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This week's design blog of the week goes to This is Paper. This is Paper curates a well rounded collection of architecture, product design, fashion design, interior design, fine art, graphic design, and photography. The blog features works that reflects an elegant and delicate design aesthetic full of soft pastels and neutrals complemented by clean lines and a touch of wood here and there. Aside from This is Paper's impeccable taste, we want to highlight that the blog often showcases student work. It is nice to see young artists and designers with fresh new ideas and even nicer to see well-known blogs recognizing the importance of supporting the up and coming not just the established. 

All Images via This is Paper

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This week's Blogger of the Week goes to the recently discovered Damsel in Dior, aka Jacey Duprie, a fashion/lifestyle/professional blogger. Yes... this woman is a professional blogger, curating blogs for various sites like Singer22 and Style Me Pretty. What? Awesome. Eerily similar to our girl Tanya McQueen, Jacey was born in a small town in Texas, but lives and works in Los Angeles, going from a "Damsel in Distress" to a "Damsel in Dior". We need to hook these ladies up!

Jacey posts mostly about fashion (including our fabulous client, Heidi Merrick - first picture below), but she throws in travel, lifestyle, cocktails, and interiors as well. The content is laid out beautifully (we can tell she's a professional blogger for sure), and it's all unique. Her advice for bloggers (from a feature in IFB - Independent Fashion Blogger) is great: "A lot of people ask me what they need to so to start a blog, and I say 'start blogging'. The hardest part (in my opinion) to blogging is having original content. Start writing, putting inspiration boards together, and getting posts up." We agree - it is the hardest part! Sometime we have to remember to sit down, get creative, and JUST DO IT (thank you, Nike) -  no matter how busy we get. Thanks for the reminder Jacey - keep doing what you're doing! Click here to read more from Damsel in Dior.

All images via Damsel in Dior

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This week, we're thoroughly enjoying the joint collaboration fashion/lifestyle blog from sister duo Sally and Molly of A Piece of Toast Blog. Since 2010, these sisters (originally from the Midwest) have been blogging about all the things we love too, like great packaging design, fashion, interiors, and delicious food. On the site, they say: "[A Piece of Toast] is a place where the simple things in life are just as grand as the finer things. The content is for fun and inspiration. [We] vow to post with honesty, humor, and a true sense of self in hopes to hold your attention and keep you coming back for more." 

The blog itself is pretty standard, but where the ladies of A Piece of Toast shine over other bloggers is the extent to which they reach out to other bloggers / stylists / designers in the industry for featured posts. The ladies are constantly raving about their favorite items and designers (on July 9th they featured our client, Heidi Merrick, saying: "Heidi Merrick might be old news to some people (I know I've seen her pretty things and names around the blogosphere), but I had never taken a true hard look at her goodness til now. (...) I have become completely engrossed in her ethereal designs.") They have a recurring "She Wishes She Was Wearing" post which features an outfit and accessories styled by another blogger, and they often have giveaways sponsored by some of their favorite brands that give away a small item like a shirt or a bag to one lucky reader of their blog. These ladies are "involved" in the blogosphere more than most bloggers we've seen, which is not only great for SEO (hello, link building!), but also for making contacts and getting their name out there. Great work guys!

To visit A Piece of Toast Blog, click here.

All images via A Piece of Toast

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We love us a fantastic photographer, and Toronto based Michael Graydon is one of our favorite new finds. His photos are rustic, romantic, and modern, with a slight vintage twist, and we really can't get enough. See the rest of his portfolio at www.michaelgraydon.ca.

All images by Michael Graydon

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Well here's a fun twist of events on our usual "blogger of the week" post... normally, our favorite blogs are headed by women. Maybe that's because women spend more time blogging about beautiful things that inspire them (?), or maybe it's because we just share a design aesthetic that's more common among women than men. At Drawing From Memory, we tend to focus on working with women entrepreneurs and support creative women in all their business efforts. However, this week, we've discovered a blog we love that's not run by a woman for once! The blog is Modern Man (www.manchannel.tumblr.com), a completely photo-driven Tumblr run by Alexander: a junior at Johns Hopkins University (and an Economics and Finance major, of all things).

How does this "man blog" differ from the usual, female-run blogs we're used to following? Well, for starters, there's a lot more meat, whiskey, cars, and beer. There's also a lot more pictures of classy celebs in suits, like Robert Downey Jr., Johnny Depp, and John Hamm. There's still fashion, packaging design, interiors, food, and pictures of the great outdoors - but for the most part, they just feel a little more masculine. We're loving it though - there should be more men out there with blogs like this. Check out some photos below, or click here to visit the Modern Man blog.

All images via Modern Man

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This week's Blogger of The Week goes to Bekah Stewart of A Well Traveled Woman on Tumblr. She's a tomboy and mother of two from Louisville that loves coffee, yoga, gardening, her children, the outdoors, and adventuring, among many other things. She's got a wonderful aesthetic on her mainly photo driven Tumblr blog, with photos of the great outdoors, art, and food. We don't often have a ton of time to scour the internet for beautiful photos and inspiration when we're working against a deadline, and A Well Traveled Woman is often one of the first places we check. See the blog here, and read the article about Bekah on TOMBOYstyle here.

All images via A Well Traveled Woman on Tumblr

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A few weeks ago, we noticed that a lot of our collective pins on Pinterest were coming from a Tumblr blog called Remain Simple. As far as sites go, it's very simple (how fitting) - plain white background, two columns on the main page, largely photo driven with user comments / responses under a few postings. The content, however, is what's remarkable on this particular blog - every post aligns with our aesthetic almost perfectly. She posts art, architecture, fashion, jewelry, interiors; you name it. Clearly we love it, so we started following her somewhat regularly. That's when we discovered the one-two-punch behind this particular blog - Kathryn, the mastermind behind Remain Simple, is a 16 year old girl (she's a junior in high school). Um... what?! We're just that much more impressed. Here's a small sampling of what Kathryn has posted in the last week. Click the link below to check out what else inspires Kathryn (and us): remainsimple.tumblr.com.

All images via Remain Simple

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Not many food blogs out there rival the deliciousness of the photography from What Katie Ate. It's been our favorite food blog for a long time, but we recently found a new one that could possibly, maybe, edge her out of the top spot. It's called Sprouted Kitchen, run by duo Sara and Hugh - she cooks, he photographs. Their tagline is "a tastier take on whole foods" and the goal is to make meals that are overall just really healthy, using foods that are in season and in their purest form. Yep, that sounds like something we'd love. Click here to check out Sprouted Kitchen - we're making it a new staple in our blog rotation.

Images via Sprouted Kitchen

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We love fashion designer Karen Walker's website mainly because it's responsive to different size browsers. We run into this problem all the time, especially when we're developing sites that need both a desktop and a mobile version. Karen Walker's site is completely responsive to the size of the browser (see the difference in the first two screen shots below), making for a great full bleed experience no matter what device you're on. Very, very smart. The overall layout of the home page is great as well - we really like how the entire space is taken up with all the different sections of her line. And to top it all off, Walker's designs are beautiful! Click here to see the site in action.

Images via Karen Walker

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This week we're admiring the website of New York's Castor & Pollux (www.castorandpolluxstore.com). Founder Kerrilynn moved to New York City from Oregon about 10 years ago to pursue a career in design, and founded Castor & Pollux as a place to represent what she believes design and living are all about: leading exceptionally beautiful and inspired lives. Not only do we like her brand philosophy, but we also really like the way her e-commerce shop functions - the way you shop by clicking through the products as they fade in and out is creative, and something we really haven't seen much of before. Click here to take a quick look and see for yourself!

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