
Gelateria Nico, Venice
I just came back from teaching a week-long illustration workshop in Venice, Italy. After finish up the class each evening, the students and I often ran to our favourite gelateria in town, Nico. If they pretend they don’t understand your English, be nice and try to speak a little Italian. Just read the names of the tastes you want, followed by ‘Per Favore!’ You can sit by the large seating area at the dock, but the local way of enjoying their superb gelato is to hold the cone in your hand and take a walk along the promenade overlooking the canal and Giudecca Island across the water. Ah, so Venice.

Tagged: Italy, New Food and Packaging
RELATED

Officially, Avec is first and foremost a wine bar. Yet, a few minutes in this vibrant, energetic Chicago-based space and it’s quickly evident that it’s so much more. Set in a long, narrow honey-colored room wrapped in cedar and hickory, with five communal tables and red oak seating, the atmosphere is loud and boisterous, filled with lively conversation and music to match. Within this James Beard Award Winning designed room, rustic cuisine, charcuterie, and cheese from the Mediterranean regions of Southern France, Portugal, Italy, and Spain are served as small and large plates. Read more

Italy is one of those places where every town, village, and city claims to have the best restaurant in the country. And while the majority of eateries are knockout, I’m pretty confident that despite all the grandiose claims, one of the best restaurants is hidden in the deep south in Puglia, at an unassuming ten-table family-run joint. Yet, at Antichi Sapori, it is not this quaintness that wows you, appealing as it is, but it is the food that is fall-off-your-chair unreal at this tiny spot. Everything here is fresh, local, handmade, still warm, just picked, first-pressed, or perfectly ripe. Read more

Many years ago, the Italian designer Fupete and I collaborated on an issue of the magazine I was editing at the time, STU, his intricate art direction giving space and life to the cacophony of illustrations and photography bursting from its pages. The guy is one hell of an art director, and a brilliant designer as well, his latest work revealing his well-developed sense of shape and texture, which meshes seamlessly with his subtle use of color gradients. Read more
Also by YUKO SHIMIZU

PostlerFerguson’s Paper Gun Model Kit
London-based design studio PostlerFerguson has been creating super realistic and accurate looking paper guns and other arms. Three of them will be released by German design publisher Gestalten. So now you can make your own! Read more

I have been in search of a cool and functional laptop bag for years. This will totally be on my wish list. Designed by Hard Graft, it’s the coolest Macbook case I have seen so far. I guarantee everyone will ask: ‘where did you get this from?’

Victoria Reynolds’s meat paintings
I look at so much art, it’s rare that I see something that ‘wows’ me. But I love bumping into that rare moment. I was doing photo research (nothing related to meat) and bumped into Victoria Reynolds’ work. WOW. Gross-ugly-beautiful. I especially love the ones in matching meaty looking frames.
YOU'RE SAYING (2)
Yuko Shimizu said | 2 September, 2008
Hey Dooser, thanks for your comment. I am disappointed to hear that you didn’t like the gelato there, but as a huge gelato-snob, I found this place really good! And I spent a week surrounded by locals, they all love this place. It is kind of old-school type of gelato, not the new gourmet kind. But two scoops on the cone is less than 2 euros, which I don’t think is expensive at all, considering some charge as high as 4 euro.
The seating area at the doc is more for tourists, they have fancier desserts which costs a lot more. I recommend a takeout.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Estelle Hanania’s photographs transpose a shamanistic, pagan sense of horror, mischief, and magic onto the modern world. Read more
The urban planning for Dubai increasingly has the city looking more and more like a still out of a Jetsens episode. The futuristic architecture that charcterises its evolution is pushing the boundaries of design, the buildings climbing ever upwards with their blindingly original facades. Apparently Dubai is home to between 15 and 25 percent of the world’s 125,000 construction cranes, which is hardly surprising. This image above is a sneak preview of how the famed Dubai waterfront will look in a few years time.
Yes, Karen O wears it. And we don’t blame her. Launched by make-up artist, Mike Potter, Knock Out Cosmetics nail polish is a little Victorian, a touch art deco, and a lot of rock n’ roll.
Emma McNally creates abstract graphite drawings inspired by cartography, maps, and musical notation. Occasionally her pieces suggest depth and dimension, while some of her other pieces seem like star charts for imaginary galaxies.
This website hosts a nice collection of quirky, sometimes mind-boggling, sculptures from around the world. There’s a certain Dali-esque feel to a lot of them – those surreal, dreamy hallucinations turned into a warped reality. I’ve always been a sucker for art that really catches you out for a few seconds, and these certainly do that.
Heavy metal and hip-hop are perhaps the most popular forms of rebellion for kids the world over. In Malaysia, metal — particularly black metal — has taken such a strong hold that the Fatwa Council there banned it, fearing that the music would compel listeners to rebel against religion. Contrary to the council’s intentions, black metal is as popular as ever in Malaysia, and is a recognizable cultural touchstone there, as indicated by the above clip from the 2005 film Filem Rock.
I love Brooklyn band Durty Nanas. They were formed in 2005 and play street spaces, galleries, lofts, and block parties. So I guess they are the ‘real’ Bloc party.
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST

Amazing cake designs by Charm City Cakes
Baltimore company Charm City Cakes produces the most innovative wedding and party cakes on the market. Inspiration for these creative bakers comes from everywhere: art, fabric, furniture, architecture, landscapes, science, and music, and each cake is individually designed to match your personality, and the theme of the occasion you are celebrating. Don’t miss these cakey engineering masterpieces. Read more

Good thing Kris Kuksi channelled the trauma of growing up with an alcoholic stepfather, his disdain for ‘the typical American life and pop culture’, and his fascination with the macabre into obsessive, baroque assemblages, paintings, and drawings. Read more

Trip out with Sparrow Vs Sparrow’s retro illustrations, I love their aesthetic, color use and sense of humor. Read more

Forget battery powered vehicles. Cars made from ice are the future of transportation: no pollution, no honking horns, no painful rap music blasting out of souped up stereos. And if they melt, they melt. You just swim the rest of the way down the slipstream.

Charlie Immer’s pastel-pallete sometimes obfuscates the gory violence in his surreal images. At other times, it heightens the gut-wrenching and visceral effect of his work. Read more
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
Milk and honey, an indubitable pair. In this necklace by Stephanie Simek, a golden honeycomb beeswax pendant is encased in plastic and hangs from an oxidized sterling silver chain. The links are interwoven with a milk protein-based fiber. We have it for sale in our online store. Read more
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it’s not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.












Dooser said | 1 September, 2008
I’m positive this is the gelateria I went to while taking a break from studying the architecture one afternoon this spring (notice the beautiful church in the background of the first photo). I was highly disappointed with the gelato. High price, low quality. I urge readers, if in the area, to search for another gelateria.