lovely bottle caps

i’m a big fan of pretty bottle caps, so i was excited to come into the possession of these two, one from shiner beer and one from boulevard brewing co.

williamsburg community blood drive

is this weekend in williamsburg brooklyn! give blood save lives!

details here.

james victore, found on the 6 train

the fella with the moustache is james victore, of james victore inc. fame. i spotted him from across the way on the 6 train a few days ago and said hi to him. nyc is awesome like that.

i’m going to visit him at his studio this thursday, so i’ll post any wisdom and insights i gain here.

live from bklyn exists because of goose grease

i know, “what?” but the terminology is not literally. it’s nominal. goose grease is the name of the company that paid the bills in a major way whilst lfb was getting of the ground. now that we are in a good rhythm and experiencing strong growth, we must take a moment to honor those who helped us get here.

it was started by my wife, michelle crafton, later kelly wallace, dave’s wife lent a mighty helping hand, along with a friend, sara merten. now michelle and anna donado create the dolls and send them on to their happy homes. and while lfb has become self-sustaining, we couldn’t have done it in the beginning without the help of these super-chicks.

everyone should take hiatus

i couldn’t agree more.

the font wishlist

if there’s anybody out there that really just wants to buy something for live from bklyn, you can start with these fonts;

pf handbook pro

liza

sign painter

numbers

what motivates you?

when times are financially tough, as they’ve been for the past couple of years, your motives for starting a business, growing a business, or working for someone else’s company become increasingly apparent. if your motives for any of the above is to make tons of cash, go on sweet vacations, have a gold-plated ipad, or become famous, you’ll find yourself becoming frustrated and bitter (which, ironically, leads to making poor business decisions) when you’re not accomplishing those goals. however, if your overall purpose is to improve a group of people’s existence, positively affect the environment, or generally make the world a better place, then you’ll only become more passionate, sincere, and driven because all of a sudden, when you or your business is making less money, it’s not just effecting you, it’s negatively effecting an entire group of people or the planet.

a while ago, we decided to use our resources to help take down modern day slave trading by partnering with International Justice Mission. so when business is slow and our cash flow decreases, we don’t get upset because we’ve got to cancel a weekend vacation in tahiti, we work harder knowing that there is a group of people scattered all around the world that continues to suffer. when our business does well, we work harder knowing that we’re making a larger positive impact. our success is directly tied to their success.

detaching personal wealth and ego from your work can be the best thing for your career and/or business. try it. decide to make positive change and see what happens. the world will thank you for it.

live from bklyn is tweeting now

figured it was time to get the company on there, not just dailey. @livefrombklyn.

5 great resources for creative entrepreneurs

a lot of my time lately has spent thinking about how awesome these following sites/companies are. often, the only time organizations get any kind of review or mention is when people have a beef. so, i like to make an effort from time to time to shine a light on groups that are getting some good stuff done.

1. the behance network. twitter; @behance
if the behance network was useful before, it’s even better now that it has made some nice updates. among my favorites are;

• the ability to add folks to your inner circle OR follow them (twitter style). i don’t want to have everyone and their mom in my inner circle, but there are some killer designers out there that i want to keep tabs on.
• better compatibility with twitter. new projects can be automatically posted to twitter upon publishing
• overall more intuitive UI

2. cloud app. twitter; @getcloudapp
one of the most useful internet services i’ve come across in a while. it runs in the background on your mac. you can set it up to automatically upload screen shots when you create them. you can also push any file from you finder, any song from itunes or any photo from iphoto (as well as a few other things) simple by highlighting the item and executing a lickety-split keystroke. cloud app then automatically pastes a url for the file to your clipboard. it’s perfect for sharing concepts and revisions with collaborators and clients.

3. drop box. twitter; @dropbox
also a file sharing/collaboration service, but different from cloud app in some key ways. drop box is essentially on online file folder. the nice thing is that it looks and acts just like any folder in your finder would, but all the files are online. so, you can access them from anywhere, and that is handy-dandy if anything ever was. the free account is 2GB with paid accounts coming with more space. however, you can earn 250MB for each referral that opens an account (up to 3 extra GB. i’m at 4.5GB total).

