bekeeblog

i seem to have contracted some sort of springtime cold. but i can't stay home from work because i'm taking friday off to spend the day with kurt for his bday (which is actually tomorrow).

and i don't want to get sicker because tomorrow evening i'm going to see v.s. ramachandran speak at the union and it would be miserable if i were snorting and coughing the whole time.

i've been kinda lax in my braille lately. i haven't even opened up my laptop except for maybe saturday mornings to check the weather forecast. i should be more diligent so i retain more.

also, this design*sponge post reminds me that i wanted to design a deck of cards a long time ago until i realized how much it would cost to print. but maybe i can do a block-printed set... which might not be any less expensive but could be more fun. that might be a good summer goal. i remember learning about why some kings have daggers and other have swords, and one-eyed jack (which made the "gentleman's club" in twin peaks make a little more sense); this was all about 10 years ago.

time is silly.

Posted by bekee at 8:18 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

i just bought two cami tops from a brand i've never heard of just because a blogger whom i've followed for more than 9 months (i was around when she announced the baby she had recently) said she got one for herself.

word of mouth works, people.

tho, i did find a code online that gave me $25 off my $50 order... so i guess it evens out for ny&c in the end.

Posted by bekee at 2:42 PM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

we need more things on our walls. so i bought:

it may prove difficult to find a frame, since these are imported from england, they're a standard paper size (a2) in their land, but i can't seem to find the right size on this side of the pond.

also, beware of imitators. i almost bought the poster from amazon, but the letterforms are terrible. look at that awful "M". blech.

along those lines, today's xkcd is perfect.

Posted by bekee at 8:56 AM | permalink | licks (2) | tracks (0)

there's something wrong with me when it comes to art supplies, office supplies, crafty supplies, etc. i just got a newsletter from an awesome user experience company suggesting a few tools for hand-sketching wire frames.

so, i immediately head over to dick blick to make a purchase (after all, we just got our bonus); the funny thing about me is that i already own all of the suggested tools (varied sharpie sizes, red pen, non-photo blu pencil), but since i'm crazy, i want spares.

p.s., i decided not to spend a bunch of money on supplies i probably won't use and just try out the ones i already own for a minute.

Posted by bekee at 1:22 PM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

since kurt's the manager, he asked me to make a poster for the new beer they're carrying. i wasn't too excited at first, since i haven't designed anything for a long time. i borrowed some (all) elements from something i did in school for the great taste of the midwest festival. i don't think it looks too lame.

Posted by bekee at 12:00 PM | permalink | licks (1) | tracks (0)

i used to have a lot more content outside of the blog, but i stopped linking to it cuz it was just too old and pointless. i'm not a designer anymore. but i'm going to post some of the pieces from my (over 5 year old) portfolio anyhow.

book cover series:

redesigned layout of some of my favorite vegetarian meals (at the time):

guache painting incorporated into a layout:

package design "because only one ever breaks":

this one won a gold addy award, if you can believe it:

and the one i am most proud of, cuz i get to see it every day, even tho it sucks (design-wise):

these didn't make it into my portfolio..

cool logo:

great taste of the midwest beer festival came to one of our classes to get a free logo designed and this was mine:

i just thought it was a cool idea:

Posted by bekee at 9:42 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

i'm trying to make my blog less tables and more css, but it wasn't working out with just modifying the old layout and stylesheet, so i've used the default one while i get things back to looking more "me".

Posted by bekee at 11:26 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

this is a plaque that i mod podged during crafty saturday with a conversation between two fishermen. a similar thing used to hang on the summer-trailer wall where gramma and grampa would go to fish in prairie du chein.

WHEN FISHERMEN MEET
HYAMAC
LOBUDDY
BINEARLONG?
COPLOURS
CATCHANNEY?
GODDAFEW
KINDARTHAY?
BASSENCARP
ENNYSIZETOOM?
CUPLAPOWNS
HITTENHARD?
SORDALIKE
WAHCHOOZIN?
GOBBAWURMS
FISHANONABODDUM?
RYDONNABODDOM
WHATCHADRINKIN?
JUGAJIMBEAM
I GODDAGO
TUBAD
SEEYAROUN
YEAHTAKIDEEZY
GULUK

Posted by bekee at 10:04 AM | permalink | licks (1)

i just found this piece in a bit of files that didn't make it into my design portfolio (it's a hangtag). the text says, "there's no story to tell, no secret clue; just great jeans to make you feel cool." omg awesome. looky
(for some reason the img tag is missing)

Posted by bekee at 10:15 AM | permalink | licks (0)

friend and artist, amy devoogd painted this pic of me from one of the many mickey's softball games:

Posted by bekee at 1:44 PM | permalink | licks (1)

design for chunks is starting their 4th competition. if you're interested. i might try my hand at one; it's been a while since i've actually designed something.

