Laura Laine
Fabulous illustrations and sketches from Laura Laine.

Quiet Not Safe
Great little blog covering art/design/culture.

Benoit Lemoine
Interesting work from Benoit Lemoine. Also see Repeatafterme!

Steampunk Keyboard
This is wacky, but cool. No?

Art School Reject
Fantastic typography from Art School Reject

10ltd
20 Limited Edition luxury items at ludacrous prices. Fantastic.

Sean Carmody
Wicked integrated identity work from Sean Carmody.

Positioning CSS
From Digital Web Magazine.

Evening Tweed
Design collective, fantastic.

35 Designers x 5 Questions
Interesting article from Smashing Magazine.

Evo. Gaspard Ollagnon.
Nice slideshow of varied work from Evo. Gaspard Ollagnon.

Printernational
Resources for information on print design. Basics really…

Suprb
Suprb is Andreas Pihlström. Superb!

Changestandards
The blog of Thinking Room Inc. Interesting posts!

Sebastian Klein
Great work from recent graduate Sebastian Klein.

FormFiftyFive
Wide range of topics covered in this blog, FormFiftyFive.

Jakob Holmsberg Studio
Nice work from Jakob Holmsberg.

Bjork Competition
Flights, hotel and 2 passes to see Bjork! US residents only. Boo.

OkapiStudio
Blog styled portfolio from design studio Okapi. Nice.

Pixelbreaker: Polar Clock v2
Funky desktop/screensaver clock by Pixelbreaker. Seriously.

CR: Kate Moss
Creative Review on the new Kate Moss brand.

We could be filed this under “camper knowledge for the living room.” After all, campers sit on any tree branch and when they could find one, they consider a tree trunk as a temporary stool. We were quite like this when we first way the Bicodi stool from the Italian design agency 2CWorkshop. Their bar stool has something from the rather simple camper trick but with a more aesthetic approach.

The Bicodi concept consists of linking a base and a seating with a bar. Many variations can build from this idea. For example, the Africanus model is made of wood, while the Sapiens of glazed steel. We’ll retain the wood model as it offers a smart way to create sweet stool for your living room. Just cut several discs, glue them together to get your base and seating, and anchor a steel bar into them.

For the dimensions, 2CWorkshop even provides the dimensions of their chair if you want to replicate one of them. After that, if you change your mind and want to get in shape with the stool, put it on a ground, and use it to beef up your pectorals.

I’m proud to announce that the previous theme of “Bartelme Design” - also known as “The Dark Theme” - is now available as free Wordpress template. I want to thank ilemoned who did the whole coding work - great job man!

Note: These instructions still work under Mac OS X Leopard (10.5)

It has been brought to my attention that a surprisingly large number of people don’t know all the steps involved in properly configuring an IMAP account in Apple’s Mail.app. Though this has been covered elsewhere I’m sure, I thought I’d share the steps in a quick-start way to help reduce the frustration that results from assuming some things are done by default (know the basics already? skip to the last step »).

The Basics

Most of the IMAP setup process is identical to creating a POP account. Within Mail.app:

1. Go to Preferences (Mail → Preferences)
2. On the Accounts tab, click the [+] at the bottom left to start the account setup process
3. Change the Account Type to IMAP and fill in your details
4. Set the Incoming Mail Server and Outgoing Mail Server details

Many people stop at this point and assume they are finished. This is where problems arise, and why I’m writing this little tidbit.

IMAP Folders

IMAP allows all mail (including your Sent, Drafts, Spam and Trash folders, as well as custom folders) to live on the server. This is one of the main benefits of IMAP, since your account is identical whether accessing your mail from any workstation or webmail. The problem is that hosts create different sets of default folders when you create a new account, and that Mail.app doesn’t automatically connect the folders on the server to its local functions (most importantly, Sent mail and Drafts).

For example, MediaTemple only creates your Inbox and Spam folders; Dreamhost creates your Inbox, Sent, Drafts and Trash folders, but since Mail.app doesn’t automatically assign those functions to the folders on the server, it doesn’t actually matter in this case. This means if you don’t follow these next steps, you won’t have any sent mail or drafts saved anywhere; this can be an annoyance or a major problem, depending on your specific needs.

Creating IMAP Folders

Creating new folders is simple:

1. Control-click (or right-click if you have a multi-button mouse) on the Inbox for your account (if you have multiple accounts within Mail.app, you’ll see sub-Inboxes in the left sidebar that have the names you’ve assigned each account), and select “New Mailbox…”
2. In the resulting dialog, make sure that the correct account is selected in the drop-down menu, and enter a name for the mailbox (e.g. “Sent” if you’re on MediaTemple).

The mailbox is created on the server, and Mail.app updates its folder list for that account. Do this as many times as you want, whenever you need a new folder to help organize your messages (for our purposes, make sure your create whatever function-related folders are missing).

