We celebrate designers who are curious—those who push the definition of design to pursue their passions.

Kern and Burn is an online and print publication that curates discussions, interviews, and essays about design entrepreneurship. Its a cool project of Tim Hoover and Jessica Karle Heltzel (both MFA12) that continues to receive press. 100 Days of Design Entrepreneurship provides insights from leading innovators in the field with interviews of Jessica Hische, faculty member Keetra Dixon, General Assembly, Peter Buchanan Smith, and so on.

Jess and Tim will provide a presentation on Monday, March 26 at 4pm in Brown 320.

This is a list of student-tested vendors for paper, fonts, tools, and more!
Want to recommend a resource? Email bhorne [at] mica dot edu.

 

PAPER
Paper sample books are available in Brown 309. 

Crane Makes the paper for the U.S. treasury, high quality. Also makes a stunning letterpress paper called Lettra.

French
Manufactured in America, uses clean, renewable energy. Speckletone, dur-o-tone, pop-tone, construction, patterned etc. Good for letterpress, silkscreen as well as digital printing. Database of amazing free illustrations. Recommended by Max Heimberger, senior

Mohawk
Commercial and fine art papers, via and carnival smartt lines are good for letterpresss. Mohawk Superfine is sold in the campus store.

Neenah
Very nice, high quality paper supplier

xpedx
The “home depot” of paper. Office paper supplier with lots of samples on the west side of the city
7445 New Ridge Road Hanover, MD 21076

Jam NY
based paper & envelope supplier. Including foil, plastic & leather.

Action Envelope
Lots of colors, including envelopes with interior colors, metallics for laser printers, etc

 

PRINTING—NEWSPAPER

ECM Publishers, Inc.
Excellent newspaper printing in Minnesota

Newspaper Club
Helping people to make their own newspapers

Jae Kim Printing Co
Affordable newspaper printer in downtown New York

Linco Printing
tabloid and newspaper printer with affordable prices in Queens. Does not deliver. See a blog post about Linco. Recommended by Aron Fay

Stellar Printing Inc
Very reasonably priced newspaper printing in Long Island City

Newspaper Club

is an online printer for newspapers. Based in the UK, but ships internationally.

 

PRINTING — BOOKS, PERIODICALS

Urban Digital Color
Fine printers of art projects, editions, works on paper, artist books, and multiples in San Francisco, CA

Fastback Creative Books
On-demand digitally printed bound books with more customization and higher-end production

Paper Chase Printing
On demand artist books

Westcan Printing Group
Ontario, Canada based printers of art periodicals and more

Unique Copy Center
Digital printing and quality binding for presentations and small publications

 

PRINTING—LOCAL

Alpha Graphics
Hampden based film negatives & positives, binding, digital printing, banners, lamination

Baltimore Color Plate
Towson based digital printing, binding and offset printing

Kinkos (at harbor) large format xerox

Kinkos (by Johns Hopkins) awesome registration with laser printer behind counter

 

PRINTING—NATIONAL, ONLINE

Action Graphics
All-purpose printer in Lincoln Park, NJ

Astoria Graphics
Digital printing with fast turnaround

Amax Printing Inc.
Simple stationery and ephemera printer in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

GreenerPrinter
Affordable, high quality, eco-friendly printing with soy inks on New Leaf Paper. Net-zero climate impact.

King Digital
Very reasonably-priced digital printing with quick turnarounds

Oddi Printing
Great Icelandic printer of McSweeneys and many more

Overnight Press Leap
Overnight four color printing; not cheap but might save the day in a pinch

PSPrint
cheap postcards & business cards. Recommended by Brockett Horne

Sunnyside Prints
Wallpaper printers

Uses of Literacy
Brooklyn based Risograph printer

 

PRINTING—LETTERPRESS

Kyle Van Horn Lovely letterpress printing by MICA staff member

Gilah Press, Baltimore

Boxcar Press, Syracuse

 

PRINTING—OFFSET

Eberhardt Press
Eberhardt Press is a sweet little publisher and job printer based in Portland, Oregon. Raddest, cheapest offset printing in the Pacific Northwest.

Linco
The best price for offset, but print minimum is high. Long Island, NY.

