WE'RE SUPPORTING

Beautiful, delicate, fragile, a little bit collage, a little bit sketchfull. This is the work of Kelly Smith. Combining several mediums in a collaborative expose between pencil, paint and print to create timeless works of elegant splendour, it is easy to compare Smith’s works to the last snowflake of winter, fleeting but real, avoiding the brash bright mercantile world for the prettier climes of illustrative pleasure. Smith has a twelve-day exhibition on at the 696 Space in Brunswick, Melbourne, opening November 14.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

An archaeologist at Stanford, Michael Shanks, has completed an interesting study of the ‘prodigious amount of thought’ given to the design and layout of a casino’s gambling floor, such as the pictured Las Vegas Venetian. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

I am one of those typical New Yorkers who only wears black in winter. But this winter is different. With the economic crisis, and all the rest of the bad news, I have to fight the darkness in the world by wearing colors, and lots of them. Spanish designer Sybilla is known for her original designs and unique color schemes, but she is virtually unknown outside of her mother country and Japan, where she is super popular. Her younger brand Jocomomola is perfect for this gloomy winter. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

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.

WE'RE READING

The New York Times recently posted a selection of Mad Magazine fold-ins from the past 40 years of the magazine’s history. The feature allows you to actually fold the images to reveal the decoded message and picture.

The Australian film collective behind the sci-fi spoof, The Time That Time Forgot, perfectly capture the look and feel of awkward, low-budget rip-offs from the ’70s — the psychedelic lighting, bad dubbing, and amazing hair. One almost wishes Italian Spiderman was for real. [more about Italian Spiderman]

WE'RE LISTENING TO

I’m kinda obsessed with this track by Kansas City hipsters, Republic Tigers. Maybe it’s the Phil Spector-ish wall of sound harmonies or perhaps it’s the thumping bass riff, which drives the ear worm melody. Whatever. In these times of throwaway pop, it’s the well crafted and subtely produced songs that are truly memorable, and these guys have it in spades, as reflected right across their brilliant debut album, Keep Color.