Heartwork is included in How Magazine's 'Top 10 Websites For Designers' this month. Cool!

What is Heartwork?

Heartwork is a project designed to raise money for art supplies within the art room at Target House—this wonderful home-away-from-home for the families of children facing long-term treatment at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

The whole idea started simply enough. We, along with a few other creative individuals, were asked to work on various design projects for Target House. But, in the process, we were so deeply moved by the experience that we didn’t want it to end. We witnessed first hand the special connection the kids had with the art room in particular. It was a place where we saw kids at all stages of health just being kids.

So, we began to wonder, “What if we could create a ongoing way to support more and better art supplies for these children?” It was then that Heartwork was born.

The idea is simple. Every year, a group of talented artists will create a series of prints to raise money for the art room. Each of the prints will feature a different interpretation of the Target House elephant mascot, chosen because it represents family, long life, strength and playfulness—attributes with special meaning at a place designed for families to live, play and heal.

Print details:

Archival giclee - printed with pigment inks on archival cotton rag paper Size: 11 inches x 14 inches Signed & numbered editions of 40

Purchase the prints here.

"Elephants Love Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter" by Johnny Yanok:

"Snailaphant" by Nate Williams and "When Elephants Fly" by Anna Chambers:

"Collaboration" by Don Clark

"Love To Grow" by Scott Thares and "Balancing Act" by Christopher Lee:

"Circus" by Katie Kirk and "Better Days Ahead" by Richard Boynton:

"Waterworks" by Ryan Clark:

"Tuskers Ahoy" by Michael Bartalos:

The Scott Hamilton Arts & Crafts Room at Target House:

We're honored to be part of this project and thankful for everyone who donated their time and talent.

Well, it's about time. No more Flash. And we're pretty happy about that. Besides the obvious luxury of browsing our site on any platform, we've added quite a few new bells and whistles.

Here are the notable additions:

• Gift Certificates! Now you can purchase Gift Certificates in increments of $5 (up to $100) for that special someone ...

• Discount Codes! We'll be wheeling and dealing discounts in the shop from time to time, but we've got extra special plans for Lil' Happy Club participants. Stay tuned.

• New Blog! You'll notice the right sidebar has been given a facelift. Featuring new shop items, new work and coming soon: Flickr sets of our library, toy shelf and annual Lil' Happy Club submissions. All for the kids.

• FAQ! We tried to tackle the standard questions we receive on a daily basis, but I'm sure we'll be adding more in the near future (ie. Q: "Which one of you would win in a cagefight?", A: The cage)

Anyways, have a look around. We've buffed out the scratches and shined up the fenders for you. Enjoy.

Huge thanks to J.D., Phong, Kim and everyone over at the mighty Instrument for their skills.

10 Answers asked me 10 questions.

We are extremely honored that the Minnesota chapter of the AIGA recently recognized all of our 2009 Target projects in their annual Design Show. See details here and here. Many thanks to our incredible A.D.'s over at the bullseye. More fun stuff to share coming soon ...

Super cool 'Thumb War' gift card created by our buddy Christopher Lee.

Just a reminder that Poster Cabaret carries a handful of our posters and limited prints, including many that we're sold out of. They also have a few pieces left from the 2009 Sasquatch! Festival, including the limited edition black/metallic gold/glo-in-the-dark character series (we're also sold out of these). We'll be announcing some limited exclusive prints and color variants available only through Poster Cabaret very soon.

We've had an incredible year at IC and feel like passing on a little love. So, we've gotten drunk on eggnog, whipped up a graphic and logged into the blog. From now until next Monday, December 21st, we are including a FREE set of our IC Throwback Series with any order $20 or over. Please note that we have a limited amount, so when they're gone, they're gone.

'Time Will Tell' and 'Prized Possessions' are now (finally) available exclusively through Velocity! Each print is a whopping 17" x 22" (with a 1" border for framing) and is printed on beautiful German Etching Hahnenmühle Fine Art paper. Hand signed, limited edition run of 50.

