New iPhone wallpapers!

Two new iPhone wallpapers, free for you to download from our website!

How to make homemade hummus

We finish a tub of this in no time.... It's become quite addictive for us. And it goes with pretty much anything. We are now thinking of other dips we can create to vary our dip addiction. Any suggestions?

Herbs in the Bathroom

While we wait for our veggie garden to take shape, we have been growing some herbs like parsley, basil and dill. No clever scientific explanation (like hot steam and soap) to why we've kept them in the bathroom, other then the fact that's where they get the most light. They might even get upgraded to the real outdoors soon!

vida e caffe Competition - Long live the Bean

We have just entered the Vida Coffee competition in connection with 10and5. Long live the Coffee Bean! Couldn't live without you! Fingers crossed we win, the winner gets free coffee for a year! I wonder if they know how much we drink...

The concept was derived from their company philosophy, one of the things they mentioned on their mission statement was "a shrine for the wonderful bean...".

Top Ten at K&i this month

Creative Review - Letterpress

3rd submission and 3rd feature. We love Creative Review and all they have to offer the design community, keep on inspiring we say.

Check out our letterpress section and contact us for super South African letterpress sales.

Homemade muesli - so much better...

The stuff you need:

3 cups Oats
1 1/2 cups Nuts, like peanuts, pecans, walnuts etc
1 1/2 cups Seeds, like sunflower or pumpkin etc
1 cup Raisins or any other dried fruit
1/3 cup Honey
1/3 cup Vegetable Oil
1 tsp Cinnamon


How to do it:

1. Preheat oven to 140C
2. Mix all you dry stuff together in a bowl.
3. Mix honey and oil in a separate bowl.
4. Add the honey and oil mixture to the dry stuff, mix together.
5. Transfer onto a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 45 min or until golden brown... Stir every 10 min or so.
6. Let cool before transferring into a jar or container.

Willy:s paper bag

We love this paper bag! Ida's parents kindly sent a package with some Swedish books (having been living outside Sweden for the last 10 years, her Swedish is suffering a bit, and asked if they could send her some books).

The recycle/reuse philosophy definitely runs in the family, as Ida's mum wrapped the parcel in this recycled paper bag (Willy's is a food shop in Sweden). It now has a proud place up on our notice board in the office.

PS we think the extra bold serif typeface rocks, looks so similar to the Egyptian Slate we use.

A peanut sketch

Deep Dark Africa shopping site is live!

Check out this new lovely online shop!! We had the privilege in designing Lexis corporate identity, so happy to see it come to life! Come on peeps, get shopping!

Friday Special - The Wonderful Sense(s) of Letterpress

We have always had a keen interest in anything with heritage and history, so we are super excited to announce our collaboration with brothers, Jeremy and Graeme from Planet Press, a letterpress printing company based in Cape Town.

The Heidelberg press itself is really something special. It has some great design features, some of which are the many instructional signs and well-manufactured cogs, knobs, and levers. You know that old saying, “they sure don’t make things like they used to” best describes it.

Wish they made smell-o-vision, then you could catch a whiff of the incredible smell of the rubber inks! Ahhhhh, open those nostrils wide man...

That silver bar with all those tiny adjustable bits that look like they belong at the top of a guitar for tightening strings are actually mini vacuum suctions for moving the paper about (forty three words in that sentence including these, beat that!). It’s an art to work the machine, but resident printing guru Greg took care of that, with over 35 years of experience he makes it look so easy! Letterpress printing is a timely affair because of everything involved but it’s so worth it, the results speak for itself and in today’s digital era it’s great to have something tangible.

Spinning rollers with a colour of our choice, let's call it Pink shall we.

Two plump Bullfinch birds (Domherre) made up as a tag, for making a special gift to someone special, even more special!  Check out the neat debossing and fine grain of the Savile Row rich cotton paper.

Freshly stacked cards prior to scoring and cutting.

We love old typewriters; we have a vintage one that was bought second hand about 14 years ago and it still works like a dream! It is not only the design of an old machine like this that's attractive to us, but also the sound it makes, and the smell of ink and metal! And what could be more fitting in celebrating the old typewriter then with the traditional printing of letterpress.

We will be selling these soon, watch this space!

