Barcelona-based CANADA has taken the art form of the music video into a whole new direction with their fun and ambitious productions. Their recent work includes White Nights for Oh Land (above) and Holy Ghost for White Lies. And if you haven’t seen all their work yet, watch it all right now.

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It’s true. Xavier Mor’s packaging does look a bit like cough drops. But Ricola’s got nothing on these chocolate beauties. Hailing from Barcelona, this ‘designer chocolate‘ is the quintessential marriage of superb chocolate making meets graphic arts.

The packaging – especially the cough drop-like ‘blister’ collection – is a fun way to eat these sweets, which plays on the chocolatier’s aim to experiment with new flavor combinations, textures, and colors. Take their dark chocolate covered raspberries. Here, tiny, tart dried raspberries are dipped in creamy, almost bitter dark chocolate. The result is a tangy meets sweet bite that, while sort of resembling a chocolate covered raisin, is infinitely more interesting. Almonds covered in dark and white chocolate too are not overly saccharine – or salty, as can be the case with some nut and coco combinations – but a nice match of artisanal chocolate and tasty Marcona almonds. Fruits and nuts find their way into most of this Spanish chocolatier’s collections, considered by many to be among the best in the world. Having lived in Switzerland for 6 years, I can’t say I agree, but the delightful sweets plus packaging makes Xavier Mor an ultimate treat.

The brainchild of inventor Pep Torres, the Museum of Ideas and Inventions of Barcelona (MIBA), is spread over two floors, connected by this glorious slide. Located behind the City Hall, this new museum aims to cast a discerning eye upon creative ideas and inventions.

The team at Camper took the same flourish that they use to design simple and comfortable shoes and created a slick little space for weary heads to lay. Converting a typical 19th century building in the middle of Barcelona’s gritty El Raval area into a boutique hotel, Casa Camper is sparse in furnishings but heavy on stylish, fun and hip accents.

Within the hotel’s (very red) walls, fixed gear bikes hang from ceilings in the foyer, hammocks are strung up in every room’s living quarters, and an abundance of sleek, minimalistic furniture is omnipresent.

Like any bona fide Spaniard, the hotel takes food pretty seriously. Instead of mini bars in every room, the casa has a snack area downstairs where you can eat and drink around the clock for nix while the former chef de cuisine of ‘El Bulli’ (hailed the world’s second best restaurant according to the 2011 San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants List) is at the helm of the hotel’s restaurant, ‘Dos Palillos’.

Located in the thick of the city’s renown skate hood, Museu de Arte Contemporani de Barcelona (Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art) is an ollie and kickflip away. Obviously inspired by cities that hold their own in the stakes of parties and ‘tude, there’s also a sister Camper hotel in Berlin.

Who doesn’t love a good sausage? Certainly not the members of the recently revived Buticlub, a society brought together by their love and appreciate of the butifarra sausage.

A long-standing tradition in Barcelona, the club was founded in 1930 but only recently re-discovered by the guys at hungry castle. So what happens at such a club? Well, aside from the more traditional club activity of gorging on sausages, the revived format also involves members only events, parties and exhibitions, some beautiful photography, and a t-shirt range.

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Friends. Family. Choice. Tattoos. Beauty marks and freckles. You get the point. In the spirit of art, customization and individuality, getting inked up is a major part of my life. While I am not quite on Wiz or Weezy status with the tats, I definitely have a few pieces that I cherish. One is from Jondix, an amazing artist from Barcelona who makes Stateside cameos only a few times a year.

He usually tattoos out of New York Adorned when he comes to the city, but you can also visit him in Spain throughout the year. Be ready to bring your time, money and pain threshold, as Jondix tattoos are an artful and ancient process that are silent, spiritual and deliberate. Every design is made up of hundreds and thousands of individual dots. He’s studied under many a Tibetan and Buddhist tattoo masters.

This weird creature is BuBo, born in the studio of Meritxell Duran in Barcelona, Spain. Bubo is happy hanging from the shoulder, playing inside with cell phones, keys, wallets and pens, and is made of natural latex in four different colors.

Working on the question, ‘What would Santa Claus look like if he were Japanese?’, Barcelona’s Muji decided he would most likely manifest as a vending machine and then created it. Behold the MUJI Noel Machine, which will walk through the streets of Barcelona and Madrid during the Christmas period.

Roig 26: Five Years Living With My Grandparents is an ongoing photo documentary by Salva Lopez, a talented photographer from Barcelona. The pictures he’s taken for this project so far are most intimate and honest. They provide a touching insight into the life of an elderly couple in Spain.

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When I visited San Francisco a few years ago, in the middle of a film festival, on a beautiful morning when Spring was starting to dress us more colorfully and happy. I went to SFMoMA and saw an installation by the artist Ann Hamilton called Indigo Blue. Before going back to the cinema, I took a look into the gift shop. Near the books, I found glasses, author postcards, and a wallet that surprised me. It was part of the Poketo Collection, designed by Alex Noriega, an illustrator from Barcelona. Yesterday, I found his new project, Stuff No One Told Me, a blog with a collection of comics with funny and inspired sentences about our life. Alex Noriega told us more about his work.

In your previous works, we found a world of dreams. Between robots and animals flying in a soft atmosphere, your new work is projecting reality. Can you tell me more about this transition?
‘It isn’t something that I want to change forever. I still enjoy painting about nothing in particular. Stuff No One Told Me is just a new project I started that happens to be about reality and and what happens to people on a day to day basis. Although it has some sort of philosophical view of things. I try to keep it as relevant to my life and interests as possible. So whatever I upload is important to me in that time of my life as well, and I guess people can tell. It’s funny how each person understand the comics differently’.

