All afternoon I’ve been sipping limonana, one of the greatest summer drinks ever, and it got me thinking. Or, more accurately, daydreaming.

I don’t even have to close my eyes to imagine myself with good friends, lounging on a cushioned wicker sofa, eating hot dogs, drinking limonana, and watching our kids jump about in a lawn sprinkler. We’re enjoying each other so much that we stay through nightfall, Citronella candles flickering in the moonlight.

I should name every outfit for the place I could imagine myself wearing it.

In which case, today I wore Paris. Black sheath dress, soft and drapey gray cardigan, black gladiator sandals. It’s what I imagine myself wearing if I were walking on St. Germain and stopping somewhere marvelous for cheese and chocolate.

I’ve actually been thinking a lot about sheath dresses. I only have one, but if I were ever to adopt a signature look, it would be the sheath. They’re always classic, effortlessly sexy, and insanely flattering.

Time to buy more sheath dresses and make a trip to Paris! Who’s in?

Perhaps my favorite thing in the world to eat—even above cheese, dark chocolate, ghormeh sabzi, New York style pizza, cupcakes, and curry—is fruit. I love to eat fruit and try to start every morning with at least four or five different kinds. This morning I had an apple, a pear, a banana, a peach, and a nectarine for breakfast. My three year-old had the same. And my love for fruit has grown exponentially since living on the Mediterranean, since it’s so much juicier and tastier here.

When fashion designers went crazy with fruit prints this spring, I kept thinking that the clothes looked good enough to eat. Yum, and yum.

And it’s not just fashion designers. Fruit prints are popping up everywhere in home accessories. Some are painterly, some whimsical, some graphic—which means that this mouth-watering motif can make its way into any style of décor.

One of my favorite interpretations of this trend is fruit wrapping paper from Happy F&B, a Swedish design agency. One:

And two:

Remember the logo I designed for this Stockholm cupcakery? I just finished a tri-fold brochure specifying their flavors and ordering information. We kept the front page simple, with just their logo and phone numbers:

I wanted the inside flap to be pure eye candy (eye cupcake?). Since readers breeze past that page, I didn’t want it to contain important information—instead, a photo from Camelia’s cupcake shoot is eye-catching, relevant, and drool-worthy:

There’s a lot of text on the inside, so I only included what was necessary. Then with the extra space I blew-up the logo and cut it off horizontally to make it a graphic element; it’s a way to emphasize the brand but with whimsy. I also excerpted a quote from the back of the brochure that was too important to be tucked away—the quote reads almost like a vision statement, so it absolutely needed emphasis too:

The back page contains the most unsexy, but most important, information—pricing and ordering. This page didn’t need a lot of graphic treatment. The fonts and colors of the brand, plus the cupcake swirl adding a tiny flourish, are just enough here:

We’re working on some other exciting components, so more to come!

Nadia turned six yesterday, and she rang in the celebration with a “lost in space” themed birthday party. Adorable, right?

When her mom asked me to design the invitations, she said she wanted something fun and girly. So “Nadia’s outer space” is made up of pink stars and pretty swirls, cute spacecraft, and pink and teal accents (her favorite colors).

Getting the concept right was actually quite funny. The first draft had Nadia sitting in the spaceship, but that basically made her the alien. So the second draft had Nadia sitting next to an alien, but the imagery still seemed peculiar. I finally got it right with the third try: the alien in the spaceship and Nadia as the space explorer. This pulls everything together—now the spaceship “spotlight” makes sense, the rocket has purpose, the swirls echo the astronaut’s “rope,” and the poem is relevant.

Oh, and this morning I received a little surprise: a photo of the birthday cake, inspired by the invitation! I love it.

Fast Company’s design blog featured this clever little serving dish yesterday. It’s called the Double Dish, and it’s from UK-based kitchen product company, Joseph Joseph. One look at the Double Dish and I could already envision it in my home, since we’re big on pistachio nuts and edamame around here.

Then, by happy accident, I came across the CB2’s Dunk Sushi Plate, another clever entertaining solution. You place maki on the outer part of the dish and soy sauce on the inner part. We often order Japanese takeout, so it’s another win.

And then, well, one thing led to another, and I found myself creating a whole green-and-white sushi dinner party theme.

Perhaps the most exciting find in this whole set is the table linens. Paper Cloud’s Petunias Field pattern is fun and quirky, and the linens are hand printed with water-based inks on organic cotton. Love!

