Resources, Stuff and People I Love

My desire for the right tool borders on obsession. From sketching first concepts with pen and ink to launching powerful software, I delight in what feels right in my hands; brings my ideas, objectives, creativity to life; works with graceful precision; or enlightens and connects me. Below is an ever-changing list in my quest for the best. 

 

Creative Partners … Good Citizens

 

Design: Print & Pixels

Magazine & Book Printers
—

  • Conveyor Editions ~ Excellent customer service and a sweet portfolio of artists’ books. They have a nice range of papers and cover printing options. Book a printing slot early. 
  • Edition One Books ~ Another digital book printer I recommend. They, like Conveyor Editions specialize in artists’ books.  

 

  • BLURB ~ Easy peasy book publishing
  • MAGCLOUD ~ Affordable magazine publishing
  • READYMAG ~ Super easy, dynamic digital publishing for browsers, tablets and smartphones

Invitations, Stationery & Letterpress Printing
—

  • Minted ~ Wedding invitations, stationery, art prints galore by some of the best independent designers and possibly undiscovered designers. It’ s where I sell my invitations.
  • Bella Figura ~ Local invitation shop with beautiful letterpress printed products from thank you notes to wedding invitations.  

 

  • ADVANTAGE LETTERPRESS ~ Kevin Cox runs his shop out of Washington state. We’ve collaborated over the years and I hope to pick up with him once again.
  • Mama's Sauce ~ Super friendly and beautiful letterpress printing. They also offer screen printing. An invitation I designed for a friend/client were printed with them.
  • Moo ~ Affordable, high-quality print promotion and identity printer. I love Moo for many things but I personally would avoid their “letterpress” business cards and give my money to an artisan letterpress printer.

Typography
—

  • I Love Typography ~ One of my first discoveries when I started out blogging and moving into web design. It is chock full of history, interviews and reviews. ILT is a typography lovers in-depth resource. 
  • Typographica ~ Type reviews, books and those fabulous “Favorite Typefaces” lists. I’ve discovered many high-quality typefaces from here.
  • TypeWolf ~ Type on the web never looked more beautiful than it does in this curated resource of type pairings by Jeremiah Shoaf.
  • Fonts in Use ~ It’s one thing to see type in a catalog and better to see it used in context.
  •  

 

  • FONTSHOP ~ An exploratory website to discover, learn and purchase typefaces.
  • MYFONTS ~ The Powells of typeface shops on the ’net.
  • WebType ~ High quality font delivery service for your web pages and apps. Type is design. Make it beautiful.
  • CLOUD.TYPOGRAPHY ~ Hoefler&Co’s font delivery service. The only place to have their typefaces (Archer, Gotham, Whitney and others) displayed on your web pages.
  • Village Type Foundry ~ An invite-only type foundry. This is a small and mighty collection of typographic excellence.
  • EMIGRE ~ The type foundry of Mrs. Eaves. What more is there to say?

Inspiration
—

  • Design Inspiration ~ Incredible high-end design from around the interwebs
  • GrainEdit ~ Interviews, articles, books, ephemera and more focused on design work from 1950-1970 and contemporaries whose work is influenced  by this time period.
  • SiteInspire ~ Showcases some of the best sites from the web.
  • Mindsparkle Magazine ~ A gorgeous collection of well-designed websites
  •  

 

UXDesign ~ A comprehensive collection of books, articles, pattern libraries and more to inspire and help solve ux and ui problems.

More, coming soon

 

Work & Life: Stuff I Love

Food, Health & Wellness
—

  • Vitamix Blender ~ Buy certified refurbished to save some cash and own a blender that grinds and blends pretty much anything. Make your own almond butter!
  • Kuhn Rikon Swiss Peelers ~ Simple and oh-so-functional. This is hands-down the best peeler I have ever owned.
  • Borough Furnace ~ This is on my wishlist. They are a local company making cast iron skillets by hand.

 

 

Publications
—
Yes, magazine junkie

  • More Magazine ~ Makes me feel smart and beautiful even at “a certain age.”
  • PALEO MAGAZINE ~ The magazine that helps me stay up-to-date on health and how I eat.
  • Audrey ~ A magazine devoted to featuring and sharing the Asian American female experience. If only this had been around when I was a teenager!
  • National Geographic TRAVELER ~ The magazine I have loved since it first came out; the best travel magazine on the planet.
  • AFAR ~ Compelling photography and excellence in design. 
  • Garden & Gun ~ Gorgeous lifestyle magazine with compelling photography and stories that educate me on a part of the country I know little about.

 

  • ORGANIC GARDENING ~ The gardener in me digs getting dirt in her nails.
  • Dot Net Magazine ~ A must-read magazine for web design and development professionals.
  • Fast Company ~ Engaging design and a way to keep my finger on the pulse on the intersection of technology, design and business
  • Photo District News (PDN) ~ Keeping current on what is important to photographers is important to me.
  • Gourmet Magazine ~ How I miss it! Delicious photography, delicious recipes, stories from around the world.

 

Software, Apps & Services
—

  • Sketch3 ~ Seriously, say goodbye to Photoshop. Design wireframes and high-fidelity mockups for any screen size. Super intuitive and a great community to boot.
  • Coda ~ For those times when I need to write elegant HTML and CSS
  • Squarespace ~ Easy, low-maintenance website creation platform. Beautiful straight out-of-the-box.
  • ExpressionEngine ~ If you go full custom, be sure to check out “EE” first. It is robust and my preferred content management system. 
  • Postable ~ A delightful way to stay in touch via snail mail. Have your contacts add/update their information.
  • Dropbox ~ A great place to store, back up and share a lot of files but I wouldn’t store anything confidential or financial here. It does work great for collaborative projects when many files need to be shared/distributed to a group.
  • WeTransfer ~ A great and free service allows you to share a folder of gigantic files.
  • SpiderOak ~ I’ve researched how secure many of the cloud-based storage and sharing services are and SpiderOak wins. The only other service I would consider paying good money for would be Wuala by LaCie.
  • Photo Mechanic ~ The fast and easy way to edit, pair and rate your images
  •  

 

  • Evernote ~ Where I collect nearly everything and manage smaller projects.
  • Feedly ~ My RSS reader of choice.
  • Instapaper ~ Gorgeous reading experience for articles I want to ‘read later’. I love the ability to highlight passages and share them.
  • LIGHTROOM ~ Super beefy (for me) but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty amazing.
  • SCREEN FLOW ~ For training my customers how to update and manage their new websites and giving feedback to my students.
  • GRADEBOOK PRO APP ~ The alternative to Excel spreadsheets for tracking grades, attendance and more.
  • HOOTSUITE ~ To manage my Twitter strategy while at the desktop, laptop, or iPhone; keep up-to-date with my community; and engage my customers
  • BUFFERAPP ~ Simple management and analytics for your social media accounts. They also make great suggestions for content. It comes without the noise of multiple streams.
  • INSTAGRAM ~ Hands down the best place to share images and be discovered.
  • FLICKR ~ Simply because I’ve been a member for years and I still see great images and meet great people. Hello NASA!
  • SmugMug ~ To privately share photos with my family, friends, and colleagues

Hardware
—

 

 

Published by yund28