ACCENT / BLOG

When the live component of our Accent® Opaque Portfolio Exchange was postponed, we decided to take the conversation online. Next up in our series of conversations with the participating exchange artists: The Little Friends of Printmaking. 

JW & Melissa Buchanan are two fun-loving illustrators, printmakers and designers who live in Los Angeles and are the husband-and-wife team behind The Little Friends of Printmaking. Their work has been featured in books including New Masters of Poster Design and Handmade Nation and has appeared in magazines including Bloomberg BusinessWeek and WIRED.

About the print they created for this portfolio exchange, The Little Friends said, “Our concept is to have a little rabbit writer who has a rustic, improvised office in a forest clearing. His desk is a stump and his chair is a toadstool; other office accoutrements are hung on nearby trees. Everything should feel overgrown, moss-covered, and so on, with little plants sprouting from unexpected places.” The finished print turned out even more whimsical than we’d imagined, with the bunny hard at work on a tiny typewriter, surrounded by forest friends — a bird, a squirrel, and a frog in a sweater holding a steaming cup of coffee. 

We recently caught up with The Little Friends of Printmaking to hear more about this project and how they’re staying creative during the pandemic.

Our Accent^® Opaque Portfolio Exchange may have taken an unexpected turn, but we’re along for the ride, and we hope you are, too!

First up in our series of conversations with the participating exchange artists: Sarah Dudek, an artist based in Somerville, Massachusetts who designs and screen prints art and home decor with a conceptual focus on food. The art that Sarah created for the Accent^® Opaque Portfolio Exchange features two of our favorite things: a giant pie in the middle of an orchard. We asked her about that, along with what she’s doing to nurture her creativity during these wild times. 

Have you heard about Google’s Paper Phone? An experiment launched as part of the company’s Digital Wellbeing initiative, the Paper Phone consists of an app that lets you select the most crucial bits of information you’ll need for your day and print a “phone.”

International Paper recently teamed up with illustrator Kyle Beckett to create the original children’s book Apollo the Spacedog. This adventure story introduces young readers to Apollo, a shelter dog who longs to find a home, and Andi, a 7-year-old girl who’s into astronomy — two daring characters who team up to outrun a space monster. Apollo the Spacedog gives readers a glimpse of Andi’s vivid imagination, with action scenes brought to life through the magic of augmented reality. 

Max Mahn is a printmaker and illustrator working between Montana and Wyoming under the pseudonym Twin Home. He’s passionate about the art of the gig poster, and he spoke with us about how he got his start and what’s inspiring him today.