Those of you that read our blog with any frequency or are fans of Design Rangers on Facebook know that I frequently post links from Design*Sponge. I pretty much love every thing they post, but here are a few favorites that have popped up this week.

1. These twig push pins are super cute and it’s a great way to re-use twigs and branches that have fallen off of your neighborhood trees. Seems like a must have in the new Design Ranger office!
2. I’m pretty much convinced that everything cool in this world comes from Brooklyn. My dad was from Brooklyn – which I believe makes me 1/2 cool. Our completely awesome friends Tammy and Ehren are from Brooklyn – when ever they come to visit they always bring us awesome gifts from some fantastic little shop in Brooklyn. Okay – they main point is… I love this letterpress bear card, it has die-cut arms so the bear can hold a little something, too! And yes, you guessed it. Brooklyn made.

On a much more serious note – did you know there are 884 million without access to safe drinking water? A very sad WOW came out of my mouth when I came across that fact on www.waterforpeople.org’s home page. Water For People is a “Denver-based international development organization supports sustainable safe drinking water and sanitation projects in developing countries”. The organization worked with Duffy & Partners to launch their new re-branding campaign, Joe Duffy is an amazing designer that I have always admired and he has done it again with the Water For People brand. A happy WOW this time.

It’s been light years since we have done a link round-up and I’ve been inspired by the real light saber battle going on directly behind me (kids home from school due to a snowday) – here is a blog post for the Star Wars lover in all of us. But first few Star Wars fun facts:

• FUN FACT #1: Way back in the day you couldn’t buy movie tickets on line. Really. You had to wait on line at the theater. Yes, it was the stone age. The day Episode 1 tickets were pre-sold at our local movie theater Chris had to work so I waited on line for 12 hours with a 3 year-old Dalton. Let me say that again. I waited on line to buy movie tickets to Episode 1 for 12 hours with a 3 year old. Wow.
• FUN FACT #2: Did you know that when Chris and I were married we had Han Solo and Princess Leia action figures on top of our cake. Chris’ mom made Leia a veil and a sweet little bouquet of flowers.
• FUN FACT #3: Chris and I walked into our wedding reception with the Star Wars theme song playing.
• FUN FACT #4: We have 10+ toy light sabers in our house.

We were thrilled when Brian, Chris’ brother, sent us this link. I have a feeling a certain 7 year old in our house (and quite possibly a certain 36 year old) will be asking for a new pair of Adidas as soon as he sees these in stores.

Dalton, our 14 year old loves StumbleUpon and came across this site that shows 23 funny Star Wars t-shirts that even Darth Vader would laugh at*. I love the Obi-Juan Kenobi shirt. Awesomely funny!

*note to parents: there are 1 or 2 shirts that are not appropriate for little eyes.

This Star Wars inspired carved pumpkin link is from our Halloween edition of the link round-up. My favorite is the white Stormtrooper pumpkin – looks great day or night!

And finally, in our January 25th blog post we talked about how Disney’s “Yellow Shoes” in-house creative department is promoting it’s “Star Wars Weekends”. You got us Disney – we totally want to go!

Here are a few great pumpkin ideas, just in case you are still looking…

1. As designers, we will always hold a special place in our heart for anything Pantone. WHY didn’t we think of this!
2. And a great one from of favorite bear, Smokey.
3. Those of you that know Chris as well as I do, know that when he sees these he will smile a huge smile – once a fan, always a fan!

We wish you all a great Halloween, full of treats!

Happy Trails.

I really enjoy writing the blog and doing the link round-up. Does it put food on the table? In most cases, no. So of course I do the work that pays first. My favorite quote, that I believe I made up, is “Life gets in the way of my life.”

Without further a due, the Weekly Ranger Round-up…

1. From our wordslinging friend Tammy Oler a fun Photoshop project. Who doesn’t love Space Invaders?
2. In the “What’s your favorite color?” blog post I talked about Pantone and a cool Pantone inspired peppermill. Well, I also came across this little card holder. Santa, please take note. Thanks.
3. We follow @swissmiss on Twitter. She posted a tweet a few weeks ago that a friend of hers, Jessica Hische, was posting a Daily Drop Cap. This is the kind of stuff that makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside. Even on a gray and cold Fall day. A free daily drop cap – what more could a designer ask for?
4. I read about these guys in GD USA. Two recent graduates of Texas A&M who are designing their way across the country. They are the Drifting Creatives. Ah, to be young and free…. and sleeping on futons and living off of ramen. Oh, that’s right. I remember now.
5. Six Revisions is one of Chris’ favorite go-to web/design sites. He came across this post in late September. Yes, we love the challenge of designing a great logo with a subtle symbol or message. And the viewer always remembers the day they saw it. If you have seen the arrow in the FedEx logo, you know what I’m talking about.
6. Lastly, another post from design*sponge and the We Can Do It! Biz Ladies. A great article on time & calendar management. Who couldn’t use a little help in that arena?
7. BONUS! And this truly valuable information just posted by the biz ladies today. The nuts and bolts of getting your biz online. You Can Do It!

