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Star Hill Studio’s collection of wedding invitations has been featured on Rustic Chic blog!

New Hampshire Wedding, 2012

The new design is clean, as spare as possible, and with just a touch of the feminine.

Have a look!

Star Hill Studio has finished redesigning the new XPACE website. The new site better accomodates logging in and software downloads for potential customers. Xpace is responsible for Aeolus™, which is possibly the fastest data-warehouse search software on the market today.

Not only is the packaging of this useful product excellent, but the name itself conjures up superheroes and miracle cures.

Created in 1923, Marvel Mystery Oil was developed to clean up dirty carburetors, of the then-somewhat new-fangled automobile. It worked well, and became a quick success. I’ve never used Marvel Mystery Oil, only admired the label and logo. I’m sure it works well, but I am also sure that its success is partially due to the excellent packaging.

Marvel Mystery Oil

Marvel Mystery Oil

Golden Boy Fish Sauce is one of the best fish sauces you can use for your Thai and Chinese dishes. But I am posting this entry about Golden Boy Fish Sauce because of the label.

Here we are getting the "thumbs-up" from a somewhat stoic — yet jovial and rosy-cheeked — almost-toddler. And why shouldn’t he be happy? He is sitting atop a multicolored planet Earth (complete with longitude and latitude lines), and glowing, like the Buddha himself, with three levels of golden light.

Golden Boy is a joy to behold — and to cook with.

Golden Boy Fish Sauce

PAD THAI (courtesy New York Times, 4/21/10)

4 ounces fettuccine-width rice stick noodles
1/4 cup peanut oil
2 to 4 tablespoons tamarind paste (I strain the tamarind paste)
1/4 cup fish sauce (nam pla)
1/3 cup honey
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
1/4 cup chopped scallions
1 garlic clove, minced
2 eggs
1 small head Napa cabbage, shredded (about 4 cups)
1 cup mung bean sprouts
1/2 pound peeled shrimp, pressed tofu or a combination
1/2 cup roasted peanuts, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 limes, quartered

1. Put noodles in a large bowl and add boiling water to cover. Let sit until noodles are just tender; check every 5 minutes or so to make sure they do not get too soft. Drain, drizzle with one tablespoon peanut oil to keep from sticking and set aside. Meanwhile, put tamarind paste, fish sauce, honey and vinegar in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and bring just to a simmer. Stir in red pepper flakes and set aside.

2. Put remaining 3 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat; when oil shimmers, add scallions and garlic and cook for about a minute. Add eggs to pan; once they begin to set, scramble them until just done. Add cabbage and bean sprouts and continue to cook until cabbage begins to wilt, then add shrimp or tofu (or both).

3. When shrimp begin to turn pink and tofu begins to brown, add drained noodles to pan along with sauce. Toss everything together to coat with tamarind sauce and combine well. When noodles are warmed through, serve, sprinkling each dish with peanuts and garnishing with cilantro and lime wedges.

Yield: 4 servings.

Most of us remember Barnum’s Animal Crackers as one of the earliest cookies in our snack-memories. The brightly colored box with the stacked cages — each featuring a zoo animal: A lion, giraffe, gorilla, zebra. Not every box was identical, there were a few variations — making the snacking experience more interesting to an observant and curious kid.

There there was the cotton handle — that white piece of cloth you could carry the box around with — a little satchel full of animal-shaped treats.

And the more ambitious and crafty kid could — when the box was emptied of its contents — follow the instructions and perforations and make the box into a little car on wheels.

I guess the box is no longer perforated, and the bars are now sort of behind the animals (freedom to roam…), but the cookies haven’t changed, nor has their flavor — not too sweet.

Just a really nice, imaginative, story-book package design. And relatively timeless.

Another great design in an everyday consumer product:
Musco Brand Black Pearl Olives.

The life-size shiny black olives spilling through the air, the golden glow emanating from behind the black band, and the icon of the hand with a black pearl perched atop each finger like a crown, give the impression that there is great pride behind the contents of each can, and just as much confidence behind each and every olive therein.

Painted with as much reverence and commitment as a portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Monkey inspires a gentle humility and grace not found in most traditional portraits. Find more of Jonathan Queen’s work here.

For those not familiar with the infamous camping product, Green Tips are waterproof camping matches, made from wood, each with with a large, sturdy green wax-covered match tip. The package design of this practical product has always impressed me, and the illustration has entertained me as might any from a fine children’s book.

Here we have a personified Green Tip match, happily floating by the light of the moon, while a rain comes down on him and his little row boat. In his hands is another Green Tip match, this one seems to be being used as a fishing rod.

Everything — from the simple sans serif font, to the beautiful round moon, and the diagonal hairline dropping into the peaked waves, is thoughtfully placed and designed.