Time Out is a tiny, independent record and book shop established, curated, and run by graphic designer and artist, Laura Filas. The project is a direct result of an unfailing desire to share a love for music, design, and print materials that was far too vast to limit to the confines of the digital world via Spotify playlists and sporadic recommendations thrown into a void. Ironically the shop lives in yet another digital environment; nevertheless, this environment is designed to encourage a larger connection with the physical world by way of a brief and (hopefully) pleasing digital experience, free of bs and ads. Everything on this site is here for a reason–because it is worth your time.

Why Time Out?
    The goal of this project is to encourage some time out. The best use of technology is to connect in order to disconnect. Discover something to love beyond the confines of your glowing rectangle and you suddenly no longer need it to “kill” time. Dance, turn a page, turn a dial. Time out is vital to fall in love with the normalities & idiosyncrasies of life.

Why such an emphasis on music?
    True answer: music has always been in my life, one way or another. I’m not sure how or why. Nothing remarkable happened to make it that way. One day, I listened to “Can’t Buy Me Love” and another day I listened to “Sunday Morning” and I just knew I wanted music to accompany me all of the time.
    Also true, better answer: music in a space is just as important as furniture or art. The only difference is you can surround yourself with music everywhere you go and not just in your own place–kind of like clothing. But unlike clothing, the magic in music is that you can’t touch or see it, yet it can become a piece of you or a part of your identity or engrained in a memory that you can vividly relive whenever those same frequencies hit your ears.
    So in short, we care a whole lot about music here because it is with you everywhere. If you forget your Time Out cap when you leave home, you can listen to some Lou Reed and still think of us. Now, that’s “magic”. 

Based near Chicago/on Kiikaapoi, Peoria, Potawatomi land.