Filtering by Category: Speaking,Lil' Happy

We had the great privilege and honor of speaking at LEGO's internal Design Camp last week - a day away from the office for the creative team in beautiful Enfield, Connecticut. Scott Decoteau, along with the talented and generous crew at LEGO, were gracious hosts during our time in New England. Highlights of the trip included the LEGO HQ tour (wow), dangerously delicious indian food, bowling and sharing sentimental stories about the infamous drawstring denim LEGO bag.

To commemorate our talk, we decided to make some things. One of them being a poster of us creating our new mark out of 4,236 bricks - flown in from all over the world. After 2 hot days, 1 broken mallet (don't ask), 6 iced coffees and 3 blisters, the mosaic came to life. Extra special thanks to LEGO for supplying the baseplates.

Unfortunately these posters and prints are not for sale, but who knows - we may throw some in future IC poster orders ...

LEGO_3

Well, the second annual Lil' Happy Club was another fun success. Over 130 envelopes were sent in and we had a blast checking out each original creation. Thanks to all of you who spent the time to craft your envelope and send it off to our hood. We're a bit busy with a few projects right now, but we promise to return the favor soon. Oh, and check out our favorites here.

Well, The Spit Swap has come and gone. The 2-night stint with yours truly in Portland and Mr. Draplin laying it down in Seattle was one for the record books. Portland, I can't thank you enough for cruising out to The Ace to watch me sweat it out up there as I attempted to tell our scattered story. It was a fun night of sharing great conversations with real folks. I had a blast. And Portland - your art, design and illustration community is one to be envied. Hats off to you nice people ... Massive high-fives to Eric Hillerns for the hospitality and for dreaming this baby up. Seriously. Aaron Draplin (and family!) for the obvious reasons. The man has talent in about a zillion areas, including the English language. But you guys knew that.

And of course The Ace Hotel, Lloyd Winter, Duane King, 52 Limited, Always With Honor, Portland AIGA, Fort Port ... the list goes on. Thanks to everyone who helped out, brought beer, food, tweeted, you name it. THANK YOU!

A few rad shots of the night, courtesy of long-time broseph Mr. Arges:

We stopped by the mighty W+K to visit one helluva guy Lloyd Winter and to apparently have our socks knocked off by the sheer awesomeness in that building. Wow.

"Yup, that's a bear"

Before the gig started, we stopped by Instrument's new spot to see our buds and visit the infamous teepees. Incredible space. Incredible talent.

J.D. and Vince giving us the tour ...

"Is this thing on?"

We meet at last ...

Tyler and Elsa from Always With Honor with a touching and funny introduction ... thanks again, guys.

Zac strong-arming folks into buying paper and sticky things ...

"It's just a theory" ... Duane, Josh and a few others hear me out regarding my thoughts on relativity.

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Anyways, it was a rad night. Thanks again, Portland.

It's that time of year again. What time is that you ask? Lil' Happy time. Last year was heaps of fun - we had a few hundred envelope submissions in a little over a month. We promised ourselves that if it was a success, we'd make it an annual thing. Well, here we are.

As Lil' Happy's new outfit may suggest, this year is a bit different. We've got a few tricks up our sleeve that may need to be 'decoded', but unfortunately you won't know what that is until you get your envelopes back. Cool, right?

For those of you that did not participate last year -- or are just now joining us ... here is why we created the Lil' Happy Club and what it is exactly:

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Do you remember real mailboxes? How about real mail? What about that feeling of excitement as you opened up that rusty old mailbox in hopes that something would be addressed to YOU?

It seems like much of that is lost nowadays. A letter addressed to us now means we probably owe someone money.

Well, we miss that feeling. So, we decided to start The Lil' Happy Invisible Creature S.A.S.E. Club. Inspired by our youth - when the simple task of addressing an envelope to ourselves, licking a few stamps and patiently waiting a few weeks could mean receiving anything from a signed baseball card from spring training to various stickers from our favorite skateboard company.

It's real simple. Send us a self-addressed stamped envelope and we'll fill it with goodies.

However, we thought we'd make it a bit more fun and interactive. Regardless of your artistic ability, your envelope addressed to us MUST be creatively designed or illustrated. No rules, anything goes - and we'll post the 'Envelope of the Day' (our daily favorite) on the Lil' Happy Twitter and Flickr pages.

So, that's it! Oh, and we figured we should set some ground rules and answer a few questions. Just in case.

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DEADLINE: October 15th, 2011 Please send us your S.A.S.E. by that date.

Please send your envelopes to: The Lil' Happy Invisible Creature S.A.S.E. Club, P.O. Box 375, Seahurst, WA 98062

Q: How many stamps should I put on the envelope that will be returned to me? A: Great question. Please slap TWO stamps on the return envelope.

Q: I can't draw to save my life. What should I do? A: Like we mentioned, it's regardless of your ability. C'mon, it'll be fun!

Q: What are you going to send us? A: We're not telling. It'll be fun though. We promise.

Q: When should we expect our envelope back? A: In the fall. It could take us awhile as we also run a full-time studio over here. If you send it, it will come. A little patience.

Q: I don't live in the U.S., can I still participate? A: Probably not, due to customs. However, we aren't international mail professionals, if you can find a way that works via USPS, we'll definitely send it back! If it involves anything more than dropping it in a mailbox, we won't be able to pull it off. Sorry.

Q: Can I send you more than one envelope? A: No, sorry.

Q: Can I send a poster tube? How about a large document envelope or soft pack? A: Sorry, no. Let's keep this old school. Legal sized envelopes would be the biggest/best option. Be sure to slap 2 stamps on that return envelope though!

Any more questions? Feel free to email us at lilhappy@invisiblecreature.com

Last year, our buddy Josh Higgins asked if we'd cruise down to his city sometime to tell our story and flash some .jpg's on a big screen. We happily agreed, so here we are. We're excited to bring our dog and pony show to the beautiful city of San Diego on April 2nd. We'll be speaking at the legendary Casbah club, but what we're most excited about is The Black Heart Procession will be joining us to shut down the evening. Oh, and a little bonus for you early birds: The first 200 folks through the door get an 18" x 24" silk-screened poster, namely the one you see above. Tickets are $10 advance/$12 day of show and you can purchase them here.