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Best Mail Ever. Seriously, EVER!



It is likely that in a box, in the basement, under the stairs, underneath another box, is a piece of mail that changed my life forever.

In this box, in the basement, under the stairs, underneath another box, is a pile of illustrations, photos and mail that I collected, and coveted, while working at my first 'real' job out of school.  I worked for a company called SBG and we designed super big, commercial packaging and branding programs for companies like Starbucks, Nestle, Aquafresh, Nestle and Nestle!  Did I mention Nestle?

Anyway, back in the day (in the late 90's) we used to get bombarded with direct mail from illustrators and photographers who thought we had the ability to hire them for potential jobs.  Being that we worked for companies like, say... Nestle, we usually weren't able to do anything too creative, awesome or otherwise - so it was rare that we got to hire a new, fantastic illustrator for a project.  But that didn't stop the mail from coming.  Every day, envelopes and postcards arrived at my desk, and it was great.  For someone like me, who loves mail so much, this was a real treat!

One day, the most amazing thing happened.  Amidst a pile of glossy postcards with mediocre illustrations, there was a smallish, flat glassine bag with my name on it, sewn shut with red thread.  You could sort of see through the glassine material, enough to see that there was a stack of postcards with beautiful images on them, but I can't tell you what was on the postcards because I never opened the envelope!

At this point in my life, glassine only meant one thing to me: cookie or candy bags.  In fact, I learned about glassine bags thanks to my very dear friend DB, who redesigned See's candy packaging for a class in school.  She introduced me to this beautiful, milky white, semi-translucent material that was great for packaging because the wax coating on it ensured that cookies or candies wouldn't stain it with oil, like they would a paper bag, for example.

Anyway, this glassine bag/envelope sewn shut with red thread was pretty much the most amazing thing I had seriously ever received.  It was SO different from everything else.  It was a quiet powerful.  It was intriguing and engaging.  And I couldn't bring myself to open it.  I didn't want to disrupt the beauty of the package.  I put the glassine bag on my wall and stared at it.  Every day.

Lucky for the woman who sent me the bag, she was smart enough to put her name on the outside of the envelope!  In all caps trade gothic (a font) she wrote her name; Leigh Wells.  Who was this woman of mystery?  Who was this woman of mystery who had sent me the first piece of eye-opening, thought-provoking mail I ever received?

As it turns out, Leigh Wells was an incredible illustrator.  She didn't know me, so she never knew that I pitched her illustrations to my bosses for every single project I worked on!  She didn't know that her little mail affected me that much, and that I spent months and months designing around her artwork, so that I could HOPEFULLY reciprocate the awesomeness of her mail, and hire her to do a job for me.

Cut to December 2010.  Sitting at my computer, designing some fabulous wedding invitation or something - likely being sent out in some sort of bag, sewn shut with thread (hypothetically speaking) and I get an email from one of my favorite interior design stores in San Francisco.  Notice anything amazing?




What? An opening for Leigh Wells?  What?  On Polk Street?  Around the corner from where I lived for the last 10 years (before moving last year)?  W H A T ?  Within 90 seconds I had a babysitter lined up, and had explained to Brad that I would be MIA on December 2nd, and that he should freeze all my bank accounts for 24 hours surrounding the opening!!

I wouldn't say I was nervous, but I was a little anxious.  I was going to meet this woman who truly changed my life forever; changed my career path, affected me with her beautiful design and pictures and made me want to send mail that engaged my clients as much as hers inspired me.  I showed up to the opening and saw a trio of people congratulating a lovely blonde woman - who I assumed to be Leigh.  I couldn't contain myself, and walked over to interrupt the conversation and profess my undying love to her, and her piece of mail from 1999!

Turns out, Leigh's studio was all of 1.5 blocks from my where I used to live.  Turns out, too, that she's as lovely in person as she was in my mind!  And even better than that, she told me what she was up to (still mailing out beautiful pieces every now and again) and how her art has evolved over the last 10+ years.  Her work is stunningly beautiful - both her commercial design/illustrations as well as her more fine art pieces.  I enjoyed seeing her work, meeting her, and totally dorking out on being her biggest fan.  

Have any of you ever received a piece of mail that inspired you, or affected you positively?  I'd love to hear about it!

Alright, this blog post must conclude - because I am feeling inspired just talking about my little glassine bag mail and feel a new invitation concept coming on!  Thank you Leigh Wells... thank you.  Some of Leigh's work is below, but you can also check out her blog for a complete showcase of the pieces I saw last week (and her other more recent work).










