Today in NOLA: Cop runs into car

We were working late the other night at HOP & JAUNT’s office in the warehouse district of downtown New Orleans. There was a crawfish boil going on at the bar next door, but other than that it was a pretty quiet night. Suddenly, we heard this loud crash outside, and then roar of cheers and laughter. We jumped up from our computers and ran outside.

Sure enough there was a wreck outside. Some poor guy in a van got hit by a police car. Fortunately, the only thing injured was the police officer’s pride. The bar crowd got a big kick out of that.

NOLA: An Illustrated Guide

John’s goal was to start this past week with creating an illustration of what he saw around town everyday. Luckily we’ve been swamped with work and illustrating for clients this past week, the downside is that he’s not quite able to create a drawing a day as hoped. But here’s the first couple, let’s encourage John to keep it up!

Day 1: View From Our Office The Day After The BSC Championship

Day 2: Morning Commute Sight: Tall Bike Guy & Smart Car Lady

Day 3: Its a nice, warm January day. And sometimes the people in the hotel across the street don’t realize we can see into their windows.

Rowdy Taters

We recently ran across a Rowdy Tater reference while in Mississippi. What is a Rowdy Tater? It’s a fried chicken and french fry mini-store located next to gas stations. Though we never got to eat at one as we left Mississippi right before their grand opening we have fond feeling for the chain, as it was one of John’s earlier character design projects.

Loved the western themed "Rowdy" taters

John desigened all the "wanted" posters that was put up all around the store

Rowdy Taters - store bathroom

A Parade of Designs

Carnival season is in motion here in New Orleans. The houses have exchanged their Christmas decor for the purple, gold, and green of Mardi Gras. Flags are hung and King Cakes are baking. Its like having a second Christmas coming, and we are anxiously awaiting to celebrate and watch the parades from our small office on St. Charles Avenue.

So in honor of our first Mardi Gras while living in the NOLA, today we are offering up a small parade of our own. A parade of some our recent design work done for some truly amazing travel bloggers and writers.

Astahaya: Private Caribbean Charter

www.astahaya.com

Astahaya.com was actually our very first job as ‘The Traveling Designers’. We met the owners (Tom & Christian) while boat sitting in Curacao, and we all became fast friends. They wanted a website to showcase their beautiful yacht for private charters, and well, we were more than happy to help. In fact, the entire website was designed and built from the spacious salon of Astahaya. We recently updated the website with new information. Working on it again brought back a lot of fond memories of our journey through the Caribbean and of all the friends we made. If you would like to see some amazing photos of a truly spectacular yacht, be sure to check out Astahaya.
(more…)

A Wrapping Worthy of the Gift

Celebrating Latin America at Ground Level Cover Art

Today we have a guest post from Steven Roll of Travelojos, the Latin America Travel Blog. We recently worked with Steven helping him design and format his new ebook “Celebrating Latin America at Ground Level”, which is available for free download here.

Below, Steven shares a little about his project and how “Hop & Jaunt helped him deliver on his commitment to produce an e-book that highlighted the talents of the Latin America travel blogging community.”

A Wrapping Worthy of the Gift by Steven Roll

” One of the things I’ve come to love about travel blogging since I started Travelojos in December, 2008 is that it motivates me to put actions behind my words. That makes me fortunate because I truly enjoy what I write about: traveling to Latin America, learning Spanish, and enjoying the culture even when I’m at home in the Washington, D.C. area.

Before I started blogging, I never would have pushed myself to do things like enroll in a language immersion program in Guatemala this year.

Another one of my goals for 2010 was to publish a free e-book featuring the work of other Latin America travel bloggers.

The idea behind Latin America at Ground Level was to have expats or regular travelers to Latin America write about the region’s pleasures and endless contradictions. Each would contribute a short personal essay about a special aspect of Latin America and what it means to them.
(more…)