who's bad Archives - Bad Feather

Looking Back Before Charging Ahead

Can you believe it’s 2012? Or twenty twelve if you prefer. It’s been a whirlwind of a year for Bad Feather. Looking back it’s hard to believe how much we’ve done.

We moved our operations from the Gowanus Canal to DUMBO before nestling into a sunlit studio atop a brownstone in Park Slope. By April we were up and running on some great new projects and Heather was featured in the CRAVE NYC Guide among “more than 100 women you need to know”. Summer slipped by in a haze of web design and development, but not before we received word that the identity we designed for the Poetry Project was chosen for LogoLounge Volume 7, due out in the Summer of 2012. In September Brad stepped back into his teaching shoes and created “Fundamentals of Web Design”, a new class in the design curriculum of the Fordham University Visual Arts Department. The Fall saw the launch of several new websites to add to the queue of great projects from 2011.

If you haven’t had a look at our work in a while, check it out. We’ve had the opportunity to work with some truly incredible arts & culture and non-profit organizations over the past year and there are still more portfolio updates to come.

We’re not really ones for resolutions, but we are excited about the possibilities that 2012 holds. After all, we’re only getting badder.

Perhaps Nicknames are in Order

Pictured above, clockwise from top left: Heather Marold Thomason, Kristen Carlisle, Lan Lam, Brad Thomason

Now, back to work.

Fancy Things

Fancy things are happening within the walls of operation Bad Feather.

Here’s a taste. A type exploration by Lan Lam:

A Case of Holiday Madness

The activity level at Bad Feather HQ during the month of December can best be described as elfin. Handmade activity was at an all-time high, as we all abandoned our computers and dedicated all resources to making, baking and packing for the holidays.

Some time ago we decided buttons would be the perfect holiday goody and so, this Fall we set to work designing buttons and buttons and buttons until we selected the 20 best (the 2009 holiday edition, if you will). During the first week of December, while Brad and Heather headed to Miami for a dose of art and sun (did we mention we brought back a hambone and mustache cream as souvenirs?), the ladies of Bad Feather held down the fort and made a mound of nearly a thousand buttons.

The second week of December we decided it was time to explore our stop-motion curiosity, because of course a video is the perfect way to send a holiday message to the world. We created a quick storyboard and began cutting and taping a forest worth of paper feather trees. For the next two weeks we slowly crafted our set, including an ice skating pond and airplane. In retrospect, the hours of photographing and editing that followed were nothing…

And then there was the question of what to give to our friends and family? Cookies of course! One week before Christmas we all headed home to our respective kitchens with many pounds of sugar, butter and all those ingredients that make the word a better place. We returned the next morning each with dozens of dozens of cookies, of which we ate quite a few.

And so we packed, we labeled and we mailed. We battled the local post office which twice returned our button packages (the second time on Christmas Eve!). We designed, we edited, we emailed and eventually we all headed off (just a bit exhausted) to our respective holiday activities. Perhaps we took on too much, but it sure was fun. Thanks to all who have since sent us thanks and compliments – we hope you ate your cookies, are proudly wearing some very bad buttons, and that all enjoyed our holiday video experiment. Happy New Year!

Have you heard 2010 is the year of the Bad Feather?

Another Good Egg

Just a few weeks ago Lan Lam joined team Bad Feather as our newest design intern. Lan is a recent grad of the Graphic Design program at SVA and we’re loving having her around. This lady is full of clever ideas, has terrific design sensibilities and perhaps, most importantly, fits right into Bad Feather DJ rotation. When she’s not at our studio Lan can be found making Chai and practicing her latte art.

Lan Lam Portfolio

Bring on the Pickle Party!

We recently completed a small packaging project, creating a set of labels for Bradley Farm. If you happen to shop at the Grand Army Plaza green market in Brooklyn, you may know the ever-popular, bearded chef turned farmer, Ray Bradley. In addition to his beautiful produce and delicious, naturally raised pork, Ray also sells his own brand of pickles, strawberry preserves, wildflower honey and other specialty items [Read: homegrown and ground paprika. Run, don’t walk].

To help get the pickles to market, Heather and Kristen headed to Bradley Farm in New Paltz to jar and label some Dills, Bread and Butters, and the almighty Lemon Cucumber pickles. Thanks to Ray’s generosity, we didn’t leave empty handed and we’ve since enjoyed the scrumptious treats in the studio. Nobody ever told Kristen she might have to wear a hairnet when she joined team Bad Feather, but if you ask her, we’re sure she’ll tell you a day in the country and her own jar of those tasty dill pickles was worth it.

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Bradley Farm is at the 97th and Amsterdam Market on the Upper West Side on Fridays, and the Grand Army Plaza Market in Brooklyn on Saturdays. We also created a hilarious Ray Bradley button that Ray is selling to his loyal customers to help recoup losses from the late blight that severely damaged this year’s heirloom tomato crops. Support the farm and get yourself some pickles!

Fresh Meat

bf_katie_card We’re excited to welcome Katie MacLachlan to the Bad Feather clan!

Katie is our new design intern and will be working with us in the studio for the next 3 months. This talented lady is a recent grad of the MICA graphic design program where her work was included in Ellen Lupton’s Graphic Design: The New Basics and she also played an active role in campus sustainability. We think she’s a total catch and are excited to put her skills to the test.

For more fun facts about Katie and her portfolio of work, check out ktmac.net.

Website and Music Survey in the Hunt for an Assistant

We’re tackling some great new projects here at Bad Feather and March (like April thus far) was a very busy month. In an effort to manage our schedules and work flow, keep organized and maintain communication in the midst of all the design and development to be done, we set out to hire a studio assistant.

To help narrow down our search for candidates (our initial posting brought in more than 250 applications in just over 48 hours), we asked the following questions: What are your 3 favorite websites? What music are you listening to right now?

A pool of truly talented applicants emerged in the hunt, many of them listing some of our personal faves like boingboing.net and designobserver.com, and it seems everyone and their mother loves the new Animal Collective album and the “Dark Was the Night” compilation as much as we do. We were surprised by how many people responded with such obvious and uninteresting answers in the website department like google.com and craigslist.org (where they found the posting), but a few gems were also brought to our attention, such as (you’re welcome for sharing) sleeveface.com and scanwiches.com. kristen

And who, you might ask, did we chose? The lovely Kristen Carlisle who listed brooklynvegan.com and the new Lily Allen album, “It’s Not Me, It’s You” among her faves. Kristen most recently worked as an account strategist for Google before joining us here at Bad Feather and has quickly fit in taking turns as a featherriffic DJ while wrangling our projects and studio into order. We’re already beginning to wonder how we ever got along without her.

Have you signed up?

bf_mailing

Our first Bad Feather mailing will hit the post office next week. If you aren’t already on our mailing list, sign up! All the cool kids are doing it….

Officially BAD

After a year in the making, allow us to introduce Bad Feather, Inc., our new design studio.

We’re ready and set to make great things from our outpost at the Old American Can Factory, an artist complex in Brooklyn. We’ve taken on some talented design interns and formed collaborative partnerships with a team of web developers and several other design professionals. Consider us a small studio with the capacity for bigger, badder projects.

We encourage you to join our mailing list so we can keep you posted on new projects and other developments, invite you to parties and maybe even send you some Bad Feather goodies from time to time.

Thanks for your continued support. Be a part of the Bad Feather future.