HOW's Goodies

In June I took a short hiatus to attend the HOW Design Conference in Denver, Colorado. I had a great time and am very grateful to my employer for sending me. In addition to absorbing as much creativity as I could, and being inspired by the wonderful lecturers, I picked up a boat-load of goodies including the Eat Local screen-printed dish towel that I framed and hung in our mini hallway. Here's an overview shot of my bounty.

Mohawk paper handed out hundreds of these reuseable Baggu shopping bags, which google told me normally cost $8 a sack!

French paper company handed out these awesome frisbees, which Justin and I needed since our former frisbee took a trip down the river last summer.

They also handed out these paper specs that were en masse at the white party.

The mini peace lily on my desk now hails the name Mr. French but isn't afraid of his Kanye West tendencies. Bravo French.

From Hoefler & Frere-Jones I received some typography fortune cookies. You may see this saying as my google status every now and then "Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill; use too many fonts and your eyes will fall out." True story.

And no goodie bag is complete without a handful of pins. The ones on the paper board are from Shutterstock and, if I remember correctly, the others are from Veer.

For the first two weeks back in the office, I rocked them like a champ.

Did anyone else attend the HOW Design Conference? What goods top your list?

Eat Local Art

No no no, I'm not promoting the digestive consumption of art, I'm actually talking about this new piece in our home titled Eat Local. The cool thing is that it is a kitchen dishtowel that has been screen printed with this adorable illustration by Helen Dardik for BlueQ (a great design shop that sells all sorts of knick-knacks and other funky items).

I picked it up during my week at the HOW Design Conference in Denver and I am absolutely enthralled. I saw it in a shop, checked out the price ($12.99!), and snatched up the last one. After returning home, I scoured all of my go-to stores for a frame it would fit in and settled for a black Ikea Ribba frame ($24.99).

Although I'm not pleased the frame's "glass" is plexi (they fooled me!), I am very excited this baby is now on the wall. Justin even likes it!

So for $38 smack-o-las, we got a piece that is not mass produced, semi-inexpensive, and something we think is awesome!

HOW Hiatus

I forgot to inform you that I am attending the HOW Design Conference this week in Denver, Colorado, and I won't be posting regularly. So, take this as your warning to not be disappointed if you check and not see anything. (Though, I'm not discouraging you from checking, I'm sure there are some old posts you have missed!) I'm trying to soak up all the creativity and inspiration that I can muster, to bring back to good 'ol Chi-town and amp up my work.

My coworkers and I flew out Friday night and jammed our weekend with whitewater rafting and hiking, leaving just enough energy for the opening keynote speaker, Andy Stefanovich, Sunday night.

But, let's start from the beginning with the omen we saw on our flight from Chicago to Denver, reassuring us that this was going to be a fantastic trip.

Do you see that? Our flight attendant's name was Cyann. How ironic could that be?

After landing safely and getting a good night's sleep in our hotel, we hit the road early Saturday morning  racing the clock to find the whitewater rafting company that I booked our tours with. On the way there, we enjoyed some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen in the United States, the Rocky Mountains. (This photo is a very understated example of the enormity of the Mountains. In fact, I think this is just a hill.)

Then on Sunday, we trekked out to Red Rocks Park and Amphitheater and scaled the beautiful rock forms.

After Red Rocks, we zoomed back to the hotel, changed, and zipped over to see HOW's opening keynote speaker, Andy Stefanovich.

And that's all I have for now, but I hope to share more of the conference with you at a later time. In the meantime, I must resume my consumption of inspiring designers' advice and extremely enlightening information.