Congratulations to Laura, Cathy and Nick for winning the scavenger hunt yesterday at Seattle Square! Enjoy your lunch at Delicatus in Pioneer Square, guys!

Keep an eye out for the Hawaiian warrior at the next Seattle Square!

What is Clone Press?

We are a local screenprinting shop based in Sodo with 10 years of experience. Our market offerings include hand-printed t-shirts for men, women, kids and dogs and small treats for the home such as pillows, napkins, aprons and greeting card sets, all featuring original Clone Press designs.

Who is Clone Press?

When we began a decade ago, I [Brian] was working as a motion picture camera tech and Brandon had been printing for 12 or so years in northern California, the Bay area, and Seattle. We decided it was time for a change and wanted to get our own thing going so, with a microscopic budget, we purchased some equipment and off we went. We both enjoy music (Brandon has been in several bands over the years including Couch of Eureka, The Cops, I’m A Gun, and the Fatigues among others) so our first goal was to create a shop that could cater to musicians and folks with limited budgets by offering low minimums and low prices. It wasn’t ever about the money (although paying rent and eating food is helpful) but more about the medium. We’re both just fans of old school screen printing. We’re both very visually oriented people and I think we just enjoy looking at and making interesting looking things.

Your inspiration often comes from unusual beings like sea monsters, dinosaurs, zombies and underplayed creatures from the animal kingdom, like the tarzier (above). Can you tell us a little more about what motivates your designs?

Our designs are inspired by things we like. We draw on a lot of different things for inspiration including but not limited to  - films (sci-fi, b-movie, horror, avant, experimental, etc.) strange creatures (and some not so strange), old movie posters, things we see while traveling, old books, old magazines, comics, and general oddities. We both grew up with a bent toward all things nerdy so I guess our aesthetic kind of reflects that a bit too.

We draw our designs by hand and find the perfect object to put them on – whether a pillow, baby onesie or greeting card – and print using a manual press, non-toxic inks and organic cotton, whenever possible. Our clothing designs come on garments from American Apparel and Alternative Apparel, to insure the best fit, style and quality.

What’s in the future for Clone Press?

Our bread and butter comes from printing for all of the great customers we’ve been working with for years but, at the urging of friends and fans of our work, we’ve been making more of our own stuff. We’re re-working our webstore now and hope it will be fully functional in the next couple of weeks. We also plan on opening a physical retail store in the front of our current production space in SODO soon. We’re hoping to have some printed paper products (greeting cards etc.) in the mix soon as well as more household goodies like the pillows, napkins, and coasters we currently make. We’re also working on our old letterpress which will allow us to add an extra dimension to our projects.

Visit Clone Press at their booth at Seattle Square and at ClonePress.com

The warriors of ancient Hawaii often waged war against rival tribes, carrying cannons and firearms and various weapons made from the native Hawaiian koa tree to bludgeon other warriors with. Our Hawaiian warrior, however, is much too cute for that. I imagine he’s more into hanging out at the beach or lounging about in a velvet robe. Or, more likely, we can catch him hanging out weekly at the Seattle Square market, where he’ll mob with various vintage effects and pop up randomly to surprise Seattle Square patrons with prizes!

For the rest of the summer, Seattle Square is offering a scavenger hunt at every market featuring the Hawaiian warrior. The rules: Find the Hawaiian warrior while sifting through the outdoor market for everything from locally designed clothing, to handmade housewares and accessories, to mid-century furniture. This week if you happen to find the little warrior helmet with a mohawk of feathers hanging out at one of the vendor booths at the Square, turn it into one of the Seattle Square organizers right away for a $20 gift certificate to Pioneer Square’s premier deli, Delicatus. At Delicatus you can get artisan-quality sandwiches made from local Northwest ingredients. Our little mascot is promising big already!

Keep an eye out for the Hawaiian warrior at the next Seattle Square! In the meantime, we’re having some trouble naming the new Seattle Square Scavenger Hunt mascot. Should it be something like Tony? Laid back and a distant cousin of The Situation? Or something like Ikaika, an ancient Hawaiian name for “masculine”, “strength”, and “Hawaiian warrior helmet”? Please nominate a name in the comments – we’ll be putting the final vote to the people of Seattle on Facebook next week!

We here at Seattle Square are ecstatic over the recent passage of street-food-friendly regulations in Seattle. That’s why we try to corral a few of those mobile food trucks to every Seattle Square market. What better way to treasure hunt than to munch on delicious, delicious food at the same time? Here are some of the great food trucks we’ve featured at the market:

Charlie’s Buns ‘N Stuff

See exhibit one: “The Philly”. Eye round beef steak marinated in white wine and garlic. Finished off with mushrooms on a fresh Italian roll. Culinary works from Charlie’s Buns ‘N Stuff is American diner fare at its most mouthwatering! According to Charlie’s website, the food truck’s namesake is from an impressive little Yorkie who helped his owners out during a difficult time and inspired them to create great street food!

Tacos El Campesino

You can’t miss this taco truck – visually… or edibly! Normally nestled between the buildings of Belltown, Tacos El Campesino has been at Seattle Square, serving up tasty tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and even sides of grilled cheese sandwiches and cup o’ noodles. If the flaming jalapeno on the side of the truck is any indication, spicy food lovers are in luck when Tacos El Campesino is at the market!

The Bistro Box

The Bistro Box brought merely a booth and a panini grill to the Seattle Square market, but street food is street food even without a truck! This caprese sandwich (which, I can honestly say is one of the best caprese sandwiches I’ve had in recent memory) amazes the senses with olives interspersed between its pesto-laden pane Francese buns. This classy food stand serves up various kobe beef sliders and spreads too.

