Jennifer Hill is donating a portion of the proceeds from her beautiful Block Island print of the Places I Have Never Been series to the Alzheimer’s Association, the leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer care, support and research. The issue is near and dear to Jennifer, whose father died of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease when he was 54. $5-$15 per print (depending on the size purchased) will be donated to the organization.

Even though the exhibit is long gone, the gallery for Dream Anatomy is still online. Check out the drawings, prints and sculptures designed to aid professionals and the public in their study of human anatomy. If only it were an exhibit on pumpkin anatomy (like the ones below by Ray Villafane), it would be a perfect Halloween post. Happy trick or treating!

Dream Anatomy via Lines and Colors

Thanks to Daily Candy Everywhere for featuring our Animal Christmas Cards today! All proceeds from the sale of these cards go to the Shama Foundation.

Also – huge thanks to Design Files for the very kind write up about our blog!

An expedition in 2008 recently mapped the Xe Bang Fai River cave in central Laos. Likened to “an underground K2″ by explorer John Pollack, the enormity and scale of the cave dwarfs most others on Earth (so far). I look forward to hopefully seeing the photos in my NG when it arrives.

We cover a lot of architecture on our site. But looking at the photos of the cave, I am reminded of how the hands of man cannot create a built environment as grand and awe-inspiring as this. Something that started as an underground trickle, over countless years, became a humbling reminder of the power and patience of the natural world.

photographs by Dave Bunnell

Above are two great prints by Gregory Gilbert-Lodge. I love how the low contrast of the deep black and grey tones draw you into the image instead of how high contrast colors jump off the page towards you. The strong imagery of the colonel and canine do that job already.

GGL found via Kinki Mag #7 on Issuu, which is a great place to self-publish books and magazines. Gather up some friends and start your own magazine!

Thanks to John for pointing out these Field Notes books, designed by Draplin Design Company of Portland, OR. Other well-designed products include calendars, pens and pencils, all looking like they are from a retro shipping warehouse or perhaps the island from LOST.

If you actually want to take some notes in the field, the old Rite-in-the-Rain company makes some nice kits for all sorts of scientific, military and hunting uses. Below is the Field Book Kit and the Upland Bird Journal Kit. Both include cordura covers and all-weather pens for serious work.

BBRK sent us a tip to check out the portfolio of Pooroni Rhee. Inside we found Kingdom Hybrid, a great print set/mini calendar of flora-fauna mash-ups.

Motorola unveiled a gorgeous new phone this week – the ridiculously expensive, but very lovely Aura. The phone body is made up of stainless steel with a etched, textured pattern and the screen is 1.62-carat sapphire crystal. It is apparently made up of lots of other fancy parts, too, which you can read all about in Cnet’s review. I mainly just love the sexy skin and the unique display. The Aura features a 2-megapixel camera, an mp3 player, stereo Bluetooth, quad-band GSM support, Moto’s CrystalTalk feature, messaging, e-mail, a speakerphone, and an open-source browser all for $1,999. Um, yeah.

Up To You is a Toronto-based shop with lots of great products. I love the memory games that they carry – the Everyday Object Memory Game, and the Blossom Memory Game. If anyone knows who designed these, please let me know, as the website doesn’t give credit to the designer.

The Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio tour at Oak Park was the bonus event on our trip to Chicago. VW gave their presentation in the drafting studio and we got to do a little architectural immersion design/draft activity. Being architects ourselves, the class was like going way way back to the first year of architecture school. I hadn’t seen an eraser shield in years!

The tour itself was interesting because the house had been restored to its original state (though FLW’s renovations as his family/business expanded remained). One interesting feature to the studio was that there was no obvious entrance – the visitor is forced to walk around the exterior before finally discovering a door – along the way, FLW’s desire is that you notice the exterior architectural detailing, making it clear to the client what type of design they can expect from the architect.

It was also nice to see FLW’s use of material (lots of wood and dark colors – very anti the modernism of these days) and the many pieces of furniture he designed. The kids’ playroom on the 2nd floor was my favorite. Unfortunately, the FLW Preservation Trust does not allow guests to take pictures inside, so we only have exteriors to post. Overall, the tour was great, and it was a pleasure to see how FLW designed everything down to the brooms.