Laser Cut Seaweed

Laser Cut Seaweed Sushi. Stunning, right?

Postcard Poets

Postcard Poets is a new way to discover poetry from new and established poets to readers across the world. How? Poetry takes the medium of postcards and is delivered to you by post.

Postcard Poets – Bringing small doses of serendipity to your doorstep!

An ALS Love Story

A friend of mine, Andy Coon, runs the Often Awesome series and is a finalist for Best Documentary Series in The Webby Awards. Often Awesome the series is a web series that follows Timothy LaFollette who was diagnosed at 29 with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) in 2009. Andy created 34, 10-minute episodes from diagnosis to his passing and chronicles a beautiful tale about love, hope, community, friendship and courage, in the face of daunting challenges and deep loss.

This story will not only bring you to tears, it will make you smile about the beauty of humanity. If you’re as moved as I am by the trailer above, please vote for for the project:

The Webbys: http://pv.webbyawards.com/ballot/104
Vimeo Awards: https://vimeo.com/awards/vote/series

Watch more clips, learn more:
Often Awesome, the Series

Antique Lithography Stone

This Antique Double-Sided Lithography Stone is quite the example of how far technology has brought us since the turn of the century. Long live vintage printmaking!

BLOCT – Wood Tablet Stand

The BLOCT Wood Tablet Stand is the latest product by the fine folks of Design Commission. Bloct represents a fascinating clash of textures. Consider me intrigued.

Eva Solo Drinking Bottle



This Drinking Bottle by Eva Solo made me look. Love the loop.

Hörbert

Hörbert is a portable mp3-player for kids – made of wood!

(Thank you Rusty)

One Of Those Days:

Do Over. Do Over.

The Basic Elements of Creativity

The basic elements of creativity: copy, transform, combine.

(via explore)

Braun Digital Watch BN0076

The Braun Digital Watch BN0076 is based on the original DW30 that was designed by Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs in 1978. Only 3000 units of the DW30 were ever produced and this design hasn’t been available in 30 years. The BN0076 features a stainless steel face, black leather band, and a 12/24 hour digital LCD with light.

A minimal beauty!

#wishlisted

Funny Food

Funny Food: 365 Healthy, Silly, Creative Breakfasts will turn carrots into airplanes; boiled eggs into jugglers, and pears into guitar players. At this point, I am willing to try anything, to get my 2 year old something else than just plain beige foods. Here’s a video of some of the pages in the book.

(Thank you Keren)

Lille Huset

Chicago based designer Alyson Beaton is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to launch a kids product line called Lille Huset. It’s a series of modular doll houses, made out of eco friendly materials. What makes me especially happy is that all manufacturing will be done in the USA.

Totally backing this. My daughter will be psyched.

(Thank you Gary)

Subtle Patterns

Subtle Patterns, by Atle Mo, offers high quality tilable textured patterns for web designers, free to use.

(via howaboutorange)

Peter Megert

Thinkingform posted the above graphic by Swiss designer Peter Megert. I find the three interlocking arrows fascinating.

Damien Rudd

For the Objects of Intimacy project Damien Rudd photographed 5 pillows from 5 different people. Each pillow is at a different stage of transformation relative to its age and frequency of use. Fascinating and disturbing at the same time.

(Thank you for this find, ItsNiceThat!)

Toiletry Bag

This waterproof toiletry bag is a beauty. Wishlisted! (site is in German)

Paper

Paper by 53 is a beautifully designed sketching and drawing iPad app.

(via howells)

Polaroid Postcards

Polaposts turn regular photos into mailable Polaroid prints by fitting them fashionably snug inside an iconic white bordered sleeve. A built-in seal keeps your print from slipping out and a writable backside makes for easy message scribbling. Just snip your photos to fit, slip ‘em inside then send them on their way. Instant happy!

The Secret

Amen to the message on this spread in Austin Kleon’s wonderful book Steal Like an Artist: Do good work and share it with people.

Wind Map

Wind Map shows you a live map of wind flowing over the US. You can also go back in time and look up days that passed already: The March 14th map looks pretty neat.

(via Khoi)

Brooklyn Beta/Summer Camp

It’s a pretty special day for my studiomates Chris and Cameron, forces behind Brooklyn Beta, the friendliest conference I have every attended. With today’s launch of Summer Camp they are moving beyond just being a conference.

Chris and Cameron were inspired by what Y Combinator has done for developers and hope to show some of the same love for designers. Not at the expense of developers, though. Their ideal team has both a designer and a developer working together.

With Summer Camp they aim to help “designer-developer teams” build the next generation of web products and change the world.

With the Brooklyn Beta conference, Chris and Cameron try to help spread big ideas and connect designers and developers together. With Summer Camp, they want to take it a step further and remove what is quite possibly the biggest barrier of all, money.

It’s a 12-week program in the summer leading up to the conference. They invest $25,000 in your company for a 6% stake, and give you a lot more help along the way.

Summer Camp is part of the Brooklyn Beta nonprofit, so any gains made in this year’s investments will go right back into the community and hopefully fund the next round of Summer Campers.

And lucky me, I have the honor to be one of the Summer Camp advisors. At the ready to offer advice and experience. Check out the impressive advisor list:

Here’s what Chris and Cameron are hoping Summer Camp will fund:

“We are hoping to back big ideas looking to make a real impact. Don’t just make something for your peers. Build something that fixes the insanity of modern education. Or helps people weather the upcoming financial crises and rise in unemployment. Or improves the health of people around the world. Or brings neighbors closer together. Or helps people run small businesses. Or strengthens the bonds of families. Or puts existing abusive, mammoth institutions out of business (pretty please).”

Chris and Cameron deserve an internet hug for pulling this off.

More: Brooklyn Beta / Summer Camp

Unusual Umbrella Stand

(Photo by Masahiro Minami)

I noticed this interestingly shaped umbrella stand over on this Spoon & Tamago post covering this year’s senior thesis exhibition of the Kyoto City University of Arts in Japan.

Can anyone tell me the name of the student that created this piece? I’d love to add it to the post.

Cigarette Cards

Mrs. Easton has this unbelievable talent to find beauty in the ordinary. Pictured above are Cigarette Cards she dug up in the NYPL digital archives.

Loft Resumes

Loft Resumes turns your vanilla-looking resume into a beautifully custom designed one that stands out from the crowd. Great idea for people that don’t have the design skills themselves.

(via Fab)