All posts filed under: Things for Fun

Unusual Tea Bags from Atta Creative

Published by

During last month’s London Design Festival, the folks from Atta Creative displayed these lovely tea bags as part of a collaborative of Korean designers. The T-Point tells you when your water is at the proper temperature for brewing through color changes of the leaf that is produced by thermocolor printing. Just pop a leaf out of the container and hold it above the cup to see if it’s ready. Teapop Travel bags have paper cut-outs of famous icons to create souvenir tea bags. Finally, Tea for Two is an engagement ring shaped handle that would be a perfect favor for bridal showers, engagement parties, or just for the bride and groom to use on their special day.

London Cube Co

Published by

I spotted these whimsical wooden cubes from London Cube Co at the 100% Design show in London last month. Claretta Pierantozzi established her design shop in 2013 after graduating from the Architectural Association and having worked for top architecture firms including Foster+Partners, Heatherwick studio, and David Chipperfield architects. Handcrafted in Shoreditch, these oversized versions of the alphabet block can be used as stools, side tables, shelves, or design objects.  In addition to letters, the cubes can feature illustrations from children’s books or entomological plates. The custom cubes are made to order from techniques including silk screening, letterpressing, laser cutting, and CNC milling, along with hand-crafted labor. The cubes feature frames, fretwork, and plates in birch plywood, white oak, or black walnut and come in two sizes, 17.3”-square or 8.7”-square. Though decorative, these pieces aren’t flimsy. Depending on the size and style, they can weigh from 4 to 30 pounds. This type of quality doesn’t come cheap however, and prices start at £340.

Studio Visit: Black + Blum

Published by

It was a bit ironic that my first visit to the London studio of Black + Blum was during the summer edition of the New York International Gift Fair. It was during that show several years ago where I first encountered the company’s quirky, functional gadgets. During a trip to London in August, I sat down with Martin Blum at the Black + Blum studio/shop located in the OXO Tower on the south bank of the Thames. Blum was holding down the fort at home while his business partner Dan Black introduced new products at the Javits Center in New York. Blum and Black first met when they were design students at Newcastle University. After working well together on a few group projects, “we realized that we had something going,” says Blum. “It’s quite rare to find someone you can work well with.”  A few years after school the two got together and started a firm in 1998. After operating as a design consultancy for two years, they had a literal “lightbulb” moment after designing …

Saving the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum

Published by

Jim Moran got some bad news last October while he was preparing for the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum’s annual conference in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Moran, who is director of the world’s only museum dedicated to the preservation, study, production, and printing of wood type, was told by his landlord that the museum had six months to find a new home. The news wasn’t entirely a shock. Moran and his small team had noticed that the building owner, lab equipment manufacturer Thermo Fisher Scientific, had begun downsizing the employees that shared the massive building, which was rapidly deteriorating. The museum, which was founded in 1999, took up 12,000-square-feet (with an additional 25,000 for storage) of the three-block long, 1.3 million-square-foot facility that the Hamilton Manufacturing Company had built, and added to, from 1910 to 1926. The manufacturer had donated free rent, lighting, and heat to the museum, but they were now closing their Two Rivers plant and moving production elsewhere. (MORE AFTER PHOTOS) Moran had to quickly raise the estimated $250,000 needed to pack …

ACME Eyeglass Cases

Published by

ACME Studio, a Hawaiian company famous for their colorful pens, card cases, and other accessories, has introduced a fun new line of eyeglass cases designed by artists, designers, and architects, including designs inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Antoni Guadi. My favorites are the X-Ray design by Ben Hall, featuring drawings from vintage advertisements, and the clever Eye Chart case designed by Adrian Olabuenaga. Other designs in the collection include pieces by Debora Jedwab, Constantin Boym, and Arik Levy, among others. The cases are $35 each and are available through Design Mafia.

Kohler Original Recipe Chocolate Eggs

Published by

One of the best kept secrets about plumbing giant Kohler Co. is that in addition to making toilets, showers, and tubs out of Kohler, Wisconsin, the company also makes incredible handmade chocolates. Available for a limited time, these speckled eggs come in milk and dark chocolate with ganache centers infused with flavors like cognac, strawberries and cream, and peanut butter. If you aren’t near Kohler’s Craverie Chocolatier Cafe don’t worry,  you can also order the eggs online. $29.95 for a 9 piece set; $15.95 for a four piece set.