If you have trouble keeping a good dinner party pace, you need these Dinner Candles by Adam + Harborth, a Berlin-based design studio. Lit as the party begins, the candles slowly burn off the icons of each course so you know when to move on to the next portion of your meal. I love the bed illustration at the end as it would certainly inform lingering guests that it is time to go! I think the first symbol is a bouquet of roses? I now want to throw a dinner party just to test these clever candles (oh and receive floral hostess gifts…)

(spotted on sleek identity where you can buy them)

Like geometric patterns, I have always had a love affair with facets. The handsome flat faces of geometric shapes are gorgeous in nature’s sparkling gems and as forms used in design. Throw in some paper art and I can barely contain myself. Case in point? This beautiful photo backdrop by Matthew Parker Events created for the Design*Sponge book tour party at Anthropologie in Seattle. Hundreds of faceted white shapes were careful folded and artistically hung from the wood frame. It feels like a sublime drift of peacefully geometric snow…

(images via matthew parker events)

If you were a kid and this was your community centre, would you ever want to go home? The Sports and Leisure Centre in Saint-Cloud, France was opened over a year and half ago but I still can’t get over the fantastic use of colour. Designed by KOZ Architectes, the environment-friendly building is a bold gem of architecture. Arch Daily called it a “little castle and cubist mountain” which is a pretty perfect description for a building that houses the imaginations of so many children. The colourful exterior glass is a palette of pure harmony. The thick stripes could have gone horribly wrong but, with fantastic colour selection, they seamlessly compliment each other like a perfectly organized crayon box. I love the night shots of the centre as the illuminated horizontal rooms “light up” numerous vertical swatches of colour. Inside the building, the architects repeated the same systematic colour system to create an easy navigation system for children and reflect a bold graffiti-like style. If I lived in Saint-Cloud, I would try to find an apartment with a direct view of this beautiful building. Oh and I might try out that climbing wall bathed in chartreuse light… More city councils need to follow the lead of Saint-Cloud and explore vibrant architecture for community centres and other public spaces as they really can become sources of city design pride and more imporantly, colourful castles of child-like wonder.

(photographs by stephan lucas and via arch daily)

I can’t think of a music video that required more dedication to craftsmanship than this one for “In Your Arms” by Kina Grannis. This stop-motion spectacular was created over the course of 22 months by 30 people and required 1,357 hours of work. Oh and 288,000 colourful jelly beans! Sure, it would have been much easier to just employ some CGI and green screen magic but director Greg Jardin was adamant that every single one of the 2,460 frames be assembled by hand and shot individually. Insane, brain-exploded level of commitment to handmade design and crafting a true stop-motion piece. (I love the jellybean test pattern at the end of the video!)

The making of video is a must-watch. How great are those individually marked tubs of jellybean colours?

(spotted on peta pixel)

Continuing my affair with papercraft posts this week, I love this editorial for Madame magazine art directed by Matthew Brodie and Hattie Newman and photographed by Matthew Brodie. The theme was dresses in an environment of design supplies and the results are beautiful. How fabulous is that pencil shavings dress? And the top of billowing ticker tape? What about that bubble of individually handcrafted paper tabs glued together? I love the curls of origami-like paper in the background too. See the full credits and awesome behind-the-scenes photos and sketches here.

(images via matthew brodie)

I love these meticulously and artistically crafted paper flowers by Thuss+Farrell, a married Brooklyn-based design and photography duo bursting with insane talent. What a fantastic mix of bright colour, pastels, patterned detail and texture. The pops of black make the flowers feel artful and modern rather than simply pretty. I wouldn’t mind a vase full of these beautiful examples of papercraft….

(spotted on simplesong)

I love this typography alphabet by Yann Le Bec called “Type/Face”. Can you spot the letter in each face? The monocle “q” and moustache “w” are among my favourites…

I love this cover for Domenica, the Sunday magazine of national Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. Verona studio Happycentro were asked to create a piece focused on food without actually using food as a material. The studio chose paper as their muse and designed some truly handsome shelves of modern papercraft food. I love that faceted red apple, striped pink onion and fabulously patterned banana. If only milk came in such sleek cartons…

(spotted on el jardín rojo)

I have posted about the sublime embroidery work of Evelin Kasikov before but with every visit to her website, I am reminded of Evelin’s immense talent and am inspired to post again. A project that I just love is her Stitched CMYK Colour Chart. Embroidering the cyan/magenta/yellow/black or CMYK colour model required in colour printing, Evelin creates a handmade printing process that charts colours combinations by an interval of 25%. Designed for the Digital Soirée event at Central Saint Martins, this piece is a beautiful fusion of meticulous handmade design and the technological aspects of printing. I can’t wait to see where Evelin takes her fantastic CMYK embroidery talent next. Perhaps a completely embroidered Pantone guide?!

