I tried to come back a while ago. But life took me on a bit of an adventure. My last real post was at the De Young, so it truly has been a year and a half since I posted frequently. In that time, I worked independently on a variety of mid-size business clients, but also worked full-time at Williams-Sonoma Home designing web-marketing campaigns. In addition, I found time to teach Typography at Miami Ad School in San Francisco. And then as life has it, we finally moved out of the city to Alameda (small island off the coast of Oakland). And once the move happened, a new job fell into my lap, where I spend my time designing websites for creative professionals.
All of this movement has got me thinking about what it was about blogging that use to get me so excited. At different times it was about different things, but really I loved talking about the creative process, the things that we see as creative’s that get us excited, the moments when we feel stuck and find a way out, and the overall beauty of the journey. And that is what I hope to do moving forward, share the journey. The image above is me peeking through to say I'm ready to begin this discussion again. Peek a Boo.
I was chatting with a photographer at an event this weekend and we got on the subject of museums in San Francisco. The photographer felt the SF museums weren't super impressive compared to what she had experienced in Europe. I thought she had a valid point, but told her for me a museum doesnt have to be amazing, in fact I dont even have to like the art I am looking at. 
As you know I find inspiration all over the place but it is especially great when I am inspired by my own clients. My client 
Her gowns are fresh, contemporary interpretations of vintage designs. Instead of re-creating authentic historical replicas, she takes inspiration from the breath taking gowns of yesterday and molds them into dream gowns fit for the modern bride.
Here is a video showcasing more of her work. Be sure to check out her fantastic 
The photographer is 
Anyway, you never know where inspiration is going to come from and for me today it comes from a photographer and his pup. Enjoy!
If you are looking for a little inspiration or something fun to do this weekend, definitely check out the 
The 
Business cards, everyone needs them. I have to admit, I’m terrible about remembering to carry them with me…especially when I need them the most. And since, I am in the need of a new one; I spent the afternoon designing a few concepts. In total I have about 9 different versions, but have narrowed it down to one of these three options. I’m leaning towards this one, it looks better printed than on screen.
Designing business cards is one of my favorite things to do and I love when clients call me for these projects. I always try to consider every little aspect of a card and how the receiver is going to feel when they hold it in their hand. Business cards need to convey the obvious contact information, but they also need to have an aesthetic pull that is going to make the receiving person remember to look at it again. After all, a business card is often the first introduction a receiving person has to your brand…make sure it has an impact. I do this by visually communicating the message of the Calie Anderson Design brand, which is modern, clean, organic, professional, yet approachable.
If you aren’t sure what your brand is about, spend some time thinking about it and make a list of words that express who your brand is. Then pull out words with similar meaning and narrow them down until you have 4 or 5 terms that describe the essence of your brand. Once you have that, you can then create an identity and visual language that will directly communicate who your brand is to your audience.
This particular project is for the NAMI Hawaii fundraiser walk t-shirt. For this design we wanted to connect to the Hawaii culture, such is why we used slippas (AKA, flip flops). The client sent me a bunch of slippa examples, which I pulled from for inspiration. 
I then spent a week pondering and sketching.
I wanted the overall design to feel modern Hawaii versus gift shop Hawaii. I feel I was able to create that by utilizing clean lines and a minimal color palette.
Hi, I know I’ve been MIA for a while. Life has gotten in the way and I have been feeling stuck on where I’d like to take this blog. When this blog was focused on interiors I had a system in place and constant ideas on what to post about. But since the switch to graphics, I have felt a bit stuck. Plus, I have had all these career issues going on.
These two little blurbs are pieces from a project I’m working on called “Conversations on Design”. The idea came from simple conversations I found myself having with other creatives and key statements that lingered with me for days. I have been collecting these statements for a while and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with them. I have decided to treat each one with its own illustration, but keep the fonts and colors consistent. I plan to put them all in a book and publish them. I hope to share more with you soon.
or my reflection on the asphalt have taken hold of my camera.
All of these images feel like I am looking for a particular light...I'm hoping it will start to unfold in my design pieces.
I’ve been really busy lately with a variety of projects and design blogging has been put on the back burner. The stack of articles sitting on my bedside containing things I want to blog about is getting a bit out of control. If I haven’t responded to your comments or emails, I promise I will. Why can’t there be more hours in the day? Alright, enough complaining about busy lives…everyone has them…they happen.
