Well, this is one fine merger of design and play. Moon Dominos by Fredricks & Mae are handcrafted from baltic birch and silkscreened with phases of the moon (rather than the traditional dots). What a beautiful object to have sprinkled across a coffee table…

(photographs via fredricks & mae)

A fantastic print campaign for Expedia by Ogilvy & Mather that uses airport IATA codes to form clever travel-related phrases. There are over 9,000 three-letter IATA codes for airports around the world so I can imagine it was quite the task to sort through them and find witty copy. For example, WSH EWE WRE ERE (or Brookhaven, Ewer Indonesia, Whangarei, Erave) and SUN SEA SND SEX (or Sun Valley, Seattle, Seno, Sembach). I love the pops of colour and stamps in the corner providing a bit more context to the travel code wish. Oy, so simple and brilliant. There is plenty of fun to be found in the luggage carousel…

(photographs via/spotted on creative review)  

“Private Moon” by Russian artist Leonid Tishkov has captivated me for quite some time. The mobile art installation and visual poem tells the story of “a man who met the Moon and stayed with her forever”. Leonid has travelled the world with the piece for ten years, placing the illuminated artificial moon in unexpected places across China, New Zealand, Taiwan, Moscow, Italy, the Arctic, France, Austria and so forth. I love the massive scale and glowing beauty of this work and how it manages to bring a rather inaccessible natural wonder down to earth. A “private moon” indeed. As Leonid puts it, “the moon is a shining point that brings people together from different countries, of different nationalities and cultures. And everyone who gets in its orbit does not forget it ever. It gives fairytale and poetry in our prosy and mercantile world.” Personally, I find it simply magical. Fingers crossed this installation reaches Canada one day very soon. I will be first in line to see it…

(there is a great interview with leonid about this project on his blog. read it here)
(photographs by boris bendikov, po-i chen and marcus williams, all via leonid tishkov) 

I love this typographic chess set by hat-trick design‘s Jim Sutherland based on characters from the Hoefler & Frere-Jones typeface Champion. Laser-cut acrylic letters and a greyboard foiled in black – what a handsome piece of design. I can only hope there will be a new trend of interpreting board games in beautiful, modern ways…

(spotted on creative review; set purchase info here)   

Last year, I posted about designer Konstantin Datz’s gorgeous braille rubik’s cube and it remains one of my favourite pieces of thought-provoking design. I came across Konstantin’s folded paper typeface this morning and fell in love with the sharp angles. Featured on the cover of Web Designer magazine, there is a real modern paper craft meets origami feel…

(images via konstantin datz)  

Fantastic posters for Kibon ice cream by designer Renata El Dib. Love the clever rolled edge hinting at ice cream cones. It’s amazing what a two-sided print and some iconic neapolitan colours can do…

(images via renata el dib)

I frequently daydream about having a large studio to fill with work surfaces, supplies storage and colourful details. A piece I would definitely purchase for said studio is the Supergrau Expose, a front-facing presentation space for magazines, thin books, records or portfolio examples. So handsome. Available in black and white, I love the giant colourful bands securing the books in place. As Supergrau points out, this board embodies the quote “show me what you read and I’ll tell you who you are”…

(photographs via schoener wohnen and supergrau)

My love for modern, typography-focused neon grows daily it seems. This once-of-a-kind neon sign by Adam Garcia is a perfect example of why. Oy, how I would love to put this wise and handsome gem on a studio wall…

(spotted on colossal)

Oh, how I love sport photography (especially when it is downright artful). This shot by Peter Svoboda of cross-country skiers in the Austrian Alps is a sublime example. Beautiful geometry/angles and crispy textured tracks…

(photograph by peter svoboda)

I saw Swedish designer Pernilla Jansson’s ‘A New Proposal’ for the first time yesterday and have completely fallen in love with it. Building on a desire to “disturb the established order”, Pernilla lets the standard office fluorescent light become a playful installation of beautiful neon. Simple and so very beautiful. I would love to see an office embrace this idea. One hanging over a reception desk or main studio table would certainly showcase a culture of breaking through the standard way of doing things…

(images via pernilla jansson and dezeen; spotted on rena tom’s pinterest)

Casa Tissue Box Cover from Urban Outfitters. I think every home may need a house with tissue plumes of smoke…

This lightbulb typography sculpture by Brighton-based designer Kyle Bean stopped me in my tracks this morning. The piece was created for a Time Magazine ’10 Ideas’ feature and manages to be both industrial and delicate. It is a great play on the “light goes off” element of idea creation and makes me want to see an entire installation playing with light bulb typography…

(photograph by victoria ling via kyle bean)

Paper chains are timelessly awesome. That might be why this typography by Madrid-based studio IS Creative Studio makes me so happy. The designers created the paper chain alphabet and logo for the the Getxophoto Photography Festival identity. I love how they photographed the shadow-filled typography in pure white but also threw colour behind it for elements like the eye-catching neon poster. Perhaps a paper chain symbolizes a connected festival of like-minded people? The name of each photographer, featured in the final official Getxophoto book, were also cut out and used as chapter titles. Long live the paper chain…

(photographs via is creative studio)

French artist Suzy Lelièvre manages to take everyday objects and make them thought-provoking and playful. I especially love her pieces Gravity Dice and Dominos Gravitation. Why shouldn’t dice dots fall to the bottom of the cubes? Why wouldn’t domino spots all hail the mighty ‘one spot’ leader? I might refuse to play any games that aren’t as handsomely designed as these pieces…

(photographs via suzy lelièvre)

While I do have a blog focused to colour, I still love white for its power, purity and ability to make colour look dazzling. I have been particularly enamoured with the recent trends devoted to exploring white in both classic and modern ways. White on White, Embellished, Textured, Dips of Metallics, Pops of Colour, Perforated – there has been no shortage of stunning new techniques and ideas devoted to white. I wrote a post on Rena Tom’s site on this topic so please take a look here if you are interested.

(images via minted condition, september industry, christian bird, de-construct, freedom of creation, design labyrinth, june eleven and nakam)

Watching the Oscars and its red carpet of fashion has to be a high point of February. What colour trends emerged victorious on Hollywood’s biggest night of the year? I would say winter white was the runaway style choice. Other trends focused on various shades of red, blue, green, neutral and gold. I can’t remember an award show with less black! To be honest, I was a tad disappointed with Oscar 2012′s sartorial showing. I guess I just loved the fashion of last year’s show and wasn’t overly enamoured with many of the dresses selected this time around. That being said, I loved Emma Stone’s raspberry-crimson Giambattista Valli, Michele William’s coral-red Louis Vuitton, Penelope Cruz’s blue-grey Armani Privé, Tina Fey’s deep blue Carolina Herrera, Viola Davis’ emerald Vera Wang, Maya Rudolph’s plum Johanna Jonson, Cameron Diaz’s buff Gucci, Octavia Spencer’s white Tadashi Shoji, Meryl Streep’s golden Lanvin and Milla Jovovich’s sparkling Elie Saab. There were plenty of fashionable gents (and a mini-trend of navy tuxedos) but my very favourite was Christopher Plummer’s dapper midnight blue tuxedo complete with black trimming and a handsome Order of Canada pin. Now that’s true style. What was your favourite?

(photographs via harper’s bazaar, elle, the province and instyle)