Celebrate Your Independence

Wow, what a 4th! It's practically our favorite holiday here at Fish Face, so we made sure to take some time off to enjoy the weekend. BBQ on the grill, beers in the kiddy pool, motorcycle rides through the country-side, bags in the backyard, the smell of fresh cut grass, guitars by the bon-fire; this weekend had it all!

The point is, we take our independence seriously over here, and we sincerely hope you got a chance to enjoy yours. As a mico-business, The freedom we have to steer the ship is one of the defining features of being a micro-business (at least in our minds). But it's not the kind of freedom where you can just run around doing whatever you feel like, we're still responsible to our customers after all. What we do have is the kind of independence that comes from putting yourself, your whole self, in your work each and every day. And at Fish Face, that's what independence means to us, it means being free to be yourself, to be a little quirky, a little different. It means being a "gone thinking" kinda guy on one day, and a "just add beer" dude the next.

So we say take your independence, and run with it, whichever direction you wanna go!

We Have Rain Barrels! (For Us, Not For You)

Here at Fish Face we love projects. We're always tinkering with things, exploring, and experimenting. We also run our shop on a well system in a semi-rural section of Northern Illinois. As anyone who has lived on a well can tell you, it definitely instills an ethics of conservation, cause when you're out of water, it's like being up a creek without a … without water. 

Not only do we need to be conscious of our water usage because of the well, we also believe it's important to save some water for the fishes! 

To do so, we've added these nifty new rain barrels the shop. It works exactly the same way your traditional gutter system works, except instead of pouring into a pile of mud at the corner of your building, the gutters drain into these barrels. You're probably not going to want to drink from these barrels, but since only 1% of the water we use goes to drinking, there are plenty of other great uses for this so called "gray water". We use the water to clean off our screens after printing a design, to wash down the tent after a muddy festival, to keep our bushes growing in the summer heat, and to fill our water guns (another component of our top-notch security system). 

What do you do to save water? Surely there are more ways out there, and we're always looking for new techniques, please share! 

Diversity at the Custer's Last Stand Street Festival

The summer festival scene is well underway, and for those of you unable to make it out to this weekend, we wanted to share a few of the sights, sounds, and smells of a prototypical Chicagoland street festival. Custer's street fair is, for all practical purposes, on the far North Side of Chicago. The surrounding Neighborhoods make this the most diverse part of the Chicagoland area, and this diversity was certainly reflected in the festival. 

For better or worse, food is one of the principal ways we experience diversity, and this fest had it all, from Greek to Mexican, sausages to raw vegan creations. 

Music lovers were not disappointed either. From rock to country to Native American Spirituals, they not only had diverse options, they had quality options. One of our favorite performers, Kraig Kenning, was there with his signature steel guitar stylings. 

Even these folks were putting on a show (though we never did figure out exactly what kind of show).

Clothing venders were also out in full force, displaying wears for everyone; infants, hippies, grill masters and those with more distinguished sartorial dispositions. 

Fun was the glue holding these diverse strands together, and it was everywhere! So if you're looking for fun, new experiences this summer, be sure to check out as many of the summer festivals as possible. For those of you already frequenting the festival circuit, which one's make your "must see" list?