of Arms project from R&L.

Bunch of other talanted contributers will be there in person and showing some of their projects! I'm super excited that I'll actually be there to meet everyone and also help Meg and Kate Pruitt (DIY editor at Design*Sponge) do some of the installation for this event! All I know is that we're doing something with cardboard....which I can only imagine between the Meg & Kate, the place is gonna look totally amazing!

Come check out the projects and see the book in person, and of course..come say hello!

Rare Device
1845 Market Street ( at Guererro)
San Francisco, CA, 94103
October 21st, 7-9 pm

Drawings that are beyond awesome

I must share these super duper awesome drawings by our dear friend Emily Glaubinger (above)!
Check out all her amazing work at her blog, Drawing is Awesome.

Emily will be showing these amazing portraits at the Nooworks in SF this October 23rd. Looks like another great shop in the Mission district!I'm also totally obsessed with these Keds that she designed!!!
To make things even more difficult, all these Keds can be fully customized from the thread color, lace, sole & even down to the trim....just crazy.

Design Road Show

Started on February 1st this year, a design nonprofit Project H Design launched a project called Design Revolution Road Show run by Emily Pilloton. The project's mission?

Simple but ambitious....35-schools, 75-day, 7000-mile tour and exhibition showcasing design for social impact that takes place in an Airstream.

'The programming will bring the evidence of and tools for design for social impact to the doorsteps of students, with the ultimate goal of enabling and empowering the next generation of creative problem-solvers to apply their skills to the world’s most pressing problems and improve life on a global scale.'

But as I looked at their itinerary, I noticed that they purposely avoided the Northwest! Portland gets to be part more things these days than Seattle, so screw them. But Hello?! What about us!?

What's up San Francisco? I thought us west coast people are tight, that's the one thing we do have in common is the fact that we're physically on the same side, right? We gotta stick together! You guys are like the people who knows how to put on awesome parties, while Portland is like the laid back cousin who have all the great "hooks ups." I know...we're like the dorky brother who never gets invited to any cool events... and yeah, maybe sometimes we seem like we have a stick up our a** but that's only because we're a little socially inapt, but that doesn't mean we don't know how to party!

I know you think its ridiculous that we mix fleece vests with business outfits...but really, it's Seattle who started the whole woodsman-hunter-look of black & red plaid button shirt with Redwing shoes....not Portland! They just know how to wear it well! Just look at this 1966 Edie Bauer catalog!

They even got C.C. Filson's products!....Although I've yet seen anyone in Seattle carry a Filson bag...and no, it's not because we're too cheap to sport one, damn it!

See! Seattle was sporting this whole look more than 30 years ago! Perhaps that's our problem...we're just way too ahead of the game for anyone to understand us. We're like the awkward prodigy guy who's too shy to get a girl's number...or the sexy librarian lady who's too intimidating for most guys....or something like that.

Just you wait and see, soon enough, y'all will be sporting the fleece-Patagonia-vest-with-sports-sandals-look.....and of course with white socks!

L&G/Chikabird in Meg Mateo Illasco's New Book!

So around last August we briefly mentioned that Meg Mateo Illasco is working on some home decor book....but we forgot to mention that both Chika & I are also gonna be her book!!

Ok, you totally want to hear the whole story, right?
Well...let me tell you! It was a total serendipitous thing.....
It all happened on lovely mid-July day in San Francisco when Chika & I traveled there to sell our goods at the Renegade Craft Fair......But this particular day was more than any other craft show days we worked at. We had the pleasure to meet Meg for the first time that day when she was doing book signing for her book "Craft Inc."
I decided to get a copy of her book to have her autograph it since I'm a big fan of her work and I love the book and wanted to get it for a friend..but instead of acting like my normal self....I some how turned into a giant dork too shy to say much besides looking awkward and mumbling some less than significant words like "uh..your books is, uh, really cool...yeah...I like how you talk about business...and stuff...but for crafters....uh...that's pretty cool...yeah, totally."
Well...those weren't the exact words..but I'm sure it was pretty close. :P

But of course, Meg was totally cool and SUPER friendly and just started asking me what I do...and as it turned out, Meg actually knew about our work!! AWESOME!

On top of what was already an exciting interaction with Meg, things just escalated from there. Next thing I know she was in our booth checking out our stuff and chatting with us as if we're already friends (I love friends!)...and JUST when I was thinking that things can't get any awesome-er..Meg all of a sudden says to me "Hey, I'm working on a home decor book and is looking for people to submit some creative projects with a personal story, you guys wanna do it?"
I looked at her like a deer in the headlight....then looked at Chika who also had the same look as me......I looked back at Meg and thought "Could this be real?!"....then realized I should provide some sort of response since she asked me a question....then finally I responded with great confidence "......yesssss?????"
I totally thought it was too good to be true and thought maybe she just wanted to feel it out and so I was prepared that at some point we'll get an email from Meg saying that she found someone better with a better project or for whatever reason.....but everything fell into place....and we realized it was truly official when both Chika & I went back in SF 2 weeks after we met Meg, and found ourselves hanging out at Lisa Wong Jackson's lovely mid-century modern house doing a photo shoot with Meg, Lisa, Joy, and Joanna with Thayer Alllyson Gowdy the photographer for the book. Everything happened so fast I couldn't even register it all!!!
The book will consist of of 25+ other well-known designers/artists/crafters each with a DIY home decor project that has their personal stories or memories. We were thrilled when Meg told us all the awesome people like Joy from Oh Joy!, Lauren & Derek of The Curiosity Shoppe, Lisa Congdon, Lisa of Good on Paper, Cathy Callahan of Cathy of California, Tootie of ReForm School and more were all contributing to the book!
With a power group like that, I don't even have to know what sort of projects they are doing for me to just KNOW that this book will amazing!

Here's some photos from the shoot. I want to live in Lisa's house!
Lisa & Virginia (Meg's lovely assistant) in their matching striped shirt watching the photo shoot take place.
Below are the projects that got shot that day....
My Mega-Doily Rug....Oh how I wish my living room looked like that....it looks much better than my long skinny coffee table sitting on top of it...
For Chikabird, we made a Coat of Arms for the Dupe with all the graphic icons that represented us and then we wood burned them!
Joy's beautiful gold leaf glass lamp
Joanna's lovely stamped door curtainAn here's everyone sitting down for a nice lunch break. It's amazing how exhausting styling a shoot is! There were lots of moving objects back and forth going on, standing back to look at it, framing the shot with our hands, tilting our heads, squinting, and then repeat....
Yum yum almond croissants from my FAVORITE SF bakery, Tartine!!
I still couldn't really believe that this whole book thing is actually happening even after several months in when we already done the photo shoot and submitted the instructions and story...for some reason I just feared (and was trying to prepare myself) that there would still be a chance that we could get edited out.....for simply looking stupid in our photos or something like that...but they decided to keep our project! Even though I wouldn't argue one bit that I probably do look a little stupid in the photos... :P

I'm just more than excited the fact that not only will this be our FIRST time getting published in a book...it's gonna be in a book by Meg along with an amazing group of people that we've always found inspiring, too!
There's just too much awesomeness all around! Can't stand it!
The real book is plan to launch this early fall!
Stay tuned!