It was a little more than a month ago that I purchased my ticket to TYPO on a whim. Yep. Lots of money out the door for a design conference. But as my husband said (read: justified the purchase to me after experiencing a spell of buyer’s remorse) “We live in San Francisco. You need to take advantage of things like this.” And he’s right.

For those of you who may not be familiar with names like Neville Brody, Erik Spiekermann, Tina Roth Eisenberg, Michael Bierut, Jessica Hische, and many others, they are the Steve Jobs’ and George Lucas’ of my design world. I’m going to see these people talk. In person.

To make things more exciting, a couple of weeks ago, I answered a call for volunteers for the TYPO Press Team. So now, not only do I find myself attending TYPO, I’ll be blogging / tweeting throughout various sessions at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts during the 2 days. And I get a free ticket for next year’s conference. Worth it? I think so.

If you’re sad to be missing the action, you can follow my tweets at @bfrancesi or catch me on the Font Shop blog.  I’ll be in design heaven.

Word Poem #5: An experiment in human typography

These word poems are part of my Human Typography Experiment. An effort to revitalize appreciation for the ordinary.

Word Poem #4: An experiment in human typography

These word poems are part of my Human Typography Experiment. An effort to revitalize appreciation for the ordinary.

Word Poem #2: An experiment in human typography

These word poems are part of my Human Typography Experiment. An effort to revitalize appreciation for the ordinary.

Read the full interview of Marjane Satrapi on The 99%

Word poem #1: An experiment in human typography

These word poems are part of my Human Typography Experiment. An effort to revitalize appreciation for the ordinary.

The most successful book is that which inspires you to put it aside and create.

Thank you to my sweet, thoughtful husband who surprised me with Typography Sketchbooks, curated by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico.

I have horrible luck with bikes. A few months ago, St Patrick’s Day to be exact, I was in a bike accident that temporarily cost me my sense of taste and smell. And no doubt a few brain cells. Since then, I’ve vowed to stay away from them.

A friend recently sent me a link to this bike helmet by the Swedish company Hövding, and it just may have me re-thinking my vow. It’s a stunning feat of a marriage between technology and fashion.

And that dress! Eat your heart out.

This post has been sitting in my drafts folder waiting on images for over a month. Maybe its time to just publish and post more delicious food images later? Below are heirloom tomatoes from  Farm Fresh to You located in the Ferry Building Marketplace.

Disclaimer: I don’t consider myself a food snob or a foodie. I just like to know what I’m eating.

Growing up with a mother who made amazing food (specifically English toffee at Christmas-time) and a father as a food scientist, Velveeta cheese didn’t have a chance in our home. In fact, not many processed foods did.

Because of this, I’ve always been conscious of the food I eat, but since moving to San Francisco, a place where everyone is a foodie in some sense, I’ve become particularly obsessed with eating food in it’s most natural state. Moving from the midwest to California, it’s been a pleasant surprise to realize how easy it is to buy seasonal vegetables at one of the many of farmers markets during almost any week of the year.

While it used to feel like chore to pick out a menu and food for the week (I’m a budget-y type person) it’s become especially fun to head to the store or farmers market, select the most seasonal produce, and make a menu from there.

So what’s the point? I’ve discovered an incredible sense of self-satisfaction just by knowing that my food didn’t travel 2,000 miles to my mouth when it could have traveled less than 50.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything new to my Twitter series, so over the weekend I decided it was time to get inspired.

While lazily scrolling through Twitterland, a stream of tweets by @splorp caught my eye. They were simple one-word posts with a single image. Rather than just one design, I’ve created a short series that highlights the strange yet endearing tweet. You can thank me later that I refrained from writing peachy

I’ve been thinking about getting a few of my designs printed, and these tiny 7×7 inch designs just might be the first.

The Commute Design Project is my personal challenge to create designs on my train commute from work to home. The Twitter series is part of my goal to document spamm-y, interesting, and funny tweets through hand drawn type