Hasta La Ideas

The UPPERCASE Book Bundle is a great Christmas gift!

Receive four beautiful and unique books over the course of the next few months.

The bundle begins right away with recently published The Elegant Cockroach, a beautifully illustrated tale of a stylish creature living in the big city. For booklovers (and lovers) it is a romantic story of love, longing and six legs. The book is hardcover with black cloth and copper foil title with a full colour jacket and black endpapers. Here’s a look at a sample image from inside the book. (See a short book trailer film here.)

The Elegant Cockroach is followed by Work/Life 2: the UPPERCASE directory of illustration (international edition) to be published in February. Nearly 100 illustrators from around the globe are profiled, with peeks into their studios, sketchbooks and personal lives. You can take a look at the first edition of Work/Life to get a sense of the content and design of the next edition. (Limited numbers of the first edition are still available.)

Cover illustration by Alyssa Nassner

image by Andrea D’Aquinoimage by Juliana Salcedoimage by Blanca Gómez

Then in March, we send you A Collection a Day by Lisa Congdon. I am REALLY excited about this one. Throughout 2010, Lisa has been posting an image of one of her collections every day. It is an amazing project full of incredible objects and visual inspirations. It has existed as a blog for the year, but we are turning the project into something you can hold in your hands: a small but hefty 6.5″ x 4.5″ tome with over 400 pages at about 1.25″ thick. The book itself will be packaged inside a collectible tin, in which you can store your small collections and precious treasures. The tin design is in progress and I’ll be sharing it with you soon. When purchased as part of the Book Bundle or preorders, the special tin is included at no extra charge.

In June, we send you the icing on top of the cake: The Suitcase Series Volume 2: Dottie Angel. Tif Fussell is a prolific crafter and blogger. I’ve prepared a short film to introduce you to Tif and her alter ego Dottie Angel, but we will have to wait a few more weeks before it makes a very special premiere. The book will be around 192 pages full of Dottie wisdom, craft how-tos, anecdotes and ramblings, pretty pictures and ponderings… The design details are still in progress, but the book will include some very special touches such as actual sewing on the cover and the inclusion of vintage fabric swatches! When purchased as part of the Book Bundle or preorders, you will receive some special extra goodies with the book. (The first book in the series was about Camilla Engman; take a look here.)

All of these amazing books will be sent to you or your recipient as they are published—The Elegant Cockroach will be sent out now so there will be something to unwrap under the tree. We can also email a Christmas e-card to your recipient to let them know what they’ll be receiving in the coming months.

The bundle is just $100 and you will save off the total cover prices plus get the special extras. You also save on shipping costs by purchasing the bundle rather than each book individually. To order the bundle, please click right here.

Do you want the UPPERCASE Book Bundle for Christmas? Let your Santa know by sending him this link: http://tinyurl.com/2vsr7nd

It is a busy busy time. Although the blog might be a little stagnant lately (sorry!), behind the scenes things are happening. Content for issue 8 is flowing in, and submissions for Work/Life 2 are flooding in! I am happy to reveal the cover for Work/Life 2: the UPPERCASE directory of illustration, international edition. (to be released February 2011)

The cover is llustrated by Alyssa Nassner. I really enjoyed our collaboration and admire Alyssa’s work. Below is the article about Alyssa from the forthcoming book, peppered with some images from her website and etsy shop. (There are a few spots still available in Work/Life 2: read more about the project here and sign up here. Preorder the book here or as part of the book bundle.)

Alyssa Nassner is a fresh talent with a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Although new to the field, Alyssa has already landed some fine jobs: “I’ve been lucky enough to work on a novelty book with Chronicle Books, and I cannot wait for that project to finally be complete. I’ve also had the joy of working on various freelance projects with Dwell Studio. Working with them has given me a great insight into the industry of textile design among other things, and I look forward to continuing my work with them.” Alyssa provided the cover illustration for Work/Life 2. “Being asked to work on a project with UPPERCASE has also been exceptionally thrilling.”

As is the reality for most young illustrators, it is difficult to take the leap out into the world, given that the only predictable part of freelance illustration is its unpredictable path. “Right now I’m living back at home, and working from my basement. I would prefer to be out on my own, but I want to take the time to save up enough money. Although I’ve been extremely fortunate with work so far, at this point I don’t know what I’ll be doing two months from now, so it’s important to me that I have enough savings to fall back on when I finally move out.”

She’s still working on finding a balance between life and work, and the scale is decidedly tipped towards work. “This has been the biggest struggle for me as a young illustrator. There are some weeks where I have no choice but to not leave home, and stay up every night meet deadlines. I know that comes with illustration territory. Recently I’ve been making more of an effort to get out of the house at least once a day, even if it’s only for an hour or two.”

For some welcome distraction, Alyssa has been improving her sewing skills and participating in craft fairs with handmade items. “Baking is slowly becoming a hobby of mine as well to the delight of my friends, and family.”

With a carefree spirit and positive outlook, Alyssa is poised for a successful career. “I like to create work that is fun, and light. My ultimate goal is to brighten someone’s day, so in turn my work is colorful, decorative, and even a little naive.” Although eager and excited for all illustration opportunities, Alyssa describes her dream job with a slightly bigger picture: “I would love to work in-house for the gift division of a company, either doing artwork, or art directing. As much as I love doing my own illustrations, I’m just as thrilled to work with other artists to complete projects, and design products.”

Thank you, Alyssa, for a fine job. We wish you much success!

Mark Hamilton, founder of the band Woodpigeon, has been generously lending his talents as a writer for many issues now. (thanks, Mark!) Woodpigeon is playing tonight at Broken City in Calgary. Their poster is illustrated by Jeff Kulak, who was part of the first edition of Work/Life in 2008. His full page illustration for Work/Life has always been one of my favourites:

I’m planning a new edition of Work/Life to be released by the end of the year. The details are being worked out and the website prepared, but if you’d like first notice of the call for participants you can sign up here.

Karen Klassen is a local Calgary illustrator represented by Colagene in Montreal. She does beautiful work, as you can see in this spring image project for Market Mall and the Shisomiso ad that she made for issue #1 of UPPERCASE magazine. Visit Karen’s blog to see some of her process for the Market Mall project.

Karen is one of the artists that we profiled in Work/Life: the UPPERCASE directory of Canadian Illustrators & Photographers. Work/Life is a great resource for art directors as well as aspiring creatives. Through interviews, studio images, sketchbook pages and personal mementos, you really get to know the artists. Click the image below to see it larger and to read the article.

And my Canadian favourite and illustrator of the Work/Life cover, Darren Booth. (Buy the book here!) Apparently Work/Life is in the current HOW annual, but I have not seen it yet. It is also supposed to get a mention in the resources section of the March issue of Communication Arts.