The face cards from a deck served as the inspiration for both of the prints above. On the left is The Queen of Clubs, by Binth. And on the right is a Mogwai Poster by Delicious Design League.

I got to meet Peter Dunham of Binth at the NSS this year, and they are doing some beautiful work. I hope to see more prints from them soon. DDL via OMG Posters.

Hafedh Nefti is a young French designer. He sent over his Froog chair (top), which I love as a colorful, playful object. They would make for an amazing addition to a school classroom. Also awesome are his Ba-Rock chairs – love them as an alternative to the traditional, plastic, outdoor furniture set.

Gravis recently launched the Dylan Reider Pro Model, and they are definitely a departure from most shoes on the market. I have to say that I like them though. And if you’ve seen Dylan’s part in Mind Field, the new AWS video, then you know they work for skating. As Spike says, “It’s gotta be the shoes.”

As always, some beautiful images at National Geographic. This time it’s Glowing Animals: Beasts Shining for Science. In most cases, the fluorescent protein is implanted into the animals as a marker for a gene to be studied, typically for genetic diseases. A few of the specimens shown have naturally occurring fluorescence, scorpions for example. In the scorpion’s case, scientists are not completely sure what purpose it serves but hypothesize the layer protects them from UV rays or serves as a daylight ‘sensor’.

One of our readers that I had the pleasure to meet at the NSS last week was Amy Tischer – a recent industrial design graduate from Philadelphia University. She sent over her amazing Urban Nature tea-light holders, which were inspired by natural elements and patterns found in urban environments. Amy designed the tea-light holders in her sophomore year as a project for Foster’s Urban Homewares. The tea-lights are made from extruded steel tubes, 3d laser cut, and powder coated. See more of Amy’s work here.

Found the Aqua Banded Series by Caleb Siemon via the RVCA Artists Network Program. RVCA has definitely branched out into a lot of non-skate related stuff, which sets them apart from other lifestyle brands, but not just skater-art, aka skart. Though they still represent skaters pretty hard, check out Leo Romero’s part in the RVCA promo below, the guy rips.

Perhaps a sharp contrast to my previous post, this little table by Johnny Swing consists of square jars and a wire Eames-like base. As an object, it’s beautiful, I only wish the jar lids or the jar glass were a different color, like orange or a mix of bright colors. Either way, it’s still a very fun table.

Hey all – we’re back from the National Stationery Show, and are slowly recovering (had our first solid nights sleep in weeks yesterday!). It was so great to meet some of you all at the show – thanks so much for stopping by!

We met some great designers at the show this year – one of my favorites is Enormous Champion, whom Sean had met at the show last year, but I had missed somehow…Jason and Jordan are a Brooklyn duo doing some great work, and they are super nice to boot – check out their Etsy shop for their amazing update to some old-fashioned patterns – bat and bunnies houndstooth and seagulls and eagles herringbone. One of my favorite things in their booth this year was their new Kingdom Animalia series – wooden animals cut-outs with a bright edge-painted strip, packaged in awesome boxes.

Another nice booth at ICFF was the Test Collective. The wire standing light fixture and the laser engraved boards were cool to see. The lamps were especially interesting to me because they were so minimal compared to the rest of the lighting at the show. I like how the conical form implies the movement of light from the bare lamp.

The Stitched Table by Uhuru was one of the things that caught my eye at ICFF this year. I really like the seafoam and brown combination and the mirror of the large X-frame and the small stitches in the cleft tabletop.