Talented cupcake maker, Camelia, was finally persuaded by family and friends to turn her hobby into a business and bring American-style cupcakes to Stockholm, Sweden. She contacted me a few months ago to ask if I’d design her logo. (Um, she had me at cupcake.)

Through e-mails and Skype calls, we discussed her vision for her brand. Camelia already had an impressive list of descriptors—her brand should be feminine, upscale, and elegant. The logo should incorporate pink, swirls, and back-to-back C’s. You’d think that, with so much information, I wouldn’t have anything left to do, but even with those kinds of parameters the possibilities are endless.

This is what just a couple hours of conceptualizing looks like:

Camelia chose her favorite pretty quickly, and we’ve been developing it since.

It’s fun to be involved from the beginning when someone is launching their business. Though we have much left to do, I can already sense that great things are going to happen for this girl, and I can’t wait to see it.

And eat it.

Our trip to Rhodes last month put me in a major blue-and-white mood, thanks to this entrancing view of the Aegean Sea:

I love the idea of decorating in blue and white, but I wouldn’t want it to look too nautical nor too English country. I’d want it to have the same clean, chic yet eclectic, and bold yet feminine style that I love. So here’s my sunlit corner for reading, writing, and drinking tea (yes, please!):

On another note, I’ve been thinking a lot about what my goals are with this blog. I know that I don’t want it to be a resource for new products (a lot of design blogs seem to take that route), and I know I don’t want it to be merely a journal of my own work. The direction I seem to be naturally taking is a library of design ideas to inspire me, and hopefully you. That means design ideas for your home, your wardrobe, your wedding, your life. What I’ve been publishing here is pretty much exactly what I think about every day.

Of course, this blog will probably evolve over time. In fact, I hope that it does. And I’m sure I’ll often stray from my own standards—

but hopefully you’ll forgive me because I’ve already warned you.

I haven’t rushed to comment on the new Starbucks logo because—unlike other recent logo disasters—I’m not fervidly opposed to it. Even though there are reasons I prefer the old logo, Starbucks did everything right when revising it:

They kept it recognizable.
They didn’t throw away their brand equity, which took years to build.
And, though this is subjective, they’ve given their customers a smart—and almost inspiring—explanation for the changeover.

I don’t even mind that they eliminated the “Starbucks Coffee” text, because it makes sense considering that they’re increasingly moving toward new countries and new product. It demonstrates that their mermaid symbol is strong enough to stand on its own. It may even demonstrate that their company is fearlessly progressing with the times.

So why do I prefer the old logo? It’s simple, really (and perhaps unsophisticated of me):

I like my coffee to have a heritage. I want to know that it has been around a while. I want it to be warm and authentic. I want someone to have made it with care. I don’t want it to be cool and modern. My electronics, my appliances, my car—they can be cool and modern. Not my coffee.

So while the new Starbucks logo is well-designed and well thought out, on a cup it looks like it holds coffee from a fancy thermos and came from a fancy gas station. I like the old “stamp,” which looks like it holds coffee from my local, loved coffeeshop that has been around for ages. It doesn’t matter that it didn’t actually come from my local coffeeshop. It made me feel like it did.

Of the eight-plus years we’ve been married, we’ve owned a car for only 1.5. The rest of the 6.5 years, we’ve been pedestrians.

There’s something magical about having no choice but to walk to the store (except when it’s over 100 degrees—that’s not magic, it’s just nasty), but we’re about to leave that lifestyle behind. Now that we’re staying abroad for a while, we’ve decided to buy a car. Because I don’t know how else I’ll be able to continue lugging around two kids, a stroller, and a diaper bag and feel some semblance of sanity.

Anyway, since we’re foreigners, the only way to qualify for buying a car is to have our passports re-stamped. Which means we have to leave the country. Which means we have to take a short holiday. Oh, pity!

After some back-and-forth, we finally decided on four days in Rhodes, a Greek island in the Dodecanese. We’ve explored much of Greece already, but the short plane ride and package-deal were pretty enticing.

So we’ve pulled out the ol’ Greece travel guide, and I’ve started making notes… not just on the sights, but on my travel wardrobe. Yep, that’s right, my travel wardrobe. I never take a trip without one. It helps me pack lighter, faster, and more appropriately for each day. Here are my wardrobe notes for Rhodes:

Now all I need to do is pack (easy!), take a trip (fun!), and then we’re off to buy a car (bittersweet!).