*All art published with Leigh Wells' permisson

Read More 0 Comments (leave them, or read them!) | Posted by Jenn White Topliff | edit post

I Have Gang Connotations?


Earlier this year 13 Creative leased it's very first 'Company Car'! How exciting, no?

When my license plates arrived in the mail a few weeks after I got the car, I was pretty bummed out... not a 13 in sight! Usually, as luck would have it, there is some version of the number 13 in the addresses of the places I live or work, or my license plates, drivers license number, health-insurance card, you name it! I might be a total nerd, but I love finding my lucky number anywhere I can.

It could be the number 13, or it could be a 4 & 9 (next to each other) or some other combination of numbers that add up to 13. I don't discriminate... if it adds up to 13, it's good by me!

Sensing the disappointment about my lackluster license plate, a friend suggested that I get a personalized license plate for my new ride. "Maybe it could even say 13 Creative" she said! I thought it was a fantastic idea and immediately wanted to share this news with Brad (husband, 13 Creative cheerleader, fanclub manager and chief cook and bottle washer!)

When I told Brad about this genius plan, he looked troubled. He told me that there was no way I was going to be able to register a license plate that said 13 Creative. I asked why, and that's when he told me...

(wait for it, wait for it)

... that he'd already applied for that license plate for me, the week I got the new car! Surprise!!

Several weeks passed and no plates showed up, but one day a letter from the Department of Motor Vehicles arrived. The letter informed us that the DMV needed more information in order to approve our request for these plates. Apparently, the license plate 13CRE8V seemed questionable. Questionable? Huh?

So, Brad responded to the letter and attached one of my business cards, with a further explanation of my business, reiterating that this license plate spelled my company name, and that it didn't mean anything more than that. And then we waited. Waited and waited... still no plates.

Well, another letter arrived from the DMV today.

Dear Jennifer and Brad Topliff:

We have received and reviewed your letter of explanation, requesting the approval of license plate "13CRE8V".

Upon review, we are remaining with our original determination that the configuration is unacceptable. The number '13' has gang connotations.

The California Vehicle Code, Section 5105 (a) states we must refuse any license plate configuration, which carries connotations offensive to good taste and decency, or which may be misleading to some of our citizens.


Thank you for your interest.
Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Jenn White Topliff | edit post

The Real & The Fake Real


Not long ago, I hired a photographer to shoot some of my recently completed wedding invitations and  announcements.

When I'm not designing wedding invitations and announcements, you can usually find me hard at work designing food packaging and other more commercial design projects. When art directing photoshoots for food packages, the shoots are really challenging because food doesn't usually stand up well under the heat of the lights so you have to work very closely with the food stylists to achieve a result where the food you're shooting actually looks delicious and appealing! And, to be honest, a lot of food products just don't photograph well at all, so you have to use alternative food items, or non-food items that look like actual food... which makes things even trickier. I'll tell you this - never once has a piece of grilled chicken actually been grilled in order to get those perfect grill marks you see in photos. They don't come from anything even resembling a grill, I promise you that!

But I digress; and luckily enough for me, wedding invitations and paper products do stand up to the heat of the lights!

While I was overseeing this photoshoot of my work on this particular day, and while the photographer was setting up a few of the shots, I took some quick pictures with my iPhone to document our work process. It wasn't until after I got the final professional pictures back that I marveled at how fun it would be to do a side-by-side comparison of what some of the pictures looked like 'behind the scenes' versus what the camera actually sees and what turns into finished photography.

The pictures are beautiful, and I am so happy - but it's really funny to think about what's "really real", versus what's sort of "fake real". One of my favorite quotes (that I think I made up myself!) is "Perception is reality" and I think it sums this up perfectly.

So, without further ado, here are the ol' before & afters... or Reals & Fake Reals!


PROJECT 1 (iPhone before)



PROJECT 1 (professional after)







PROJECT 2 (iPhone before)


PROJECT 2 (professional after)



PROJECT 3 (iPhone before)


PROJECT 3 (professional after)
 
Read More 0 Comments (leave them, or read them!) | Posted by Jenn White Topliff | edit post

A White White Wedding!


In 1994 I graduated highschool, and moved to Chicago to attend The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.  While at school there, studying bookbinding and papermaking (and sort of attempting to be in the graphic design program) I made a good friend named Sara.

Sara and I were great pals... we had a lot in common and were in love with the same things; namely art and paper products.  And boy, did we know how to make a good mess! Papermaking is not exactly a neat and tidy process.  Nor a dry one!  So we would spend days in wet, messy clothes, making beautiful paper and binding it into precious books.

