Tag: California

Blue Bottle Coffee

Posted on by Hijiri

Another great win for the Giants last night, I’m sure the whole city is going crazy! I so wish I were there to witness everything and feel the energy… but before I do anything, I would stop by the Blue Bottle Coffee first. That’s exactly what we did when we landed in San Francisco this July — straight to the Blue Bottle!

The Hayes Valley kiosk to be exact:

I always love their logo and the store signs, too.

Lots of different kinds of beans… I like their packaging, too. Each name is hand stamped and the logo might be hand stamped as well.

There is a Blue Bottle Café in Ferry Building now (well, I don’t know when they came here, but not when I lived there) so of course, we stopped by there as well…

and look what I found! An embroidery café sign :) I thought it was so cute I had to take photos!

“Blue Bottle Customers Only, Please!” sign on the café table, also embroidered. So sweet, right? I love it :)

And I still love my cup of Blue Bottle every morning here in NY. Life is good. Happy Friday!

Levi’s Workshops

Posted on by Hijiri

I didn’t know where to start since I was all over the world for the last 3-4 weeks or so… but I’ll start with the timely things so you can still check it out!

I visited Levi’s Workshops while I was in San Francisco — a community print shop! During July and August, they will be teaching classes on classic letterpress machinery, screenprinting designs, setting type etc. How awesome is this?! I was so excited to see the whole place really active and everyone just creating and printing.

Vandercook press in action.

“Keep Calm and Press On” — I would love to have this!

A couple table-top presses.

Stamps! There were so many cool ones, I played around a bit, too ;)

You can also make photocopies and make art here. Love the wall full of work.

and of course, the screen printing area. It was pretty busy looking so I couldn’t take pictures of the machine, but it was pretty big.

Walls with printed work. Love this “I’m Just Sayin'” series, so fun :)

and more posters on the wall.

If you are in San Francisco and if you haven’t already, please go check it out, just feeling the creative vibe is worth the visit!

The Literary City

Posted on by Hijiri

I have been missing San Francisco a lot lately (it’s been almost a year since my last visit… that is too long :( ) and when I saw this poster (?) over at we love typography, I knew that it was San Francisco even from a tiny thumbnail image and as soon as I clicked to see the larger view, I was in love. Entitled “The Literary City,” the whole city is covered with handwritten quotes about San Francisco from all sort of literature. And where each quote is placed makes perfect sense geographically, too!!

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But I could find out where this is from or anything… I hope it is available for sale…?

If anyone has any information about this, please let me know. The link that they gave at we love typography was this link. I tried to search from it, but no luck… Thank you in advance!

*UPDATE: Thanks to Angela, here is the original article and the artist’s website — it’s not for sale, though! bummer…

Wishing you all a happy Friday… xo

Ford + Forlano: Forth + Back

Posted on by Hijiri

Velvet da Vinci in San Francisco is having an exhibition of jewelry, prints and paintings called “Ford + Forlano: Forth + Back” starting May 1st (oh my god, it’s tomorrow! May already?!) to May 31st. When I saw one of the images from their prints, I was so amazed and wanted to look more. I thought it was sensational! Interesting thing I found out is that the artisits, Steven Ford and David Forlano live in coast to coast, collaborating by sending unfinished work forth and back between them. So these prints (and all the other work, too, of course) traveled between Philadelphia and Santa Fe. You can read more from their website, but their work is truly a collaboration, that is how it takes their pieces to a next level. I wish I could go see this exhibition… if you are in SF, check it out and let me know how it is! Velvet da Vinci is an awesome gallery space, I miss going in there.

Here are some of their print work:

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*images are from Velvet da Vinci website