What’s coming after this project?
‘I don´t really know what’s going to come next. But if things come out as I want, I will be publishing illustrated books — for adults and children — for the rest of my life’.

Australian-born artist, Dave Glass, has a passion for all things ridiculous. During his time living in Barcelona, he has harnessed things found in translation rather than lost, and put together a unique collection of words and art to reflect this. They Say Me Things is a project that collates the charming and nonsensical phrases he has come across in an English, Spanish and Catalan melting pot, and illustrates the absurdity of them through stencils and spray-paint. It gives me chicken wings, it does.

Situated between the hip El Born and Barceloneta neighborhoods in always stylish Barcelona, Spain is an unassuming narrow boutique where shelves are lined with all things olive. Here at aptly named OLIVE, Delicatessen del Mediterraneo, an awe-inspiring collection of olive oils sit beside a plethora of olive-oil based cosmetics, soaps, creams, gels, and any other olive-related product one can dream up. Sourced mainly from Spain, in addition to France and Italy, this olive smorgasbord is headed up by a charming Frenchman who also pushes organic cosmetics and chic kitchen design goods. So next time you’re keen on taking up a Mediterranean diet, make a b-line to Barcelona to stock up at OLIVE’s.

When Barcelona’s ‘it crowd’ are hankering for some good tucker, I’m pretty sure they head straight to Cuines Santa-Caterina. And why wouldn’t they? Located inside the actual Mercat de Santa Catarina (a fresh produce market) this hip restaurant/bar serves up tasty cuisine from breaky right through to dinner. Ranked as one of Barcelona’s top places to eat and be seen, it’s got several open grills — and you can either sit at the bar, peering into the kitchen, or at large communal tables. Head there early for a tapas-style breakfast, or choose from three oddly grouped cuisines for lunch or dinner: Vegetarian/Sushi, Mediterranean and Asiatic. Thanks to the Scandinavian-inspired decor, you feel like you’re inside a giant warehouse, surrounded by giant shelves topped with boxes, wine, olive oil and vinegar. The prices are surprisingly reasonable, the staff are welcoming, and if you’re there for breakfast, you can hit the market with a full tummy afterwards.

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Two months ago, a very special and unique place opened in Barcelona: TAKE IT EASY, an anti-stress space. Inspired by The Eagles song, Ramón Regada created a comfortable area in the district of L’Eixample in which people can unplug and take a short nap in hi-tech massage chairs. It is aimed at workers with only short time after lunch to take the famous siesta. And all for just five Euros. Regada asks each customer to write down a phrase or word after taking the nap and each week he selects one as a banner in the front window of the space.

I can’t really get into bands like Pelican and Isis, but somehow Exxasens, an epic, post-rock outfit from Barcelona (how would you say their name in Spanish?) rub me the right way. They’re much more uptempo, with interesting harmony lines and counter-melodies weaving in and out. I guess the closest comparison is Mogwai, but they sound more like space than the rolling highlands.

Delishop is where Barcelona’s gourmands go to get their fix of international specialities. Founded by two well-travelled foodies, the brand is a lifestyle and food-based concept that offers basic local and regional foodstuffs from five continents. The impressive range of international products available means that Barcelonese can now cook up specialities from Thailand, India, and Latin America all in one night. Even more noteworthy though is Delishop’s award-winning packaging. Designed by Enric Aguilera, the imagery ironically puts the normally designer-dreaded barcode at the center of attention for a cool, clean look.

Barcelona crafter Misako Mimoko makes the most impossibly adorable little dolls, known as her Dolis ey Dolos. Her croissant and Grandfather Clock headed dolls are so cute, even more so in their classic toy-store packaging.

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The beautiful, minimalist and slightly irreverent design aesthetic that Barcelona’s Chic & Basic Born Hotel sets up with its stunning interior layout is carried through perfectly into its product packaging, which features cheeky, bold messaging in large, unadorned fonts.

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]

The Omm is classified a luxury boutique hotel, and as such, comes loaded with all the extras you’d expect. But with a twist: it’s interior design is stunning. Much like Barcelona itself, the Hotel Omm, projects an image of refined chic, elegance and urban cool, the muted colours offsetting its vibrant location, where French designers share street space with edgy clothing and product stores and a small cafe across the road which serves the tastiest damn desserts in the city. Or so my taste-buds say, anyway.

Part of the Mr and Mrs Smith worldwide collection of boutique accommodations, the Hotel Omm features its own spa and rooftop terrace, which overlooks Barcelona’s trendy Passeig de Gracia, and has a rooftop swimming pool, a spa, a Michelin rated restaurant (Moo) and a nightclub which was packed with Barcelona’s ultra-fashionable types when we eventually staggered in there after a few hours wandering the city’s streets.

Hotel Omm
C/ Rosselló 265
08008 Barcelona, Spain
+34 934 454 000

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.

Housed in a century-old building, with twenty-two foot high ceilings, a crystal shower at the center of each room, and a fun lighting system with which to change the appearance of your room depending on your mood, the Chic and Basic Hotel is beautifully designed: the interior is functional but adventurous, so that wandering down the corridors to get to our room became a sensory experience in itself. The rooms were ultra-modern and uniquely styled, with a shimmering wall of beads acting as a visual divider against its stark white walls. Those same beads dripped mischeviously from the roof in the hallways, adding a sparkle to the common space. Designed by architect and designer Xavier Claramunt, the Chic and Basic Born Hotel is also situated in an ideal spot from which to wander the many intriguing streets of the city. [photos by Alison Zavos]

Chic and Basic Born Hotel
C/ Princesa 50
08003 Barcelona, Spain
+34 932 954 652
You can make a booking via their website