Tag: art

There are 4 entries that are tagged art. Now displaying reults 1 - 4.

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Barcode Branding

Posted on July 06, 2006 by Him

There's something about slick branding that makes me wish I majored in advertising instead of science. I can't get enough of the cool Apple or Target ads that have been showing as of late.

Design Barcode is a design firm in Japan that combines, well, design and barcodes. I loved the samples of their work, along with a cool Quicktime video of their stuff.

Sure makes shopping that much more fun.

(via Digg)

Create Your Own Wedding Monogram On A Budget

Posted on May 23, 2006 by Her

It's easy and inexpensive to brand your wedding with a classy wedding monogram. You can purchase a ready-made design for $50 at Bliss Wedding Market, or you can pocket the cash and design your own. If you're uninspired, you can check out their selection to get ideas. To make your own is really easy though.

Step 1 - Get Fonts
For a designer touch, you'll want better fonts than your computer came with. Google terms such as "script font" and "wedding font" to find free font download sites. When you find a font you like, download it. Usually you'll have to extract the font. You'll end up with a file name that has a .TTF extension. Now you have to install the font. Browse to My Computer/Local Disk/Windows/Fonts. Drag the file into the fonts folder. An installation screen will appear briefly, then your font is ready. You can install as many as you like.

Step 2 - Get Inspired
Browse through the monogram collection at Bliss, or look at other wedding sites for inspiration. Pick a few styles to experiment with, keeping in mind the limitations of your software and what shape your wedding initials are (wide? tall? long? short?). You might want to print out copies of your favorite monogram styles for reference.

Step 3 - Create!
A good, basic software program to use is Powerpoint. Set up a blank slide and add a text box with your initials in it. Experiment with fonts and sizes until you like how it looks. You can also add basic shapes (rectangles, circles, ovals, lines, etc) in Powerpoint. If you wedding has a theme, try adding a stylized graphic to the monogram (you can download tons of free graphics online too).

Step 4 - Brand Your Wedding
Once you have your monogram, incorporate it throughout your wedding to create an "expenisve" designer look. Some places to consider: Invitations and other stationary, save-the-date magnets, menus, place cards, paper napkins, balloons, painted on the aisle runner, added to your dessert plates with a sugar stencil, etc. If you are printing your own items at home, it's easy to copy and paste your monogram into most other software packages. If you're having your items professionally printed, you can submit the monogram on a CD.

I sat down the other day and created a selection of eighteen monograms for our own wedding. It took about 3 hours. Now we just have to choose which one we like best. We might use three: One (with the Chicago skyline at the top) for our save-the-dates, a second one (more formal) for the day of the reception, and a third (with our combined initials) for after the wedding. Doing it all myself was fun and easy, and saved us $150.

Expensive Art

Posted on April 23, 2006 by Him

I would guess that most personal finance bloggers would sell art in order to make money. But what about using money to make art? Artist C.K. Wilde uses money as his medium, creating beautiful works of art from cut up currency. Check out his newest work for yourself, and if that suits your fancy, make sure to look at some of his older works.

(via Gaper's Block weekly newsletter)

Art + Stuff = Rock!

Posted on March 01, 2006 by Him

We here at Make Love, Not Debt are huge advocates of the DIY arts/craft culture. In fact, I even have a photoblog (no link because, well, that would destroy our anonymity, and we wouldn't want that, right?) that I semi-regularly post photos to. And she likes to crochet!

We also like to buy stuff. Well, we used to like to buy lots of stuff, but now we just covet stuff.

So you could tell we were super excited to see a blog that combines both. Consumerist highlighted the super-cool blog Obsessive Consumption today, and I almost fell out of my chair. Artist Kate Binagaman draws the things that she buys. She also draws her credit card statements. Totally rad. Her site design left me drooling.

She's also been mentioned over at BoingBoing, so I'd suggest getting to her site before the server goes boom.

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