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As we noted in our last blog post, spring is here, and that means it's officially time to start hitting up your local farmer's market for fruits, veggies, and other treats that will blow your local mega mart's produce out of the water!

To celebrate, we hit up the Hollywood Farmers' Market last weekend and ended up making a salad (pictured above) that was seriously good eats. Wanna know what's in it? Of course you do!

• Red leaf & butter lettuce

• Chives

• Spicy tofu from Dave's Gourmet Korean Food

• Gwen avocado (real talk: we never knew there were so many non-Hass varieties with so much subtly distinct flavors & textures. Wow!)

• Candy cane beets (roasted in foil w/ lemon juice, balsamic, salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning. We reserved the leftover roasting liquid to use as dressing.)

• Chanterelle mushrooms sauteed with salt, pepper, thyme, and chives before deglazing with brandy (VSOP, like a true player.)

• Grape tomatoes

Washed down with a spectacular (and spectacularly inexpensive — thanks, Trader Joe's!) cabernet sauvignon from our favorite California wine region, Paso Robles. 

And if you've never heard of candy cane beets, check these babies out, pre-roast:

All in all, it was a great haul that resulted in an even greater salad. Definitely going to have to wear one of our sweet Take Me To The Farmers' Market tees next time out!

That's it from us for this week; next week we'll post some of our favorite photos from this past weekend's March For Science in Los Angeles! Until then, remember: even if you don't have easy access to a farmers' market, you can still make an epic entree-sized salad for 3-4 people from fresh ingredients found at your local supermarket, usually for less than $10. Let us know about your favorite salad ingredients in the comments below! Viva la veggies!

Peace, love, and salad,

Boredwalk

Spring is finally here, and we couldn't be more excited! As grateful as those of us in California are for all the rain we got this winter — hooray for an end to the drought! — it's nice to see the sun again, as well as longer days.

We've still been busy churning out fresh designs, though! In honor of March 14th being "Pi Day" and the upcoming March for Science on Earth Day (April 22nd, 2017), check out the newest addition to our vintage concert poster-inspired series featuring acclaimed scientific hero and feminist trailblazer Marie Curie:

Some cool facts about Ms. Curie:

• She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize

• She was the first person to win it twice — and in two different fields, to boot!

• Despite the xenophobic and anti-feminist climate in her adopted home of France in the lead-up to World War I (she was born in Poland), she personally equipped and operated ambulances to help doctors in the removal of bullets & shrapnel from injured soldiers using rudimentary x-ray machines and other medical equipment she designed — all on her own dime, and never seeking reimbursement.

h/t to Biography.com for the cool facts!

You can check out this and our other newest designs here.

In the meantime, we'd love to hear from all you beautiful humans! Let us know what your favorite springtime activities and songs are in the comments!

Peace, love, and tacos,

Boredwalk

For as long as I can remember, I've loved drawing. I mean, I've always loved any sort of creative act — woodworking, sculpture, painting, music, building Lego sets. Making Logo The Turtle draw basic shapes on an Apple II in the computer lab in elementary school. Outfitting my wagon train with supplies for my virtual trek along the Oregon Trail®. We always died of dysentery, because of course we did. This is what happens when you let ten year olds plan cross-country expeditions.

I dabbled in a lot of interests as I grew up: various sports, assorted musical instruments, the full range of humanities majors, etc., but nothing ever flowed out of me as easily as illustration.

I studied Graphic Design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, spent a few years making myself crazy working for other people in Baltimore, and then my champion/muse/co-founder/wife Meredith told me to stop whining and try to make the hobby we'd been working on in our free time up to that point a full-time job. That hobby was called Ex-Boyfriend*, and eventually I did just that.

*We've since shut down Ex-Boyfriend because running TWO brands is difficult and at our core we are lazy, but don't worry — we've moved all the Ex-Boyfriend stuff over to Boredwalk, you lucky so-and-so!

At the time — 2009 — there weren't nearly as many graphic apparel brands on the web as there are today. Learning how to design for t-shirts was a new challenge, and I like to think I've become better at it since then. I mean, I know I have, but I'm trying to be modest here!

That said, creative types are restless by nature, and as Ex-Boyfriend progressed, so did the complexity of the designs. Instead of taking hours to take a design from conception to completion, they began to take days — sometimes weeks. We needed a way to offer more stuff in less time. I had to simplify and un-learn everything I had been building toward with Ex-Boyfriend. 

But doing that meant creating a new home for my less detailed, more trend-driven design work — the new stuff we were coming up with didn't really "fit" the increasingly cohesive feel of Ex-Boyfriend. It needed its own name and home on the web. Thus, Boredwalk was born shortly after we moved our business, our cats, and ourselves to Los Angeles. 

We no longer differentiate between Ex-Boyfriend and Boredwalk — mostly because of the aforementioned hassle of keeping them separate, but also because over the last few years I've improved enough as a designer that I've been able to derive creative fulfillment across a broader and more nuanced spectrum of styles and —

Ugh, this is getting sappy. Nothing causes my eyes to roll quite like bullshirt* "artist's statements."

*No, that's not a typo. If you don't watch The Good Place, you're not going to get it. That's OK, though. It's still a pretty sweet bull illustration that would look fly AF on your bod. But I do wonder about your television viewing choices.

Here's the deal: We want to provide you with a high-quality product, peerless customer service, and a warm, welcoming shopping experience. We also want to bring a smile into your life, to get you a compliment from a stranger on your excellent taste, and to make you and those around you laugh a little.

And that's how we want you to feel when you shop with us — that we're friends, and that you're always welcome to drop by and share a laugh or smile with us!

Cheers,

Matt & Meredith

1. We're animal lovers. We live with two male cats, Oliver (the grey angel) and Bigby (the orange devil). You'll see them make appearances from time to time here on the blog, in our social media posts, and occasionally in our designs.