No, this didn't really happen, but don't you wish it did?

It was a busy Saturday in the Forest City. As usual there was no shortage of things to do in this fine city we call Cleveland. But there were two events we were particularly excited about.

Today, Crain’s Business Journal reported that bicycle usage in the Cleveland area is up 280% over the past ten years, so it’s no surprised that the  Cleveland Metroparks Zoo was jam packed for their first annual Wild Ride At The Zoo. Riders from all over the area convened at the zoo to take a joyride through the exhibits at this sold out event.

Across town at the Tri-C Hospitality building on Public Square, Cleveland’s most talented baristas battled it out with a latte art competition. For The Love Of Latte Art was put together by CLEbrews, Cleveland’s newest league of coffee geeks who have come together with the unified purpose of strengthening the region’s coffee culture and community through knowledge, sharing and cooperation. This daylong  event included a latte art workshop for both amateurs as well as professionals, and culminated with the Latte Art Throwdown Competition. The best part is, all the proceeds went to support the Asogarbi Mudslide Relief Effort.
We take pride in our hometown and we love being involved in so many events that make this community thrive. There’s never a dull moment, and for that Cleveland, we thank you.

Meanwhile, we were also doing our thing on the west coast. Over the weekend we were also in the LA arts district for Mindshare 50. This three day event featured fascinating speakers, musicians and performers centered around a full day of inspiring talks, entertainment and art. If TED and Burning Man had a lovechild that went to MIT and became an artist, you’d have Mindshare.

Earlier in the week we were also present for the NARM 2012 Music Biz Expo. It was the place to be for those that call music their business. Music professionals from all over gathered to learn new tricks of the trade, network and receive vital info from top influencers in the industry.

Through Very Vera, you can order her famous cakes as well as gourmet food to be delivered right to your front door. It’s pretty awesome. The attention to detail she’s known for with the presentation of her food, definitely carries over to their print collateral.

Our mouths were already watering when we saw some of the great designs that Very Vera was printing with us.  In fact we thought the postcards they printed (designed by Leonard Zimmerman Jr.) were so good that we pulled them out of the stack and showcased them on the Jakprints Tumblr.

When a Strawberry Lemonade cake and a Carrot Cake showed up at Jakprints, compliments of Very Vera, the mouth watering continued.  Needless to say they tasted incredible. Thanks Vera!

E-books are starting to replace physical books, blogs are replacing magazines and newspapers, google maps are replacing the atlas, websites are replacing catalogs and the list goes on. But the truth is, we’re not worried. Humans will always need to connect physically to something. We’ll always need something in our hands, something genuine and authentic. A first edition Catcher in the Rye or even the first issue of The Lake Erie Monster in our hands does something to the way we feel on the inside that a PDF file just can’t elicit.  While CD sales are down, vinyl sales are way up. And studies show, college students are starting to prefer physical text books again because they find their attention strays to quickly on their iPads.

Prototype design for what a desktop "un-printer" could look like.

While all these paperless options may seem scary to some in the print industry, there’s no arguing that these advances are a good thing for our environment. The less waste, the better. Jakprints has always been extremely mindful of the environment and we go to great lengths to be responsible environmental stewards (read more: Jakprints Plants a Tree For Every Order), so we were pretty stoked when we read about this. Apparently, researchers at Cambridge have developed a reverse-printer that will remove, or to get nerdy about it, vaporize the ink from the paper so you can re-use it. Pretty awesome right? Check out this article from Fresh Books to read all about it. Pretty awesome right? Check out this article from Fresh Books to read all about it.

More than 75 bike and mustache enthusiasts gathered downtown with their “steeds” in turn-of-the-century garb for a joyride through a number of Cleveland neighborhoods. Rainy cold weather wasn’t a deterrent and almost added to the British feel of the event.  The ride began at Mall C and made it’s way to East 30th, back down to East 4th for a pitstop at Erie Island Coffee. Riders than cruised over the  bridge to Ohio City, continued down West 25th, Market Ave. and Bridge St. until they reached The Happy Dog.

Beverages were consumed and prizes were awarded for a variety of categories including, most dapper for the gentlemen and snazziest for the ladies, best mustache and most prized steed.

We had a blast and we’re happy to have been a part of  the Fantastic Cleveland Tweed Ride this year. Cleveland photographers Frank Lanza and Russell Lee were on hand to take some great photos (like the ones in this post). Head on over to the Tweed Ride Facebook page to see more photos from the event.

Graphic Design Round Table – Typography

One of our favorite posts of the month featured a handful of very talented and accomplished graphic designers sharing their two cents about the current state of typography. Click here to read what Jeff Finley, OKPants, Brian Jasinski and Ted Barnes had to say.

Lake Erie Monster – Horror Comic

We started the month off with a feature about John G and Jake Kelley’s new Cleveland based horror comic The Lake Erie Monster. We were there for their release party at Blue Arrow Records. Check out the video we put together highlighting the creation and release of The Lake Erie Monster and see the original blog post with pics from the event here.

Rock Hall Fever

With all the deserved hype and coverage surrounding the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony earlier this month, we got in on the action and put a slightly different spin on the festivities in Cleveland. Read our Ten Bizarre Things About Rock Hall Induction Week In Cleveland.

