Inkcafe - Wedding invitations, paper goods and more.

Make Ink.

Sun, 15 Mar 2020 18:52:00 +0100

Today I just want to suggest you a book:
Make Ink: A Forager's Guide to Natural Inkmaking by Jason Logan

You can read it for curiosity in pigments, for the blissful photographs or for pure curiosity.. Here the official presentation:

"The Toronto Ink Company was founded in 2014 by designer and artist Jason Logan as a citizen science experiment to make eco-friendly, urban ink from street-harvested pigments. In Make Ink, Logan delves into the history of inkmaking and the science of distilling pigment from the natural world. Readers will learn how to forage for materials such as soot, rust, cigarette butts, peach pits, and black walnut, then how to mix, test, and transform these ingredients into rich, vibrant inks that are sensitive to both place and environment. Organized by color, and featuring lovely minimalist photography throughout, Make Ink combines science, art, and craft to instill the basics of ink making and demonstrate the beauty and necessity of engaging with one of mankind’s oldest tools of communication."

You can find it on Amazon or, in Milan, at the amazing Spazio BK.

The World's favourite colour project - applications

Wed, 26 Feb 2020 08:40:00 +0100

There is an other step in this search... Now that is clear that the world's favorite color sits in the middle of bluish greens, G:F.Smith decided not to pick the more voted one but to write an other algorithm to have a color that summarize a wider range of preference. A sort of avarage, applied to color.

This is how “marrs green” is born.
A more than vivid/saturated green with a lot of blue in it. A completely unnatural color.

Of course all this work had a commercial purpose, that included not only finding the new perfect shade to be added to Colorplan paper collecion, but also to arise interest around it.

The results were presented through 6 outdoor installations and an exhibition.

Some popular brand were asked to made product in this exact shade and the capsule collection sold in an all-marrs-green temporary shop. A detailed report book has been pubblished and presented in many paper, graphic, design related places.
Here in Milan, at Paper and People amazing showroom.

All this survey makes clear that is possibile to work on more accurated, more relevant data that the one that cames from simple polls. Knowing peopole preferences opens to many other marketing related operations. Each brand identify itself (and its target) with some key words. If you know which color is commonly associated with each one of them, you can veicolate them by using the “right” color and build a cohrent visual communication or corporate image, that can immediatly be recognized in a unconcious but (statistically) effective way with very little space left for misunderstanding.

The World's favourite colour project - results

Tue, 25 Feb 2020 17:09:00 +0100

There are a few theories on how color preferences are driven by many kind of both personal and ancestral experiences. Pleasant memories, good tastes, positive situations are all linked to some color an viceversa. We transfer all these positive informations to the color itself and than the color casts them on every product it is applied on, guiding our choices when we pick a goods in almost any everyday situation.

Words collected in the database show all this adjectives to be related to three macro groups:
- positive emotions: happiness, calm/peace/relax, fun/cheerish
- positive physical attributes: deep/rich/bold, light/clean/clear
- natural environment: sea/ocean/water, sky, day/sunny/spring, flower/nature

But same words can be associated to different colors so..
around each word is possible to find a winner color and to build a palette, with proportional cluster of color. For example the color for "peace" results to be a light turquoise and the palette for "peaceful" has the same color associated with a deep blue and a hint of medium neutral gray and so on.

There is a huge problem in this,under all the other aspects well conducted research. People were asked to something abstract. Color is not. We always experience color in a context and - naturally or artificially - applied to something.

I love a particular tint of deep magenta purple. It’s my favourite color.
There are a lot of situations in which I would never choose it.
Results shows black to be the less loved among colors and the favourite one in this category to be a dark grey actually. Everyday experience says the opposite. We love black in many aspects of our lives, the deepest, the better. The shinest, even more.

People could also have chosen the most rappresentative color in the cluster. For example to indicate orange.One could have picked the more vivid one as little shifts in the color space make it to be quickly perceived as yellow or brown. Who works in graphics knows that some color has rapid mutation, other are widely reconizable even under the effects of a large range of variations.

More to follow...

The World's favourite colour project - method

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 16:55:00 +0100

The first interesting thing about this project is the method they applied to collect data and organically manage results.

People all over the world were asked, in a dedicated website, to choose their own favourite color, picking the exact one from a continuos color space, this means not between a pre defined range of samples, but freely. Then partecipants had to give it a name and to describe in a few words the meaning of it, the reason why they choose it and love it among the others. Some personal and general data as country, gender, age, time of the day, had been collected too in order to search for cultural and envoirmental influences.

In four months, 26.500 people answered the question.
More or less 70% were female, 30% male.

At this point, each color was defined by a name, a description and a code, but we often call the same color with different name. So what one calls green can actually be a blue or a yellow. This informations (subjective and objectiìve) were both used and organically organized by using a semantic and an algorthimic aggregating formula.

The first list, generated by number of entries for each color family was, in order of preference, the one below:
- green
- blue
- red
- purple
- yellow
- orange
- pink
- white
- black

The second step identified the exact favourite one for each group.
Surprisingly, differences between gender, country or age are almost irrelevant.
Just some slight shifting in brightness.

The World's favourite colour project

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 19:08:00 +0100

World's Favourite Colour from G . F Smith on Vimeo.

Which is your favorite colour?
Can you tell why?

The World’s Favourite Colour Project is a world-wide investigation of the psychology of colour. The study is conducted by Colorplan and published by G.F Smith.

