Paint It! Ellicott City 2014

Ellicott City's annual plein air paint-out event and exhibit will take place July 11-14, 2014, presented in partnership with Howard County Tourism and Howard County Public School System. Enjoy a summer weekend in Historic Ellicott City, strolling the streets of the picturesque mill town as you watch dozens of Paint It! artists at work.

Paint It! Ellicott City 2014 Juried Artists: 

Lissa Abrams

Brian Gray

Alison Leigh Menke

Karl Avellar

Catherine Hillis

Mary Jo Messenger

Jaye Ayres

Stephen Hollis

Debra Moffitt

Bruno Baran

Greg Johannesen

Karen Pindzola

Joanna Barnum

Janice Kirsh

Duane Sabiston

David Brosch

Kathleen Kotarba

Charles Snell

Mark Coates

Michael Kotarba

Steve Stannard

Ann Crostic

Heather Leatherman

Lida Stifel

David Diaz

Carol Leo

Ed Williams

Maria A. Gonzalez

Maria Marino

Mick Williams

Open Paint-Out
Even if you weren't juried in to Paint It!, you can still set up your easel and paint one, two, or all three days alongside other artists during the paint-out! Your work will be exhibited in HCCA's lobby during the reception and through the summer at the Howard County Welcome Center in Ellicott City. 

Reception & Open Paint-Out Exhibit: July 14, 6–8pm
The opening reception will feature the presentation of awards by Paint It! juror Michael Bare as well as a special one-night exhibit of work created during the Open Paint-Out.

Open Paint Artist Registration Form or go here to register and pay by credit card.

Font Men

You may not have heard of Jonathan Hoefler or Tobias Frere-Jones but you've seen their work. Before their recent split, they collectively ran the most successful and well respected type design studio in the world, creating fonts used by everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the President of the United States. Font Men, gives a peek behind the curtain into the world of Jonathan and Tobias. Tracking the history of their personal trajectories, sharing the forces that brought them together and giving an exclusive look at the successful empire they built together. - Presented by AIGA to celebrate H+FJ's 2013 AIGA Medal, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts Directed & Produced by: Dress Code Cinematography by: Andre Andreev Edited by: Dan Covert Music & Sound by: YouTooCanWoo Animation/Design: Evan Anthony, John Custer, Joe Donaldson, Emil Bang Lyngbo, Josh Parker, Eddie Song Principal Cast: Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones Shot on a Canon 7D

Prior to their split as Hoefler & Frere-Jones, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones sat down with AIGA to talk about the process as a type foundry.

Contract Hassle

Creating contracts for freelance work can be a hassle and no one ever knows where to start. Although there are a vast amount of resources available through AIGA and the countless amount of examples via a simple Google Search, nothing seems to be easily customizable until now. Shake is an app created with the simple idea that legal should be easy to understand and affordable for small businesses and freelancers. 

Shake is currently only available for free on the Apple App store but is in the works for Google Play. Go check it out and get your contract on.

Aaron Draplin: LEGO Blocumentary

Season 2 of the LEGO Blocumentary web-series highlights a collection of designers, artists, animators & music-makers to see how creating with LEGO bricks has inspired the work they do now. In this episode we hear from Designer Aaron Draplin.

There is something interesting about where we find inspiration for our work. Aaron Draplin from the DDC talks about how building LEGO's as a kid made him fall in love with clean typography and modular forms.

From the Production Room.

We recently printed these bad boys off for this years Quad Mania and with the popularity of the spiral bound notebooks we created for Art Week this year, we decided to go at it again utilizing our new printer and it's unique square edge saddle stitch feature.

I created a themed cover to go along with this years Quadmania "Nautical" theme. Within each notebook is a light grey dot grid with an ad promoting services that commonvision provides to the students on campus.

Limited edition of 250, hand numbered printed on Butchers Orange 80lb Cover stock from the French Paper Company.

If you still are interested in picking one up, we have about a box of them left so come on up to the 3rd floor of The Commons and grab one...or five.