Blurb 

Based in California, this print-on-demand service offers lots of options for hard-bound books. recommended by Stephanie Indrajo

Books on Demand (BoD) 

is just what it sounds like, and offers small runs of books you design. With paper and binding options.

Boxes, Bottles & Other Containers

Fishs Eddy

NY based purveyor of bottles, glassware, boxes, etc. A good place if you donʼt want to buy in bulk.

Red Hill General Store

glass bottles, jars, shakers, oil cruets

Container Store

 

MISCELLANEOUS

Muji generic bottles (esp for cosmetics & toiletries), cases, folders, etc.

Nxtbook Media optimizes print materials for use on the Web; digital publishers.

Stencils Online Custom Laser Cut Stencils by mail.

Coloredge Services include printing, finishing, installation and logistics for large format graphics like visual merchandising displays, banners and billboards; based in New York

Duggal Visual Solutions Downtown New York fabricators, printers, postproduction, digital imaging, and much much more; very high-end

Big Apple Visual Group New York fabricator of signs, displays, exhibits, and digital graphics for world-class design, retail, branding, marketing, and architectural firms worldwide.

GHP For general file prep, jobbing, and graphics

Canal Plastics Plastic fabricators

Talas Bookbinding, portfolio cases, archival goodies

Imagemakers: Screen Printing Quick t-shirt and other screenprinting turnarounds in NYC; will do smal runs

Absolut Color Scanning, comping, and file prep with great service

RubberStamps.net custom rubber stamps; with or without handle (without comes with image laser engraved on top)

Capitol Rubber Stamp Austin, Texas phone: 512.447.0335 jack@capstamp.com

Victory Factory screenprinting supplies

Contributed by Ronin Wood

In another life I am a member of The Strokes or a famous rapper. Yet in this life I am Ronin Wood, 22-year-old graphic design student at MICA. I come from a very musical family and I am the only one with no musical talent. Music has always just seemed like it was supposed to go hand-in-hand with design. For a few years now I have been making mixtapes and sharing them with my friends. With design I like to see what I can get away with. When making mixtapes I try to do the same thing. Keeping that in mind I will say sorry for the last song.

Track listing
1. Loretta Lynn — Wine, Women And Song
2. The Very Best — Warm Heart Of Africa (Feat. Ezra Koenig)
3. Rivers Cuomo — Superfriend
4. Shuggie Otis — Strawberry Letter 23
5. Of Montreal — Butterscotching Mr. Lynn
6. The Unicorns — Les OS
7. Prince — Gotta Broken Heart Again
8. Lauryn Hill — Everything Is Everything
9. Sbtrkt — Wildfire
10. The Black Lips — Family Tree
11. Cassius — I <3 U SO
12. Britney Spears — Boys (The Co-Ed remix) (feat. Pharrell Williams)

Click here to download the mixtape.

Ronin Wood is a senior graphic design major from Virginia.

—Faculty member Jennifer Cole Phillips

If you are working on your senior project over the break, take advantage of this guide created by past seniors (otherwise known as alumni).

Baltimore is an excellent place for design students to live and explore. Historic and quirky, Charm City is filled with hidden gems. Designed by senior Melissa Barat, this publication has been created as a catalog of current and pasts student’s favorite sights, sounds and tastes. From found typography in Little Italy to design conscious shops in Hampden — the guide hopes to provide a quick helpful resource for students just getting to know the city. Of course, this is just the beginning! There are so many great things within the city, the guide will be updated and revised as students continue to explore.  Pick one up in the lounge.

Faculty member Ellen Lupton’s influential book about typography has been released in a second edition. An all-new website designed by MFA student Chris Clark is launched to support it.

Next Media is a Thai based news outlet that recreates popular stories using the “magic” of CGI. Read the article over at Wired to learn about what you’re missing.

Australia-based customer experience and marketing consultant, Bernadette Jiwa, talks about the cracks that can be hidden by a competent-looking portfolio. Check out the article Here!

Font Squirrel is a great website that compiles “most” of the free fonts available that are actually worth using.

Chris Arnold, founder of Creative Orchestra and former creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi, offers his pearls of wisdom for those transitioning from school to the so-called real world. Read the article here.