By the time you’re reading this, it should be January 1st, 2012. The whole team here would like to wish you a happy new year, and all the best for your endeavors in this fresh set of 365 days (that is if the Mayan calendar thing isn’t true) that’s ahead of us.

Announcements

Here at the Studio, we decided to kick off the new year right by making a few announcements:

• We’re doing a “Kicking off the Year of the Apocalypse by cleaning out the inventory” sale on 13 Spade! It’ll happen for a limited time only, and it’s the perfect spot to get these late holidays gifts. Please remember that this first run is the only one we’ll do on canvas, and there were only 10 prints of each. And there might be a little surprise hidden along with the first, let’s say, 10 orders. Finally, the inventory has already taken a good toll during 2011.
• We created a small poster bundle, combining the prints “Air traveling” and “Broadcasting” in a diptych. It’s (almost) 2 prints for the price of 1!
• New prints to launch soon! Here are some sneak peeks (that you might have already seen if you followed our Tumblr and Dribbble shots closely these days):

Also, beyond that, we’ve got a couple truckloads of work in the pipes for January and February. Some really exciting projects, that we can’t wait to share with you.

Freebies!

We also decided to jump start the year by giving away some texture freebies.

The first batch is a series of scan of a Polaroid picture that turned out completely wrong (film expired for way too long). We scanned it in its original state, but we also wanted to know what what inside of it.

The second series is a couple scans from a piece of heavy paper/cardstock.

These scans are high resolution scans (600 to 2400 dpi), and should be fit for any design projects, from print to web. That high resolution means that it’s going to be 2 long downloads, and 2 big Zip archives. Just head over to the Studio Ace of Spade blog to download them and learn more about their license.

13 Spade isn’t dead, promise!

Well, if you’re part of the crowd that ordered recently, you know that because you got your prints. But if you’re just passing through the site, looking at the blog and/or the Facebook page, I’d understand your conclusions.

These conclusions are flawed non the less, and I’m quite happy to say so.

The first reason explaining why there’s not a whole lot happening is that we had to put new print runs on hold. In July 2011, we were planning to release new art, but then something quite sad happened: we didn’t have the cash to finance them. We had the artists (I promise we still have all of the submission emails, and that we went through them), we had the pieces selected, but we couldn’t finance it. Needless to say, that was quite frustrating. Look at this poster and tell me you don’t want one?

The second reason why things seem to have slowed down is that we got really busy. Aside from 13 Spade, which is kind of an experimentation space, we also have our main job: Studio Ace of Spade. As the Studio got busier, we had to spend less time promoting 13 Spade, and working on it (this also meant putting #Project52 on hold, more infos on that over on the Studio Ace of Spade blog soon).

We’re sorry and frustrated to not be able to bring more novelty to 13 Spade right now. And we promise we’ll make that up to you soon.

<shameless plug>Also, if you want to help a faster renewal, you could always help us to move the current inventory out </shameless plug>

Jewelry

Earrings

Thanks to the crafty hands of our friend Jessica, we will shortly have earrings to sell via the store. She makes them by hand and uses surgical steel clasps to guarantee the absence of allergic reaction. As you can see on the pictures, the earrings are made out of bottle caps. Some of these are from beer bottles, some other from soda bottles… And also, some of these caps are no longer in circulation, which makes these an even more unique product.

These are just gorgeous, aren’t they? Now, since we didn’t want guys to be left out, Jess came up with these:

Pins

The pins, sadly, have yet to enter into “mass” production. But, needless to say, we’re pretty excited. And there won’t be enough for everyone.

Photographs

We know Abi Tsigie through college. He’s a talented photographer (check his Behance profile and his portfolio) and the owner of a small art gallery, Gallery 221. He will sell 3 photos from his last trips to his native Ethiopia.

We’ll let people know when these amazing things are hitting the store!

Remember that mystery print in the Grand Opening post?

Well, today we are proud to unveil it! Dear audience, I give you… The right to arm bears!

The print

The background story

The United States of America’s Constitution has 27 amendments. The first 10 of these, the Bill of Rights, include a controversial amendment dubbed the 2nd amendment.

The text of this amendment is as follows:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

— From Wikipedia’s Second Amendment page

This amendment has been the source of many controversies over the years, as some US citizens see any gun control law as an attempt by their government to limit their individual freedoms, enunciated in the Bill of Rights.

Artists and comedians already explored the subject, such as Obey Giant (Shepard Fairey) with his 2nd Amendment Solutions print.

One day at the Studio, someone made that wordplay (I support the right to arm bears!) and we couldn’t help it but started to sketch the thing. Then, as 13 Spade’s grand opening came closer, we decided to go ahead and finish this poster as a special treat for the opening. And I wanted to draw a bear too.

