Blog

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

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

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

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

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!

Studio of The Week goes to New York's RoAndCo Studio - a multidisciplinary design studio that is devoted to branding for clients that are primarily within the fashion and art industries. Sound familiar? RoAndCo is run by Creative Director Roanne Adams, who started her own studio in TriBeCa after being awarded a New Visual Artist award by PRINT magazine. Their client list is very impressive, with names like Loeffler Randall, Honor, Candela, Nike, and Charity:Water topping the list. Check out a small sampling of their art direction, print, and web work below, or visit their website for the full experience: www.roandcostudio.com.

All images via RoAndCo Studio

This week's "site" is actually a boutique in Los Angeles that sells antiques and art from various dealers: The Melrose Project. The store, which opened just over a year ago, has received a lot of buzz in the relatively short time it's been open. With stories in magazines from Architectural Digest to Elle Decor, Angeleno magazine calls The Melrose Project " a breath of fresh air for antiques. (...) It's like seeing old pieces within a new context for a new generation." We agree - and we want absolutely everything. To visit their website, click here. To read more about The Melrose Project and see more pictures of the interior, click here to visit the Velvet & Linen blog.

All images via The Melrose Project

We've found a new website to obsess over! Good because we're happy to see that more blogs are popping up that have a similar manifesto and aesthetic as us, but bad because that means we're probably going to waste a lot of time at work reading it. Our website of the week, SOUS STYLE (www.sousstyle.com), focuses on real women who believe in the "imperfect perfect". Created by Pippa Lord, the current photo director at ELLE magazine, the site is full of amazing photos (no surprise there) and great articles on all the things we love: food, decorating, hand crafting, and entertaining. Favorite sections include "Pippa's Diary" and "The How To". We love the clean, but colorful design and overall feel and navigation of the site, built by New York designer/developer Mick Harper. Click here to visit SOUS STYLE (but make sure you have a good chunk of time to spare - you're going to need it.)

All images via SOUS STYLE

It seems like Thanksgiving was just yesterday, so we can hardly believe Christmas is just about two weeks away already! We're so not prepared... but now we've got gifts on the mind. Our website of the week, the Lawson-Fenning online shop (www.lawsonfenning.com/shop), is a great place to look for just about anyone who appreciates gifts for the home that are both beautiful and functional. (And who doesn't love that, right?). For those of you in the LA area, Lawson-Fenning's shop in Silver Lake is an absolute must visit. With an eclectic and always changing collection of books, baskets, art, pillows, candles, throws, and various odds & ends - pretty much everything in the store catches our eye. But if, like us, you're way too busy to actually take the time to go out and shop, or if you live too far away - no worries. Lawson-Fenning offers free shipping on orders of $100+ and after looking at what they have to offer, we know we can spend that easily. Spending only $100 would be showing major restraint, we think. After a preliminary browse, we're thinking linen dishtowels for mom, agate bookends for the sister, and an iron bottle opener for the brother-in-law. Merry Christmas everyone! 

(Oh, and I almost forgot - yes, we designed the site. Not that we're biased or anything... but we love this place!)

All images via Lawson-Fenning

This week we've decided to feature a new creative studio in London, La Moulade, that is pushing the envelope of what web designers are capable of. The studio's site, www.lamoulade.com, has sliding animations that look like Flash - but they're actually HTML. Simply scroll down the page and text slides around, a bicycle rings its bell, portfolio images drop in like a game of Tetris, and tap shoes wave around and encourage you to come talk about your project. Although the site didn't work quite right on our iPhones (yet), this little preview of what we'll be able to do with HTML is exciting! Pictures of this site only go so far  - you really have to scroll for yourself. Click here to experience the fun.