Jazz Books

Helping to clear my boyfriend's late-Grandad's house last weekend we came across a whole stack of vintage niceness. He loved jazz and also had French family so these things combine in a whole collection of fantastic book covers, vintage ephemera and gorgeous postcard books.

Unfortunately my camera battery gave up fairly quickly but next we journey up to Birmingham I will adding a whole stack of lovely vintage postcard-book covers like those below to the Flickr set.

Bookshopping

I found these fantastic book covers in a second hand bookshop in Lichfield - there were so many, but I think these were the choice picks. Lucky for me, Penguin Plays seem to be pretty unpopular in Lichfield.

January to March 2010

January to March 2010, originally uploaded by wil_freeborn.

Great work from Wil Freeborn - take a look at the detail and colour full size. Well worth a look through the rest of his Flickr stream.

ATMOSPHERE

ATMOSPHERE, originally uploaded by wearebrainstorm.

Atmosphere
18" x 24"
5 color silkscreen print
$30

www.wearebrainstorm.com

The Belousov Zhabotinsky reaction

I saw this on a really interesting BBC4 program last night called The Secret Life of Chaos and just had to share it, it's so beautiful! Almost magical. It's the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction.

It led to a whole section of beautiful images brought about by feedback loops Definitely worth a watch!

The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings

oooo pretty. Spotted on ebay.

enormouschampion

Not a hugely stocked Etsy shop but some interesting bits and bobs, enormouschampion are a duo with some lovely printy stuff.

Charting the Beatles: Working Schedule, 1963-1966

Charting the Beatles: Working Schedule, 1963-1966, originally uploaded by ChartingTheBeatles.

Charting The Beatles

My New Favourite Blog

Bakerella might just be the best thing ever (besides actually eating cake). Concerned not only with making A LOT of very yummy cakes and other sweet lovely things, the posts are as much about imagination, decoration, colour, styling and photography. A feast for the eyes. eh? eh?! (sorry, had to...).

Beach Balls & Balloons

TOBYhouse is primarily an interior and retail design consultancy, but they also produce a small number of lighting and housewares products. The Beach Ball and Balloon Lamps particularly stood out to me; the beach balls so much fun, happy bright and joyful, and the balloons are just such beautiful colours, they have a great depth and warmth to them. Apparently the products are available in boutiques in London and Milan, or you can find contact details on the TOBYhouse website.

Cherry Blossom

A friend of mine forwarded me an email full of pictures of Japan's cherry blossom season today and I had to share it. The contrast of the softest soft pink and the bright orange here is beautiful. To see the cherry blossom has to be one of my dream trips.



The pictures seem to be watermarked from wusjp.com but I have no idea what that is as I can't read Japanese, and apparently neither can google translate to any useful extent. A quick search through Flickr finds plenty more great examples.

Yulia Brodskaya

The quite prolific Yulia Brodskaya has updated her website with even more yummy papery goodness. Check out her news for lots of recent commercial projects ranging from Starbucks, to t-shirts, more for The Guardian and lots more editorial.

Thanks for the tip, FormFiftyFive.

Shopping

Some shops are just really nice to be in aren't they? Take Uniqlo - their clothes are, well, ok. I don't buy them often because they never seem to fit me very well. But I still love to be in there, which means even though I know their clothes aren't normally the best for me, I still find something good occasionally. Whereas most shops I I have that experience with may as well not exist to me - they're just not on my radar. A lot of shops in my price range turn into something very very depressing not unlike a jumble sale at this time of year, and Uniqlo feels even more like an oasis. A very organised, colourful oasis. I wish more of them paid this much attention to the actual experience of shopping, rather than swinging manically between TRENDY and CHEAP. And yes, they do shout.

That is all.

Apak

Some psychedelic cuteness from Apak. Available to buy on Etsy. They're also featured on the, erm, charming, Charming Wall gallery.

Good Shape Design

Some nice posters available at Good Shape Design, the work of Wayne Pate. At $30 a pop for silkscreen prints I think they're pretty good value, even though they don't appear to be limited edition.

Via Design*Sponge.

Paul Catherall

I saw some of Paul Catherall's work, and an interesting short film about his linocut process, at the London Transport Museum this weekend. He has a really distinctive style and uses colours in an unusually poetic way that grabbed my attention - I remember seeing these out and around on the tube.
This particular series, Four Seasons, is available to buy at the Transport Museum Shop.

Beau Ideal Editions Calendar

A gorgeous new calendar from Beau Ideal just popped up on my reader. Hand screen printed in limited edition, it's slightly pricey at $48 plus delivery but there's obviously a lot of work and love gone into it. A simple idea that's been designed really consistently and effectively, with loads of yummy hand-drawn type. Yep yep.

Wellcome Award Images

Lovely abstract stuff from the Wellcome Image Awards. All microscopic scientific imagery, some of it is surprisingly beautiful. The Silkworm Trachea above I thought was lovely, and the red blood cells are particularly arresting too.

Full gallery.

Lotta Bruhn

Lovely Christmas patterns from Lotta Bruhn. Those birds definitely have an edge of Charley Harper about them - no bad thing...

New from Recycle Club

originally uploaded by recycle club.

New characters on Flickr from the always brilliant Recycle Club. These images make me feel so happy!