Pretty Weather

You know how a pretty notepad makes writing the grocery list a little bit less of a chore? Or how a bunch of $3 grocery store daffodils can make a cold apartment seem warmer? This weather app is like that. It's called good weather, and it gives you your weather with a dose of pretty (plus a little game to play!) Pretty weather is a welcomed little something when the temperature dips from nearly-spring 50s to back-to-winter 30s. Plus, you can find out what the weather is like in Oz and Neverland :)

Happy Friday, folks! I hope your weather is pretty.

via Katie Evans

To Sparkle or Not to Sparkle?

One of my earliest memories is driving over the San Francisco Bay Bridge at sunrise, wrapped in a blanket in the backseat of the station wagon on the way to the airport. I crane my neck to look up, up, up at the cables stretching towards the pink and purple sky. The sight of that bridge, especially early in the morning or late at night, always spurs a feeling of anticipation. For most people, the Golden Gate is their iconic San Francisco bridge. For me, it's always been the Bay Bridge, the one that took me to the city and home again.



So when my friends in the Bay Area started talking about the new Bay Bridge light installation, I wasn't so sure about it. The Bay Bridge, sparkling? I don't know about that. The installation (by artist Leo Villareal) adds 25,000 LED lights to the bridge that will create a nightly light show on the bridge for the next two years. Similarly, I'm in the minority (at least among my friends) who doesn't think the Eiffel Tower needs to sparkle nightly, and I was dismayed when I heard that they were adding an LED light system to the Empire State Building. These structures are beautiful and iconic on their own, do we really need to guild the lily?





Though I do have to admit that the Empire State Building lights turned out to be cooler than I thought they'd be, and they didn't take away from the classic view of the building like I worried. What do you guys think of adding sparkle to architectural landmarks? Fun or frivolous?

Top photo by Ben_Cooper on Flickr, second photo by me (a very long time ago).

Little Lies

Pretty designs of the little lies we like to tell ourselves from Daily Dishonesty. I mean, when was the last time you read all of a contract before signing it? And that last one is my least favorite to be on the receiving end of, we all look at our phones constantly so it's hardly ever true :)

via A Cup of Jo

Don't You Know You Can Fly?

Do you watch 30 Rock? Or, I guess I should say did you, since the last episode of the final season has come and gone. I didn't get it into it right away, but once I did I binge-watched everything I had missed (which I highly recommend, the episodes are even funnier back-to-back). With 30 Rock off the air now, it's a bit like the end of an era. No more Liz Lemonisms, no more night cheese, no more mandatory Liz Lemon parties (except in syndication).

Thankfully, to keep us all from crying into a bag of Sabor de Soledad, Vulture turned some of 30 Rock's best jokes into graphics.







via Vulture, here and here.

Mermaid Tail

Nadya Vessey is a competitive swimmer who had to have both of her legs amputated due to a birth condition. Now, thanks to a conversation with a child about mermaids and Weta Workshop, she's swimming again with this amazing prosthetic! Just amazing.

Thanksgiving Table

Is it too early to start talking about Thanksgiving? I hope not, because I've definitely started thinking about it. I love hosting Thanksgiving dinner for friends in my apartment, but the one thing that's a little bit lacking is a table. It's cozy and fun with lots of people scattered around the living room feasting, but it would be so amazing to have a big table for everyone to sit at (and not have to balance plates on their laps!).

In my dream Thanksgiving, I'd have the Goliath Console/Dining Table. Would you believe that the dining table above collapses down to the size of a console?! Genius! (You can see a video here.)



Is it awful for me to wish that IKEA would come up with an affordable copycat?

Power House

A house with stripes: cool. A house that powers itself and the house next door (via wind and solar energy) and seeks to model "self-reliance, sustainability, and creative problem solving" to a struggle Detroit neighborhood: very cool. It's the first (of many) projects by Power House Productions, a Detroit-based non-profit using artists to stabilize and revitalize their neighborhood. They're reclaiming abandoned spaces and giving them new purpose in the community. Check out this squash house they made!

Dad Sayings

When I saw this poster on Kate's Pinterest, I immediately thought of my dad. Isn't "Hold Your Horses" such a Dad kind of saying? If they also made a "Dream On, Alice" poster I could have a wall in my home as an homage to my Dad (he would simultaneously get a kick out of that and find it strange).

What kind of funny or eye-rolling things did your Dad say when you were growing up? If you say you're cold, hungry, or tired around my dad you can be guaranteed a hearty handshake and a "Nice to meet you, Hungry, I'm Ernie." Which kind of cracks me up now, but was totally the last thing I wanted to hear as an angsty pre-teen.

Painted Silverware

I love the look of this painted silverware. Not so much for everyday, but I'd love to get a bunch of mismatched silverware from a thrift store and paint the handles all the same color to use for outdoor parties (instead of plastic!). DIY instructions via More Design Please.

Art by the People

This is so fascinating—in the mid-nineties, Russian artists used market research to find out what people most wanted in art and what they least wanted. People from 14 countries answered questions about their favorite color, if they preferred famous people or ordinary people, and what season they like best, then Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid painted a scene they felt best reflected the most wanted (and another painting for the least wanted) art of that country.

The image above is what Americans like in their art: a placid outdoor scene featuring some wildlife, three ordinary people, and George Washington. Here's France's most wanted (they are, as could be expected, more comfortable with nudity than Americans!).



What's really interesting is that nearly every country surveyed seemed to favor traditional paintings of scenery and dislike abstract art. Except Holland! They were the only country that preferred abstract art over more traditional scenes. What do you think, does George Washington standing by a lake typify American taste in art?

Images via Dia. See all the paintings here.

Dewey Decimal

Design Sponge posted this library card catalogue makeover last fall and for some reason I'm totally enamored with it. Seriously, it pops into my head at the most random times. Like on my walk to work this morning, so I thought I'd share.



Isn't it amazing? Does anyone have a card catalogue lying around they'd like to give me?

Mail a Penguin

How great are these Penguin Book postcards? I happened upon them today during some rainy day browsing at Anthropologie and I've been thinking about them ever since. I'd love to frame a few of them on my wall, or have them around to send a friend a note on a postcard of her favorite book.

Jonathan Safran Foer

Have you read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer? It was the first book of his I read, and it totally blew me away. It's too bad I had a library copy, or I would have been underlining just about every other sentence. It also includes this great story about how Manhattan once had a sixth borough that delights me each time I reread it. One really interesting part of Extremely Loud is the design - it's mostly text on a page, but not entirely, and it's the "not entirely" parts that make it an even better read.

So I am thrilled to see that he's not only coming out with a new book, but that it's (not surprisingly, coming from him) completely unlike any other book I've ever heard of. He started with Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles and "carved" a new story out of it using a die-cuttting technique. Totally brilliant. I can't wait to read it - heck, to touch it!

via Co.Design