Posted by bekee at 9:11 AM | permalink | licks (0)

put this on your desktop and dream of eating really good sushi.

Posted by bekee at 10:49 AM | permalink | licks (1)

i've been wanting to get another tattoo for a while.. about a year ago, i started designing another tribal piece of my lower back but quickly realized that no one sees my lower back. least of all me. i recently got the newest copy of readymade and near the t.o.c., there's a picture of robert crumb holding his wife's hand, and on the inside of her wrist is the coolest combination of color. this is sort of close to what i want: (img tag missing) ooh, so pretty

Posted by bekee at 9:12 AM | permalink | licks (2)

last week at work in order to reacquaint myself with illustrator.

Posted by bekee at 4:09 PM | permalink | licks (0)

this is all i've done at work all week. it's a desktop background. click for the 1280x1024 version, and if your resolution is lower, resize it in your favorite graphics program. lookout!

Posted by bekee at 10:14 AM | permalink | licks (4)

i haven't done a damn thing today for the doll factory. but i did manage to turn what was going to be a new bekee logo into a cute butterfly:

Posted by bekee at 2:29 PM | permalink | licks (0)

there was some confusion about how those scarves actually work, so i made a diagram.. viewable below.

Posted by bekee at 5:53 PM | permalink | licks (2)

a lot of bloggers seem to have these cute little banners that flash and move and swing around. so i made one. i'm only showing it here to see if it annoys me.

Posted by bekee at 11:31 AM | permalink | licks (0)

this looks like the
funniest thing in the world to knit. i think i will.

Posted by bekee at 4:17 PM | permalink | licks (0)

desktop image, one of my ferrets: it reminds me of an illustrator's style, but i can't think of which one.

Posted by bekee at 9:27 AM | permalink | licks (1)

i think i've shared this site with you's all before... but it's worth looking at again; four singing horses. if this doesn't at least make the corners of your mouth move, there's something seriously wrong with you. or, with the corners of your mouth.

Posted by bekee at 8:59 AM | permalink | licks (0)

article about color on the web. you don't really need to read it, this is just a reminder to myself to add this to my links page.

Posted by bekee at 4:50 PM | permalink | licks (0)

too much fun.

Posted by bekee at 2:39 PM | permalink | licks (0)

cafepress.com is hiring a web production artist. one of the qualifications is "strong graphic design skills with no desire to be a designer." i fit every qualification*. *to clarify, i don't want to be a designer in a large corporation where being a designer means doing it the way we've done it for 18 years.

Posted by bekee at 9:24 AM | permalink | licks (0)

i accidentally saved this on the server yesterday. luckily, no one saw it before i put it back on my hard drive. desktop2 1600x1200

Posted by bekee at 8:48 AM | permalink | licks (0)

I don't have any walls around my computer to hang a calendar. This is because there are so many wonderful windows in our new place.. so I did up this desktop wallpaper with august on it. looking forward to sept, b desktop desktop 1280x1024 desktop 1600x1200

Posted by bekee at 8:54 AM | permalink | licks (2)

We *creamed* the Beer Police last night with a not-so-close victory of 17-9! Unfortunately, Kurt and Joe missed it, but everyone who played did an excellent job. We even made a couple double plays! Tierra made an excellent catch at home, but there's some lame 3rd base line rule that made the play safe. Still, the catch was great. It's sad, though, that it was the last game and everyone finally started to get it.

