the paperreka blog

progress

2011-04-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

I guess I owe my dear followers to update this blog with the news
about paperreka and Amelie. Please visit my new home for all things paperific at paperreka.com and read about how Amelie became a part of the team.

So this weekend Amelie had to be taken almost completely apart to even begin to try to lift her off the truck that brought her home.
Excited to let the painting process begin.

yeah yeah yeah

2011-02-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

Nope, this post has nothing to do with bands, just the pure happiness I am feeling because I have been awarded 4 addys this year from Greater Dayton Advertising Association (GDAA). I got a bronze addy for my personal identity: business cards (printed by smokeproof press) and notecards (printed by Oregon Printing). I have received one silver award for my most recent wedding invitation packet and another for a logo design. And the gold—aka severed Hermes head—goes to a self promo piece I created for the same client as the logo design. (Photographs by Blink of an Eye Photography)

The most amazing part about receiving these awards is that they were all conceptualized and designed by my little lonesome. Sure—getting recognition for your student work is a great honor—but when it's only your own blood and sweat... that's a completely different story... and that is why I have such a hard time wrapping my head around this. I just feel so blessed to do what I love to do every day.

details

2011-02-20T10:45:00.000-08:00

"The details are not the details. They make the design." (Charles Eames) Thanks to Nathan Peel from fyrefly photography for sharing these photos with me.

in the spirit of spices

2011-02-08T22:46:00.000-08:00

As you may know my company name resembles a very important spice in the Hungarian cuisine. In the spirit of getting ready for the official paperreka website launch—which has a lot to do with spices as well as magic—I offer you this amazing design to make your day a little brighter. Most importantly, however, I offer an online commitment to you dear readers that the paperreka website is to launch the first week of March. There I said it—and cannot take it back.

Source: Yanko design

language

2011-02-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

via cribcandy

no spoonfeeding

2011-01-10T07:05:00.000-08:00

As the new year, resolutions and all those good things begin I would like to look back and rehash the Dalai Lama’s speech at Miami University last year. Yes, I am about 3 months behind schedule—as we say in Hungarian (loose translation): sweep your own porch, because it may be just as dirty as mine... but anyway... I decided to bare my tardiness mainly because some of the points are my personal goals and resolutions in 2011 and also to perhaps inspire you. To make sure I don't lose you I am writing in a non-spoonfeeding style.

—everyone deserves a happy life.
—happiness comes form the inside: peace of mind=healthy life.
—accept and respect all.
—everyone desires affection—may it be a human being, an animal or a plant. Feeding is only one part of the equation; care and love are also essential. If we receive care and love we can also spread it around.

—a bit of an obvious claim here—bees cannot compare with human intelligence. However, with no laws, no constitution, no religion they all work together… and we as humans HAVE intelligence. Think about that for a second...

—no matter what goals we have in life—our methods to reach them have to be realistic. If we have too much emotion—we cannot see clearly. So we must remain objective whenever possible. This also means that we must know reality fully. Know 3, 4 or 6 dimensions before making a decision.

—finally the Dalai Lama called this century "the century of dialogue." The potential for conflict is always there. The method to resolve it must be by dialogue and not by force. Take the Iraqi war… motivation to eliminate dictator and bring democracy: good. Method: not good.

—when you are personally in dissonance, you must find a peaceful way to resolve it.

Happy sweeping and thinking in the new year.

stay sharp

2010-10-04T19:59:00.000-07:00

via thisisnthappiness.com

success

2010-08-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

Soooo I got new fans on facebook, new followers on my blog and on twitter. I conclude my first giveaway a success. The winners have been announced on FB and TW, but in case you missed it...

Winners are:
-@angelaCurrent for tweeting first
-Lakatos Kinga for suggesting the fan page to the most people
-@niki_bailey for tweeting the furthest from Ohio
-@Carole_Baker for spreading the word via the most networks.

Thank you for the love and support.

wedding anniversary 4.2

2010-08-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

Today, my husband and I celebrate our second 4th anniversary (you know... 3 wedding anniversaries each year). Since the third 4th anniversary is only a week away I decided to create a little contest for this upcoming week. 4 sets (in honor of being married for 4 years) of five owl love note cards will be given to randomly selected people.

There are two ways to show paperreka some love:
1. Go to twitter and post something nice about the love note cards or the contest—feel free to get creative. Don't forget to include @paperreka or use the #paperreka4.2 as a hastag.

2. Suggest to people on facebook to become a fan of paperrekadesigns. Before you send the invites, take a screen capture of the number of people to whom you are sending the invites. Send this screen cap to paperreka@gmail.com. I may decide to select the person with the most invitations to win one set of cards.