So we looked for an angry bear, drew a lot and here we are!

We also had a lot of attention for the global aspect and texturing of the print (as usual?).

This specific print, in this specific look and finish, is a limited run of 10.

You should get yours now on 13 Spade.

This is not just another online store.

Dear readers, today I would like to introduce you to Studio Ace of Spade’s online store : 13 Spade.

So, really, what is 13 Spade and what makes it so special?

It is a unique project created by us, the co-owners of Studio Ace of Spade. 13 Spade is not only an online store where you can buy awesome art, it’s a community online store. What we mean by this is that sure, it’s a space for our “stuff“, but it’s also a space for the extra talented people in the Studio’s community (both local and online) to have their products available. More to be announced on that really soon.

The uniqueness and wide variety of art provided through 13 Spade is what makes it special and far different from any other online stores. We didn’t necessarily think about it that way at first, but we created something between a curated art collection, an online art gallery, an artist collective, a label and a shop.

What are we offering right now?

I’m glad you’re asking, because if not I’d have to bring it up.

At launch, we are offering a poster collection, all of them but one that were done prior to launching the store. When we saw the interest of people in what we did, we were humbled and then tried to make our “stuff” available. After being charged an arm and leg in markup by some of the major players in the “upload-your-art-we’ll-print-it-for-you” industry, we scrapped the idea all together. Then, the Studio got an entrepreneurship grant from the alma matter of its partners, and this happened. We decided to invest a hefty part of the said grant in printing and dev time to create the store.

So, the poster collection (I got distracted for a second).

We currently have 2 sizes of posters: 18″ wide by 24″ high, printed on canvas, and 9″ wide by 12″ high, printed on a thick poster stock. The size depends of the poster. Here’s a detail of the collection:

Whale & Pine

Whale and Pine was an online art gallery and art collection curated by Camilo Bajanaro of Ph7labs. Sadly, it is no longer. Anyway. Last year, Whale and Pine organized a poster contest to bring more artists in. The contest theme was pretty loose. This poster was our second submission. Our goal was to embody the Whale and Pine brand as much as possible, while still putting our stamp on it.

— From the Whale and Pine poster page on the shop

God is Awake

The God is Awake print is an homage. God is Awake is a musical project from Goshen, IN whose members are friends. Ben, the singer/composer/guitar player of Wilson’s Reservoir and Grant, the engineer/producer behind Electric Angel Studios, teamed up to create this post rock and experimental band. When they completed their Voire Dire EP, they granted us the privilege to listen to it before anyone else (you can listen to the track An Adder is Hatched, extracted from the said EP, on their facebook page).

— From the God is Awake shop page

The surprise print!

Well, this one will be unveiled first to the lucky people that make it to Weapons of Mass Creation Fest this week-end. I’ll give you a hint: if you go on the 13 Spade facebook page (click like), you can see some sneak peeks on it.

Get shit done

Oh boy, this is a delicate one, because some people might get offended (like we care in the first place). I mean, we all remember these (lame?) motivational from the 80s and 90s that were done with bad stock photography and/or bad illustration and messages, right? When we moved into the Bricolage in Goshen, IN, we new the people in this shared workspace were mostly entrepreneurs and small business owners. Think about it as a concentration of like minded people. We also discovered these people to be highly motivated and not afraid by the numbers of hours you need to put in in order to get or keep their businesses going. Hence the (un)official motto of the place: get shit done.

— From the Get Shit Done poster page

Air traveling

Air Traveling is an poster done for Signalnoise’s Retro Poster Competition. We chose to go back in time and advertise for what must have been the cutting edge mean of air transportation at that point.

— From the Air traveling poster page

Broadcasting

Broadcasting is an poster done for Signalnoise’s Retro Poster Competition. We chose to go back in time and advertise for what must have been the cutting edge radio station at that point.

— From the Broadcasting poster page

Photography!

If you had a chance to follow our facebook page’s news stream in the last days, you might have seen the prints (#1, #2 and #3) our friend photographer Abi Tsigie will have available through 13 Spade. The people at Weapons of Mass Creation will once again have the exclusivity, but they will be added to the shop as soon as we are back.

Jewelry!

We are also really happy to announce that Jess is also on board. Jess hand-crafts earrings out of beer caps. Typically from small breweries. She spends the time to make them right, with hypoallergenic, surgical steel ear clasps and all. More info to come after WMC Fest.

Other designers and artists!

We are at the moment talking with other designers and artists to make them join the adventure. Some exciting news to happen in that area very soon, but shhht. It’s a secret.

Also, if you are a designer/artist and would like to see your work featured here, give us a shout.

Last word

Well, this is it, right? I hit the publish button and, off we go!