4. mint.com. twitter; @mint
mint.com has single-handedly changed the way i think about finances. really, what good is all that pretty design that you make if you can’t seem to hang on the paycheck for more than a week? mint.com keeps you in check with budget planning tools, spending notifications and more.

5. ally bank. twitter; @allybank
probably the only bank i’ve ever really loved. ally has interest checking, no penalty CDs, reimburses all ATM fees that you incur (which was the deal maker for me) and is one of the few companies that uses the color purple well (no reference to the color purple of oprah winfrey fame).

a short lesson

as dailey’s business partner, i’ve left the blogging to him. but recently, i came across a subject that we need to be clear about. with his blessing, i’ll continue. it’s a small clarification with big ramifications: lfb does not do branding. we design identities associated to brands — we’re in the business of making companies look good. we use design to beautifully and effectively articulate a brand, but it’s not the brand itself. allow me to explain.

this past week, i ordered a new pair of soccer shoes to wear during my weekly saturday scrimmages. they’re adidas copa mundial cleats, and they’re awesome. having worn this specific line of soccer cleat for the past 15 years or so, i’ve wondered upon occasion why these cleats, and so many other good products made by adidas, seem to be less popular than other athletic companies’ sports wear.

as i was trying on my right shoe, i saw the answer to my question stamped on the insole (see the pic). it says “the brand with the three stripes.” if the powers that be at adidas see their brand as “three stripes” then i’m afraid their future is bleak and their competition need not worry.

their logo may be three stripes, but their brand is not what they say it is; it’s what i say it is and what you say it is. the coalescence of every experience i’ve had related to adidas and the thought that results in a second’s time is what their brand is to me. each person has different experiences that informs their thought of adidas, and as a result, the adidas brand varies from person to person.

i’m sure this blog post is going to make its way to the head of adidas’ marketing and design department, so i’ll give a simple two-step plan of action:

1) immediately stop printing anything that says “brand” because chances are high the sentence it’s being used in is a false statement.

2) spend your resources giving customers a great experience that leads them to think happy thoughts when they see the three stripes logo.

the future is bright for companies focused on giving their market enjoyable experiences through exceptional design, customer service, value, and expertise. it’s not so bright for companies telling the market how to perceive their brand.

cutting edge… err… ok that was cheesy

enjoyed looking at this poster that christopher from mine sent over. paper cut out illustration by yulia brodskya.

not all free fonts are created evil

“the most striking result of this survey is that the respondents overwhelming reject free fonts.”

i pulled this quote from a recent type survey preview i received in an email from gdusa magazine. it’s true, the vast majority of free fonts are chock full o’ wonky kerning, unpolished letterforms and are lacking certain essential characters.

but being the bargain hunter that i am, i do enjoy a good, well-crafted free font find (on a side note, i also find pleasure in finding that magical article of clothing among the heaps of rubbish in second hand stores).

so, i want to share with you two free fonts that i love and use. the first is liberation serif. i know i’ve mentioned this before, but it’s such a great font for body copy, that i feel compelled to continue to plug it.

the second is pastelaria by eduardo recife, who is the creator of the much over-used and maligned porcelain font. i think pastelaria is a beautiful geometric that is great for headlines and limited copy. not good for continuous though. however, i think it’s been overshadowed by the lust for grunge fonts (and here i would like to encourage you not to use grunge fonts, but to set your type and then distress it yourself if that’s what your going for. when you set to characters next to each other that are distressed exactly the same, it looks weird).

i also came across this cache of free vintage fonts, but i would caution you to be wise about which ones you choose. some of them are not all that great, and the ones that are useful i would encourage you to use like you would use spices in cooking. because let’s face it, a cumin-chili-pepper casserole would be downright nasty.

art directors club paper expo 2010

i know it’s hard to convey the true feel of an event through a blog post, but i was super-geeked when i arrived at the adc paper expo. i loaded up on new paper sample books and all kinds of other printed goodies. there’s a few more pictures here.

matt lehman: illustrator, designer

i found the work of matt lehman very inspiring this morning. even makes country music look cool.

urban outfitters print shop

ya know, for all of the grief that UO gets for stealing people’s artwork, it’s super cool of them to use their clout to promote artists in this way. way to be, urban outfitters.

williamsburg church community blood drive: UPDATED

you can add the event to your ical or outlook calendar with this file

here at lfb, we do love us some social good. the williamsburg church community blood drive is one such event.

here are the details;
location; williamsburg church – 231 ainslie st. (upper level), brooklyn ny 11211
date + time; saturday, april 10th 10am – 3pm

these events are hugely important, as nyc has less that one day’s supply of blood on hand on average, and less that 1% of new yorker’s give blood regularly. please come if you can.
you can sign up by emailing me at dailey[at]livefrombklyn.com or calling me at 347.268.9504.

you can also rsvp at the facebook event.

twitter hashtag is #wbcblooddrive.

