Could there be a friendlier industry gathering of 11,000 people, 8,500 store owners and 800 exhibitors? Thousands of happy, friendly paper artists, designers and printers, all armed with engraved, pressed, foiled, stamped, numbered, hand-tipped, die-cut, hand-sewn, raffia-tied samples? What's not to like? The NSS is really just a massive Cuddly Kitten Convention. ...

(In case you’re wondering – I drew this squirrel to signify the last day of AIGA Minnesota‘s Design Camp simply because these pesky little critters literally over-ran our campgrounds this weekend. And they’re just friggin’ cute.) Well, as that incredibly observant person once said – “All good things must come to an end.” ...

I really wasn’t planning on drawing an owl for my third Design Camp post illustration. In fact, I was actually thinking of doing something more along the lines of a loon or a squirrel. But last night I got this urgent request from Alec Rutgers (@Cdianshield) via twitter: @benlueders @NeenahPaper Can I request for the next daily [...]

Apparently the “Walleye” is Minnesota’s state fish. There’s even a painting of one hanging in my cabin here at Design Camp. Hence I sketched a rough Walleye to signify Day 1 of AIGA Minnesota’s wonderful design conference. (Not sure I was really even aware of the whole “State Fish” thing. I have heard that Minnesota’s ...

Just as there’s more to Nebraska than corn and beef, I’m sure there’s more to the state of Minnesota than simply lakes and mooses (meese?). Nevertheless, I still thought it’d be fun to draw a moose to represent day zero of AIGA Minnesota’s amazing event: Design Camp. After driving 5.5 hrs from Omaha to Minneapolis [...]