LeafClutter

Last weekend, I joined the Friends of the Kezar Triangle for a picnic in San Francisco. The lovely Sam and Carla invited me to contribute a participatory art project to the event. So I’m delighted to present here some in-process peeks at a set of picnic blankets we’ve designed especially for this place. And I should mention that this little park doubles as a gopher field.

From my sketchbook: modular, triangle-shaped blankets that can be rearranged to make different configurations for sitting. This allows for flexibility in terms of how many people want to sit together. It is also, of course, fun to arrange them! It’s sort of like tangrams in kindergarten, but giant size.

It worked! There’s still some finishing to do on the blankets, but I was able to get all the triangles cut in time for a first test at the November 6 picnic.

Did you notice the holes in the blankets in the last two photos? What for?! Here’s the idea from my sketchbook:

About 1/3 of the blankets in the set (24 total) have holes the same size as the real gopher holes that are all over the park. They serve as an invitation for the gophers to “join” us at our picnic. And truly, not just the gophers, but the trees and the insects and the birds and all the creatures that share this park. It is a peaceful gesture that embodies a compassionate and playful relationship with nature.

To emphasize this gesture, everyone gets to join in (at future events as well) and embroider designs around the holes in the blankets. (In soil-colored thread.) The embroidery work is sort of like a tiny welcome mat – a design that marks the meeting of two worlds. Of course, a real gopher is unlikely to use one of these holes, but it is the gesture that we love and the many peaceful practices that such a gesture encourages and inspires. Nevertheless, we thought it was fun to line up the blanket holes with the real gopher holes in the grassy field…

And then…

WOW!

No way!

For real?!

Yes! A real live gopher suddenly poked its little head up through one of the blanket holes! Carla and I were sitting on the blanket next to this red one and I practically jumped to the moon and back with joy and excitement. And of course, I’m ecstatic that Carla caught the little visitor with her camera. (This hole still needs embroidery – maybe you’ll join us at the next picnic and add some?)

The gopher must have seen one of Sam’s sweet hand-drawn event posters. The gopher showed up right about 3pm, more promptly than most of the humans.

You can keep up with the Friends of the Kezar Triangle on their facebook page. Thanks Carla & Sam for the chance to be creative and playful with you!

If you’ve received one of our “world’s smallest packages” in the last few months, this means you’ve got a genuine copy of The Small Times in your hands. As part of our recent collaboration with Chronicle Books to produce a World’s Smallest Post Service stationery kit, we decided to create an entire fictional newspaper to be crumpled up as packing paper in the tiny packages. And of course, the newspaper is not only itty bitty, but every article and image is tiny themed too! Thanks to my wonderful editor, Jason Sacher, for daring to approve the development of this totally unnecessary, but totally incredible, addition to the kit.

Here’s what it looks like all crumpled up in one of our “world’s smallest packages.” This is the one with the message, “You are as cute as a…”

First I put out an open call for submissions – for articles, advertisements, classifieds, etc. Thanks to all the lovely folks who submitted! I (this is Lea typing to you) wrote about half of the content and the rest was written by the following awesome guest contributors. Thanks so much y’all!

Grace Carolinda Patterson, Bob Cronin, Renata Miller, Kendra Holliday, Clare C., Francisco R., Chris Kerr, Ina Braun, Colleen Schneider, Beth Redmond-Jones, Jessiena Luhman, Danny M.

Here’s my first little mock-up of the idea. After gathering the text content together, I wanted to get a sense for how the actual thing would look. A good start! But notice the big grey image areas? I needed an illustrator. I can sort of draw okay, but I knew my dear friend Sam Bower would work magic with the job. Lucky me, he offered to make a whole series of tiny drawings with a skinny little ink pen! Here are some of them, way bigger than actual print size.

Every real, genuine newspaper needs a crossword puzzle, right? I had no idea how I was going to pull this off until I discovered this neat website that will generate crosswords for you if you give it a list of words. Wow! So I started there, printed out my result, and then added words to fill in the empty space as best I could. The best part? Every crossword clue and answer is tiny themed! Here’s my working sketch.

So at that point I had the text, the illustrations, and my crossword. Then put together a possible layout to help communicate my vision to my editors at Chronicle Books. Here’s what I sent them…

And here’s the super amazing graphic design job that Chronicle Books designer Kirsten Hewitt did with it. This is a scan of the final version, printed on real newsprint and everything.

And a few close-ups…

In case you want to get ahold of some of these tiny newspapers, you’ll find 4 copies of it rolled up in the WSPS Kit from Chronicle Books, or you can order a teeny tiny package straight from us and it will include one.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! (With a magnifying glass!)

We, the WSPS post people, worked with a lovely couple from Portland, Oregon recently to design and create a big batch of custom wedding invitations. We’ve made tiny wedding invitations before, but this time we went all out and included a teeny tiny map too!

Freshly cut tiny airmail envelopes! We put “OR” in the spot for the tiny cancellation ink stamp since the couple is in Oregon.

I did a sweet little pen and ink drawing of a typewriter for the front of the tiny invitation. With extremely small type, we added “So many stories yet to write…” on the tiny paper in the illustration. We chose American Typewriter for the font of the whole invitation to keep with the vintage typewriter theme.

All the pieces in the middle of making! Teeny folded maps!

Brittany and Nathan also wanted to do an RSVP, so we bounced around a few ideas till settling on a button concept. I hand-typed the return envelopes on my grandmother’s Royal from the 50′s.

The invitees received two buttons. If they could attend, they sent the red button back to the bride and groom-to-be. If they had to sadly decline, they sent the blue button back.

The RSVP all packaged up with a tiny heart wax seal.

Brittany and Nathan were quite happy with their tiny invitations. They sent me, Postmaster Lea, a sweet email:

” I think at this point everyone has responded to our invites and they are a total smash! So many people told us the same thing ‘these are the most awesome things ever,’ we got a lot of ‘so creative,’ and the like. They’re blown away at what you do and how creative it is! We’re so happy to have had your help in doing something so totally different and unexpected. No blue buttons yet, either! : )
Thank you from the bottom of our normal sized hearts,
Brittany & Nathan “

Are you or a friend getting married soon? We love to make creative and unique invitations! We can do all sorts of design variations and are more than happy to brainstorm wild ideas with you. Take a look at examples on our bulk/custom page and feel free to drop us a line: lea@leafcutterdesigns.com.