My fans are relentless, ”Fran, how do you do it? Please, let us in to that magical and mysterious world you call your brain. Give us, if you think we can handle it, a tiny snippet of what it’s like to experience your Creative Process.” Well, stand back; I’m about to blow your minds. BLOW YOUR MINDS. This will be a little bit like someone revealing the secrets of the universe, the meaning of life, and the riddle of the sphinx. Until now, there has only been speculation. Speculation and rumor. Just like the moon landing. So, just sit right down and call in sick to work – Ready, set, go; here’s the deal: Notebook + pencil + old printer’s cut =
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Words sitting next to pictures
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Total Reject
The nice thing about owning your own company and producing your own line of goods is that: A) I won’t fire me for sexually harassing myself. B) I give myself outstanding quarterly reviews. C) I haven’t showered in God Knows How Long and nobody (hi Jen!) cares. D) I can write/design/print whatever I think is funny.
The other day, the Trader Joe’s Card Chick submitted three of my cards to TJ’s. Originally there were nine and after some pretty complicated calculations on my calculator, I figured that left six for us. (Eat that, Sister Diane, I told you I’d be able to apply my limited math skills to the real world!) Here’s a peek at the six rejects: Three are for sale in our online store. Why only three? I bet you’d like to know.
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Our biggest custom customer: Trader Joe’s
The Trader Joe’s Card Chick called and asked us to do some custom work for them.
I was like, “get in line lady, it’s not like Consumer Reports ranked Trader Joe’s the second-best supermarket chain in the nation.” And she was like, “yeah, they did.” And I was like, “I knew that, I was just testing you.”
Even without my lucky historical period costume we were able to produce some winners. (My teacher used to say, “we are all winners when we don’t use drugs” but I think she was using the word ‘we’ in the royal sense).
We gave nine cards to The Card Chick, she selected three to show to TJ’s and TJ’s is going to produce all three. They will be in the stores in March. They’ll be offset printing them, I feel good about that because I’m sure that Jen and I would be fingerless if we had to hand feed 80,000 cards into the jaws of The Beast.
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Taking the Christ out of Christmas since 2008!
When we create custom holiday cards for corporations/businesses, we are often asked to “make it not so, you know, Christmassy.” Here’s a new one for our own line – but we’re willing to share. Hey, Target Corporation: Want a few thousand?
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We were in the Style Section of the New York Times!
Sort of. Not exactly. Technically we were not named in the newspaper but we feel like that must have been an oversight. Somebody is probably going to lose their job because of that little error. We’re just sorry that we can’t be there to see it. See, we designed and printed wedding celebration invitations for the couple who were in the Style Section of the New York Times – um, like, that’s a super big deal. It’s right here, in black and white.
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How important is hygiene?
Yesterday, I spent 10 straight hours sitting in the kitchen. I didn’t brush my hair or teeth.
(I once saw a medical show about a man who complained of stomach aches, they finally cut him open and discovered his partially re-absorbed, unborn twin in his own belly. It had hair and teeth. Not much else to it. A lot of hair. A lot.)
I stayed in my pajamas. I drank coffee and cold fried chicken. Disgusting? Undoubtably. Did I care? Not the slightest. I was being paid to sit there and provide art direction for a local ad agency. Me and my laptop and the kitchen table strewn with yesterday’s dinner dishes. Who cares? Certainly not me. My Grandma would have been disgusted. She also would have been confused by the “strange typewriter machine”. Anyway, I finished the job, went to The Happy Gnome with my mom and made one of the kids clean the kitchen. Here’s a picture of me after I finished the job: note the fried chicken triggered chin acne.
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Every Couple Wants Their Own Postmark
I won’t try to fight it – and why should I?
My youngest sister
(why is she so angry all the time??) is getting married this weekend and I designed/Jen printed some invitations for the blessed event.
The event will be very celebrity-heavy. By “celebrity” I mean “family.” It will be full of family. You can crash the wedding if you want – but no pictures. Just kidding. Take pictures – I can’t stop you.
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Kitchen Photo Shoot And a Guest Appearance
Pat Carney stumbled into our dimension on Friday for the Gute photo shoot.
Edmund made latte after latte while Loretta babbled in the background. We think she was talking about Pam the kitten/her prisoner. Anyway, I had to punch Pat in the face to get one latte away from him for a prop. He took it like a man. Except for the tears.
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METRO home found us!
It was only a matter of time because we were standing outside their office.
METRO home is a new special section in METRO. The cover of this months issue is intriguing and frightening. It might be a photograph of a bedroom/torture chamber. What’s behind those curtains?
Yikes! This room comes with shackles and nightmares.Urban Living Manifesto sounds really serious. Do people really take themselves that seriously?? Two words for them: settle. down.
Oh, but here’s something cheerful - it’s about Zeichen Press:
Those Room & Board prints were sure worth all of the sweat I dripped on them last Summer!
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Goodbye Craftstravaganza 2011
I was right in the middle of a dream where both of my eyeballs were, curiously, weeping blood. This was, of course, followed by an intense search for a public toilet and, AS USUAL, the only available toilet was in a high-traffic area of the Southdale Mall.
Thank God Jen called and woke me up. But not before I reluctantly (why do I always do it??) sat my bare bottom on the toilet.
If I’ve learned anything in my life it is how to be wrenched from a sound sleep and into a car in under 5 minutes.
