Betaloft

First, I’ll let you know about the launch of one of my own projects. The re-branding and site design of an absolutely killer coworking facility in Salt Lake City called Betaloft.

If you work independently and, like me, often find yourself talking to your dog during the work day, Betaloft provides a wonderful way to keep your sanity and meet cool people. There really is nothing like the spark of creativity and inspiration that comes from face-to-face time with other humans.

I could go on for hours, but I’ll let you check out the site for more about all that.

Jessica Hische

I was first introduced to Jessica’s work when I ran across her Viney Alphabet in my feed reader. I became an instant fan.

She’s launched a new site full of hand-lettering goodness, and a store full of drool-worthy goods. A must see for type fans of all ages.

On a side note, don’t miss Jessica’s Daily Drop Cap for more beautiful lettering.

Ligature, Loop & Stem

This new site has a small, but wonderful, catalog of type related goods. They’ve just released a white version of their wildly popular Ampersand Test Print that I can’t help but love.

…and just look at that site. lovely.

Teuxdeux

A brand new web app by swissmiss that puts a slick designy spin on the todo app. I love the way it looks, and I’ll spend the next week or so giving it a try.

Mighty

Design hero of mine Jason Santa Maria resolved to work on “stuff that matters”, and he’s launched a studio to do just that. Meet Mighty.

I, and the rest of the web/design universe, will be watching closely for the stream of wonderfulness that is sure to emerge from this little studio.

Prep & Landing

Last, but not least, a beautiful bit of animation hit the airwaves this week. I was skeptical when I heard about it, but last night I watched it on Hulu while I worked. Disney’s Prep & Landing very quickly seated itself as a Christmas classic with me. It’s a creative little story with a ton of heart that will be played right alongside Christmas Vacation and A Charlie Brown Christmas.

If you haven’t seen it… get over to Hulu and check it out.

So I guess that’s about it. I wish the very best to everyone launching something new, something they care about. It’s a difficult but wonderful thing.

Now… back to work.

Huge thanks to all of you who entered! Really, I had so much fun watching this take shape today. I literally woke up this morning and said to my wife “I think I’m going to do a twitter contest to give away a poster”… she nodded, and I started this post. I had no idea I would have so much fun. I will absolutely do this again soon.

So, let’s talk about how this all turned out…
The first plan was to have my puppy and 9 month old son choose the winner. I hadn’t worked out exactly how, but I was picturing a pile of entries printed on bacon wrapped gram crackers… the rest is fuzzy.

With very few options in the clearly under-served market of bacon wrapped gram crackers, I was forced to adopt a slightly more boring approach.

There were a total of 51 valid entries. Each entry was given it’s own line in a spreadsheet in chronological order of when the tweet was made. My lovely wife pointed me to the slick and simple random number generator at random.org that gave me a random number between 1 and 51. The tweet that fell on that line number was deemed the winner.

While it didn’t hold quite the magic of a slobber war between the baby and the dog, it got the job done.

So my friends. Thank you again, and stay tuned for I will definitely be holding another contest soon! (but if you don’t want to wait for the next contest, just buy a poster!!!

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I’ve seen this done all over Twitter & thought it might be fun to try on this otherwise mundane Tuesday.

I’m offering signed and numbered Magic In Type Castle Poster to a random tweeter. To enter, just re-tweet the following…

I just entered to win a Magic in Type letterpress poster! Follow @rustin & tag #magicintype to enter. http://bit.ly/OQkh8

I’ll be choosing a winner randomly today (Aug 11, 2009) at 6:00PM Mountain Time! You need to be following @rustin, and have tweeted the above message before the end of the contest to be eligible.

Now… go tweet!