lovely new patterns from mike lowery at argyle academy- mike is represented by lila rogers if you’re interested in purchasing his work.

thursday morning eye candy: a beautiful new pattern design from open face sandwich. you can catch the open face sandwich gang at surtex, booth #107.

over the past few years i’ve been talking with my felow design bloggers and writers about their feelings on surtex (a yearly trade show for surface design). a few years ago it was hard to find anyone who would join me for a trip up and down the aisles but this year it seems like everyone is starting to take notice. with the way that pattern design and illustration seem to be popping up everywhere these days, it’s no wonder that people are starting to pay more attention to surtex, in addition to its javits partners- icff and the national stationery show.

last year i wasn’t able to cover as much of the show as i’d hoped, but this year i’ll be there to cover all of the highlights as promised. one of this booths i’m most excited to see this year belongs to illustrator, pattern maker, and crafter, samantha hahn. based in brooklyn, samantha recently finished her debut collection of patterns and illustrations. i was instantly taken with her color choices and the quality of line in her illustrations. while the collection ranges from bold modern florals to more illustrative, detailed patterns, my favorites tend to be those that combine bold color with a soft complimentary color.

samantha hasn’t signed with a distributor/licensing rep yet so i’m excited to see where she goes next- i’d love to see some of her patterns applied to wallpaper and textiles (if you’re interested in working with samantha on that you can contact her here). if you’d like to visit samantha at surtex you can stop by booth #1010 or drop her a line- and check out more of her work- right here. samantha also runs a blog called maquette if you’re interested in checking it out. [thanks, samantha!]

i mentioned my love of all things collage-y yesterday and today i’m still on the same trip, loving these beautiful pieces from marisa avelar. i’ve been looking at marisa’s website since we returned from savannah because, in the craziest turn of events, it turns out we walked by and watched a portion of her wedding in forsyth park. i even snuck a few pictures of the event so i could see what it would look like to set up our wedding in an outdoor venue. then we discovered that marisa reads the site and everything turned into a big “what a small world” moment. since then i’ve been drooling over marisa’s work and saving bits of her website design (which i find as lovely as her actual work) as inspiring for the wedding. i thought i’d share some of my favorite pieces of marisa’s site in hopes that they might be inspirational for some of you too- for wedding or non-wedding purposes.

now that i’m starting to tip my toes into the world of wedding planning, i’ve become engrossed in packaging design. our wedding will primarily be a DIY affair so i’ve been trying to come up with interesting ideas for invitations, favors, table decorations, etc based on projects that don’t necessarily come from the traditional bridal magazines (most of which i have a hard time getting through). packaging design has been a great source of inspiration for me, whether it’s about lettering, a color combination or the way two materials have been used. today i’m loving these beautiful bottles of lotion designed by matthew stiffler of palatal collective in chicago. i love his use of color and the combination of a damask-style print with script on the joie bottles. while our wedding probably won’t be using these color palettes, i love the idea of using simple labels and perhaps creating a custom rubber stamp, or several stamps to create an effect like this that’s simple but has multiple colors or patterns. i’ll be sharing my wedding inspiration boards when things are a bit more planned out, but for now you can click here to see more of matthew’s work online.

my friend jon sent over a link to these beautiful illustrations from designer saul bass’ children’s book henri’s walk to paris (written by leonore klein). i love the bold lines and super-saturated colors. all those pinks, red and oranges remind me of a crisp fall day with changing leaves. sadly the book (originally printed in the 60s) is no longer in print but you can view a slideshow of images from the book right here. it would be fun to reproduce this in mural form in a child’s room. it’s so vivid and cheerful. thanks, jon!

ok, i’m not a huge techie person but i’ve really enjoyed my new iphone while i’ve been away this week. it’s allowed me to publish comments, keep vaguely up to date on emails and make calls when i need to. what i don’t love is the choice of wallpapers i have to choose from. waterfall? nah. earth shot? nah. but i could certainly handle a few of these iphone and ipod touch wallpapers from poolga. all of these beautiful wallpapers are free to download and are created by independent artists around the globe- click here to check them out. thanks to ac (my fiance!) for the great tip.