We Announced Our Newest Green Initiative

Being environmentally responsible is something we’re quite proud of. To us, being green isn’t just a marketing angle, we’re always looking for new ways to improve our eco-friendly practices. That’s why on Earth Day we announced that we plant a tree for every order placed! Read all the details here - Jakprints Plants One Tree With Every Order.

Building the Animal Builder

Read this cool story about how Jakprints helped author Kate Schrute bring her ideas to life.  The Animal Builder is a colorful, inquisitive book about a giant anteater who creates animals out of things he finds in nature.

Concert and Movie Posters

Two posts this month featured some inspirational designs in both the music and film world. We put together a gallery of minimalist movie posters including Reservoir Dogs, The Usual Suspects and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Check out the original post Design Spotlight – Minimalist Movie Posters. We also found a great collection of concert poster art at the GoMedia blog. View our highlights  - Concert Posters – Text, Fonts and Rock & Roll.

Jakprints at The Green Dream

Jakprints returned to The Green Dream again this year. The Green Dream is Ohio’s largest eco-friendly expo and it’s put on by teens at Beachwood High School! Check it out. 

Jakprints Spotlight – Emma White

And last but certainly not least, we learned a little more about Emma White in Customer Service & Sales for this month’s Jakprints Employee Spotlight.

Well that’s it for this month. Keep checking back for new content, and if there’s anything you’d like to see featured or talked about, please let us know!

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony was this past Saturday night. The ten days leading up to the big night were jam packed with events celebrating the celebration. Kid Cudi and George Clinton played a free concert at the Q, The Beachland Ballroom hosted  a night of tribute bands called Appetite for Induction, Touch Supper Club hosted a tribute to the Beastie Boys called License to Ill and QuestLove DJing at B-Side, were just some of many events being held all across the city.

Regardless of where you stand on the Rock Hall, (We’re looking at you disgruntled Rush fans and Kiss Army members!) having the ceremony right here in Cleveland was great for the local economy, the local arts and the national perception of our city. We can’t wait until next time! In addition to all the excitement, there were some strange moments as well. There are plenty of articles out there giving you the highlights, so here, we bring you…

Ten Bizarre Things that Happened During Rock Hall Week

1. Seeing Rick Rubin, Robbie Robertson, John Mellencamp, Meg Ryan, Bette Midler and Chris Rock sharing a table. In Cleveland.

2. A large crowd of Clevelanders, lined up along the “red carpet” with hopes of seeing Slash, Flea, Chris Rock and 20 or 30 more superstars. Unfortunately most of the main attractions chose to use a back entrance. It wasn’t a total loss though, crowds got to see Alice Cooper, George Clinton, David Arquette, Michael J. Fox and Matt Pinfield.

3. Rap heavy hitter Lil Wayne played rhythm guitar the entire time during George Clinton’s set and we don’t think many noticed.

4. Robbie Robertson, legendary leader of The Band, is starting to look and move an awful lot like Lewis Black.

5. The majority of the Rock Hall sponsored shows, weren’t actually Rock and Roll– Girl Talk (dance/mashup), Kid Cudi/George Clinton (hip-hop/funk), Kirk Franklin (gospel), and Bootsy Collins (funk).

6. 75% of the audience at the George Clinton/Kid Cudi concert were teenagers under the age of 17 and their parents. Cudi stirred things up and asked all the kids to come clean and be honest and tell their parents that they smoke weed. It was almost as awkward as watching them all dance.

7. Ronnie Wood, who performed with the The Faces reunion, and also happens to be in a little band by the name of The Rolling Stones, still has as much energy as any of the guys in Green Day or the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

8. Why was Kid Rock tapped to perform in the Beastie Boys tribute along side Black Thought and The Roots? It’s like asking Fred Durst to perform with Guns ‘N Roses.

9. And yes everyone who isn’t from here,  ”Hello, Cleveland!” and “Cleveland Rocks!” We get it.

10. George Clinton arrived at the ceremony in the Euclid Beach Park silver bullet!

And in true Rock and Roll fashion, our list goes to 11…

11. Kanye West jumped on stage during RHCP‘s set, while their new and very young guitarist was soloing, grabbed a mic and shouted– “Imma let you finish, but John Frusciante is the greatest Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist of all time!”  Well, that didn’t really happen, just wishful thinking on our part.

Check out this video of the star-studded finale. Red Hot Chili Peppers performing Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground with Slash, Ronnie Wood, George Clinton and Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day.

The idea behind The Lake Erie Monster spawned from a series of 70s era fictional movie posters that the two worked on previously and decided to bring to life with a full narrative. The story certainly does come alive on the page. The vibrant 36 page, full-color book features two gruesome stories and a handful of illustrated ads that capture the spirit of the old-school horror comic.

A number of the Jakprints crew were there at the release party, where we mingled with other local art enthusiasts, had punch and snacks, browsed through some choice vinyl and picked up our copies of the debut issue, all while listening to WCSB’s John Neely spin Cleveland/Ohio punk tunes. Jakprints is proud to be a sponsor of this new endeavor and we can’t wait until the next issue arrives. See below for some photos from the event and an exclusive behind the scenes video of the conception and production of The Lake Erie Monster.

The Lake Erie Monster – A Cleveland Horror Comic from Jakprints, Inc on Vimeo.