Erin Dollar

The Color of Travel

September 25, 2012

As I chose the colors for the fall/winter line for Cotton & Flax, I looked to my favorite photos from around the world for inspiration. It has always been an ambition of mine to travel widely, but until I can accomplish all my travel goals, I will continue to draw inspiration from travel photographers, and the colors and details they capture from all over the globe. Here’s a little roundup of photos that capture some of the colors you’ll see in the new Cotton & Flax collection. (you’ll find photo credits below)

Pale Paris by Eye Poetry Photography / Iceland by Sylvia Okkerse / Northern Lights in Svalbard, Norway by Sam Hennessy / Blue Lagoon, Iceland by Peter Baker / / Swedish TreeHotel / Pink Flower Field found on iiiinspired / Joshua Tree found on SF Girl By Bay / Seattle by Jenny Vorwaller

DIY Typographic Snail Mail with Letraset

September 24, 2012

After finding some old sheets of Letraset letters at a garage sale a few weeks ago, I was looking for a creative way to use them up. I wasn’t very familiar with Letraset, but knew they were a relic of the graphic design world from before computers were ubiquitous, which made them seem just outdated enough to be fun. I’ve got nothing against computers, but I have an affinity for archaic technology in all it’s forms. I decided it would be appropriate to try out the letters on some envelopes to see what it would look like.

In case you’ve never encountered them before, Letraset are sheets of dry transferrable lettering, which can be transferred one by one onto a piece of artwork by rubbing directly on the transfer sheet over the letter you wish to transfer. It’s a tedious process, but before computers were available, the alternative was to draw out letters by hand. It seems that Letraset was available in many different colors, although I only found black and white.

I even made a little time-lapse video to show how it works:

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/48405013 w=700&h=393]

It was easy enough to transfer over my friend’s addresses to the front of different colored envelopes, although I did start to get a cramp in my thumb from pressing down on the transfer sheets over and over again. I’m not sure that I would recommend this method for everyday snail mail, since the letters seem like they could potentially flake off a little during transit, and the black letters could easily be replicated using a computer. In fact, with most household printers being able to accommodate different sizes of envelopes, I’d say you’d probably be better off just laying out something cool in Word or Photoshop, and then printing out your designs that way. The only exception to this? The white letters!

The white letters are so unique, since you can’t print something like this out from your standard ink jet printer. You’d be hard pressed to even get these types of results with a stamp and white opaque ink. The white Letraset looks super bold on the black envelopes, and I’ll be using it often to label my darker envelopes.

Snail Mail Saturday – DIY Hand Stamped Envelopes

September 22, 2012

Remember those stamps I made for the Hand Stamped Gift Wrap DIY? Well, I just got them out again to stamp some patterns on some snail mail that I’ll be sending out this week. I even used a little of the leftover gift wrap to write the letter! I printed the envelopes using a standard stamp pad, grouping the stamps in new ways to create variation. Just make sure to let the ink dry before handling the envelopes (to avoid inky fingerprints).

If you take good care of your linoleum stamps, they can last for years. Just keep them out of the sun and away from dry, dusty areas, and they should keep their shape quite nicely. You can reuse them over and over for all sorts of projects, on both paper and fabric. That’s right, you can stamp on fabric, too! I’ll be posting a DIY on that topic soon, so stay tuned.

Print of the Week – Sir Terry Frost

September 21, 2012

I love the bold black and red forms of this print by Sir Terry Frost, entitled, “Red and Black Solid.”

Color Theory (or, the problem of too many choices)

September 20, 2012

I have been struggling for weeks to finalize the fabric colors I’ll be adding to the Cotton & Flax Fall/Winter collection, and I have to admit, I’ve been feeling a bit stuck. There are so many beautifully dyed linens available, it has been really hard to narrow down my choices.

The bottom four fabrics in each of these stacks are what I’d call the “Core Colors” of Cotton & Flax. These four colors, a natural unbleached linen, a dark charcoal grey, a strange mossy yellow green, and a minty seafoam green, have been the foundational fabrics of my textiles since I began printing on fabrics in 2009. I have occasionally experimented with a new color here and there, but these four colors have been the standard that I keep returning to.

I am thinking about adding a few new colors, and while I think I may have finally made some decisions, I wanted to post these photos as a reminder of all the planning that has gone into making this collection. I doubt that I will look back and feel wistful about my days of making color charts and tearing my hair out because a certain fabric is “suddenly looking too blue.” But it’s a nice reminder of how lucky I am to have access to such lovely materials.

New Business Cards and Hangtags

September 19, 2012

There’s nothing like a new stack of business cards! I was lucky enough to work with Laura Carignan (of Lulu Dee), a graphic designer here in Los Angeles, who helped me create my new logo and branded materials for Cotton & Flax. Last week, Laura letterpress printed the designs on some business cards and hang tags for Cotton & Flax, along with help from Mable of Dee and Lala stationery.

In the end, we created a few different pieces, which were letterpress printed on luxuriously thick, tree-free paper, which is made from 100% recovered cotton from the textile industry. Could you think of a better fit for a company that revolves around fabrics?

We printed the cards using a Vandercook letterpress, which belongs to Mable of Dee and Lala. I’ll be doing a full post about her amazing studio sometime soon, but I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the behind the scenes shots.

The business cards are my favorite part of the whole project. Laura created a design that could feature four of my hand drawn patterns (some of my favorites from the Cotton & Flax 2012 line!), and I think they turned out beautifully. Her bold logo is the obvious standout on the front of the card, printed in a rich black ink. The variety of different patterns, all embossed without ink, make the cards feel extra special, almost collectable.

She also created hang tags, which will accompany all Cotton & Flax items in retail shops and when I sell my wares at craft fairs and artist showcases.

Laura really has a knack for getting to know the ins and outs of your business, to better understand what the brand is all about. She paid close attention to what makes Cotton & Flax unique, and what types of branded materials were the best fit for my business. Looking for a great graphic designer? Get in touch with Laura here.