Food is one of my favorite subjects: to look at, to eat, to talk about, to draw. Notice that I do not mention ‘to make’. My entire life there have been people around me who were better at making food than I am. Why not let the cooking experts make the food, and the eating experts consume it? Seems like a logical plan. However, it does result in an achilles heal when left alone. My survival strategy therefore consists of A) making a giant portion of fajitas/dahl/spaghetti that provides sustenance for most of a week, or B) ordering something out that equates to days of leftovers – a very tall order.
My uncle once asked what my sister and I wanted for dinner on a particular evening. “Stuffed turkey!” I exclaimed as my sister simultaneously cried “Calimari!” Not daunted in the least, my uncle made both, along with a 3-course following for each. My aunt contributed with a marzipan cake. At the end of the meal, a liter of ice cream was placed before me and I was told “if you don’t eat it, it will melt”. There didn’t seem to be a choice. Sometimes, things are just bound to go wrong.
You know you’re in good company when the short-firings of your brain are not only totally acceptable, but met with enthusiasm and embellishment. The following conversation commenced during a springtime walk in Copenhagen with two of my lovely and equally creative compatriots.
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L: Ahhh, it’s such a nice day!
M: Totally! I have taken one of my many scarves off to enjoy it.
P: Let’s cross the road here… …enter path away from main street, see a curious sign…
M: Hey, look, this is where you can walk your croissant.
L: Yes, it’s a very French area, right around here.
P: That kid can barely keep up with the croissant!
M: Croissants must be fast.
L: Didn’t you ever wonder how French people stay so slender? It’s all the croissant walking.
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I’m pretty sure that with two extra white panels, the croissant would turn into a basketball. But who am I to interpret public wayfinding in a land where the entire month of December is devoted to eating æbleskiver?
If you’d like to designate your very own croissant walking area, I’ve created a replica of this sign in various sizes. Download croissant crossing signs.
Be the most croissant conscientious pedestrian you know.
Well Vegan is a brand the Bureau created in 2012 and continues to work with today, including this most recent piece. Well Vegan makes it easier and cheaper to consistently follow a healthy, plant-based diet. In the past we had made postcards for Salad In A Jar and Building the Perfect Breakfast Bowl. With summer coming up, it seemed like a perfect time for a follow-up postcard as a reminder of just how good smoothies can be (for you) – so we’d like to introduce the Mix & Match Smoothie diagram! Visit the Well Vegan blog for some smoothie recipes as well as time-saving and on-the-go tips, or check out this handy line-up of green smoothie recipes.
You can also get tasty updates from Well Vegan, including a summer full of smoothie recipes, via Twitter or Facebook or Instagram.
Biblio color palette.Paint through the ages, door of a farmhouse from the 1700's.His and hers - two houses in Køge.Typography collage from "Popart" exhibition at Louisiana Art Museum.Sketch from "Popart" exhibition at Louisiana Art Museum.Giant acrylic arrow art from "Popart" exhibition at Louisiana Art Museum.Legs only - artwork from "Popart" exhibition at Louisiana Art Museum.
Let me tell you a story. A story of magic and chance and hope and five friendly girls who one afternoon chose to spend a few hours writing messages in a bottle.
Magic. Last year, a girl wrote a message in a bottle. It was a love letter, she was searching, and it was found. A man in a kayak was out enjoying the fjord when he spied her bottle, a surprise from his usual solitary trips at sea. Unfortunately, he was already spoken for – a married man who could not accept the questions posed in her message. But he wanted to help this girl and promised to send the bottle on its way again the next time he was out on the open waters.
Months went by. The girl forgot about her message in a bottle. One day she received an email from a Danish boy who was wind surfing in Tenerife. He too had found the bottle out on the open water. At first thinking it was a joke, he took a picture of it and asked “are you real?”. A letter written by a Danish girl found by a Danish boy so many miles from home seemed like a stretch. But there was nothing false about it, so they started to write back and forth.
Close up lettering.
Chance. The boy and girl met, even though he was living in Barcelona and she in Copenhagen. But while the circumstances were exciting, the pressure of fate was too much and reality unfolded in a more mundane way than Hollywood might have written. They lived so far away, they were unsure, they decided to abstain from pursuing further communication after their first meeting. Let down, both returned to their everyday lives.
Hungry little fish, keep your fins off of my message.
Hope. Not to be discouraged, she returned the next year with the same group of girls to drink another bottle of wine, pour words onto a page and throw it into the big blue sea. Perhaps the message in a bottle itself won’t find what she is looking for. But the process and the action held significance, and being clear in what you seek is often the first step in finding it.
It's really pretty simple, writing a letter in a bottle (click image to zoom).
The flaskepostdating event was organized by Ditte and Lotte, who were inspired to write messages in a bottle after they found one on a beach in Denmark and wondered – what if this message had come from somebody important, meant just for them? Read more about the history and use of messages in a bottle on Wikipedia. The story about the girl and the boy was recounted as one of many past success stories that stemmed from a flaskepostdating event. See you there this coming summer?