How spectacular is this cover for Novum Magazine by German design studio Paperlux? The colourful triangle pattern is beautiful in its own right but the ingenious printing technique that creates moldable facets and insane texture is extraordinary. The ‘making of’ video shows the sculptural paper piece in motion as well as a glimpse into the technology and methodical design required to create the cover. Colour, texture, pattern, printing brilliance and paper sculpture? Not sure it gets better than that.

(spotted on/images via graphic exchange and paperlux)

Designed by Proud Creative, I love this branding for luxury jewellery firm Guy & Max. Most jewellery companies seem to go down that “pretty proposal” route but Guy & Max feels bold, masculine and fiercely modern with a high fashion edge. Oh and I think their shop has the most beautiful awning I have ever seen. By using just the right shades of black in just the right geometric pattern, the piece feels like a sculptural work of facets. Same goes for the business card as it feels like a paper sculpture rather than a flat piece of paper. Throw in some sublime macro photographs of diamonds and this branding is officially gorgeous. With such a great look, I can only imagine the stunning jewellery being created by Guy & Max.

(spotted on september industry)

Colour Nativity is the latest thought-provoking creation of industrial designer Sebastian Bergne. A set of seven handmade and painted wood blocks make up a minimalist nativity scene while the wooden storage box becomes a manger and the gold divider becomes a modern Star of Bethlehem. I love the way the pieces look in the box. Like a religious television test pattern perhaps? It’s quite striking how such an iconic scene can still be recognizable when reduced to a simplistic set of blocks. The power of colour, proportion and placement is certainly on display in this piece. A Christmas decoration to consider for your modern mantle…

(spotted on co. design)

Flowers, cones, leaves – nature is never short on extraordinary inspiration. Kathy Klein deconstructs objects of our environment and uses the parts to create unique flower circles called “danmalas”. From the sanskrit ‘dān’ meaning ‘the giver’ and ‘mālā’ meaning ‘garland of flowers’, the designs created showcase the stunning colour, texture and shape in nature and how they can be brought together to create completely new patterns. Kathy has made her beautiful danmalas all over the world and after spying a few quick shots of the circles in place, I am obsessed with seeing more. A danmala coffee table book please! (You can order your own danmala or purchase Kathy’s prints and cards here)

(thanks for the inspiration Heather!)

When it comes down to it, make up is just pot and tube colour swatches. Perhaps that is the main reason that the displays, design and styling of cosmetics is always inspiring to me. I just love the whimsy and handmade-feeling design of Topshop’s make up line created by designer Sarah Thorne. Their main line is a chic mix of matte greys, uncoated paper, black patterns and hand drawn illustrations. In addition, each fashion season sees the launch of trend led make up range with inspirations such as ‘sand storm’, ‘festival’, ‘heavy duty’ and ‘smoke and mirrors’. I love how detailed and just plain artistic the packaging is. How stunning is the sandstorm mountain range packaging with dashes of colour and pencil lines of gold? The illustrations look like there were drawn with make up and the pieces feel like art. From metallic foils to scalloped box edges to the hand drawn type that unites all the products in every range, Topshop makeup are worth buying simply as examples of beautifully crafted design.

(images via sarah thorne, unity and form and the dieline)

I’m intrigued by the idea behind Australian artist Lizzie Buckmaster Dove’s ‘Tide Project’. For one lunar month in 2010, an art project was created between London, Barcelona and Coledale using found objects in the tides that connect the three places. The result is graphic and vibrant hand cut paper art that uses unique colour palettes to represent the very different cities (you can view all the pieces here by scrolling to the far right). Of the series, my favourites are ‘Tide Project, Things to be Forgotten, Moon and Moon ii’ with their geometric cuts, absolutely gorgeous colour palettes and dreamy lunar inspiration. It still amazes me what can be created with a common paint chip…

I am a sucker for unique and colourful food styling. It always amazes me how textures, patterns and colours of a recipe or food can really come to life with some great lighting and thoughtful detail. A stylist with ridiculous amounts of talent in that arena is Dietlind Wolf. I was reminded of his styling and illustrating skill when I saw the series above on seesaw. A wonderfully clever fusion of handsome food and beautiful ingredient illustration. I love this mixed media approach to food styling and photography as there are endless possibilities. Collage next? Or how about graffiti!?

(spotted on seesaw; images via dietlind wolf where all credits for the shoot can be found)