The MBD Endorsement: Pepperplate

"When we eat together, when we set out to do so deliberately, life is better, no matter what your circumstances."

—Thomas Keller*

So, I've taken up cooking. Nothing fancy, nothing special. But I make an alright roux and aside from the occasional bag of Jiffy Pop, the microwave sits neglected, so that's something. I can't bake for shit but fuck it; baking is for old ladies.

Anyway, like I said, I'm no Chef, just a dude who collects recipes that sound tasty and prepares them. As such, I need certain tools beyond the usual pots, pans, and knives. One such tool is a trusted recipe repository. Giada's site is a good one. The Pioneer Woman is fantastic. Google works, too. Food Network. Travel Channel. Whatever.

My other secret weapon is Pepperplate. It's incredible. I can add, edit, sync, and share recipes in LITERALLY SECONDS from any device--the web app on my browser, the iPad in the kitchen, and the iPhone at the grocery store. Scaling a recipe up or down is a cinch. The meal planning calendar and shopping list functions are dead simple and work flawlessly, and there's even a cooking timer baked in (harf harf harf) to the app. Pepperplate does everything my previous kitchen tool (Mac Gourmet) did, except, you know, better, faster, and totally free. Now that's a recipe for success.**

* God, starting a blog post with a ham-fisted quote like that is just such a twee thing to do I feel like I'm writing this in 2002.

** That was awful. Sorry.

New Work: Summer Reading Outdoor Banners

I keep an email folder of what I call "Wins"—mostly praise, success stories, your various niceties from clients and bosses, that sort of thing. It's not an ego thing. It's not like I ever actually go back through this folder and reread any glowing correspondence but seeing it there helps to remind me during the times of plodding work, difficult clients, thankless jobs, and twatnosed bosses that I'm good at what I do and whatever is sucking now will eventually be replaced with something so fun and rewarding and cool. Case in point: I've been at my new nine-to-five for about six weeks now and my Wins folder is by far outpacing what I collected in the entire two years previous. I'm not saying my last employer NEVER provided designers with positive feedback or a well-earned pat on the back but... but I don't know how to finish this sentence.

Last week I was tasked with the large outdoor banners below. I'm happy with them, my boss loved them, and the client flipped when she saw them. Into the Wins folder they go.

Matteboxing

I'm no photographer by any stretch of the imagination but I've been playing around with a swell little app called Mattebox and loving the results. At the very least, it's getting me to shoot more, which can never be considered a bad thing.

New* Work: Introducing the knode

Oh nothing, just going through the ol' "sent" box and sharing a few here and there. I design oodles of emails for my 9-5 and don't show off nearly enough of them. This is me aiming to fix that.

*not new at all.

New Work: Sales Preview Email

You guys, not posting here in forever should not and does not mean I haven't been up to my elbows in all kinds of super great projects. I can't quite show them off just yet, but here's a little shot of something I did for my 9-5. I know, I know... ribbons. WOOF, right? What can I say? Shit, sometimes you gotta go ribbons.

Click the screengrab above for what I just realized this instant is a superjank low-res version of the whole email.

This Is A Test From My iPhone

This week I was tasked with creating a logo for our new house line of doohickeys. These are the sketches I made before I realized the project had been committee'd to death and canceled. Still, it was fun sketching thumbnail comps for, like, two hours one afternoon at work.

BTW, this was posted using Blogger+, the best blogging app for iPhone I've tested.

New Work: Order History Icon

One of a set of five custom icons, just a tiny piece of a decidedly larger project for my 9-5.