Fun and clever products! (that I really, really want!)

*Love* these products from multi award-winning German product design company, Ding3000. Really want all 3 of these, like for realz. The cake pan is such a freakin awesome idea! That really fat piece should have my initials imprinted on it.

"Everything under one roof. Lifestyle for the readers. Practical and ornamental. Magazin is a timeless and beautiful magazine stand in shape of a house. When disturbed while reading, just lay the open magazine on the roof of the house, and you can easily pick it up again to carry on reading, without loosing the page. Meanwhile your other favorite magazines can be stored under the roof."

"S-XL Cake is a baking dish with a new approach: The shape of the cake is inspired by the permanent issue "how to divide a cake?". S-XL Cake plays with our individual need for different sizes of cake-pieces in a decorative, provocative and ironic way by taking advantage of the new possibilities that flexible silicone baking dishes offer."

"Billy Wilder meets one's primary expectation of a shelf - to put everything in order. It is meant as a playful approach to the subject "our daily mess" and shall serve as an interim storage place for unsorted books, magazines and newspapers. The wildly growing rack makes Billy "wilder"."

Embroidered Clichés by Jilly Cooper, aka Lisa Bowen

"My work is kind of a celebration of failure: our faults, personal problems, and life's losers. I enjoy creating nostalgia around our funny quirks"
- via an interview with Lisa Bowen in The Spit Press, Issue 8

I love the quirky and crafty feel of this series by mixed media artist, Lisa Bowen...

"Once upon a time, I found a copy of The Penguin Book of Clichés and I got to thinking about these curious little collections of words and their origins.

I began to notice that I have a habit of dropping clichés into every single conversation. I began to “collect” these clichés as they appeared naturally in conversation, then I started preserving them - labouring over each letter as I stitched, then I framed each phrase. Every day more and more clichés pop up, and if I don’t write them down immediately, they’re gone. It’s like I’m catching cliché-butterflies, and stitching them down before they get lost!
We are so often told to “Avoid clichés like the plague”. Sometimes though, they are the only words that come to mind. For the verbally challenged of us, these words or phrases give us a voice and allow us to say - however clunkily - what we want to say."

Lisa was born in England, but recently moved to Australia. Check out more of her work on her site and her Etsy shop.

Designer and illustrator, Thomas de Beer

Thomas is a very talented designer and illustrator, and an all round interesting, fun guy. I always prefer handwritten/drawn stuff to digital stuff, so I was stoked that he actually wrote out his answers to my questions below :)

*click the image to view a larger version*

His work is for sale on his site
If you'd prefer to read the neatly typed up version, click the "read more" link below...

Pecha Kucha!

Last night was the Durban Pecha Kucha presentation event held at the Colombo Tea & Coffee Co. It was the fifth one to be held in Durban, but this was my first experience of it. If you didn't make it to this one, be sure you're at the next one, it is definitely something worth checking out. The speakers were all so inspiring, and all from various creative fields in Durban.

Unfortunately, these pics aren't the greatest ever, but they give you an idea of the vibe. It was an awesome venue and it was great to see such a great turnout.

Kyle and his peeps were kept very busy churning out gallons of their super coffee...

Speakers pictured below include Greg Daroll of Tokyo-Go-Go, Louis de Villiers a.k.a Skullboy, Kyle Fraser of Colombo Tea & Coffee Co and Dorin Bambus of Gorilla Creative Media...

The "I lost my virginity" forms, once filled in by the public, are going to contribute to an upcoming exhibition by Skullboy. It was great to hear about his creative process and the thought behind his work. Very inspiring, real, cool stuff.

And these are just coz I like them...

Check out more pics of the venue here, and Tokyo-go-go and Skullboy's last exhibition here.

Mooks!

I quite like these little Mook creatures from I Love Grey Skies Etsy shop, My Grey Sky.

She doesn't say much about herself apart from this:

I live in Florida because most people I love have chosen to live here. The older I get the more resigned I become to it but I really do love grey skies and brisk days. My life is truly about as good as it gets. I'm always working on something and sometimes get crabby when I can't.

Some of them come with little mask attachments and surrounding scenes... I just dig the whole whimsical, folky forest feel :)

Also enjoy the illustrations and the look of her blog...

Cat lady in the making...

So if you follow me on twitter, you might have noticed the abundance of cat-related tweets of late. It all started on a dark and stormy night a few weeks ago *dum dum duuuuum*...

Ok, it wasn't stormy, and it was just dark coz it was night, but it was rather cold. We heard a very loud high-pitched meowing outside, naturally ran out to go see what it was, and low and behold, a tiny little baby kitty witty all by his little lonesome selfness! Seemed pretty clear that she'd been abandoned. So of course I had to take her in and be her new momface :)

I've been wanting a kitten for ages, but wasn't going to get one because I've got 2 cats already, one of which (whom?) is very very possessive and jealous, so I didn't want to upset him. He's barely on friendly terms with the other cat, and they've been together over 5 years now! But this was a whole new situation. You could even call it a life and death situation, maybe. So I kept the new little critter, and called her Ninja because of her colour and her ability to blend into shadowy or dark-coloured spaces and unexpectedly pop up everywhere. Behold the glory of her unbearable cuteness below. I swear kittens could take over the world if they wanted, just by using their powers of cuteness.

Are you swooning yet? Just look at that crazy kitten-attack-mode face at the bottom! Love it! <3
I've learnt that it's pretty much impossible to take decent photos of all-black cats without flash, unless you wants lots of photos with vaguely cat-shaped empty black spaces.

Next up is Salem. (At this point I must mention that Salem is about 11 years old, so his name is an unfortunate remnant of a much younger, misguided me.) I love this cat so much, it's sometimes worrying. He is so beautiful, photos don't do him justice. I shouldn't have favourites, but I'd be lying if I said he isn't my favest cat in the world ever. His long fur coat is so thick and gorgeous, and he's got so much personality <3

Next up, Garfield. (Another poor li'l guy stuck with a lame name. Luckily, this wasn't my bad choice...) Garfield was one of those poor kitties who are rescued from the SPCA, only to be given to stupid kids as birthday presents, only to later be kicked out because it turns out that the household was full of moronic douchebags who hadn't thought through their wonderful birthday plan for their darling brat child. (I feel quite strongly about people like this, can you tell?) Aaaanyway, he joined my home (much to Salem's intense dismay) and lived happily ever after.

This is what Salem and Garfield thought about the arrival of the little Ninja orphan. I think those facial expressions say it all. But they're getting used to her... slowly.

So much cat love! The kitten is also my excuse behind the lack of posts lately :P

Poster, poster, on the wall...

We've got such a wealth of amazing designers and illustrators here in South Africa, it's so awesome to see their stuff around. The Social Contract blog is a great place to see a whole lot of amazing poster design...
"The only blog featuring South African gig poster art on a weekly basis.
We want to see only good music poster art on the streets.
We want your walls to look like an modern art gallery.
We want good music and good design to move hand in hand."

The site includes poster art from Adam Hill, Doktrine, Jaco Haasbroek, Kronk, One Horse Town and loads more. Check it out.