Want to win a pack of greetings cards made from the Maraid vintage matchbox label collection? Just in time to send out for Christmas! Simply like our Facebook page www.facebook.com/MaraidDesign and leave a comment under the post. We have three sets to give away. We’ll choose a winner on Dec 7th.

Good news for us York folk. Lotte Inch has opened a new gallery in York full of contemporary art and design gifts. How did we live without this before?

Some postcards from Jane’s collection of vintage matchbox labels have been made into postcards (via the folks at Art Press). Some of the cards are now on sale in Paperchase. We are giving away five sets – simply leave a comment in this post. These are just a small part of larger collection – if you have a little time to spend check them out!

We have finished designing the 2011 Maraid Christmas cards – a set of three bright and happy designs. All we have to do now is wait for them to come back from the printers!

When travelling it’s those small differences to home that catch my eye. I was impressed by the beauty of Norwegian manhole covers. I loved the way they are designed specifically for that town or area. During our visit to Ålesund we were promised beautiful art nouveau buildings but the street design underfoot was much more impressive.

1. Ålesund, 2. Røvær Island, 3. Bergen

I picked up several Know the Game books on a recent trip to the Yorkshire Dales. They are British education books giving an illustrated introduction to sports and hobbies. E.P. Publishing covered about 80 subjects, regularly updating them with new content, covers and illustrations to reflect the times.
View the full set on Flickr

I inherited a set of plywood mid-century modern chairs from my Grandparents. I’ve always wondered where they came from and their designer. This week the lovely folks at Firefly House popped by for a meeting and cheeky pint. They kindly tweeted the chairs to see if anyone could enlighten us. Within half an hour Home Spun Vintage had come up trumps with the all the details. I can now confirm they are Neil Morris ‘Bambi’ chairs. Hooray! After a little looking around on the internet I quickly came across these beauties – Toby Arm Chairs – oh dear, I need more space for more chairs.

I’ve made a few unsuccessful Gocco prints since my first one. Its fustrating when it goes wrong – the wasted screens, bulbs, ink and time. But when it goes well its rewarding. Freshly printed are this year’s christmas cards.. the skating chimp.

Things I have learnt in the past few efforts. Always test inks before applying them to the screen – with some of the older inks the oil has separated and comes out the tube first – this made my paper stick to a screen. Don’t put the foam separators too close to the ink area as the will stop it from printing a solid colour. Start designing with the colours you have – I scanned in the tube packaging and made a illustrator swatch palette with the colours so I could easily experiment. I’ve found mixing colours hasn’t worked very well. Yellow hardly shows up on the off-white card I use. More complicated designs look better on screen, more simple ones look better printed.

Prints are available in my Maraid Etsy shop.

On the list of things to do on holiday in Prague, along with the usual tourist attractions, was Terry Posters. Terry Posters sell original Czechoslovakian film posters, many of them vintage. It’s perfectly situated in Světozor Cinema.

When I was finished I had visual overload and my hands hurt from flicking through the racks. It was a joy. We bought five lovely ones from the 1970s. Terry Posters is also online.