Designing for Sweden

A project we worked on for a Swedish camping and outdoor activity center. We designed the beaver logo and two roll up banners to take to fairs. We loved working with the wonderful pictures and designing all the pictograms and the illustrations. Almost feels like we're there :-)

Hier werkten we aan voor een Zweedse camping en buitensportcentrum. We ontwierpen het beverlogo en twee roll up banners om mee naar beurzen te nemen. We vonden het heerlijk om met de prachtige foto's te werken en al de pictogrammen en de illustraties te ontwerpen. Voelt alsof we er bijna zijn :-)

playgarden - an illustrated map

We are lucky to have what they call here a "nature play garden" in our village. It's a wonderful place for children and their parents to hang out. It is a playground designed to encourage play with water, mud, sand, trees, find little creatures as frogs, butterflies and build rafts, dams or tree houses. And this summer they opened an apiary, which not only provides shelter to honeybees, but also functions as a bee education center for children to find out why bees are so important.

One of the founders flew over the playground with his hang glider and took pictures. We designed an illustrated map from them. We hope it will help the kids explore the playground and have lot's of exciting adventures.

You can find more info here: Het Weitje (Dutch).
If you live nearby: it's open in the autumn holiday and this Saturday the 13th of October there will be a nice autumn party. You are welcome to join, entrance is free, as always.

Vintage book find - Silhouettes by Reyer Stolk

'Dierenprentenboek Silhouetten' by Reyer Stolk, 1945

We recently visited the wonderful little city Bredevoort. It's called "Books City" and that makes sense: vintage book stores on every corner! We were very excited to find this inspiring animal picture book by Dutch artist Reyer Stolk (1896-1945).
Don't you just love the typography?! Here's two of the double paged illustrations: animal silhouettes on the right and their names on the left (genius). Enjoy!

Frogs & Snails giveaway in 101

Looking for a new item for your child's room? Home & Living magazine 101woonideeën is hosting a giveaway featuring our Frogs & Snails posters this month!
We are happy and proud for the posters to be in such a nice magazine surrounded with wonderful items.

Spoonflower

A few months ago we heard about Spoonflower. Great concept: they print textile on demand. You can choose from thousands of designs and they will print it on the textile of your choice. They have some wonderful organic cotton fabrics and print eco-friendly!

Also: you can upload your own design. So we decided to give it a try, for some projects of our own. We received a yard of the puffin design already and the fabric and print turned out really nice. 

We would love to hear your thoughts: would you order at Spoonflower? And what would you use the fabric for? Any suggestions for new designs?

Free counting memory game

We designed a winter counting memory. Because we love winter and we miss it dearly now that it's still a stormy autumn here in Holland.. and because our son loves to count and play games. 

You can download and print it for free at MoodKids blog. 

There is just one extra rule to make the counting even more fun :-)

Match cards with the same value. So you can match two fives, but you can also match a five and the 5 candles, or the 5 candles and the 5 trees.

Hope you'll enjoy it!

Anna Howarth for IKEA

Today we bought a real gem at IKEA. A beautiful illustration by paper cutting artist Anna Howarth on poster.  For only 7.99 euro.. don't you just love IKEA?

The Christmas Story

Sharing two inspiring illustrations of the nativity story.

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone, full of love, hope and happiness!

From childrens perspective: 'The Christmas Story' as told by the children of St Paul's Church, Auckland, New Zealand.

An illustration by Galia Bernstein for a series of postcards

Moving card

A dear friend just moved and asked us to design her moving announcement.
Always nice to work on such a personal illustration!

Cute Sinterklaas

Last month we designed a Sinterklaas game for children for the beautiful online magazine Moodkids Sint Special. After, we were contacted by an American Kindergarten teacher. Their school was organizing a 'Holidays around the world' theme and they wanted to know if we could translate our game to English. Of course we did, because how cool is that, to know that children on the other side of the world will be playing it..! And a really nice idea too: "Each teacher represents a country and their custom. The teacher dresses up, has an activity and maybe a treat from that country."
We sent them some other suggestions too, like the 'pepernoten' recipe we saw on Babyccino blog.
And then a little later we got this thank you photo..
cute Sinterklaas ;-)

Free download christmas countdown card

Dutch living magazine 101 Woonideeën organized a Christmas Card Countdown on their blog. Every day they post the most wonderful cards from inspiring designers and shops. 

We made a countdown card especially for them. You can download it for free here, print it out and send it to your loved ones (or use it to enjoy the counting down to Christmas yourself :-))