In 2017 a large group of people participated in a survey to assess what the most favoured colours would be. Do men have a different taste in colour compared to women? Is the preferred colour in Australia different from Japan? Do people from the Nordic countries prefer warm tones during a long and cold winter?

Have a look at the video..
I will talk about this project and my personal considerations in the next couple of posts

Enjoy!

The World's favourite colour project - method
The World's favourite colour project - results
The World's favourite colour project - applications

Ancora una volta.. Io sono Febbraio

Sat, 15 Feb 2020 18:49:00 +0100

L'ho detto ancora, con Febbraio ho un legame particolare. E' chiacchiere, bugie e maschere che sono dolci ma anche parole. Coriandoli e cielo terso, effimeri e irrequieti e incostanti. Cuori e vento che scompiglia i capelli, i ricordi, i pensieri, che strappa via tutto quello che non è necessario, anche quando credi che lo sia. Fiori fragili e caparbi. Freddo rosa cipria e profumo verde di mandorla.

Ogni Febbraio è una piccola rinascita, un nuovo punto di partenza. Sono successe molte cose. Non tutte belle. Adesso sono pronta a tornare. E' questa la novità.

A presto.

Albero genealogico

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 21:12:00 +0100

Inauguro il 2017 pubblicando un lavoro che ho amato molto. Un nuovo albero genealogico, in uno stile completamente differente da quello precedente. Carta di pregio, matite, chine, acrilici, pennelli, pennini, bulini, brunitoi e tante ore di lavoro per un dono unico. Calligrafia, splendida come sempre, di Ketty Agnesani.

Devo confessare che per me è sempre difficile separarmi da un originale, ma in questo caso, ringrazio con molto affetto le persone che lo custodiranno nella loro casa. E' stato un vero piacere conoscerli e un onore aver potuto contribuire a realizzare un dono così intimo e prezioso.

Vanity compact - quando la vanità era elegante

Thu, 12 May 2016 20:00:00 +0100

La sposa non porta la borsa. Ma avete previsto un cambio d'abito e un ricevimento serale? Oppure una festa a tema vintage?

Se siete alla ricerca di una soluzione elegante per portare con voi lo stretto indispensabile senza riempire la borsa della vostra migliore amica, le vostre nonne (o bisnonne) hanno la soluzione che fa per voi.

Rossetto, blush (ma allora lo si chiamava rouge), cipria, pettine, sigarette, accendino e un fazzoletto, chiusi in un piccolissimo scrigno: i vanity compact. A dire il vero, spesso prevedevano anche un gettone per una telefonata ma temo dovrete rinunciare ad infilarvi dentro un cellulare.

I primi modelli fanno la loro comparsa in America agli inizi del 900 per accompagnare le signore alle serate danzanti sotto forma di geometriche borsette rigide in argento con lunghe frange metalliche o nappe di seta e si portano al polso con una catenella o fermati alla cintura.

Poco dopo, l'argento fa posto al metallo placcato o allo sterling, riducendo costi e peso, e se le dimensioni rimangono ridotte, le forme esplodono in un fiorire di brevetti. Le decorazioni esterne si rifanno ai soggetti più alla moda, si introducono colore, finte pietre e pochette di velluto.

Negli anni tra il 20 e il 30, gioiellieri come Van Cleef & Arpels, Tiffany e Cartier produrranno modelli di assoluto lusso, spesso su misura, con smalti, pietre preziose e riferimenti esotici.

Mentre Evans, Elgin e molte case cosmetiche emergenti sperimentano nuove soluzioni, sempre più pratiche e di appeal, aprendo di fatto la strada ai concetti di brand e di marketing, compaiono i primi motivi e pattern "aziendali". Non più solo decorazioni, gazzelle, profili di donna e altre shillouette vanno a firmare e rendere immediatamente riconoscibili, quelli che si avviano a diventare veri e propri packaging (prima di allora, spesso il prodotto veniva comprato "sfuso", semplicemente avvolto dentro a della carta e sistemato dentro al proprio porta rossetto o porta polveri).

Alle versioni in metallo si affiancano presto anche quelle in bachelite e altre plastiche da poco messe in produzione, ad effetto tartaruga o colorate in pasta. Alcuni modelli cominciano a compensare il declino della novità e della praticità aumentando la valenza affettiva, alloggiando tra make up e sigarette, carillon e orologi.

Così fino agli anni 50, poi, anche a causa del numero sempre più elevato di cosmetici utilizzati quotidianamente, dei nuovi pack usa e getta, delle mode sempre più variabili, le minaudiere (e la loro eleganza) scompaiono.

Ma se li cercate (oltre che nel baule della bisnonna) su ebay, etsy o negozi di antiquariato on line, troverete il vostro piccolo gioiello speciale.

Per chi volesse approfondire.. una risorsa su tutte: http://collectingvintagecompacts.blogspot.it

Buona caccia!

Minimal goes bold

Sun, 13 Mar 2016 21:48:00 +0100

Minimal, ma con carattere! Calligrafia a pennello dai tratti spessi e decisi, colori flou e un piccolo dettaglio floreale... Carta e busta extra white.

Rustic vintage - wedding invitation

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 19:17:00 +0100

L'ispirazione botanica incontra il colore! Fiori retrò e buste in avana millerighe per un tocco rustico. Come sempre, font in contrasto per aggiungere modernità e brio. Vi piacciono? Immaginateli con i vostri fiori preferiti...