Emails and tweets must be sent (and received) no later than 11:59 p.m. EST, August 26th, 2010. I will announce the randomly selected winners on Friday, August 27th. Contest is open to all—literally everyone in the world, I can ship internationally if needed.

are you happy?

2010-08-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

(via weheartit.com)

feeling old

2010-07-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

As the much needed weekend rolls around I am feeling tired and old. Happy Friday to all.

letterpressing rocks

2010-07-09T07:52:00.000-07:00

Thank you Johannes Gutenberg for inventing modern movable type printing and thank you 1990s for the "small press movement." Without you I would have never become obsessed with letterpress printing and would have never gotten my business cards letterpressed.

My goal was to create a unique set of cards that spoke to my Hungarian heritage (the pattern used in the design is a traditional Hungarian folk embroidery pattern) but stay true to my modern clean aesthetics. I also wanted to separate my graphic design business ventures from my stationery design projects—I felt that they each deserved attention separately but should speak a cohesive language together (like my Hunglish).

At the end I am very happy with the results. Thanks to Brad at smokeproof press for putting up with my questions and helping me through the printing process.

history of art

2010-06-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

time

2010-04-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to a video "to see every painting at the MoMA in 2 minutes." I love the link, even recognized a ton of the artists, I just hope this is not the only way to advertise to people, in small bits, condensing the experience. Not all sentences should be as short as 140 characters. Time is precious and prioritizing is hard. I know. I am guilty of skimming through articles and not reading for the sake of reading... I usually prefer magazines, quick bites of info, texts over long phone calls, a small yard, 20-minute shows on tv... So here it is—in my condensed blog post—watch the MoMA video and ponder these questions dear readers.

gloating

2010-02-24T02:43:00.000-08:00

I have been struggling to write an intro without sounding pretentious and fake. So I am just going to tell you how good it felt to receive 4 Addy awards from the Greater Dayton Advertising Association (GDAA) this past weekend: really good. Being one of the non-traditional students in school, pulling so many late nights, sacrificing time away from my husband, family, and friends—were all worth it when I was called up to the stage to receive a severed Hermes head. Yeah, nothing says you are amazingly talented and creative than a large, heavy, and severed head.

Here are some photos of the pieces that won: the Duracell magazine ad (bronze) where the footer reads "toy car not included;" the Royksopp CD cover (silver) titled Melody a.m. mixing musical elements of a turntable with images of a morning routine; the Toyota capstone branding project (silver) of a hypothetical car that runs on water; and last but not least the gold winner—the PF Chang's menu design with oriental inspired tactile overload.

Herm (the head) and I would like to thank those who helped make this come true—you know who you are. A very special thank you to the GDAA for forever renaming the Student Hermes Award to the The Dan Johnson Award for Student Achievement to honor Dan's legacy of mentoring young designers. Rest in peace Dan.

logos are tricky

2010-02-09T23:09:00.000-08:00

As I am in the process of branding a dear friend of mine (with logo, business card, and website) I often find myself looking at my inspiration folders to create something visually stunning and original. Both are hard work. There are amazing logos out there and to be original is always challenging. While I hope to share the process of my logo development at a later stage, for now, I would like to insert here some of my favorite logos in no particular order (mostly from logopond.com)

Bowling shoe logo by Gregidea

Pangur glass craft by Fogra

Sparrow logo by unknown designer

Inksect by OcularInk

Piano forest by JasonCho

Twins logo by actiondesigner

Zip logo by unknown designer

K12 reader logo by unknown designer

Page fold logo by TKHoury

Killed logo by unknown designer

Birdie logo by Gregidea

If you know any of the "uknown" designers, or if the logos are not correctly linked to the original designer please let me know. It is only my intention to inspire, never to plagiarize, and it is never my intention not to not give credit where credit is due.

Wind of change

2010-01-26T22:07:00.000-08:00

Apples—check.
Carrots—check.
Oranges—check. No wait, it's kiwi today. Ok, check.
Bran—check.
Green tea—check.
Vegetable juice—check.
Soup—check.
Bread and vegetables—check.

These words have seriously taken over our mornings since my return to the states (after the holiday break). Nope, we did not have or adopted a baby whom we send to daycare with food.

I visited a holistic food counselor back in Hungary and as I heard the many millions of things wrong with my body and organs all related to poor food choices—I began to wonder. Can I really clean out my kitchen of junk food? Could I go without meat for 3 weeks? How about sour cream? Those of you who know me... I heart sour cream. According to my husband I eat sour cream with sour cream. Could he, the most carnivorous husband, jump on board? Is this really going to pay off? Could my body really be in that bad of a shape? I mean I am not overweight. I am not obsessed (too much) about what I look like and I consider myself semi in shape. Ehh, who needs this?