Setting Mail.app Straight

Now that you’ve made sure the folders exist, in order for Mail.app to save your drafts or copies of your sent messages it needs to know where to put them, so this final step is the most important:

1. Click the folder name that matches the function you want to assign (e.g. “Sent”) so it is highlighted in the list
2. Go to Mailbox → Use This Mailbox For → [function name] (e.g. “Sent” again)

That’s all there is to it—your folder will disappear from the list, and reappear as a sub-folder beneath the function you specified, with the same name as the account it’s connected to. So, if your account name is “My IMAP Account”, the “Sent” folder will now be located under “Sent → My IMAP Account” in the Mail.app sidebar.

Hopefully this will ease some of the frustration of setting up an IMAP account for the first time. After you’ve gone through the steps once, you’ll remember them for the future and never be without your drafts and sent messages again.

Update: Check out the comments below for some extra tips and tricks.

For an explicit name, En-Fer is a good one. The atelier, founded by Swiss designer Stefan Lehner and Christina Lanzos, is only interested in thrown-away steel products like old supermarket carts, worn industrial chains, springs, rings or used tin cans. What for, will you ask. To make new furniture, to make new things from materials that have an history.

Take this spring chair for example. The frame is a classic industrial chair with membrane springs. “Membrane springs are used in condensers which are fixed in a closed oil bath. When the oil temperature changes, the membrane springs have to compensate the volume difference,” is said on the web site. The main advantage: These springs exist was created to support some thousands of movements, and could awesomely support your weight even though they’re thrown away.

Or check this sofa. It’s made from car seats, and should be more comfortable than others. Why? They “are certainly more ergonomic than most of our design chairs, this is specially true for the seats in high standard cars. Now they can be adapted to each person, even be programmed, and some of them have a heating inside.”

But for Stefan Lehner, whose academic background is philosophical studies, and Christina Lanzos, an architect, the core idea of their design is the beauty inside the beast. “Those gears are beautiful, because they weren’t created to be so. An assembling chain has to be solid and efficient, that’s this aspect which make this charm”, they said to Swiss magazine L’Hebdo.

This may not the most colorful blanket, but the material used to manufacture it is abundant: worn cardboards. While they are rigid and uncomfortable, those Cardboard Coverings blankets are soft and supple. Plus they’re light enough to be folded and carried easily in a bag.

While the still visible graphics of the original box remind us that they were once disposable containers of consumables, we wish they could be customizable or come with different patterns. This way, they would provide another vision of recycled products, not just a souvenir of disposable packagings.

Those of you following my Twitter stream already know that I recently did a wallpaper for Hyperwave. Now I thought it would be nice to release it as another “wallpaper devkit”. So grab it while it’s hot.

I don’t like DoubleClick.

It was 1999 - just before the impending 2000 dot-com bust. R.BIRD’s offices were located in midtown Manhattan at 150 East 52nd Street, 14th floor. Glorious space. Designed by Architecture Research Office. Unfortunately, our lease was to expire in the heat of the dot-com boom.

In New York City, if one was lucky enough to find any commercial office space available, it was 3 times (or more) the price you were previously accustomed to. Irrational? Seller and buyer agreed.

So it was that R.BIRD lost its home to (did you guess?) DoubleClick.

At the time, DoubleClick had never in its, then impressive 7-year history, ever reported a profit. “It doesn’t matter,” said the building owner. “They’ve signed and given us 3 years cash security. We’d be happy if DoubleClick defaulted.”

R.BIRD moved out. I don’t believe DoubleClick ever did move in.

Google acquires DoubleClick.

I don’t like DoubleClick.

It was 1999 - just before the impending 2000 dot-com bust. R.BIRD’s offices were located in midtown Manhattan at 150 East 52nd Street, 14th floor. Glorious space. Designed by Architecture Research Office. Unfortunately, our lease was to expire in the heat of the dot-com boom.

In New York City, if one was lucky enough to find any commercial office space available, it was 3 times (or more) the price you were previously accustomed to. Irrational? Seller and buyer agreed.

So it was that R.BIRD lost its home to (did you guess?) DoubleClick.

At the time, DoubleClick had never in its, then impressive 7-year history, ever reported a profit. “It doesn’t matter,” said the building owner. “They’ve signed and given us 3 years cash security. We’d be happy if DoubleClick defaulted.”

R.BIRD moved out. I don’t believe DoubleClick ever did move in.

Google acquires DoubleClick.

I don't like DoubleClick.

It was 1999 - just before the impending 2000 dot-com bust. R.BIRD's offices were located in midtown Manhattan at 150 East 52nd Street, 14th floor. Glorious space. Designed by Archictecture Research Office. Unfortunately, our lease was to expire in the heat of the dot-com boom.

In New York City, if one was lucky enough to find any commercial office space available, it was 3 times (or more) the price you were previously accustomed to. Irrational? Seller and buyer agreed.

So it was that R.BIRD lost its home to (did you guess?) DoubleClick.

At the time, DoubleClick had never in its, then impressive 7-year history, ever reported a profit. "It doesn't matter," said the building owner. "They've signed and given us 3 years cash security. We'd be happy if DoubleClick defaulted."

R.BIRD moved out. I don't believe DoubleClick ever did move in.

Google acquires DoubleClick.