One day Sara and I were talking about how we wanted to live when we "grew up."  We both decided that when we graduated school and had a real "life", with a real apartment, that we each wanted to have a "white room" in our homes.  A room that was so clean, and organized, and white!  The white room symbolized so much to us - it symbolized a sort of success.  The success of having our own place, of having a place that was clean, that was minimalist, but that was uber design savvy.  It meant being a stylish grownup.  It was the opposite of how we lived as students.

We talked about our white rooms ad nauseum!  Then Sara moved to Japan (to teach english and further study Japanese papermaking techniques) and I moved to Pasadena to continue restart my graphic design education at Art Center.

Over the next several years, Sara and I had a pretty awesome penpal-ship!  We would write fantastic letters and send awesome packages to each other around the globe, and every now and again, Sara would send me magazine clippings of some furniture or home decor that she saw, that we had to put into our white room!  Our fantasy white room kept growing and evolving, never too far from our minds.

I'm a very lucky girl... because after living in nearly every corner of Europe & many different cities in America, my very dear, longtime pal Sara recently moved to California, and lives no more than approximately 2 miles away from me.  At our advanced age of 35 (!), and now each with 2 kids, we have the knowledge and understanding that our dream of having a white room is likely never going to come true.  But that doesn't stop Sara from clipping out pictures of our fantasy white furniture when she comes across great ideas in magazines.  And it doesn't stop us from talking about our fantasy white room... and what a funny fantasy that is nowadays!  We both tend to end our white room discussions with "One day Jenn..." or "One day Sara..." and attempt to keep the dream alive, holding out hope for some time after the kids grow up, and are out of the house... when the words "please don't color on the walls" aren't part of our everyday vocabulary!

Anyway, that's a long preamble to help you get into my head, so that you can imagine how I felt when I saw an email in my inbox this morning, from the Martha Stewart Wedding magazine people, talking about white centerpieces, and other white components for a "White Wedding!"

Wow!  This is like the ultimate realization of Sara's & my white room fantasy.  And, you could even achieve this while having kids at home!  This concept doesn't even require a cleaning lady every day to keep things white, and or a furniture budget of $100k!!  This would be a fantastic way to bring to life our white room by way of a party (wedding or otherwise!)

So, here are some of the great pictures, courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings Idea of the Day, of ways to make your party white!  I think this could get a little overdone if all the guests wore white, but imagine how festive, chic and gorgeous this would be if you requested guests to wear bright colors!

Gotta go now - have to call Sara and tell her that we have a new, slightly modified white fantasy to start clipping pictures for!














Read More 0 Comments (leave them, or read them!) | Posted by Jenn White Topliff | edit post

The Pigeon Doesn't Realize How Long It Takes To Make A Pigeon Costume!



Up until Brad nearly lost his marbles recently, and insisted on a new bedtime story to read to Grace, Grace was usually very quick to pick one of her many "Pigeon" books for daddy to read to her every night.  Each and every single night!

The Pigeon book series is a fantastic collection of books written and illustrated by Mo Willems.  The Pigeon, and his friend Duckling, often find themselves in a bit of a power struggle... over things like driving a bus, eating a hot dog, or staying up late!  You know, every day Pigeon & Duckling argument stuff!



In the case of "Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus", the bus driver says very clearly on the first page of the book "Whatever you do, DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS".  Then, on the next page, the Pigeon looks directly into the reader's eyes and says "Can I drive the bus?"  While most children would answer "NO" (just like the bus driver told them to) Grace usually didn't follow orders so well and was eager to give the Pigeon all the bus-driving freedom in the world.  She would shout out "Sure, Ok!" when the Pigeon pleaded his case.



Being that we were reading the Pigeon books every night, and Grace had mastered his bus-driving pleas, we thought it would be a great halloween costume for her.  We also thought (back then, when apparently I didn't have anything else going on in my life) that Hazel could be the Duckling, Lincoln could be the Hot Dog, and maybe Brad could be the Bus Driver.

Anyway, seeing as how I only had about 42 projects on my plate, was learning Spanish at night, and was trying to be super human, I decided to buy a new sewing machine, take sewing lessons, learn how to sew, and MAKE the above-mentioned costumes.

So, I bought a new amazing sewing machine.  I took lessons from the amazing Sherri at AAA Sewing & Vacuum in San Mateo (free sewing machine lessons for life if you buy a sewing machine from them) and 6 weeks + many trips to Joann Fabric later, I finished my first ever costume.

