WE'RE SUPPORTING

Design company BrandImage has just come out with their line of paper water bottles made out of renewable resources. The bottles themselves are recyclable, and while not as reusable as a plastic bottle, can still be reused a few times. These are cool designs, even if they still pander to our on-the-go, single-serving, throw-away culture. Their environmental friendliness is also dubious, considering most people will still choose to throw these things in the trash rather than taking the time to find a recycling bin.

WE'RE THINKING

There’s been an interesting trend recently in print and advertising work in particular away from the perfect symmetry and airbrushed cleanliness of vector art and back towards a looser form of hand-drawn illustration. I see it everywhere, from the middle pages of highbrow pop culture publications to the style sections of local broadsheets. And yet, it’s unexpected, especially so soon after the wave of vector art which swamped the print world just a few years back. Read more

Back in the day, when I was a skinny teenager on the great pedestal of life, I had a real obsession for the understated, low-fi, deliciously melodic and somewhat blurry sounds of the New Zealand Flying Nun bands. I would pool my meagre savings and canvas the local record shops, scouring the racks for the latest cassettes from The Bats, The Chills, The Clean, and, later, The Straitjacket Fits. Read more

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

A project that has been a pioneer of the revitalization of downtown Kansas City, this building’s goal was to promote the Central Library as well as represent the city itself. Read more

WE'RE READING

Downtownfrombehind is a photo blog featuring creative types (artists, models, chefs, musicians) riding their bikes around downtown New York City. The goal is to highlight those who make downtown New York what it is today.

WE'RE LISTENING TO

The Futurebirds are an unruly band of boys from Athens, Georgia, but they might as well have been reared in the backwoods of Woodstock by Levon Helm himself. Their debut release, Hampton’s Lullaby, is out on July 13 via Autumn Tone Records.

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WE'RE WEARING

Made from 100 percent organic cotton and eco-friendly, this super soft tee celebrates a sinister world of kaleidoscopic colours and ripples of psychedelia, of serenading Queens, of dancing flamingos, of unimaginable euphoria. It’s all the work of Sydney label, Das Monk and it’s available through the Lost At E Minor online store for just US$40. Now, there’s one hell of a Christmas present, even if we do say so ourselves!