Then it hit me: I was full of excuses, excuses, excuses. I called my hubbie via skype and told him the news. Told him what I was planning on doing and asked him to join me. After his initial shock of the foods we cannot have for 3 weeks he quickly fought back: "but hun, I don't drink tea." "You know that."

And those were his last words of complaints. We are 5 days away from completing the cleansing, we are full of energy and found recipes that are so delicious that I know we will keep for years to come. I write this post as an inspiration to anyone who thinks or believes that a few weeks of well made, nutritious food without meat or sugars is impossible.

Things taste different and better now. Sure I have to plan meals, go shopping, get produce that's fresh, prepare meals daily. We both know that some recipes are less successful, than others. We both know that bran is an evil sibling of cardboard. Nobody said it was going to be easy—but I am proud of the change we made, and I am forever proud and heart my husband of 4 years (as of Monday January 25th) for sticking with me in the windstorm.

Below you will find our top 3 favorite recipes (Sources are tricky, since almost all recipes had to be altered, but Simply Recipes is a fantastic place to start. Please no complaints from other chef's lawyers for intellectual property, ok?)

Cauliflower soup
3 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic
1 medium onion
2 stalks of celery
2 heads of cauliflower
4 cups of water
2 cubes of vegetable broth

Cut up all the onion, garlic, celery and saute them in olive oil. Cut the cauliflower into small florets and put in the pan with water and vegetable broth. Bring the soup to a boil, then cook for 20 minutes on low heat. With a slotted spoon remove two cups of cauliflower. Blend/ mix the rest into a smooth soup. Put back two cups of cauliflower and serve.

Yellow squash soup
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 large celery stalk, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
3-4 cups of yellow squash, shredded
2 cups of water
1 vegetable broth cube

Heat olive oil, and saute garlic, onion, celery. Add squash, broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer for 20 minutes. Blend cooked through vegetables for smooth texture. Can be served hot or cold.

Carrot ginger soup
3/4 lbs of carrots, roughly chopped
1 cup of coconut meat
1 1/2 tbs of shallots, diced
1/2 cup of coconut water
1/2 cup of orange juice
1/2 clove of garlic
1 tbsp of ginger, minced
1 tbsp of miso
pinch of cumin

Cook all ingredients until soft, then combine all in high power blender until completely smooth.

Enjoy!

2010-01-12T13:40:00.000-08:00

I've always dreamed of having a house full of interesting furniture and eclectic pieces—so my first post in 2010 will be an homage to great designers, and a not-so-secret wish that this new year will allow me to embellish our home just a little more. These inspiring images are from blogs like Design Milk, swissmiss, or not martha.

A dining room table that would never be covered by a tablecloth made by Lex Pott.

A bookcase by Ron Arad and I totally have a wall in mind.

Sytlish bookends from Chiasso.

While on the subject of books... how about a book hook from Tell Ritterbach, Cologne?

If you feel super handy in this new year, check out not martha's "to make" section of super cool ideas.

Lately I have been coming across some very creative wall graphics, and amazing vinyl shops, like the hu2.

If I can just sneak a few stylish elements into the basement, that will surely be a man cave that I will need to avoid, this is on the top of the list thanks to James Hopinks' artwork called Spirit Level, from 2005.

What do you hope to bring into your home in 2010—a special piece that you will cherish for years to come?

Inspir(n)ation

2009-12-09T02:32:00.000-08:00

As I find myself browsing the web for news, searching for design blogs, checking facebook and twitter, hunting for gift ideas, planning my dream spaces—I realize I am in constant need of inspiration.

Nation—we need inspiration. Especially in these tough times and so close to the end of the year. For me inspiration comes from many places, but especially from architecture. Wall paper patterns, space layouts, color and tactile combination of furniture, shapes, clever storage solutions all feed into my graphically oriented brain.

Share your favorite places for inspiration here or on your blog, and let's finish December strong. Design, create and inspire those around you! It returns the favor a million fold.

Crate and Barrel 2
MoCo Loco
The Dieline
Grain Edit
omgthatrocks
Design is kinky

Slash

2009-10-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

This post has nothing to do with guitarist, or mega-store price cuts. Rather, for the love of all things paper, I have to share the wonderful exhibit that I saw in New York City called Slash—paper under the knife. The featured video (link above) is a few minutes long, but is worth watching for the close ups of the displayed artworks.

