ReubenMiller

Letterhead Fonts Gets a Serious Makeover

After

Before

Letterhead Fonts is one of my favorite font foundries. I've discovered gems ranging from old-style reproduction sign lettering to energized, modern brush scripts perfect for food packaging design. Their fonts are unique in their generous inclusion of alternates and bonus swashes and embellishments. The quality is always excellent and they're so much fun to work with.

A couple days ago when I was looking for fonts for my latest packaging design project, I checked out Letterhead's website. When the website came up on my screen I was totally taken aback by the astonishingly lavish new look (see before and after above). I had to compliment Chuck Davis (the man behind Letterhead Fonts) on the new look and he was kind enough to share some great behind-the-scenes info.

Firstly, the credit for the design goes to supertalent, Dave Smith. Dave completely hand-illustrated and rendered the header and footer for the web pages.

Continue for behind-the-scenes sketches and hand work, and more of the story behind this extraordinary website design.

ReubenMiller's Got a Brand-Spanking New Look!

I'm sure you've noticed by now that we've got a fresh new look for the blog. After a lot of coding, tweaking and generally making a mess of CSS, I've managed to get it to look half-decent (let me know what you think of it!) It still remains a work-in-progress. The goal of this redesign was to make it easier to get around and add some more color. After all, you know we're suckers for color!

Last but not least, our large header incorporates the work of a featured artist. We'll be featuring different artists in that space and rotating them over time to keep things interesting. This isn't a sponsored spot, but rather a testament to our support of great artists. Our first feature is of the brilliant and witty Simon Oxley, one of our all-time favorites.

Enjoy!

Exclusive Interview: Yellena James

We've been long-time fans of the talented Yellena James. Her richly textured works feature intricate details that take their cue from nature. She's already been featured on RM more than once. We knew an interview with one of our favorite artists was way overdue. Many thanks to Yellena for sharing her time with us!

REUBENMILLER: Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yellena James: I was born in Sarajevo. I went to art school there for a couple of years during the civil war. When I was 18, I moved to the States and went to UCF for my graphic design/painting degree. Besides exhibits and taking care of my Etsy shop, I also do a lot of freelance illustration work. I recently moved to Portland, OR and I love it here. When I'm not in my studio working or checking out my favorite design blogs, I'm usually tooling around town visiting galleries, eating good food, hanging out with new friends. I love to travel too, whenever I can.  Having shows around the country is a great excuse to visit new places.

(Continue reading for complete interview.)

Illustrator Jericho Santander

Another gem via Behance.net - this illustration by Spanish artist Jericho Santander is called Mas Pelas. His work is surreal, imaginative and well crafted. Be sure to check out his other equally amazing illustrations.

Alexa's Top 90 Design Weblogs

Want to know the top design blogs according to Alexa? Well, we've compiled all 90 of them. I have no clue how they come up with these rankings, but hey, these are great sites to check out and bookmark! (ReubenMiller ranks 24 - not bad.)

Cock Fight

   

This is a music video created by Roel Wouters. The idea behind the artwork and a series of posters was to  "capture rage in a systematic way". The video shows two cocks, covered in ink/paint fighting on a sheet of paper. Their steps, falls and brushes on the paper create a very intriguing result.

Beautiful? Yes. Ethical? You decide.

(via Thinking for a Living)

22 Year Tradition: Aspen Boutique's Fantastical Holiday Cards

2008 card, front

2008 card, back

Aspen Boutique (formerly Aspen Traders) has a long-standing tradition of mailing fanciful holiday cards to their customers. They have been doing it since 1987. The cards are designed by Gardner Design of Wichita Kansas, run by Bill Gardner of LogoLounge fame. Bill was kind enough to share the entire collection of cards with us, and gave us some background about their unique, long-standing relationship with Aspen Boutique.

REUBENMILLER: Can you tell us a bit about Aspen Boutique?

Bill Gardner: Aspen Boutique started twenty three years ago as Aspen Traders. It has always been a womens apparel store with originally a slant towards natural fiber materials and a great deal of international and semi ethnic influence. They have always had a remarkable collection of jewelry again with a global influence and eventually the store moved into also carrying select home ware and body products that fit the mix. James and Monica Smits, the owners, had lived in Colorado and had a wonderful natural style that you might see in that area of the country. Now take everything that I've said and remember that this is generally a higher end store.

(continue to see the rest of the cards and interview...)

"One Line..." by DavetheChimp

(via booooooom)

1800 Tequilla Essential Artists Bottles

Earlier this year 1800® Tequila launched a campaign featuring nine cutting-edge artists. Each piece of artwork is featured on 1800® limited edition tequila bottles, all of which can be purchased.

Each artists' style is unique, representing various designs, mediums and perspectives. The nine artists featured in this limited edition production are: Dosa Kim (Atlanta, GA), Glenn Barr (Detroit, MI), Artillery (Chicago, IL), Chris Dean (Detroit, MI), Jorge Alderete (Mexico City, ME), Josh Ellingson (San Francisco, CA), Hannah Stouffer (San Francisco, CA), Jeremy Bacharach (Chicago, IL).

The bottles are great collectibles - whether you decide to drink the contents or not.

Continue reading to see more photos and learn about how you can apply your own artwork to a bottle (and even buy it), and how to enter your art into a cool competition.

SPARK Animation '08 Poster

SPARK Animation '08 was a fabulous 5-day animation festival that included work by a world-class lineup of directors, animators and film-makers.The event took place in Vancouver back in September.

This years festival posters and t-shirts were art directed and designed by Gerard Whelan of Brandcentral of Dublin, Ireland. The delightful illustrations and characters were created by the inimitable Simon Oxley.
 

Great close-up images of each letter follow.