I Can’t Believe It’s Actually Butter! If you’ve ever attended a state fair and marveled at the udderly amazing butter sculptures, you may have asked yourself: How did the artist capture all that intricate detail in a dairy? Why did they decide to sculpt Elvis out of butter in the first place? …

Most of us instantly recognize famous brands like McDonald’s®, Nike® or Coca-Cola® — maybe we’re even familiar with branding as a concept and discipline. From the beginning, branding has always been about making your mark, both literally and figuratively, but when and where did it all begin? How did branding…

T-shirts are everywhere you look. They come in a dizzying array of cuts, colors, necklines, and designs; but when and where did this wardrobe ‘basic’ come into vogue? Time to rummage waaaaaaay back into Father Time’s closet. TUNIC! TUNIC! Apparel-ently, the ancestor of the T-shirt dates back to ‘a tunic-type garment’— tunic…

We’ve all browsed through glossy fashion magazines sitting in some waiting room or salon, educating ourselves about this season’s ‘it‘ color trends. But who decides which colors will be in vogue, or in the pages Vogue for that matter? You guessed it…Pantone! Most graphic designers and print professionals are familiar…

Throughout my childhood, I received all manner of arts and craft kits for pretty much every birthday and Christmas. On hot summer days I’d spend countless hours doing crochet and knitting, latch hook, making those pot holders out of scraps of elastic, and yes, painting by numbers. “But, is it really art,” you ask? While paint-by-number kits…

When most of us think of polyester fabric, we think double knit leisure suits or loud butterfly color shirts popular in the 1960s and 70s. Polyester actually has a much longer history. In the mid-1930s, W.H. Carothers, a DuPont employee, figured out that he could create fibers by mixing carboxyl…

As I began my career, the computer was becoming more and more an integral part of a designer’s toolkit; but at that time, solid hand skills were still encouraged and expected. It was still customary to present tight pencils or marker comps to clients to communicate initial concepts. Of course…

Most of us work in an office — nowadays, likely a home office. Most of us also use desk accessories: pens, stapler, paper clips, sticky notes, a desk lamp — but are they fun? …

As we shelter-in-place: maybe work at home, meet and socialize on Zoom, don our ‘business casual’ PJs, and place grocery orders online, we’ll all adjusting to a new paradigm. (Is it just me, or is securing a coveted delivery slot like attempting to be “caller number 10” to win those…