With that I will leave you tantalized until the next Seattle Square market (which will be on August 11). But I, for one, am hungry! If you can’t wait until these great food trucks gather again at the Seattle Square, check out SeattleFoodTruck.com for where you can hunt them down!

Ania Designs

Choke Shirt Company

Clone Press

Drunken Sailor Vintage

EmmaMarie

Green Hill

hipichiki/scattergood

Intrigue Chocolates

Orange Twist

practical creativity

Stasia Burrington Illustration

Trizanh

Yorkpatty

And don’t forget to check out our food vendors today:

Bob’s Hot Mini Donuts

Fusion on the Run

The Bistro Box

]]> http://www.theseattlesquare.com/vendor/sneak-peak-at-some-of-our-amazing-vendors/feed/ 1 http://www.theseattlesquare.com/sponsor/a-big-thank-you-to-our-corporate-sponsor-ing-direct-sharebuilder/ http://www.theseattlesquare.com/sponsor/a-big-thank-you-to-our-corporate-sponsor-ing-direct-sharebuilder/#comments Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:53:46 +0000 admin http://www.theseattlesquare.com/?p=943 Almost three years ago in 2008, ING DIRECT’s ShareBuilder moved its headquarters and 350 employees to Seattle’s historic Pioneer Square neighborhood. Immediately, ING DIRECT made a commitment to help make its local community and Pioneer Square a better place to live and work. Their total commitment to community is strong, backed by significant organizational financial support, including employee charitable gift matching, and is centered on strong encouragement to their employees to volunteer and give back to their community.

In addition to sponsoring the Seattle Square for the second year in a row, they have also been involved in the following events:

Orange Days of Giving: a day long community giving initiative to revitalize Seattle’s Wing Luke Elementary School

Pioneer Square: Upon arriving in Pioneer Square and setting up offices in an historic building, ING DIRECT funded an initiative to improve the aesthetics of Pioneer Square with six unique lamppost banners that highlight the district’s greatest assets.

Junior Achievement: ING donates service hours + funds to the largest organization dedicated to financial literacy among children each year

Financial Education: ING Associates volunteered 275 hours teaching financial education at Seattle schools in 2010

Plymouth Housing Group: ING DIRECT ShareBuilder Associates volunteered 400 hours to teach basic money concepts to Plymouth residents, and to provide staffing + stocking of their Essential Supply Center, which was funded in part by a $50,000 donation by ING Direct’s ShareBuilder.

Saves for Kids: Working with the Seattle Mariners and Seattle Children’s Hospital, ING DIRECT donated $1,000 to the Seattle Children’s uncompensated care program for every game saved by a Mariners pitcher.

Whether it’s through ING DIRECT’s commitment to customer service or community service, they value the opportunity to touch lives and make visible contributions to the areas where they work and serve.

We have some returning vendors and some new vendors, as well as the return of ARTSPARKS in Occidental Square Park to add a creative backdrop to the evening.

To see the list of vendors, including a schedule for food vendors, check out the vendor info page.

We will begin featuring our upcoming vendors here soon, so stay tuned!

We hope you all have had great winters and are ready to start thinking about sunny summer afternoons in Pioneer Square! We have a couple of announcements and updates we wanted to share with you as you begin to plan for your summers.

First off, the Seattle Square is thrilled to return to Pioneer Square this summer! This is largely thanks to all of the wonderful collaboration and great participation we had last year. The second biggest news is that we will be launching the market on July 14th, which is a Thursday. That’s right, this summer, the Seattle Square will be on Thursday afternoons/evenings!

The weekly market will be held on the second, third, and fourth Thursdays of the month–so basically every Thursday but First Thursday. On First Thursdays, Pioneer Square will continue to host the Art Walk–so we will all get a breather for one week a month.

The set up will be the same, with food trucks and vendors set up in the park and Occidental Plaza. Keep an eye out for our announcements, as we are working on some exciting new collaborations and cross promotions for this year. We are thrilled to tap into the after work traffic from the concentration of over 200,000 employees be leaving work only steps from the Square every Thursday.

As we head into planning for the summer, we are very interested in hearing from you with any feedback that you have on how we could make the market even better and more successful for you.

Registration for vendors has been open for a few weeks and we’ve had a great response so far! Make sure to get your applications in by Sunday, May 15th to be considered for this summer.

Excited to see you all soon!
Stephanie, Don and Jen

1. 1 night stay at Courtyard by Marriott (including breakfast in the morning):

The Brass Paperclip Project: Hip to Be {Seattle} Square, Part 2: How To Turn A Handmade Market Into A Wedding Show

2. Cooking Class for 10 by Luigi DeNunzio, chef and owner of Seattle’s Little Italy restaurants

Urban Research: Pioneer Square

We had almost 100 total blogs and articles written about the market! Thank you so much for coming down and taking time to take pictures + write about The Seattle Square. It was instrumental in spreading the word.

If you wrote a blog post, I also have $5 gift certificates to FX McRory’s (fantastic restaurant in Pioneer Square) — email your address to jen@theseattlesquare.com and I’ll get one in the mail!

As this Saturday is the last day of the market, we will be announcing the winners by next Tuesday.

Up for prizes:

A free night’s stay at Pioneer Square’s new Courtyard by Marriott (+ breakfast in the morning)

A cooking class for 10 people by Little Italy restaurant owner + chef Luigi DeNunzio

Just make sure to post your blog by next Monday, September 27th, and we will announce the winners the following day. Make sure we know about it by emailing it to us, or by mentioning us in your tweet (@SeattleSquare)