Today, I’d like to talk about Mae Mougin, a ceramist whose work reflects a lifelong fascination with fashion, travel and art. Mae’s inspiration comes from her unique view of the world - the overlooked objects of the everyday, odds and ends found while traveling and the natural world. The one-of-a-kind pieces are playful but functional as evidenced in her pieces, as in morning, afternoon and evening, each made with an appreciation for the time of day.
The majority of Mae’s pieces on her website are predominantly white with a touch of copy or illustration. However, the pieces that I was mostly drawn to were these pictured here. For some reason they remind me of zoomed in pixels applied to a real life object. The other aspect of her work that I appreciate is its organic nature; nothing is perfectly shaped giving it that hand-made feel.
Those of you, who know me well, know I’m not a big jewelry wearing type of person. Not because I don’t like it, but because generally I don’t like how it feels on my skin. I tend to stick to earrings or the occasional necklace.
I’m sure this has been all over the blogosphere by now, but I just saw it for the first time.These beauties are hand cut pieces of paper done by artist, Hina Aoyama. Unfortunately, I don’t know too much about Hina except that she lives in Paris and is a paper cutting artiste. Her work is truly magical!!
If you’d like to see more, click 
The image above was done by 
I enjoyed the whole book, but this particular quote from “Carin 
I was hoping to do a little summary of our Belize trip a week ago, but between waiting on photos and looking for a job...our little Belize tale got put on the shelf. So I will quickly summarize here our trip (I say quickly because dinner has to be made and I need a break from the computer).
We then spent the next 7 days sailing from island to island, anchoring, 
And this is for fun, this is an actual work out gym on one of the islands we visited.
Our voyage begins in 
Have you been to Belize? Feel free to shoot me an email or leave me a comment if you have great ideas of things for us to see, do, or check out!
OK, this was too fun to do without sharing it with you. I'm in the process of creating a visual version of my life story as a creative person. As I was thinking about this project, I kept thinking about paper dolls (not sure as to why). I then started sketching out these images, see below.
As I was sketching, consistent themes came to mind. Such as...where I started my life, where I had been, what I was wearing on my feet, what I was doing at each moment, and what I was listening too. 
Once I narrowed those questions down, I started searching for imagery to visualize these ideas.
From these images things were broken down as follows. My early years were spent in Hawaii, where I danced, painted, and enjoyed the ocean.
My college years were spent in Miami, where I went to art school and spent many a nights dancing at rave parties. 
What I call my "sponge years" were spent in New York city where I worked for Ogilvy&Mather, did brand strategy, learned a lot, got exposed to a lot, and lived in black converse sneakers.
My "exploratory years" began in San Francisco, where I did more brand strategy at Landor Associates, realized I was on the wrong side of the creative table, went back to working as a graphic designer, did post grad studies in interior design, and opened Nohea Interiors .
And that brings us to today. Today, things have changed yet again. And mostly it has changed because I am finally clear about how I like to spend my days. I like to spend my days doing design work, and I mean 6 - 8 hours a day of really making things with my hands (OK, mouse). So yes, here is my big secret and I am sharing it with you. As much as I love interior design, as I started getting clients, I found myself spending the majority of my day doing un-design things like shopping for furnishings, managing vendors, finance, etc. And, the whole time that I was doing those things I was REALLY missing graphic design. I love graphic design as much as I love interior design, but graphic design is an easier business for me to manage, participate in, and at the end of the day it gives me that 6-8 hours of making things with my mouse. That said, I will be closing Nohea Interiors and going back to graphic design. I'll share the new link to my graphic site next week. In the meantime, below is how I see myself today, a girl who has finally figured out where she is supposed to be and what she is supposed to be doing. A graphic designer, living in San Francisco... still listening to music.
Oh yeah, Nohea Lookbook will be staying. It's going to have a new look and posts will be written about everything designy that interests me. So yes, interiors will still be discussed but so will art, photography, typography, creative process, etc. I'm excited to see what this next chapter will bring and hope will you join me for the ride.
Happy Easter weekend everyone! I have been missing my daily interaction with many of you and as you can see my posting has been less as of late. It’s not that I don’t want to be blogging, its that my schedule has become very demanding and often there isn’t enough time in the day. I am also going through some big changes and will hopefully share them with you in the weeks to come.
You can use this method for anything really; it doesn’t have to be a room. It could be an outfit, a painting, an identity system, jewelry design, or something you are knitting. The key to this type of color scheme is to avoid using equal amounts of color. The variety in color amounts is what keeps these schemes interesting. 
