Fabric of Our Lives.

I love commercials that show the product, but are more of a narrative rather than an annoying "buy me! buy me!" feat. I saw the Cotton: Fabric of Our Lives commercial with Zooey Deschannel today and it stood out with it's trendy, but light atmosphere. One might say it's a little too indie, but it's trendy and Zooey looks good in most things retro. You can also download the song for free here.

Someone's Trash.

Spring is here and it means it's the season for spring cleaning and garage sales. There was one particularly big one in a local school that had a variety of literally everything. A lot of useless weird things, but some treasures. I got a vinyl of Christmas carols because of the illustration, a shirt and a skirt and a couple of books. My favorite one is a 1951's book of home improvement and decorating. It even has a full-color color wheel for reference and some explanation on "modern" decoration. Success!

HOW?

Picked up the most recent issue of How magazine yesterday. The awards issue has some amazing work worth checking out. Here's a little peak into what's inside.

Mad Men-cool.

I've been Mad Men-crazy for months now. I know the show's kind of trendy in the design world, but hey, it's a damn good show! Some say nothing happens in it, but I can't argue more. I love that it's mainly based on character development than action. Things happen, just not in a typical "boom! boom! you're shot!" kind of way. The whole series is beautifully shot and smart, witty and has an amazing atmosphere.


(images via featuresblog and ing)

I also found a great Interior Design article about Mad Men sets. Here is a selection of a few images from it.

Red, Yellow, Blue.

I love good packaging for mass-produced consumer products. I noticed that Target often has really nice office accessories that go beyond what I call a "hip dorm room". If it fits in a dorm room - sweet, but color-coding an entire room down to your writing materials in one color is a little OCD. I might be wrong.

I found this journal set yesterday when I was trying to get something that is compact, well-designed and convenient for taking notes and storing information. I've been desperately trying to make the habit of writing things down stick, so lets hope this time it works. I love that the little books have a box/folder to fit them (no mess!) and are actually multi-purpose. One has a square grid, one has lines and one is blank. It also helps that the colors are my exact color palette. Here's the link to the store called russel+hazel that creates that line for Target. Some of the stuff on the site is a little "dorm-y" for my taste, but it's all well-designed and clean. Hurray for good design in people's daily lives!

Black Swan.

When it comes to wine, my choice often depends on the design of the label. There's something refreshing about liquor that has a decent package design and attention to detail. If it ends up being good wine - good, if not, at least I did not feel weird looking at it. This particular bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon was pretty good. I don't consider myself an expert in wine, but I enjoyed it. The label is pretty simple too, even though I'd change a thing or two in it. The reason I noticed the bottle in the first place was the black on black label, stylized illustration and a sans-serif name. It was also quite nice to see the red cap that was both a great accent a clever imitation of screw-on cap.