This is a design concept by Ignacio Pilotto and as noted on his website it is not intended to be a commercial product as there is no affiliation between Pantone, Inc. and the Rubitone. Blah blah legal mumbo jumbo…

Either way, IF it were a real product I would buy it. It would make a lovely stocking filler for a the designer in your life, a rubix cube is the perfect time killer while you are waiting for email correspondents. ^_^

Amazing scalpel skills from Paolo Lim. Found via ffffound and then through his Flickr I feel like I have had a tour of his mind!

I am a freelance illustrator / graphic designer / sometime photographer / onetime drummer / career procrastinator from Manila, currently living and working in south Australia.

Definitley worth a look, and his photography is beautiful you’re bound to find a favourite.

Via ffffound

Before the summer I went to the Bath Spa University’s end of year show and saw some really *really* pretty mugs made in porcelain with tiny pin prick holes punched into a design on the sides. (Not all the way through though, so that you could still use them for drinks!)

Well lucky for me that my sister, who studies ceramics at Bath Spa, told the designer Karen T how much I liked them and she very kindly gave her this one to give to me. They actually cost £150 each to buy, but as mine was missing the gold detail around the rim it was not! Lucky me!!

I consider my mug to be too special to use for drinks, but you can really see the detail when a candle is placed inside <3

YES such things exist!

Because there is no better smell than that of bacon. If you’ve ever wanted to wake up to the most heavenly of smells this is for you. Designed by american designers Matty Sallin, Daniel Bartolini, Hsiao-Huh Hsu, the ‘wake n bacon’ alarm clock cooks a strip of bacon, ready to eat when the alarm goes off.

And if you are wondering how this is possible… here it is explained!

A frozen strip of bacon is placed in Wake n’ Bacon the night before. Because there is a 10 minute cooking time, the clock is set to go off 10 minutes before the desired waking time. Once the alarm goes off, the clock it sends a signal to a small speaker to generate the alarm sound. We hacked the clock so that the signal is re-routed by a microchip that in responds by sending a signal to a relay that throws the switch to power two halogen lamps that slow-cook the bacon in about 10 minutes.

So no sound is made… just the whiff of bacon to wake you up. Mmm delicious, but bringing bacon closer to my bed is not gonna get me out of bed. And a smell alarm? I wont be woken by anything short of a fog horn.

So.. funsies? yay!
Practicality? Nay.

I found this via wemadethis at Niels Kjeldsen Design. Unfortunately, I don’t have the desk space for this pretty calendar… but if they were made available to buy I would have to make room! :)

Created as part of Corian 40 years 40 designers

The big event - Corian 40 years/40 designers was created to recognize the input designers have made and continue to make to Corian. DuPont asked 40 international designers to create a genuinely functional object - a table or desktop accessory - that reflects the ingenuity of the designers as well as the design possibilities of Corian. NKD was one of 40 designers worldwide.

Yes hard times are upon us, but keep your chin up!

Yesterday I answered a knock on the door, only to be confronted by a
well-dressed young man carrying a vacuum cleaner.
‘Good morning,’ said the young man. ‘If I could take a couple of minutes of your time, I would like to demonstrate the very latest in high-powered
vacuum cleaners.’

‘Go away!’ I said. ‘I haven’t got any money!’, ‘I’m broke!’ and proceeded
to close the door.
Quick as a flash, the young man wedged his foot in the door and pushed wide open. ‘Don’t be too hasty!’ he said. ‘Not until you have at least seen my demonstration.’ And with that, he emptied a bucket of horse manure onto my hallway carpet.

‘If this vacuum cleaner does not remove all traces of this horse manure
from your carpet, Sir, I will personally eat the remainder.’
I stepped back and said, ‘Well I hope you’ve got a bloody good appetite,
because they cut off my electricity this morning.
What part of ‘broke’ do you not understand?’

Credit crunch jokes ftw! And that lovely hard times image is courtesy of Because Studio who I am making my ’studio of the week’… congratulations! ^_^

I just wish I had found them sooner so I could get my mitts on one of those limited edition prints. I’m a sucker for rarities!

