Automato!

Words cannot describe how great this is - it's hilarious!

Design Fancy

A great series of articles on fictional designers & their "work" by Matt Brown. I'm particularly fascinated by the attention to detail on the imaginary products & how perfectly styled they are to specific decades & topics. They can be found on Core 77.

C60 Redux

A very nice concept (by IDEO) which is quite similar to my friend, Martin Skelly's, Playlist Player. I really like the aesthetic & the internal design, but not too sure on the cards - they feel very throwaway & lacking value.

Metropolis II

4x4

A great project by David Stoll - it's amazing what you can do with 16 pixels & how little help you need to recognize things.

Whisky - A Science & An Art

A nice little article about the creation of whisky - it is so steeped in heritage & is so complicated to produce that it makes me appreciate the spirit even more. I just need to find a decent whisky shop in London now!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/aug/23/science-art-whisky-making

RACER

AWESOME!

Genius!

When The Wind Blows

Just finished watching the animated film "When The Wind Blows" based on the book by Raymond Biggs. All I can say is watch the film for yourself - it's a bit dated, but you can really relate to the characters "Keep calm & carry on" attitude.

Books

I forgot to post all of the books I've read for the past couple of months, so here they are. I am slowly spreading out my reading list into more genres, but most of the books are somehow sci-fi related.

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Child of God - Cormac McCarthy
Crash - J.G. Ballard
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Black Jack

I've just discovered this Japanese comic by Osamu Tezuka called Black Jack, a rogue, extremely talented unlicensed surgeon. From what I've seen, the mix of accurate medical diagrams & graphic scenes of surgery, I think this would be right down my alley!

The Chipophone

All I can say is WOW - the Tetris theme tune (2:32) totally blew me away. God, I'm such a geek...

The End of History

A set of very controversial beer bottles by Scottish brewery BrewDog. Personally I like them, just because of the idea behind them & the values of the maverick company (plus one day I hope to afford some beer like this!):

“In true BrewDog fashion we’ve torn up convention, blurred distinctions and pushed brewing and beer packaging to its absolute limits. This is the beer to end all beers. It’s an audacious blend of eccentricity, artistry and rebellion; changing the general perception of beer one stuffed animal at a time.”

The name ‘The End of History’ derives from the famous work of philosopher Francis Fukuyama – implying that this is to beer what democracy is to history. The artisan beer has been crafted at the company’s brewery in Fraserburgh, Scotland and has been infused with juniper berries and nettles from the Scottish highlands.

The striking individual bottles were hand crafted by a taxidermist in Doncaster and each animal died of natural causes before they were used to hold the world’s most expensive beer. The outfits were made-to-measure and each bottle has its own quirky personality.

That's My Kind of Fashion!

Buggy!

I love these super close up photos of bug eyes. The detail is outstanding. You can see more at the Wired blog here.

Fast Lane

After using the underground system in London now for about three weeks, this is definitely what you need for getting down quick. If only you could do the same going up!

Meniscus Glass

After visiting the Tate Modern on Sunday, I bought a very clever glass by Richard Wentworth - it measures liquid not in millilitres, but in time, sips, mouthfuls & gulps. It makes you think about everyday measurements in completely new ways. Reminds me of Anab Jain's work of representing time on different ways.

Balloons!

A very nice lo-fi videa with some cutting edge tech from Dyson.

Very Cool...

FINE COLLECTION OF CURIOUS SOUND OBJECTS from Georg Reil on Vimeo.

Pretty useless, but nice!

Invisible Worlds

A fascinating program by the BBC about the things our eyes can't see - I especially love the high speed cameras!