Category Archives: design

To the bells of the cathedral

The Ghost in the MP3: ‘moDernisT‘ is a track by Ryan Maguire, ‘created by salvaging the sounds lost to mp3 compression from the song “Tom’s Diner“, famously used as one of the main controls in the listening tests to develop … Continue reading

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What a waste

Desert Island Dump, a trip to Henderson Island: waste, reefs, plastic and rats / sort of related, imaging the planet, a visual demonstration of how satellite imagery is gathered / official posters at the National Office of Importance / a … Continue reading

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Slight Return

The Library of Things – ‘why buy when you could borrow?’ This Guardian piece asks whether ‘borrowing everything from drills to disco balls cut waste and save money?’ It is certainly a tempting idea. Based in Oxford (a London branch … Continue reading

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Self-sufficient

The rotten side of self-publishing. The cheap schadenfreude of plagiarism accusations / Buster Keaton, Master Architect / animal photo art reference search / Armortek make scale metal models of historic tanks, with exceptional attention to detail / American public transit … Continue reading

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By Toutatis!

Farewell Anthea Bell, the extremely skilled translator of Goscinny and Uderzo’s Asterix books, as well as the English versions of late W.G. Sebald. See also this list of Asterix characters and their international name equivalents and Asterix in translation: the … Continue reading

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Archives and more

Lithium mining in Chile, photography by Catherine Hyland / creased paper interiors by Simon Schubert / animated geometric gifs at Bees and Bombs / spooky ceramics by Jessica Harrison / a collection of Control Panels (via Kottke) / pages and … Continue reading

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Sound and image

A varied collection of things. Humboldt’s Illustrating Nature, a richly illustrated book about the travels of Alexander von Humbolt in the early 19th century / Do Not Forget Me, film studios in Kolkota photographed by Nandita Raman / Conserve the … Continue reading

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I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

The Statue of Liberty shown on American stamps is the replica in Las Vegas (via The New Aesthetic) / Swimming Pools / graphic design by Kelemen Richard (blog) / design by Henrik Nygren / Opus Analogico, a list of analogies, … Continue reading

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Two theatres and an ice rink

The Fighting Fantasy books are back, courtesy of a new title written by Charlie Higson. FF rivalled the Choose Your Own Adventure series, but both didn’t weather the rise of first computer text adventures and then just video gaming in … Continue reading

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All over the place, again

Random bits from here and there. Julia Set Explorer, fun with fractals / Coffee Lids, a new book by Louise Harpman and Scott Specht, is subtitled ‘Peel, Pinch, Pucker and Puncture’. A taxonomic trawl through the many variations of the … Continue reading

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Carriage returned

Random things. Sticking a 1000 watt LED on a drone / Paul’s Extreme Sound Stretch, ambient sound generator / sort of related, the 15 Second horror movie challenge / crowdfunding for the Cardiacs’ Tim Smith. More Cardiacs / Social Decay: … Continue reading

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Shoe leather

Why Amazon’s ‘last mile’ is such a grind for those who have to walk it. A world that has created devices like the Flexbot6 / London’s Architectural Association threatens major cuts / Gurafiku, a tumblr about graphic design in Japan … Continue reading

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Here they all are

This is where we’ve been putting all the links. Incredible Doom, a web comic (via MeFi Projects). Recommended / another comic: A Fire Story / useless design features in modern products / J Mascis to sell lots of excess gear … Continue reading

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High and lows

Tiny London apartment for sale in a former water tank. Beautiful details but obscured windows covering such an incredible view would a constant source of regret / music writing at Velvet Sheep / which links the neo psych of Thee … Continue reading

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Watch and learn

Some things to watch / recreating dead actors. Presumably the Peter Cushing estate didn’t think to license his image so this one was a freebie / the evolution of Formula 1 steering wheels / Pop Up, a short film / … Continue reading

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Hugged to death

Modern Berlin is the latest map from Blue Crow Media. The spike of interest in architecture-related travel continues unabated with Phaidon’s Mid-Century Modern Architecture Travel Guide: West Coast USA. Modern architecture has always had this problem of being reduced to … Continue reading

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Flying my bike past the gates of the factories

The Re-birth of the Company, a book about the creeping return to the glory (?) days of the Corporate Town. Wikipedia has a list of company towns. We’re living in an age when corporations are suggesting they sift through your … Continue reading

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World building and the building of worlds

More design and illustration. Beautiful objects by Santi Zoraidez, including Embedded / Habitat 316/D, an imagined socialist dystopia by Marcin Wolski / Airport of the Future, illustrations by Sam Chivers / illustrations by Federico Babina / Beware the Bibliophilia, a … Continue reading

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Worse things happen at sea

A forthcoming academic study by Emma Spence on the world of superyacht acquisition and use lays bare the reality that these objects have very little discernible use value in the traditional anthropological sense. They also don’t function as assets, because … Continue reading

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The spirit of place

Xchurches, a tumblr of ex-churches / photography by Alexandre Guirkinger / paintings by Bernardo Siciliano / photography by Ignas Maldus / In pictures: Georgia’s forgotten people, ‘Approximately 400 are living in harsh conditions in an abandoned Soviet-era military hospital in … Continue reading

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