Sigh.

Today was the Apple Notebook event. The event I have been looking forward to for over a month. The event that was *supposed* to announce this amazing, yet affordable, new laptop. As it was rumoured they were making a laptop price bracket under $1000.

Ofcourse Apple never ceases to dissapoint, as rumoured, the new laptops feature multitouch glass track pads. The new “brick” manufacturing process in which the laptop is created from one block of aluminium, thus minimising waste and is infact highly economical to create/pack/ship.

However, when it came to the price margin… this was when i started to realise the cheapness wasn’t coming anytime soon. The new Macbooks come in 2 different specs 2.0ghz and 2.4ghz, the lowest of the two being $1299. On the UK Apple store that makes it £949…. with student discount that makes it £891.

Sneaky Apple display the *new* Macbooks as starting at £719, because they are keeping the lowest spec old white Macbook in their store. The lowest spec 2.1! Well the one I sent back was 2.4ghz and it cost me £749! It had 1GB less ram but it was faster and considerably less money. Sigh…

I hope the new graphics card is a massive improvement on the old white Macbooks and that the multitouch is amazing, because that price margin has definitely gone up imo. Keeping the old versions crappiest computer and lowering the price by £30 doesn’t make it good value! And it certainly doesn’t make it OK to raise the price of all the other laptops comparitively!!

Here are some pics of the new Macbooks and Macbook Pros, I think you will agree they are beautiful, but I honestly don’t know if it worth the massive price increase.

Pretty paper animation for The New York Times by Julien Vallé. Mmmm two toned paper I heart it! Works especially well with the NYT font I have to say.

OK! So tomorrow, Tuesday 14th, is the secret Apple event… supposably announcing the new notebook designs. Whether it is true or not we’ll have to wait and see, but it’s looking more and more like yes, it is true!

The rumours didn’t stop today when PlanetMac released a composite of what they believe the new Macbooks will look like, based on all the hearsay so far.

Some higher quality “leaked” images have emmerged and show a little morre than the original blurred images that leaked about a month ago.

A few observations include:

- The optical drive appears to be on the right side (when facing the laptop)
- All the ports are on the left side (when facing the laptop)
- Case does not appear to be tapered like the MacBook Air
- Power button is in the far top right corner
- Large trackpad like the MacBook Air
- Appears to be “latchless”
- No Firewire port on MacBook?

Something that can’t physically be seen is the multitouch trackpads fuctionality, but if it is anything like the iPod Touch and the iPhone, it will be brilliant.

The aluminum MacBook has been rumored since forever, and if we take the leaked shots as real, Apple is finally going all-metal in its Mac lineup.

Also, The Inquisitr claims that some Apple retailers have already been given price lists for Apple’s upcoming laptops and that there are 12 price points ranging from $800 to $3100. Current laptops are said to have only have 8 retail price points: 3 Macbooks (starting at $1099), 3 Macbook Pros and 2 Macbook Airs.

Needless to say, I’m excited and I will be watching the live conference over at Apple tomorrow!

But I did just find this image over at ffffound that did make me wish it was May again. Goodbye sunny bbqs and summer walks, hello superdark evenings and wearing two pairs of socks to bed.

It’s not all bad though, in general, I think Autumn is my favourite season. I prefer to be a little bit cold than being sweaty and uncomfortable. I like having to wear mittens and joining coat sleeves with my mr and holding hands in the middle to keep my hands warm.

I like cold weather food too, feels more wholesome, even if it is a little less healthy than summer salads and pasta.

Infact, roll on Autumn!
I’ll end this post with my song of the summer… Little Bit by Lykke Li

In response to Geenius’ “Machines that almost fall over” I bring you… machine that tries to draw circles by Michael Kontopoulos.

It is a little heartbreaking and as one of the comments points out…

“connect two arms with a slat. so machine could draw a circle. why are you tormenting it.”

Weird how giving a machine a simple human task to do suddenly makes them seem vulnerable.