"Slash is the third exhibition in MAD's Materials and Process series, which examines the renaissance of traditional handcraft materials and techniques in contemporary art and design. The exhibition surveys unusual paper treatments, including works that are burned, torn, cut by lasers, and shredded. A section of the exhibition will focus on artists who modify books to transform them into sculpture, while another will highlight the use of cut paper for film and video animations." (quoted from the Museum of Art and Design website)

What was so inspiring about the exhibit is the same thing that made it so easy to relate to: the medium is paper—paper we use every day, books we read, magazines we flip through, coffee filters we pitch, medical records we file away.

Olafur Eliasson—Your House | 2006
(Laser-cut and hand-bound book | Photo: Matthew Cox)

This book conceptually captured my attention: two-dimensional vs. 3-dimensional floor plans.

Ed Pien—Night Gathering | 2006
(Ink on cut Shoji paper | 96x192inches | Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay)

Feel free to take a second to imagine 96 by 192 inches—amazing craftsmanship.

Seems impossible, but I do admire and appreciate paper even more after seeing these works. If you have a chance—you should visit Slash. It is on display until April 4, 2010.

Multiples of perfect: paperreka

2009-09-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

A few months ago—after I graduated from art school—I had high hopes of getting my dream job. I wanted to work at the perfect agency, the perfect distance away, have the perfect co-workers and make the perfect amount of money.

It turns out I created this opportunity for myself. Still employed at the Museum, about a month ago I created paperreka. "She" was always a part of me—paper, cutting paper, gluing paper, and the idea of creating a never-before-seen fold or combination of papers for an invitations just thrills me. So I launched by super easy website on etsy.com and here I am.

I do work at the perfect agency: my beautiful home office, I do have the perfect distance to travel to work (hop over to Home Office Boulevard and take the first right) and I do have the perfect co-workers: birds chirping.

As for making the perfect amount of money—I made two sales so far. So head over to my shop and start thinking about fall/winter/xmas/new year's eve parties, xmas cards, custom stationery as gifts for the holidays or just ask me to create whatever your heart desires.

It's time

2009-09-08T01:00:00.000-07:00

Time is so precious and I have nothing to roll over from last month (I'm with t-mobile anyway) or last year, or my previous jobs, or my previous lives—so I think that this very particular moment in time is as good as any to write this update.

Although I would like to use Tuesdays for my love of type (see last week's Typographic Tuesday note), but the long weekend, throughout which I did labor, I also had the chance to think. A chance to think about great things that will shape me as a graphic designer for years to come.

Firstly, an unexpected Award of Excellence in The American Graphic Design Awards competition for my student work at saa. One of my favorite projects in school was the CD cover redesign.

Each year great work is produced in this class, because music is truly so personal and expressing yourself creatively—I imagine—feels just the same whether you are a designer or a musician. After a few quick scrolls through my Itunes I chose Royksopp's Melody a.m. album. It is now perhaps better known because of the Geicco caveman song (Remind me), but Poor Leno and Royksopp's night out have been favs of mine (yes, I said favs) for years. I knew I wanted to combine music and morning somehow in my design, I just didn't know how. Many sleepless hours later the idea of a turntable with an aerial view of a coffee cup surfaced and the design started to take shape.

If you know me... and my dear followers I think do know this... I love to make things. Nothing like a fresh blade (only to cut paper, not to worry!) in the exacto knife or intricate details awaiting to be cut—and I am excited. Thanks to a couple of group critiques and Tyler Spahr for giving me blank DVD sleeves, I built a turntable. From start to finish: an intricate box with hinges, a clear lid that closes, a CD that is a shot of a coffee cup, a functioning turntable needle that is adhered with an eyelet, and for an extra added bonus: a little booklet with lyrics to the wonderful songs—no time or attention to detail was spared. And for that I thank Flick; his creative direction and never-good-enough-oh-you-can-do-so-much-better attitude surely made me crazy sometimes but also made me extremely proud of this project:

And while we are on the subject of handmade and intricate designs, this could not be a better transition into my second thought for today's post: my new etsy shop. If you don't know what etsy is, this is a good time (waaaaaaaay before the holiday mayhem) to get acquainted with peeps who make anything and everything precious with their two hands. I am pledging to do the same: use my creativity, love of all things paper, and cutting precision to bring wonderful paper goods to life. I will periodically update my shop, and you, too my dear readers and followers about what's new in paperreka's world.

Until next time: stay focused, creative, and respect the paper!

Typographic Tuesday

2009-09-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

Thank you welovetypography and Summerour.

Thank you Michael Dal Vecchio. Photo by Robin Broadbent (Men's Fashion Fall 2006) from typetheory.com

Thank you welovetypography and fer.valles.

starting

2009-08-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

So you always have to start somewhere. Right?

I am starting here.
Today.

Not going to make promises I cannot keep, not going to offer you something I cannot give. Pledging to take things one day at a time.
Who is with me?