Moments of Beauty

Who knew sending letters could be so beautiful? Lovely atmospheric photo by Juergen Teller for Royal Mail in i-D magazine.

(via abundance)

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This week's links. Enjoy.

A Handwritten Love Letter
Want to send your valentine a romantic letter they'll treasure forever? Bryn Chernoff of Paperfinger offers a charming love letter service, in which she'll write your words in beautiful, calligraphic script on lovely Italian stationery. Love this. Via swissmiss.

Domino Returns
Attention Domino fans! This week Condé Nast announced they will begin publishing a special print-only edition of the much missed Domino magazine. Called Domino Quick Fixes, it will mix new and previously published content, with the original Domino's best home decorating stories featured with DIY projects like furniture makeovers, painting ideas and reorganizing projects. The first issue hits newsstands on April 17.

How Plywood Revolutionized Design and Changed the World
"Making beautiful, affordable design available to the masses was a central tenet of mid-century modernism — one that never would’ve been possible if not for the advent of a key material: plywood." A wonder material, it inspired the Eameses, Alvar Aalto, Arne Jacobsen and Marcel Breuer — follow the link for the rest of Suzanne Labarre's article at Co.Design.

Deborah Turbeville: The Fashion Pictures
Check out this great interview with the legendary photographer Deborah Turbeville — and see a slideshow featuring 13 of her favourites from her fashion images, along with commentary by Turbeville.

A Brief History of Blurbs
An interesting look at the often overblown author endorsements on books, which have been around far longer than you'd think — Thomas More got his friend Erasmus to gush over his book Utopia.

On The Sets of Downton Abbey
If you're a fan of the PBS smash series Downton Abbey, you'll enjoy this — a behind the scenes look at the sets where it all happens.

A Minimalist's Music
What sort of music does highly minimalist architect John Pawson listen to when he wants inspiration? The answer is both fascinating and surprising (I didn't expect to see The Who, for one).

Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Molten Chocolate Cake
Now a modern dessert classic, this decadently rich dessert is a perfect finish to a romantic Valentine's Day dinner. Find other equally rich chocolate desserts here, too. Via Saveur.


(photo by siren lauvdal with styling by kråkvik & d’orazio. via the style files)

Smitten

I'm smitten with this vintage postcard design for an iPhone 4 or 4S case — so pretty and practical. Available here from On Your Case on etsy.


smitten is a new regular series of posts on automatism featuring lovely online finds — hope you enjoy it.

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This week's links. Enjoy.

The Women Changing India
An exhibition that wrapped up just last week, The Women Changing India featured the work of six Magnum photographers, who each chose a subject who reflects the cultural and geographical diversity of life for contemporary Indian women — follow the link for highlights from the show.

Gail Anderson's Salt and Pepper Shaker Collection
Check out this slide show of designer Gail Anderson's wonderfully quirky salt and pepper shaker collection. Via Design Observer.

Dearly Departed
Email is radically changing the way we correspond with each other — and beginning an email with the word "Dear ..." (as was traditional with written letters) is being hotly debated right now.

Pretty in Pink, Again
Interesting article in the NYT about how the vintage pink bathroom, once the first thing to be ripped out when remodeling an older home, is enjoying a renewed appreciation.

Top Cookery Books of All Time
Chef and author Nigel Slater discusses his favourite cook books — Nigella Lawson and Elizabeth David among them.

The Antikythera Mechanism in Lego
From the site: "Andrew Carol rebuilt a 2000-year-old analog computer out of Legos. It predicts the year, date, and time of future solar and lunar eclipses accurately to within two hours. All using plastic gears. This film explains how it works." Extraordinary.

David Carson's New Magazine
Trail blazing magazine designer David Carson (perhaps best known for his art direction of Ray Gun in the '90s) is coming out with his own magazine. Called Carson, it'll be published bi-monthly starting in 2011, and a 6-issue subscription can be obtained for $20. Very cool. Via Kottke.

The Saveur 100
Each year Saveur asks its contributors to name their favourite foods, food gadgets, places to eat and more, assembling 100 entries in all — this year, it's the chef's edition. I look forward to this every year — fascinating and eclectic as always.


(photo by John Paul Urizar via Little Blue Deer)

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This week's links. Enjoy.

Stop Plagiarism Now
Tina of the wonderful English Muse blog had a heartfelt post this week about the disturbing trend of copycat bloggers, and tells of how two blogger friends of hers recently had their templates stolen, entire chunks of their content stolen — and one even had her blog name stolen! A must read.

Top Ten Turkish Books
Turkish novelist Selçuk Altun picks ten jewels of Turkish literature. I'll be adding a few of these titles to my book list.

City One Minutes
The City One Minutes site is a personal impression by artists of life in their city, divided into 24 one minute portraits, each depicting one hour of the day. Over a hundred cities are covered, from all around the globe. Via Swiss Miss.

The Women's Crusade
Changing the lives of women and girls in developing countries can change everything — witness the growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. Excellent NYT article by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

Chocolate-Scented Stamps
Last month France's postal service La Poste released a limited edition chocolate-themed — and chocolate-scented! — set of ten postage stamps to celebrate the 400th anniversary of chocolate's arrival in France in 1609. Getting mail with these would not only be fun, but delicious. From Serious Eats, via A Cup of Jo.

Daydream Lily
Simply one of the loveliest and most enjoyable blogs I know — if you haven't seen it, you're in for a treat. Liss is one of the best.

Weighty Thoughts
Curious science — a new psychology study finds that holding heavy objects makes us see things as more important. Via Not Exactly Rocket Science on Science Blogs.

Roasted Tomato Soup with Parmesan Crisps
A lovely way to take advantage of all the fresh tomatoes currently in season. By The Italian Dish, via Tastespotting.


(photograph from my archive of Domino Deco Files)