Chic and Basic Hotel product packaging

Barcelona’s Hotel Omm

There’s something to be said for staying in a hotel room that’s bigger than your Brooklyn apartment. Yup, it happens so rarely that when you come across it, you kinda want to hang inside, bask in the space, and imagine that this really is your life. 365 days a year. Ah ha, then you wake up. Anyway, I stayed recently at the beautifully designed Hotel Omm in the Eixample district of Barcelona, surrounded by the glitzy, sparkling shops that dot the landscape and by the disarmingly original Gaudi buildings that tower spectacularly above the skyline. It’s quite a sight. [photo by Alison Zavos] Read more

Barcelona’s Chic and Basic Born Hotel

My wife and I have just returned from a week lapping up the culture and exploring the long winding alleyways that run off the main streets in the center of Barcelona. What a magnificent city! The seamless blend of old and new in the architecture, food, and sounds, which float out of the bars and cafes, combine with a very distinct design aesthetic, which permeates the stores and hotels to create a thriving modern city with one eye firmly on the future and the other on the artifacts of its past. While in Barcelona, we spent a few nights staying at the sublime Chic and Basic Hotel [photographed above and below], located in the Born area. This hotel symbolized so much of what we considered Barcelona to be about. Read more

Tap Water

Touché bottled water. Tap is on the rise again. As plastic water bottles pile up in our land fills, with their vague benefits, escalating prices, and notable carbon footprints, this 90s trend is starting to feel a little dated. Welcome Tap Water. This new reusable bottle is intended to sit lovingly on your table, filled with that deliciousness that pours directly – and locally, no matter where you are – out of your kitchen sink. The bottle is stylish, clean, and modern, branded with a cheeky message that reminds its sustainability-minded users why bottled water is so passé.

Stars of Track and Field compile a Secret Playlist

A Time For Lions is the new album from the Portland based trio Stars of Track and Field. The album was produced by John King of the Dust Brothers (Beastie Boys, Beck, Linkin Park, Carlos Santana), along with Stars of Track and Field who co-produced 5 of the 11 tracks. We checked in with Kevin Calaba from the band and asked him about the music that he was getting down to. He started with the TV on the Radio song, Family Tree [listen below]: ‘Beautiful expansive music. The melody is engaging and the lyrics are visually compelling. Adebimpe’s got such a powerful voice, which this song features out front. Enjoy the falsetto doubles and the deep rhythmic building of the outro’. [Read the rest of Stars of Track and Field's Secret Playlist]

urWurld iPhone app

urWurld has just released its free iPhone App allowing users to download their ever-growing portfolio of city guides (currently around 60 cities) whenever you want. Their main mission is to do the hard slog that every traveller does when they head somewhere new, and they’re experts at pulling apart the fluff.

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Funkuncle t shirts

Funkuncle produces limited edition T-shirts, soft-style, with a narrow neck band. They have short-ish sleeves too, allowing you to show off your guns when you chop wood, insert a DVD or fire a canon. But not so short that you’ll be considered suspect when picked up by the police, the CIA or redneck kidnappers. All designs are researched until they satisfy a committee of politicians, accountants and scientists.