Jason Fried: Why You Can’t Work at Work

love it. via swiss-miss

something to be said for print

the demise of print is topic that has had at least somewhat broad discussion among graphic designers since the web continues to grow and grow. yes, print is shrinking/will shrink more in it’s use, but it’s not going away, and i think we may even see a digital “backlash” to a certain extent. following are several reasons i take this position;

print is tactile, and this will actually become more valuable the less common print is. this is not to be confused with “touchable,” at least as i’m defining the terms. the iphone and ipad are touchable, but they lack the texture, the feel of smooth, or linen, matte or glossy that print gives.

print is now visually unexpected and delightful, looking at the reflected light of print rather than the projected light of digital. i noticed this about myself even recently when i got a final printed piece back from the vendor. i had been working a lot on the computer, and the matte, reflected light of the postcard surprised me. the quality of it made me actively think.

print also exists in physical space. i guess so does your computer or mobile device, but the content doesn’t. i think this give print a feeling of groundedness that digital lacks.

print is not being replaced by digital, but taking on a different role. true, it will no longer be the primary source of content delivery, but rather is/will be used to evoke certain emotions and engage senses that digital cannot. really to give a feeling that digital cannot.

so, couple the best things about print with the best things about digital to to create enjoyable experiences, and to foster connectedness and increased interactivity between humans beings. it’s how your using mediums to help people that matters.

newly completed doban architecture/think fabricate logo

below is the newly completed logo for an architecture/furniture and home decor fabrication shop in brooklyn. they wanted to convey the idea of collaboration producing great ideas. they also wanted to have a very distinctive image and word mark, so we custom designed the typeface as well. more work is being done for datf, and we’re super pumped about it. stay tuned…

unpublished work that needs some air

here are a couple of pieces i’ve been wanting to show for while but are unpublished as of right now anyway. you can go see ‘em nice and big and read about ‘em on flickr.

transition pains (broken links)

just want to announce that since we updated our site, we’ve updated our blog with proper permalinks, so if you’ve linked to any specific post on our blog in the past, you may want to update that link.

the new and improved livefrombklyn.com

if you’re reading this on our site, then you already know, we’ve updated. if you’re reading in an RSS feed or twitter or facebook, click through to check out the new look! we’ve made it cleaner and easier to share live from bklyn with others, or to share what you’re thinking with us!

dailey does prints

if you ever wondered how to do block printing, or how dorky the guy that writes this blog is, then you should watch the following video. thanks to the awesome meg from threadbanger.com for featuring me on decor it yourself!

fine fine fine work

from alex varanese

cool visualization

from jay

bklyndesigns.com has launched

and we’re super-pumped about it! bklyn designs is a great event, and we’re proud to be a part of it this year. check out the site.

toof fairy

toof fairy, originally uploaded by cdaileycrafton.

this is an illustration of the tooth fairy that i did a while back. i think it’s funny and others might enjoy a laugh too.

jessica franks ›› june bug felts/prints ›› adopting a child ›› awesome

our dear friends jessica and bill franks are in the process of adopting a child from russia. to raise money for the process, jessica has created and is selling a series of prints called “hobby hazard” in her etsy store. we do wholeheartedly support the franks’s and their desire to bring a child out of abject poverty into their own home, so we are featuring them on this blog (we also like the prints too).

bklyn designs

this is the final design for the bklyn designs 2010 poster. this motif will be applied to all of the bklyn designs materials. i’m particularly excited about the website. i’ll be posting about that when it is complete. click on the image above to go to the flickr page and view a large version.

dailey in gd usa magazine

the full interview is now online. you can see it here. thanks to rachel goldberg who works at gd usa and is also co-owner of the brooklyn collective.