I gave a quote for this book published by Chronicle Books, containing sayings and advice from a variety of designers and design teachers.
My quote has been featured on the inside cover. In all my time teaching at St Martin's, this is perhaps the most important thing I wanted to get my students to understand: know, and be able to articulate, why you're making your design choices...
It's out now, full of all sorts of good advice, and available from Chronicle Books and Amazon.
Hope you're enjoying some tasty chocolates this weekend. I saw these in the window of Woodhouse Chocolate in Napa Valley. 
Such chocolatey goodness!
Last weekend, we went to Yosemite National Park. It was awesome. All the views were glorious, with constant unbelievably blue skies.
We explored the valley and watched the clouds, and marvelled at the incredible waterfalls and towering rocks.
I did some sketches, but mostly gawped!
We walked amongst the giant sequoias at Mariposa Grove and I admired the structure of the trees and their sideways branches.
I loved the sculptural roots of this fallen giant...
We also drove through the Stanislaus National Forest, where there had been the fire last year, and it was eerily all brown and burnt, but still strangely beautiful.
I can't wait to go back and experience a different season...
My NY Tiffany mugs have been included on the Top 5 High Fashion Designer Coffee Mugs list on luxury lifestyle blog Affluence Avenue. Thanks guys!
As part of the SGCI conference last week, I went to visit several local print workshops. It was amazing to get a tour of their facilities and wander around. I have a bit of a thing for paper (can you tell?) so here are my photos of the various studios' paper storage areas. The first is Crown Point Press,
and I also loved this huge roll there... 
and the flat and roll combo at Kala in Berkeley ...
I have to say these tape dispensers at the Compound Studios also tickled my fancy...
One day I will have my very own paper shelves!
Thank you to everyone who made it along to see our printmaking studio exhibition in the Mission this weekend. There was an amazing selection of prints on show, in all sorts of techniques.
The opening on saturday evening was super busy and the bookshop/gallery ambience was relaxing and unusual!
I've recently joined a co-operative print studio in San Francisco, called Graphic Arts Workshop, where I can do etchings and hopefully spend some time making personal work. The studio has a group exhibition in the Alley Cat Gallery as part of the Mission Art Walk in conjunction with the SGC printmaking conference in SF city next weekend (on saturday and sunday only), and I'll have 2 pieces on show there.
The gallery details are:
Alley Cat Gallery, 3036 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
and there'll be an opening reception on Saturday March 29th from 6.30pm - 9pm. Please come along!
This year I'm working on a collaborative mokuhanga project with my friends Yoonmi Nam and Katie Baldwin. We're going to give a presentation and hold an exhibition of the work we produce at the International Mokuhanga Conference in Tokyo in September. It's very exciting!
Here's a preparatory sketch for my first piece of work for the project...
and a test print of the colours.
You can follow the group's progress on our blog woodpaperbox.
I did this fun piece for the home/gardens section of the current issue of 5280 magazine, with growing vines and flowers intertwining the product photos. I really enjoyed drawing the little bugs and butterflies...
I went to see the San Jose Sharks play ice hockey recently. It was pretty amazing. Especially when the players all skated into the rink through a huge shark's head!
I tried to sketch them as they played, but they moved so fast! Especially as they slammed into the walls. Here are my first sketches of ice hockey players in action...
We went to a friend's pizza party last week and made these amazing dessert pizza cakes!
The bases are sponge cakes, with coloured buttercream for the tomato sauce, white chocolate ganache for the melted cheese, fruit leather pepperoni, hollowed-out liquorice allsort olives, dried pineapple, gummy pepper pieces, and grated white chocolate for the parmesan. We used real pizza boxes from Pizza my Heart et voila!
Kind of messes with your mind when you bite into it, but super sweet and tasty!
Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Here's a little bird in love... 
On a very sunny day (before all this rain!), we went to Sunset in San Francisco to see the sea, and visited the General Store. I adored their relaxed vibe and especially the garden filled with cactii and succulents...
I also have a bit of thing for watering cans. OK, any gardening tools at all really...
I designed 2 different sets of adorable lai see red pockets for clients in HK this year. The first were for BEYORG, celebrating the year of the horse, with cute horses doing various traditional New Year things, in lucky red and shiny gold. . .
The second were for Grand Century Place shopping mall. They asked for a pattern incorporating Chinese New Year elements, but also fashiony things like a dress and jewellery. I love the coppery gold colour they used for the foil highlights, to match the pink. They also made a promotional fabric ipad mini case for VIPS with the same pattern.
Have a wonderful year of the horse everyone!
Chinese New Year is rapidly approaching, and this pretty new set of my HK toile ceramics might be just what you need to see in the start of the Year of the Horse...I love the little dim sum and egg tarts in the centre of the plates and bowls!
All are available direct from faux in HK..
I've just spent a wonderful five days in Morocco with my best friend, relaxing and seeing the countryside. We arrived in Marrakech, and stayed in a beautiful riad to the NW of the Medina. It was calm and soothing, and even had a hammam.
We wandered around the souks, buying babouches and a rug, admiring the wonderful details of life in the bustling city.
We then went on a three day trip into the mountains, with Desert Majesty. They were super helpful, and our guide Said was very sweet. Here's a map showing where we went.
We drove up into the Atlas mountains and down into the valleys. Our first notable stop was at Ait Ben Haddou, a stunning UNESCO world heritage site. It was exciting to find that it has been used as a location for quite a few movies and TV shows, including Gladiator and Game of Thrones.
We drove and drove, past huge vistas of mountains...
and into an endlessly blue, blue sky...
We explored an ancient Kasbah, and found an old display in one of the courtyards, like a lost moment in time...
We stayed the second night in a Berber tented camp, and rode camels into the sunset,
and in the evening, sat around a campfire listening to songs and drumming.
And then on again, into the dusty, red and pink landscape.
We drove through Rissani, where the Moroccan king's family comes from,
and back again to Marrakech, to get the Saharan sand out of our shoes...
All through the trip we were welcomed everywhere with hot, sweet Moroccan mint tea in beautiful little glasses, and invariably, a pretty silver teapot. Yum.
My Fifth Avenue Tiffany designs have been made into special little versions in Japan, with angled sides. Little and cute works well there! 
They're available exclusively in Japan, either in store or online.
I've recently done the cover and inside chapter artwork for the Word of Mouth restaurant guide for Hong Kong and Macau. It's full of amazing reviews and ideas...
I worked on the book with Sandy at Lui & Co design company in HK, which is always a pleasure. It's available at most book stores in HK.
2014 is here! I wonder what amazing things will unfold...
This is a little Japanese New Year card, I especially love the round white bits as they represent omochi, my favourite New Year food. The combination of red and white is very lucky, and a bit of gold is always a nice touch.
Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays. Here's a tasty photo of mine...
