APPRECIATE: blue christmas

Thanks to Elvis, blue and christmas is forever a bad combination.

But these days, Pocket Change is seeing blue for what it really is: a unique holiday color that captures the winter season. Unlike the classic Christmas red, blue is a cool color. It's the color your lips turn after that seventeenth ski run. Good design is sometimes so fitting that it is overlooked. A string of blue lights can look right at home against a dark sky and white snow. It's even a color known to have a calming effect, and if you've been to the mall lately, that doesn't sound like such a bad thing.

So next time your rainbow colored, blinking, singing, slightly obnoxious, string of lights goes on the splits, try adding a simple blue and your holiday will instantly calm.

-jules and nate.

APPRECIATE: bar codes

No one goes to the mall anymore.

Small joke, but in all seriousness, many these days have found online shopping to be a win-win when it comes to holiday gift preparations. The benefits of online shopping mean instantaneous results, and most importantly, no searching for a parking spot.

We can already tell that online shopping is the next 'simplicity to overcome habit', a definition previously describing the bar code in yesterday's Bloomberg Businessweek article that describes how the bar code came to manifest. Imagine waiting in the grocery checkout for the cashier to type in every number code of every item!? Pocket Change certainly wouldn't have the patience for that; appreciate the design of bar codes...

-jules and nate.

APPRECIATE: Chairs

It's time chairs take on a new adventure.  They are getting tired of being pushed in, rolled around, folded up, and staying on all fours.

Every object, whether useful or artistic should flip roles.  It's time to appreciate the chair as a piece of sculpture. Chair sculptures show the unique structural character of a chair. A chair follows the same governing laws, we'll say tension and compression, as more common structural materials.

It's time to re-imagine the chair and push it to its limit, who knows, you may end up creating something fasinating out of something you sit on everyday.

APPRECIATE: a red door

Or, a neighbor's red door.

Either way, in the drab-almost-winter weather of a city, this dingy old red door is not afraid. Red is the color of energy, power, and strength. Red pops.

In appreciation of red, Pocket Change is doing some research. For starters, Mondrian was also an artist of red. His use of primary colors reflected more of his inner feelings, rather than the reality of an object. Artists are passionate people, it only makes sense that we're drawn to red, even if it is just the color of an old door to a city apartment.

APPRECIATE: saddle shoes

Fashion's funny.

As the saying goes, sometimes it's 'in' and sometimes, it's 'out'. For example, saddle shoes, seemingly associated with nerds today, were sports kicks for almost everyone 50 years ago. We challenge you to find a photo from your childhood that doesn't both embarrass you, and delight you, based on what you were wearing.

Pocket Change would like to appreciate the fashions that we've seen before, seen go, and seen come back with new life. In fact, with a little graphic power, nerds could be the future of fashion.

-jules and nate.

APPRECIATE: dinner

Pocket Change is in the kitchen, again.

But this time, in honor of one of our top three favorite meals of the day, we're designing in appreciation of dinner. Check out these graphics of The Dinner Plate Collection. It's not about being what you eat, it's about being what you eat on.

Happy Thanksgiving from Pocket Change Design Collaborative!

-jules and nate.

APPRECIATE: identity

The idea came from a simple thought; finding change in your pocket puts a smile on your face.  Why not make design do the same thing?  We want design that everybody can understand, simple, pleasing, and appreciated by everyone.  Using change as a metaphor for our designs, often times change becomes a hassle, no one wants to carry it around because it becomes too overwhelming, and more often than not it becomes overlooked.  However, there are some instances, and these are the instances that we are shooting for, when you find change in your pocket that was forgotten.  That’s when you consider yourself 25 cents richer!  Our designs are trying to bring that simplicity to light for everybody.  Pocket Change is not just for other designers to appreciate, we want everybody to stumble upon our designs and smile.  It is that simple, just change in your pocket.  The bottom line: we want our designs to make your day.  

Cheers, Nate and Jules

APPRECIATE: vintage

Pocket Change goes vintage!

A wedding invitation is the first impression. It's an introduction by the couple to the guest, stating the intended feeling for the event. It sets the tone, stirs the excitement, and most importantly, lets the wedding information be known.

For Chilean couple Carolina and Victor, the feeling was vintage for their January 2013 wedding. Pocket Change has created an invitation to match this theme, equipped with flapper style cartoons and faded colors.

...what feeling will you want for your wedding? PCDC can help!

-jules and nate.