So, I’ve started making ‘Beer Books’ for people to use while note-taking, writing, drawing, doodling, making list and more – plus – show off their love for beer.

Beer Books are made with 6-pack (for now) fronts and backs as ‘covers’ (ranging from 7-8 inches wide and 4-7 inches tall, depending on the beer). Side pieces from the 6-pack are also used for smaller note-taking or to-do list books. Some papers you may run across are: graph, lined and sketch. Durable threads are used for binding and the book is finished off with its ’seal’ including the number of pages, book number, and a link to this post/page.

My goal is to keep up with every book I make and at the very least, take a photo and post it here. If you’re interested in getting a book, or have a favorite beer to recommend, leave me a comment or contact me here.

Cheers and thanks for visiting!

Turns out, I’ve been a pretty busy dude. Fact is, my blog has never had a direction or readers* so I got lazy (ponders “direction=readers”…). I’d recently decided I would show my portfolio on the front page as the date on my latest blog post makes this site look pretty abandoned… but I have yet to make that happen either. Here are some of the things I’ve been doing when not working my full-time design job at Design the Planet.

Streamlining

So, for starters, I purchased a new iMac, desk and chair at the end of last year. The 8 year old G4 I used in college was no longer efficient so I finally made the upgrade and cleaned up my workspace.

Contributing

I’ve been posting to Minilistic, a blog showcasing minimal design, furniture, packaging, typography, and the likes. Ron Domingue asked if I’d contribute and I’m really glad I decided to. It’s a great resource and I now have a better understanding of what makes minimal design so great.

Screen Printing

I’m taking a screen printing class again with my friend Heather at The New Orleans Glassworks and Printmaking Studio. I’m really hoping to beef up my knowledge of screen printing and eventually buy the materials to screen print in my own studio (shed). I started off a little anxious and overly ambitious the first two classes, but the next class, I got lots of work done. Hoping to pull these Johnny Cash screen prints together for the final class.

Donating

A recent non-profit client I’ve taken on is almost wrapped up! Camp Tiger is a five-day camp organized and run by medical students for mentally and/or physically disabled children. Camp Tiger has benefited over 1,500 children from the Greater New Orleans area and attendance is free due to extensive fund raising efforts by first-year medical students. Camp Tiger celebrates its 25th anniversary of service to the New Orleans community and I was asked to create a logo, invitation card, interior banners for NOMA (New Orleans Museum of Art) and various branded print materials. It’s been a great opportunity and I’m looking forward to attending the event this weekend.

Learning

Here are a few things I’ve been reading:
Brewing Made Easy – Fisher & Fisher
The Designer’s Guide to Business and Careers – Peg Faimon
Print Liberation – The Screen Printing Primer – Nick Paparone & Jamie Dillon
The Associated Press Stylebook – bought for $1.99 for reference!
Wired Magazine

Reading

And more for fun (comics):
Transmetropolitan #1
100 Bullets #1
Fables #1
Criminal: The Sinners Part 2 #2
Green Lantern Rebirth #1
Irredeemable #5
The Walking Dead #2

Et cetera

Other than all of those things, I’ve been watching lots of TED talks for inspiration, playing some Quake Live for fun, and steady writing in my 3 Moleskine books I bring everywhere.

What about you?

Well, I feel better knowing about what I’ve been doing with my time, I just need to post more often (this could have easily been 5 posts). So what have you been doing with your time lately?? Drop me a comment on what’s been going on with you!

*Fun Fact: If you search Google for ‘how to make a DEVO hat‘, guess what comes up first… that’s right – my blog. Pretty bizarre, but true nonetheless. I was pretty pumped the day I decided to make my own DEVO hat after seeing there were no helpful links on the subject. Now, if I could only get some comments or pictures of people with their well-made energy domes!

See more views of jalopy.

So, what are your thoughts? An odd way/location to dispose of a jalopy? Some sort of marketing ploy to bring in customers (which worked on me)?

Update: A week or so later, I noticed the ‘Bring in your clunker’ sign, so it was, in fact, a marketing ploy… and a good one!

Staying organized is something I’ve always been a big fan of. Growing up, my dad knew that if I didn’t make a list for something, it wasn’t going to get done.

He would always ask if I had written something down. He never had to make lists so I never understood why I had to. I would simply forget to do things. Not cardinal things like, brush your teeth or go to sleep, but I have written ‘take a shower’ or ‘eat breakfast’ not to remember, but to be able to cross it off a list.

I like the satisfaction of crossing something off a list. I’ve seen people use check marks and even ink-wasting circular strokes that leave imprints 4-5 pages beneath. I’m a one-to-two-line strike through kinda guy – I like to be able to read what was there for even more sense of accomplishment. Sometimes I even write something down, just to cross it off.

Behance and Knock Knock have great tools for fulfilling any of your strike through needs. I use both for different occasions and have found them both to be very helpful. Behance has a great to-do which I’ve used for project meetings, personal to-do lists, and even site maps for websites I’m working on. Knock Knock has a handy little weekly schedule which helps me not forget a last minute request from a client or to follow up on progressing projects.

Staying organized on the fly is a little different -  I go through sticky notes like crazy, have a notebook or two strictly for client meetings, but as far as to-do lists – those range from index cards, loose leaf paper, used envelopes, Beer Books, various tablets, even a sugar packet (once). The table life of these notes is usually short, but sometimes, I make the overwhelming ‘page-long list’. This list can include things that need to be done that day to the next month, or next year to the day I die. Things like ‘buy more beer at grocery’, ‘catch up on design blogs’, to ‘live in the UK’ and ‘get out of debt’ end up on the same list. Mostly this list is just a great form of procrastination, usually more counter-productive than anything. Nonetheless, things get written down and some things get crossed off – all with a little more gratification.

Field Notes is where my resources go and I’ve upheld their slogan – “I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.” It’s just thin enough to toss in my back pocket and bring just about anywhere. I have contacts, books to read, music to listen to, links to check out, research on various products I want to buy, artists to further research, quotes, etc

Along similar lines comes Moleskine notebooks. I use Moleskine notebooks for lengthier writings – usually as ‘idea’ books. From more promising ideas to the lame and comical ones, I try to keep these ideas in the same vicinity for reference… and a good laugh. They also have a multitude of other books from museum specific to city notebooks and planners to watercolor notebooks.

In the end, everyone has their own way of staying organized – from paper to paper-less… with technology like iPhones and Blackberrys, applications like iCal and Google Calendar, and even free online to-do list resources, I still have a soft spot for good ol fashioned paper. It’s reliable, easy to come by, fairly efficient, affordable and still the best way for me to ‘write-to-remember’ things not to overlook.

So, it’s your turn. Let me know how you stay organized as a creative. What other resources should I look into for taking notes, keeping organized and making to-dos?

Further Linkage:

Behance
@behance

Knock Knock

Field Notes Brand
@fieldnotesbrand

Moleskine
13 Twitterers Share Their Moleskine Obsession