It’s not pretty but neither is childbirth.
Jen and I stopped for our traditional latte at the May Day Cafe and then it was onward to the State Fairgrounds. The Fine Arts Building was our cold and unwelcoming host, its huge doors left open to remind us that April can be just as cold as November.
I’m sure the whole building was full of crafty-goodness but unless tables were set up on the way to the bathroom, I wasn’t going to see them. For eight hours, I did observe the folks running the Burlesque of North America table. They are screen printers – a craft that I have always had a crush on. Anyway, despite the sweetness of their prints, they were just as freezing as us.
Poor thing!
Our big experiment for this year’s fair involved a QR code
that led to our latest Watch and Share card.
It was successful. If you measure success in terms of wishes and smiles. Which I do.
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WATCHandSHAREcards
Dynamite magazine was full of hard-hitting news for kids growing up in the 1970’s.
But the best part of the magazine were the centerfolds. I wanted the Hang in There! poster so bad. It would have looked sweet on my closet door – right next to my Jackson 5 poster.
Struck by nostalgia and surrounded by (more) kittens, I took it upon myself to recreate the magic moment of the earnest kitten:
When I was all done forcing the kittens to perform adorable stunts, it was time to make videos of people reading Zeichen Press cards.Let me explain: Beneath various cards in our online shop, there will be a link to a video of someone (it could be you!) reading the card aloud. Why? Because even the lazy and the ne’er do wells have a right to Zeichen Press cards.
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A Grateful Robot and a Ladies Night Out
My grandma kept a drawer-full of greeting cards in her buffet. An entire drawer, devoted to spontaneous correspondence!
What a woman.
She also kept plastic on her sofa and carpet on her kitchen floor. She really wanted to protect her furniture and linoleum.
The Thank-You Note is a classic greeting card and should be the foundation of any collection. Receiving a thank-you note in the mail is a little bit like finding money in last Winter’s coat or a good hat in a snowbank.
Let’s write one together!
First, choose a card:
Now on to the writing… We’ll break it down into 5 easy steps:1) Begin with a greeting: Dear Aunt Shirley,
She loves to hear her name because cats can’t talk.
2) This is the meat of the note and notice there is no appetizer. This is a “note” not a letter. Cut right to it: Thank you so much for the medical marijuana! If the gift from Aunt Shirley was cash, do not mention it. Speak instead of her “generosity.” Thank you for your generosity!
3) Say a little bit about how you use or will use the gift: I smoke it everyday!
4) Mention the last time you saw Aunt Shirley and hint at a future meeting: It was lovely to see you at Uncle Bob’s funeral, I hope to see you again before your funeral!
5) And scene: Love, Fran
Oh, and here’s another card that will be added to the line:
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Franstravaganza Part II
“It is finished.” She gasped as she crumpled to the cold, concrete. It was, by all accounts, glorious. The work would outlast the artist and elevate the art form to new and dizzying heights.
But she, exhausted and covered in ink, was oblivious. To her, this was nothing more than an exercise. A functional and fleeting piece, it would be handled roughly and discarded by Springtime.
Um, so, that poster for Craftsravaganza is, like, done:
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Franstravaganza!
There are a couple of things going on around here:
1) Our fax machine is spitting out orders faster than we (jen) can fill them.
2) We (I) are (am) making the poster for this year’s Craftstravanganza.
Just to make my load fair, I listen to a recording of screaming children while I work.
I think it really shows:
Today, I will put ink on that – it will be so spectacular there won’t be a dry eye in the room. (I’ll be the only one in the room.)
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Hello, my name is
Remember when I talked about my naming skills? No? That’s okay, I barely remember it myself. Anyway, I did a project with The Carney Group - I named a product that debuted at the 2011 MacWorld Expo to much adulation. Wait, that’s a pretty strong word. To much curiosity. They made the Top 3 Happening Booths but I think that had more to do with the bearded CodeWeavers COO dressing as Cher (I think that’s Cher?? Yucky!)
than the name I chose for the product – which was, by the way: Impersonator. See, it’s software that let’s your Mac run Windows apps without running Windows.
So brilliant.
David Pogue of the New York Times called it “hilarious” and one of the most creative pitches he’d seen all year.
I wonder if he meant last year because otherwise it would just be one of the most creative pitches he’d seen in January. I also wonder if he meant it was one of the most disturbing pitches he’d seen.
I wrote a lot of funny lines and made some cool logos
BUT all of my creative was for naught.
For naught.
They wrote their own lines and made their own logo. That’s cool. I don’t even care. I don’t. I totally let it go. Totally. I’m fine. Oh, here’s a little video I made (rejected by them – which I’m totally fine with. I am. I’m fine. It’s cool. Whatever. It doesn’t even bother me.) to go with the name. Close the blinds and turn on the projector, here’s IMPERSONATOR:
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Working in the Bathtub
I love the ladies of the Jelly Shot Test Kitchen. And when I say I love them it means I love that they trust us. Trust us to create business cards of the future. We’re not sure how lasers work but we all saw Superman II.
These days, lasers are used for more than just pulverizing concrete. And I can prove it:
The latest project for JSTK has nothing to do with lasers. Or letterpress - don’t they know we do LETTERPRESS?? They asked us to create some instructional films.
Naturally, I cleaned my bathtub and got to work:
Here’s what I made: