Design

Cool Material:

If you were to write a list of all the potentially manly things a person could do, reading a cookbook would probably not be on it. The Better Bacon Book is a manly cookbook.Yes, it exists. It has 20 HD videos, 150 hi-res photos and 31 original recipes from top chefs that cover everything from Pancetta to Pork Belly to Bacon Crème brûlée.This could very well be the Bacon Bible.

If you’ve ever seen any of the guys who write for The Loop in person, you’d know there isn’t a vegetarian among them. We’d love this cookbook!

Barter Books:

A short film that tells the story behind the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster. Its origins at the beginning of WWII and its rediscovery in a bookshop in England in 2000, becoming one of the iconic images of the 21st century.

We’ve been seeing this graphic for years in any number of versions so it was very interesting to watch this video and learn a bit about its origins.

I’m sure I’ve been been at this light.

Having more streamlined CSS will save you time and stress in the long run so it’s important to get it right.

Some very cool designs, but some seem a bit too much for me.

Google’s research indicates that people are less likely to visit Web pages if they take fractions of a second longer to load than their competitors.

There are so many considerations in design, color being only one.

There are many websites where the typography speaks for the site itself. Here typography becomes the chief element of a web or graphic design project. Interesting examples of how different type affects the look and feel of a site.

Discovery News:

They’re a pair of jeans with a set of speakers, a wireless mouse and a keyboard embedded into the upper thigh regions. Imagine typing — literally — on your lap and you get the picture.The jeans were designed to “combine fashion and technology”.

If you wear these, don’t be surprised if someone punches you in the FGHJ.

Flavorwire:

We’ve taken a look at gorgeous bookstores and amazing college libraries, so we thought it was time to bring you a little inspiration for the home library — though we admit, not too many of these designs would fit in our own NYC apartments. Click through to check out our collection of beautiful private and personal libraries from all over the world

It’s hard to believe some of these beautiful libraries are found in someone’s home. Then again, some of these homes are probably as big as your high school.

Diesel Sweeties:

You remember the dark times. Back when having to learn 90s Linux or Windows 95 was a very scary possibility. When it was possible to sit in a Starbucks for twenty whole minutes and not see an Apple logo. If you told me Apple would get this huge back in the beleaguered era, I’d ask if you were a time traveler from an alternate future.Image is about nine inches wide and professionally silk screened in white ink on 100% cotton black shirts.

You know you want one.

Tara Hornor:

So, what makes a design feminine? Can you really design something that is naturally attractive to the female eye? With the right fundamentals applied, anyone — even those of the more macho persuasion — can successfully design for a female audience.

Dornbracht:

At Swissbau 2012, kitchen and bathroom fittings manufacturer Dornbracht presented an expansion of the groundbreaking shower technology Ambiance Tuning Technique with the addition of a new application: the Horizontal Shower.With the Horizontal Shower, showering with the Ambiance Tuning Technique can be enjoyed lying down.

Wait, what? How lazy do you need to be that you have to shower lying down? It does look kind of cool though.

Wired’s Raw File:

With some well-placed wire, creative lighting and a provocative sense of visual puns, sculptor and photographer Terry Border has given life to everything from peanuts to pill bottles. His cleverly cartoonish scenes are often viral hits on the internet and they’ve brought his blog, Bent Objects, a global audience.“I don’t mean for everything to be funny,” says Border, who lives in Indianapolis. “We all have different perspectives and my perspective happens to be kind of strange and twisted.”

“Strange and twisted” in a hilarious way. Be sure to read the article to get the link to his more NSFW stuff, “Really Bent”.

Dark Roasted Blend:

Matchbooks were at their peak in the 1940’s and 50’s, when they were popular souvenir items, but they have made something of a comeback recently due to the public interest in retro advertising.The collecting of matchboxes, matchbooks, match labels and other match-related items is called phillumeny.

Art is where you find it and sometimes, you find it in odd places.

Mental Floss:

Forget putting QR codes on your business card in order to stand out from the competition. Check out these 12 very cool, creative approaches.

[caption id="attachment_20126" align="alignnone" width="325" caption="Gyroscopic self-leveling pool table"][/caption] As the ship moves, the pool table adjusts so the balls don’t move at all, even in rough weather. If you look closely you can see the balls remain still as the table moves, enabling you to play in almost any conditions.

Gizmodo:

Conveyor belt toasters help restaurants keep up with the breakfast demand, but the compact QuikServe from WestBend is instead designed for home use using a motorized system to pull your bread through, toasting it in a mere 90 seconds.

There’s not much “cool” about toasters but this idea is clever. Just don’t buy it for your significant other for Valentines Day. Gizmodo says the list price is $60 but you can get it on Amazon.com for only $40.

Flavorwire:

In her Venus project, Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano remixes some of the most celebrated nudes of art history, giving them an extreme Photoshop makeover. The results are stark and varied.

[caption id="attachment_19905" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Botticelli's Venus"][/caption] I’ve seen several of these paintings in real life and it’s surprising that you don’t really think of them as being “nudes”. You definitely look at them as “great art”.

This is so cool.