Sorry we're a little late on this info. With the new site launch, we lost a little time preparing for the holiday shipping rush. For U.S. residents, our cut-off day for ordering will be Monday, December 21st. For international orders, you might want to place your order now. We definitely can't guarantee it will arrive by Christmas, but we will try. Our next shipping day is this Tuesday, December 15th. Thank you for your support and patience! Happy Holidays!

Oh - and we'll be including a FREE IC button set with each order through the new year!

After 3+ years and countless new projects, we felt like it was time to give our site a makeover. And just like on Oprah, some things remain the same but many were given a significant upgrade. As you take a stroll around, you'll see what we mean. One of the big changes is that the work, shop and blog are all contained in one nice little package for your viewing needs. Another is that you get to see our work much quicker, with access points all over the homepage. We have gotten a few comments from peeps that were hoping for an html iPhone-friendly version. After much consideration on our part, we felt like the vast majority of our demographic would NOT be viewing it on a mobile device. However, that version may be something to consider if the demand is there. We aren't David Lynch, but the work just looks better on an actual computer.

Many, many thanks to JD at Gridplane and Instrument for making this happen. Oh, and please e-mail us if you encounter any glitches as we are still attempting to sort all of that out.

We're extremely honored to be part of Grain Edit's Holiday Giveway Bash! featuring incredible art and collectibles from peers, friends and heroes. We're donating two 16" x 16" Giclee prints as well as our new Winter Fishing Hole! Gift Card from Target loaded with $25 to buy your uncle that Die Hard DVD he's been wanting or the ear muffs your dog has been hinting at. If we could enter, we would! Winners announced December 18th.

I gotta be honest, apparently I've been living under a gigantic rock and hadn't heard of the awesome NOTCOT until today when they posted a really cool write-up titled Art Of The Gift Card showcasing some of the new holiday Gift Cards at Target. They even went above and beyond and devoted a special something to our 'Winter Fishing Hole' Gift Card/Game. We've actually been getting reports that they are selling out at stores (that's a good thing, right?) but you can find them online through 12/31.

Oh, and yes I'm multi-tasking by kicking myself while adding the NOTCOT RSS feed to my daily visits.

Hardformat has some interesting thoughts on album covers in the digital world.

Chip Kidd has a new website (finally!) titled Good Is Dead, which consists of his portfolio, blog, speaking engagements and other nuggets of goodness. I'm very excited about all of this, as I believe Chip is one of the all-time greats. If you don't own this, you need to.

Growing up, Ryan and I were Lego FANATICS. I vividly remember the massive room-sized bag of Legos that my mom found at a garage sale for $8 - and the day she brought it home. Our jaws dropped. We dabbled in Transformers, G.I. Joe and He-Man, but the Legos got the most love - for years and years. Naturally, my own kids love them (what kid doesn't?!) and those days in the 80's of creating airplanes and robots out of blocks are ever-present in our house 20+ some years later. I still think it might be the best toy to actually spawn creativity and imagination. All that to say - I just love Jason Freeny's anatomy of the lego man. Brilliant.

And yes, we are going to Legoland next summer. Anyone been?

Via Likecool

Bookmark time! Apartment Therapy just posted an article featuring the 'Top Ten' online shops for vintage furniture and accessories. Now you know what to do this weekend.

Fact #1: Reid Miles is a personal design hero of mine (as evident in my approach for Chris Cornell's Carry On album).

Fact #2: Japanese website Vintage Vanguard just made my year. 

Via Drawn!

Congratulations to Grain Edit for turning 1! One of my favorite sites on the interweb is throwing a big birthday bash, offering giveaways from some pretty stinking amazing artists. Grab a slice of cake and enter to win!

Got kids? I do. And I dig cool kids toys. Small Paul furniture by 10 Grain. Not expensive, but not cheap. Face it, you'd rather have this stuff all over the house instead of this.

Freelance Switch. A great site that's chuck full of advice for those of us on our own. Although, they do recommend that I pay off my house. Can someone tell me how to do this in Seattle? Easy, Dave Ramsey. Link via Rob.