I’ve been meaning to make bilingual meat guides for a while now, and spotted these great illustrations on the side of one of my favorite markets. A good place as any to start my project.

On a recent walk around my neighborhood, Colonia Roma, I noticed this ornamental lion on the facade of a house that had been perfectly cut in half. That’s right, this is not Photoshopped at all. I would assume that the other half of this guy (built in 1925) fell in the earthquake of ’85, and the workers constructed the new, rather ugly building next door, leaving the existing face of the lion and its surrounding ornamentation undisturbed.

I’m thrilled to be able to share these amazing handprinted typographic robots from one of my favorite people, the talented Kevin Bradley of Yee-Haw Industries (where I had the pleasure of working just after completing design school, in 2004). Kevin has wandered west this year, leaving the letterpress studio in Knoxville for a while to enjoy the beautiful sunshine of LA. His work away from the presses is certainly inspired; he’s in the process of completing a series of these compositions, from the fictitious “American Robot Company.” Each print is original; Kevin is hand-inking and hand-stamping each letter of the composition with antique wood type onto a nice big sheet of Arches paper — 30 x 42 inches to be exact. The solids are all filled in with a brayer, and you can see his studio setup below. Robot love!

I just ran across this entertaining post on Billy Beer over at Mental Floss, and I’m amazed at how retro-fresh the label appears. (I mean, this could definitely be the work of several Austin designers I know.) Quick history — President Jimmy Carter had a beer-drinking, gas-station-owning younger brother who became a media sensation for his redneck ways. Though he had dreams of becoming “the Colonel Sanders of beer,” the project ultimately failed — turns out the beer was simply kinda bad.

Sometimes I wonder what it is about my generation of designers . . . we’re almost all nostalgia-obsessed, and crave anything that feels analog. Or sometimes, we aim hard in the other direction, and design things that are ultra-simple, clean and modern. I look at my work, and the two camps are definitely represented in equal measure — probably based on my work history which has spanned the broad spectrum from letterpress at Yee-Haw Industries, followed by years at corporate-clever Pentagram.

I want to know what’s next, for me and for my profession. When we’ll begin to leave these two directions for something completely different. I’ve been seeing some collage work lately that references 60s movies and 80s punk rock at the same time, and those somehow feel fresh. But still, they are referencing the past and analog processes. We’ve got to push ourselves outside of this comfort zone, to think about the possibilities, rather than just repeating what’s comfortable.

For now, I think I’ll just go have a beer.

I saw this keyboard at Central Market (grocery store) while in Austin last week and kind of fell in love. (Notice the button with the black stripe: it says “Shrink / Be Aware.” Apparently this is a safety button for theft.)

I first met Aaron Franklin through mutual friends over beers at Rio Rita in Austin. He was explaining how the guest list for his outdoor cookouts had grown out of control, so he and his super-amazing wife Stacy had decided it was time to expand the idea. They bough a trailer, placed it behind a coffee roaster just off i-35, and the lines began. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and I had a blast making the hand-drawn logo, 50′s-style.

A few months ago, Franklin moved into a brick-and-mortar location on East 11th. I’m heading back to Austin next week, and will certainly be waiting in that line at least a few times during my stay. Can’t wait!

Read the article here: Bon Appétit

LMS was asked by NAO Films Procucción to participate in a new TV program to be aired on Canal 11 in Mexico. The program’s format will be based on the lecture series Pase Usted — each program will have a theme, with three speakers presenting their ideas on that theme in 25 minutes. For each program, a guest artist, photographer, illustrator, or designer will develop the visual images for the slides. Our theme was “Arte Útil,” or “Useful Art,” which itself can seem a contradiction.

The projects presented are diverse and interesting — a nomadic self-supporting plant machine designed to clean up the environment on a micro-scale, a security gate that is lifted by the guard having a seat in an attached chair (mocking the authority in the process); architectural nodes similar to those on a climbing wall designed to support the body for rest in public spaces.

Here are a few preview slides — they will be slightly animated for the show. Hopefully the whole program will be posted here soon.