Map Ink Blog

Our studio is just a couple miles from the Boston Marathon finish line, it’s one of the things I look forward to every year. The cool thing is that we are personalizing our Boston Marathoner Map Print for the runners. The idea came after my friend Holly had us do a series of Personalized Map Prints for her Marathon-running sister-in-law. It was really fun to do and the story the prints tell of travel and athleticism is really inspiring..

One ways I’ve been breaking free from my creative block is stepping away from computer illustration. I love my vectors, but it is time to incorporate more into them. My goal is to take some of my favorite existing patterns / places and recreate them using different methods such as watercolor, paper marbling, and printmaking. I started with watercolor.

One night, while laying in bed perusing graphic design on Pinterest, (a favorite pre-bedtime activity), I came across the work of graphic designer Kellyn Walker. I was so inspired! I’ve been killing my creative block by incorporating more handmade elements, scanned objects and collage-ness to my patterns and designs.

Last month I had surgery and spent about a week and a half sleeping off pain killers and watching movies. I have been going through a bit of a creativity crisis and watching so many great process movies and biopics has really helped. Here are some of my favorites that I watched while convalescing.

I love complex infographics, layered pieces beautifully showing lots of information. We interview a lot of Massachusetts College of Art + Design students at JHill, many have a project of making an infographic of a Girl Talk song. T

Judy Garland was a star from such a young age, (can you get a “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with more yearning than hers?), and was told that she wasn’t enough much too often. From the time she was a wee one up until the (too young) age of her death she was such a strong beauty – despite whatever those studio execs thought.

Our dear friend and studio-mate, Sarah Winchester, happens to be from Atlanta. She was the perfect person to give us some insider tips on what to do when you are in ATL.

In 1936 Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind, the story of Clayton County, Georgia, and Atlanta during the American Civil War and Reconstruction. She tells the story of Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to come out of the poverty she finds herself in.

These new Coke bottles made of ICE could turn my cheek. Created by Ogilvy +Mather Bogata, the bottles have the signature Coke shape with the company’s embossed logo.  Water is poured into a silicone mold, frozen and then filled with Coke.

  I doubt Vivian Leigh (the actress that played Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With the Wind) and I have all that much in common… but one thing we do share is Bitchy Resting Face. It’s all in the eyebrows, a pressed lip and passive eyes. I can’t question anything without one of my eyebrows raising, and my husband and son get this look a lot (see the top right picture). And while I am a very nice and friendly person and do not mean to have a bitch face, it totally comes in handy on public transportation. The post Vivian Leigh’s Bitchy Resting Face appeared first on JHill Design.