A pile of, let's call them 'Collaboration Business Cards' hot off the press neatly stacked waiting to be guillotined.

…and lastly, is the first thing we did on letterpress. It's a hand-out (Collaboration Business Card) announcing the collaboration of K&i with Planet Press, and to introduce the wonderful sense(s) of letterpress: sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste. Now, we wouldn't recommend eating paper, but each to their own...

More pics available for viewing pleasure on the letterpress section on our website.

We also made a pretty rudimentary video to highlight one of the senses, in particular sound, give it a watch or should we say listen.

If you are interested in introducing letterpress to your company's stationery, looking for a unique wedding invitation, an exclusive coaster for your bar, or anything else you can think of, drop us a line. We would love to make a piece of art just for you!

VonZipper Superheat Artwork Comp

VZ is running a comp to design their 2011 Superheat logo. Seeing as though our really good mate Ant, senior designer for Billabong said we should have a stab at it, we did.

They asked for something fresh and different, so we went with a retro-ish style, particularly on the flames with a combination of illustration and typographic layout. Check out the comp here and to see last years winning entry.

The Innovation Summit

We put on our thinking hats for this one... Really excited to be part of this project. The Innovation Summit is held in Johannesburg from 30th of August to 1st of September  this year, and we had the privilege in designing the advert, banner, e-newsletter, and double sided postcard for this event.

The postcard we designed wouldn't have looked the same if it wasn't for Jess from Shelflife (an amazing shop in Australia, wish we lived closer!) and her talented brother and illustrator Rob from The Avocado Moshpit, who took the photo of the blackboard wall in Jess's shop. Thanks  guys for being so helpful and allowing us to use the photo!

The Wacky Wine Festival

Was quite a busy weekend for us. We were visiting clients in Swellendam (see below the work we've done so far for the innovation summit), but not all work, also pleasure! The Wacky Wine Festival was on and we were sure to enjoy it! Had such a good time exploring the local wines, foods and the walks in the country side. Ah, fresh air and quietness... Check out Flickr and Tumblr for more pics.

Sketch of a marmalade jar

Monday Morning Monster thing

It might help to embed your inner monster in a bed of flowers...

Stig Lindberg, our hero

Illustration inspired by the Swedish legend Stig Lindberg. We are fortunate enough to own one of the sets he did for Gustavsberg. Amazing stuff.

Photographer Mojo

We've teamed up with Photographer Mojo and have designed 2 PSD templates as free downloads. Simply download the free template, open in Photoshop and drop your favourite pic in place, simple!

More templates to follow but they won't be free forever so grab em while you have the chance.

A little bit about the Mojo... "Photographer Mojo is all about YOU, the photographer. It is our vision to become the online home for photographers who seek advice, inspiration and tools to not only become better at their craft, but also be equipped with the resources that will make them successful entrepreneurs running a profitable photography business."

Our portfolio - a short story

We wrote a while back when we uploaded our digital portfolio; it's a very condensed version of the printed one… for all those 'working to get work' emails. But the printed version is something quite different and special, as we do love printed material.

It's A3 and landscape in format; printed on Opale Pure White 150gsm paper that is super smooth to touch. It comes from France and best of all is that the entire Opale range is environmentally friendly.

Now, now let's not get too carried away on the paper though, we've also have to mention the book that the pages sit in. It's a 4-screw post book, just a tad bigger than A3 format to allow the pages to sit nice and comfy within. The book is covered in grey Wibalin on the exterior and white on the interior. It was hand crafted by a superb bookbinder by the name of Peter, what a gent and a true perfectionist. We like those kinda people; he takes his job seriously and with 30 years behind him, surely knows his trade. The portfolio also bears our company logo neatly debossed in the centre of the book. I'll explain this part with the accompanying images below.

First things first, send artwork (in vector format) off to the plate guys; they kindly make up a negative, for a small fee of course.

Then these clever chaps make a raised plate out of aluminium, which should comfortably last for 10 years or so.

The press!

The plate fixed to the press.

Testing… we had asked Peter for a white foil but after a few test runs with white, silver, and a combination of both we ditched the idea completely.

Instead, we decided for a more subtle approach and went with a blind deboss. We're super stoked with the results. Give us a shout and we would be glad to show you.