TRAVEL WRITER

The French conceptual artist Matthieu Laurette has, since 1998, been scribbling the phrase, I am an artist, on the stationery of the hotels he’s visited around the globe.

SLEEPING PILLS

 

Maybe it’s yet another Damien Hirst effect. Or maybe it’s the inevitable byproduct of a highly medicated society. Either way, pills, aesthetically-speaking, are everywhere.  Even the Italian luxury glass brand, Venini is offering a capsule-shaped vase.

The visual connection between sleep and medication is a more fitting one, though, and these two water carafes are good news for those susceptible to nocturnal thirst. The Danish designer, Charlotte Hargreave’s transparent capsule is refined and elegant enough to grace a formal table setting, while Jonathan Adler’s  opaque, squatter version is characteristically playful–and lots cheaper.

PEACE TALK

I wish I knew more about this lovely image created by Barcelona’s Francesc Moret for an organic brand.

SHARP CONTRAST

 

Kitchen knives, whether ordinary or exceptional, affordable or expensive, tend to have a visual sameness. The Swiss cookware brand Kuhn Rikon has managed to find a way to stand out from the carbon steel crowd–with this line of color-dipped paring knives and matching safety sheaths.

GRAPHIC LANGUAGE

Exceptionally fine recent work from Triboro Design.

CABINET MAKER

Longtime favorites of mine, Jasper Morrison’s deliciously-colored Plan cabinet series from 1999.

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EYE CANDY

 

There’s something very…yes, sweet…about Maira Kalman’s gouache portrait of a Snickers bar.

WEST POINT

A slice of desert irony, captured by the American photographer, Robert Adams.

BIG WORDS

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland gets a gorgeous typographic makeover by Stefanie Posavec.

TIME LESS

 

A ghostly pair of all-white wall clocks by the Swedish multi-disciplinary studio, Claesson Koivisto Rune.