Enjoy and Happy Trails! See you… sometime. Soon.

So, better late than never, here are the fun, cool, smart, great things we saw or did over the past 2 weeks:

1. We were honored and excited to be asked to design a bookmark for the “No Impact Man” book. Colin Beavan, the author, will hand out the book mark at his books signings. After we designed the bookmark they also asked us to create a on-line ad from the bookmark design – we were happy to do it. The book is quite amazing and the blog also has a lot of information.
2. After working with the “No Impact Man” we decided to follow him on Twitter. One of his recent tweets was regarding the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. As you know (or are just now learning we are big advocates of bikes, bike trails, and SAFE routes for kids to walk or ride their bike to school.) Remember when you were a kid – there was nothing better than the freedom you felt while riding your bike. Consider sending a letter to Congress asking for their support of the Safe Routes campaign.
3. Have you been to Mule Design’s Feed Store? If you love a good T-shirt there are plenty here!
4. We are recent members of the National Parks Conservation Association. Their mission is to protect and enhance America’s National Parks for present and future generations. We love our National Parks and wanted to be a part of assuring their future.
5. Finally, something to make you smile. What a great project!

Please check back for a blog dedicated to the No Impact Man and the work we did for him. We also have quite a few exciting projects in the final stages of completion. We are looking forward to posting them as soon as they are approved and ready for the public eye.

Happy Trails!

Here are a few things that caught our eye this week:

1. Yes, we are procrastinators… but at least we are self-aware. Check out The Now Habit, maybe we can overcome procrastination together. But, we’ll have to put it off until mid-October.
2. On the same note – we came across this site on a great blog we follow. Yes, life is busy and we are still learning to keep it under control. But it’s always nice to know you have lots of company.
3. Well, enough of that – let’s get to the fun stuff! We LOVE logos. We love to look at logos. We love to read about logos. We love to design logos. As designers we do lots of logo research, always wanting to be hip to the newest trends – good or bad. We learned a lot from logo trends of 2009. We are looking forward to 2010!
4. Design Rangers love boy scout merit badges. I wonder if you can just buy the entire set for like 50 bucks? They are all great, but I think this is my favorite!
5. You know that song you love – well, you know how you REALLY love minutes 1:38 – 1:52. These guys feel the same way! It’s about a 30 minute podcast – make sure you hear the first 6 1/2 minutes and the last 1 1/2 minutes (the remaining minutes in the middle are for more mature ears – parents out there with young ones, be warned). This is the spin off site from that podcast – songparts.biz where you can buy you favorite song parts – for cheap! Hear the song part before you buy it if you click on the gray “click to play” bar. Joni Mitchell spazzes out and fake laughs(?) at the end of “Big Yellow Taxi” $.04 - DEAL!
   
6. On a more serious note – our hearts go out to our friends in California. All the talk about the forest fires there reminds us of our good friend, Smokey Bear. What a great guy! (A blog devoted to Smoky and his 65 year campaign coming soon…) Remember, Only YOU can prevent forest fires.

Hope you have a great weekend and as always, Happy Trails!

Happy Friday Dearest Blog Readers,

We want to share with you some great sites/images/information/etc. that we came across this week…

1. Typedia (it’s like wikipedia for fonts) just launched their site. Here is a great blog post about the creation of their logo.
2. A few months ago we wrote a post about how/why to have fun with your brand. This week we found a great site that features some fun & creative business cards. If you ever need a crazy cool business card you know who to call… (shoot us an email if you don’t have a set of Design Ranger cards, we will send some your way!)
3. Our friend and copy writing partner, Tammy, came across this site and thought of us.  Yes, we love it! Also, on the same site a image for our coffee loving friends (you know who you are!).
4. Lastly, every now and then design*sponge will feature a post titled biz ladies. (The post may be called biz ladies but it is just as informative for biz men.) The article features an expert in the field that will offer advice on anything from writing a book to making a strategic business plan. One post we found very informative was advertising 101 for small business owners.
5. Bonus: once you view the biz ladies link you will know why we found this noteworthy.

Well, that wraps up the Ranger Round-up (say that 3 times fast!). Have a great weekend and of course, Happy Trails.