My blog.
Thoughts on books, design, storytelling, family, and more. From my little corner of the world to yours.
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I had so much fun working with Ricca to make this book. It’s about her grandparents, Jack + Rita. Or Popoo and Bubbie, to family. Bubbie is still alive, so she contributed lots of her stories through interviews with Ricca. And more importantly, she got to enjoy this lovely tribute to their lives and their love.
There were a couple of stories that just resonated with me in this book. I think they appeal to my old-fashioned family self. Ricca’s family is Sephardic Jewish, from the island of Rhodes. They immigrated to Seattle where they lived among extended family and a tight-knit community of fellow Sephardic Jews. The kind of tight-knit we don’t know today.
Every Sunday during the summer, the family would drive to a mountain lake and picnic together. There were lots of them. It was an all-day adventure, with the drive being as important as the eating. I am sure the ladies spent hours preparing the food. And their menus were Greek gourmet. Here’s an excerpt:
“We joined together, spreading out a cornucopia of Sephardic food on a blanket: spinach frittata, meat-filled pastilicos, potato/cheese borekas, eggplant quajado, artichoke salad, rosca with feta cheese, yaprakis, leek prassa, green and black olives, and even fish roe tarama.”
I cannot claim to know all these dishes, but my mouth is watering anyways.
I also loved the story about how people were invited to weddings. Since everyone lived in the same neighborhood, they just hired a man to go up and down the street like a town crier and announce the wedding date and invite everyone to attend. So much for letterpress invitations!
Anyway, you can tell this was a fun one for me. Here are some more photos to enjoy.
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Heather and her mom put together this 70th birthday book for her dad, Gilbert. I love the way the book turned out – a perfect mix of classic and fun. For the colors we used chocolate brown, cream and gold stamping – classic and lovely. But for the endsheets we played on the G for Gilbert and added G words that describe him – which added a fun and playful feel.
Heather did an especially great job curating the photos for the different sections of his life – she picked just one or two perfect pictures and it made such an impact.
(p.s. – we fuzzed out the last name on the book to respect our client’s privacy…this is not actually how the stamping looks!)
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Look at this lovely couple. Carrie and Tristan had such an old fashioned, classic feel to their wedding. I love it. We used a soft-white paper for the book to add to the vintage feel. And their vows alongside the images turned out really sweet.
[photos by Tec Petaja]
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Oh, to be an illustrator. I am in awe of anyone who can actually draw. This children’s book was illustrated and written in the 1940′s by Bob’s father. It was never published…so that’s where we come in!
We’re excited to make The Colonel into a book for the grandkids in Bob’s family. What a special project.
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In honor of mother’s day, here are some photos from a very sweet book we did for Kat. It is a book documenting the lovely birth of her baby Alice.
You’ll notice a birth announcement we included in the back, which we used as inspiration for our design.
Happy day to all you mothers.
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