My eyes were much bigger than my stomach, and the Hot Dog, Duckling and Bus Driver are all going to have to fend for themselves tomorrow night — but Grace debuted her Pigeon costume at the Preschool Halloween party last night and it was a big hit.  It would have probably been a bigger hit had the hat not been such of an issue (read: if Grace would have kept the hat on for more than 3 seconds!) but I'm very proud of my accomplishment and am sharing it with all of you as a pseudo 'pat on the back' to myself!

MY HOW TO

I started with a toddler duck costume that I found online, for really cheap.  I laid out the duck costume onto my own fleece fabric and traced it; making my own pattern pieces.  I then sewed, ripped apart and re-sewed all the pieces together.  A few times!  I had to make the Pigeon 'tail' removable, so that Grace could sit down if she wanted, so I made a separate triangle pillow, stuffed it, sewed it shut, and then sewed velcro on it so that it could attach easily to the rear of the body.

Truthfully, the costume really only looks good in profile, but I'm gonna just be proud that I finished something that actually resembled the Pigeon and that didn't disintegrate within 5 minutes of wearing it!

Here is a feast for your eyes (and if you don't have this story for your kids, run out to get it - it's a really fantastic read!)

The Pigeon costume components in all their glory!

The Pigeon head/hat

It turned out that 2 little pieces of velcro wasn't enough to hold on the tail at first,
so a last minute addition of a long strip of velcro, along the entire width
of the tail, was necessary!


Grace modeling her costume at preschool, before the party.

Grace realizing her tail was 'removable' (aka: the first of approximately
108 times that she removed her tail during the course of the night!)

The Pigeon shakes her booty!

Yep, it's still there!

Happy Pigeon!

A very TIRED pigeon, towards the end of the night!





Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Jenn White Topliff | edit post

Okay, Go Ahead... Judge a Blog By Its Cover!

Well, somehow instead of putting the finishing touches on my logo presentation due tomorrow morning, I got sucked into my {oh so poorly designed} blog tonight.

You know how when you spend a ton of money on the most beautiful, high-thread count bed linens in the world, that you are just 'that' much more excited to get into bed at the end of each night?  Well, I felt as though my previous blog design was equivalent to 3-thread count sheets that had been washed with bleach and ammonia one hundred times.  The kind of sheets that look clean (too clean!) and that feel as scratchy as 1-ply toilet paper... you know the ones I'm talking about... like the ones in the hospital!

Anyway, I just couldn't bring myself to want to write more blog posts, and more frequently, unless my blog got a bit of a facelift.

So, with a little help from my IT guy (aka husband) along with some Starbucks instant Via coffee, I think I can safely say that this blog no longer has hospital corners... and I hope that my high-thread count design makes you feel as happy reading my thoughts, as I am writing them.

On that note... time to pull the covers up over the day and recharge for tomorrow.  (Well, almost... first I suppose I'd better finish that presentation that's due in 10 hours!)

Out with the old... and in with the new. In more ways than one!

Rest in peace my sweet, first blog design. You may not have been on 
this planet for long, but you made an impression on everyone around you.
You may not be missed, but you will be remembered fondly.
Read More 2 Comments (leave them, or read them!) | Posted by Jenn White Topliff | edit post

The Days Are Snails, The Years Are Gazelles


A friend of mine (who had a baby recently) expressed concern on the phone to me the other day. "Jenn," she said, "the days crawl by, but the years are passing so quickly." I knew exactly what she meant. The days seem to take forever to get from start to finish, but holy ^%&$*#, how in the world is it possible that it's winter again, and that the holidays are around the corner? I think this is the plight of moms and dads everywhere. The older we get, the faster time passes (and the more tired we are at 10:30am, when the babies seem like they're never going to nap and relieve us of our parental duties for long enough to close our own eyes and/or take a shower!)

In hopes of making sure that the years don't pass so quickly, again, I want to follow up my last blog post - which was about baby announcements. I think I need to make a much larger effort to be a teeny bit more consistent with my posts (same ol' story, faithful readers!) so here we go.

Last I wrote, I lamented about how to crawl out of the sleep deprived, newborn baby hell that was my life back in January/February, and create beautiful, jaw dropping birth announcements for Hazel, the newest member of the Topliff family.

Well, with a little brainstorming and a few zzzz's under my belt, this is what I came up with! Just thought I'd share it with you all (patting myself on the back right now, is that so wrong?!)

Some of you may have received this in the mail, but for those who didn't, this was how I threw caution to the wind (and my husband's ideal budget for this project) and put the 13 Creative mark on Hazel's introduction to the world.








Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Jenn White Topliff | edit post

Designer OR De-sinner


Well, hello! It's been a long time since I took a few minutes to sit down and blog. Last I wrote, I was preparing to move to the burbs and have a baby. As luck would have it, since my last post, I did in fact move to the burbs and did in fact have that baby! Just two weeks ago to be exact.

In the weeks leading up to having said baby (Hazel Anne Topliff, born January 21st, 2010) I spent many days horizontal (on partial bed rest) thinking about what clever ideas I would put together for baby Hazel's birth announcements. I was sure that I would get around to this project right after she was born. I was determined. I was hell bent on making sure that Hazel's baby announcements wouldn't go the way of Grace's baby announcements (the way of of not existing, I mean!).

When Grace was born nearly 2 years ago things were very different. First of all, Grace was born 2 1/2 months early and was in the NICU in the hospital for nearly 5 weeks. My husband had started a blog, and almost everyone we knew (and lots of people we didn't) were following our story religiously online. I had all intentions of doing baby announcements for Grace, but as I had to throw myself back into work as soon as I came home from the hospital without Grace, and the blog was filling people in on a daily basis, the ol' baby announcement project just sort of disappeared. And how comical, let me tell you, for this to happen to moi - the graphic designer specializing in invites and announcements! You can imagine how many calls and emails I got asking "WHAT amazing, clever, genius thing was I doing for Grace's birth announcements?". She was my firstborn after all, and a perfect excuse to go overboard, creatively.

As a designer, there is no crime more heinous than sending out the typical, flimsy 4x6 card from (sorry) tinyprints, shutterfly or minted.com, with a boring baby picture and baby birth stats, in an even more boring plain white envelope. How many of these tired, templated birth announcements have we all received in the last few years? How many of them felt original? How many of them were the exact same? This is everything I never want to do - this is everything I don't believe in.

So, in order to avoid being unoriginal, I went so far as to purchase a $500 (as seen on tv!) at-home silk screen printing machine. My ideas were elaborate... they involved silk screening cloth diapers, or towels or burp cloths. They would be baby announcements combined with the holiday cards and moving announcements I didn't get to earlier, because of the difficult pregnancy + overcommitted work schedule! They were de-luxe in my mind, award-winning even!

However, now living in the burbs, now home from the hospital with baby #2, I was (I mean, am!) determined to finally put together something totally overboard and creative and juicy... I just don't know what. Oh, and I don't know how. Oh, and I don't know what time I'll have to do it in. And, ohmigod, dare I say it outloud... I have been looking at some online digital baby announcement places to produce baby announcements for me. I'm ashamed. I feel dirty! I feel like I'm about to commit designer-sin... but when I think about the diapers, the breastfeeding, the other client-work I have lined up for the next several months, I just can't figure out how I'm supposed to go overboard on my own project. I'm in the deepest darkest design quandary of all time... and I lay awake at night thinking about this, instead of getting 20 minutes of sleep.

I don't know how this story ends - but I do know that people are already asking me what AMAZING announcements I'm working on and I've got nothing to report yet!

So stay tuned...

*P.S. I just want to be clear that I am not intending to insult or demean anyone who uses tinyprints, minted.com, shutterfly, snapfish, or any of the other digital invitation and announcement companies. They are great companies with great offerings for a lot of people (a lot of people who I know and love, too!) but I would be doing a very bad job at proving what a talented, amazing and unbelievably clever invitation designer I am (!) by using these services to send out announcements with my name on them.


Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Jenn White Topliff | edit post
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      13 Creative is a full-service design firm that specializes in producing high-quality, custom invitations, logos, business cards, collateral and packaging that pushes the envelopes (literally!), engages the viewer and elicits conversation. Be memorable!
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    Previous Speculations and Musings

    • ► 2011 (4)
      • ► February (1)
      • ► January (3)
    • ▼ 2010 (8)
      • ▼ December (1)
        • Best Mail Ever. Seriously, EVER!
      • ► November (3)
        • I Have Gang Connotations?
        • The Real & The Fake Real
        • A White White Wedding!
      • ► October (3)
        • The Pigeon Doesn't Realize How Long It Takes To Ma...
        • Okay, Go Ahead... Judge a Blog By Its Cover!
        • The Days Are Snails, The Years Are Gazelles
      • ► February (1)
        • Designer OR De-sinner
    • ► 2009 (11)
      • ► September (1)
      • ► June (2)
      • ► May (2)
      • ► March (1)
      • ► February (1)
      • ► January (4)
    • ► 2008 (4)
      • ► December (4)

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    Lucky 13! (a blog)

    Speculations and musings from 13creative.com

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