Posted by bekee at 11:19 AM | permalink | licks (3)

of bastille day, the eastside mad bloggers are attempting a nekkid blog day. since i do not appear nekkid long enough for the exposure to capture anything but a blurry bekee, i've come up with this. (img tag missing)

Posted by bekee at 7:35 AM | permalink | licks (0)

So, I got up all early for no reason, and decided that today was the day I would set up a PayPal shop on my site. I'll call it bekeeboutique . Since it's too dark and annoying to take pictures of the knitted goods that I have, the only thing you can buy right now is a button (or buttons). It's a pain if you want one button and it's $2 with shipping, so find me on the street and give me a dollar; you'll get a button in exchange. Those of you who got one at/after the 3/20/03 rally at the capitol, count yourselves lucky. :)

Posted by bekee at 5:36 AM | permalink | licks (0)

this funny site was passed along by a faithful blogreader. enjoy the slideshow!

Posted by bekee at 7:15 AM | permalink | licks (0)

I bookmarked this page a while ago with all intentions of reading it. Won't you join me?

Posted by bekee at 9:26 AM | permalink | licks (0)

I'm excited about the hilarity of this site.

Posted by bekee at 10:30 AM | permalink | licks (0)

Hooray! Thanks to places like Reprodepot Fabrics and DIY, we're on our way to stardom and moving far away from boredom. Tomorrow is the first session of the stitch and bitch club. The secondary happiness that this brings me is that I'll just have to make a logo and a website and business cards and blah blah blah blah blah. :) Fun times.

Posted by bekee at 3:38 PM | permalink | licks (0)

1. So, I used to have these three standard passwords that I would use for the various internet things in my life.. but then it got so hectic that I'd have to cycle through the three just to figure out which one was for what online service. So one day, I went through and made them all the same (new) password. After a while, certain things became more important and needed a special, new, password to protect my online integrity. Now I'm up to 4 or 5 passwords for everything and back to the same rigmarole. But before you start hacking into my eBay account, I'll assure you, it's not as simple as "1L0v3F3rr3t$", I'm smarter than that.
2. My workmatefriend just got back from holiday and has a newely refreshed attitude about crafting! We might start a little club of girls and their crafty silly things (buttons, bracelets, crazy stuff). Look out Badge-A-Minit!

Posted by bekee at 2:15 PM | permalink | licks (0)

So I think I'll be spending most of the week here gathering ideas and instructions for previously mentioned projects. This is a funny site for anyone who's interested in making fun of dotcommers. The funny thing is, I had/have friends who work at Scient and Sapient, just a few of the names eNormicom has helped poke fun at.

Posted by bekee at 10:46 AM | permalink | licks (0)

I found this link design for chunks on someone's blog. It's a really nice collection of redesigned "barf bags", continuously proving the point that design is everywhere.

Posted by bekee at 5:40 PM | permalink | licks (0)

Once again, I'm awake at all hours of the night. I got sooo tired at 9 and came home after a bloody mary and promptly passed out. This made me miss the show at the Crystal. Anyhow, here's a cool site I just found. Even if you can't find anything cool among all of her links (which is doubtful), it's very pretty just to look at. On another note: Cottage cheese. Sometimes I really like it, and sometimes it just has that taste that makes you wonder if the date on the container is in the past or future. I'm not getting up to check because I just bought the damn thing. It had better not be expired.

Posted by bekee at 4:07 AM | permalink | licks (0)

Holy crap, _now_ I have something to do at work tomorrow. This site looks totally fun. I am such a sucker for tutorials.

Posted by bekee at 7:19 PM | permalink | licks (0)

Again with the waking up at all hours. I guess when I'm tired at 10:30 I should tape my eyes open and stay up til midnight. This sure makes for a difficult time rolling my as* out of bed when the alarm goes off in 3. On another note: I need to find a small, interesting, freelance web job. For something to do. I love work and stuff, but I have consciously removed myself from most design responsibilities. I can't do it there. There are too many big noses and opinions, and too much statistical data backing up the marketing. It has become so that it doesn't seem interesting enough. Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't mean that I can't do a little on the side. :)

Posted by bekee at 4:05 AM | permalink | licks (1)

funkuncle. That looks obscene if you read it too fast. It's not. Pucca Club. Probably the cutest thing I'll see today. Susan Kare. Icon design extraordinaire. This site makes me miss my Mac Classic. This will come in handy in the winter.

Posted by bekee at 6:44 AM | permalink | licks (0)