Bulls Eye

Not content with just being the premier purveyor of cheap and chic goods, Target has taken on quirky designophile items as well at its online Red Hot Shop. The digest-style section launched in August, and carries web-exclusive items. Hop on board quickly—items are in limited quantity and sell out quickly, like this month's Inside-Out Champagne Glasses (photo below).Also this month: a DIY handbag kit, digital camera gift card, and the animal book index set from 6dod's inaugural post. Make sure to check out the Previously Featured section.

DIY City

If nostalgia for the bright lights of the big city have hit you, bring a little urban into your home with this do-it-yourself project from Swiss Miss.


Photos Courtesy of Swiss Miss.

Simply follow the instructions from swissmiss or reprinted for your convenience below:

1. download and print swissmiss_alpenglow.pdf
2. download swiss yodel mp3 at drop.io/alpenglow for alp pasture ambiance.
3. grab exactor knife, ruler & cutting mat.
4. proceed to cut out elements on page two with patience and love for detail.
5. assemble as indicated. put tealight behind alps. sit back and enjoy your swiss alpenglow*!

aaaaaand TA DA! Instant city, perfect for the holidays.


Tanya Romstad from Sweden's first submission to Swiss Miss as featured on their page. Enjoy!!

Art-Hungry

We've all heard of life imitating art, but what does art imitate? In Carl Warner's mind, it's food. The British photographer uses edible goods to depict surreal landscapes. Once exposed to his scenes, viewers will look at their plates in an entirely different light.

To accomplish such a complicated photo, Warner begins with a traditional sketch. He then chooses his food carefully, and then builds the scene in parts, which are then photographed. This is so the food does not discolor or wilt under the lights as the rest of the landscape is under construction.

Each photograph takes days to finish. Recurring subjects include broccoli trees, potato-rock hills, cheese houses and bread-loaf mountains. In "Salmon Sea," pictured above, a pea-pod boat floats in a salmon sea (duh), which appears to ripple against a sugary beach.

(K)Night Rider??

This thing cracked me up when I first saw it, great design concept, but a little lacking in the actual delivery. Introducing the...Mio Knight Rider GPS ! It has the scrolling light just like the late great Knight Rider did! WOOT. AND, it even comes with the original KITT voice to give you directions. HOW HILARIOUS! :P It looks a bit like a fake/cheesy video game.

You can buy it here.

Really Organic Jewelry

Some people love to wear jewelry, but hate to wear the same pieces every day. This blossom pendant by Rockettoro allows you to change it up whenever you feel like it. It can function as your perfume as well. Even better, it's quite the conversation starter. Three in one!

Blackle

Okay, this isn't quite design related, persay, but i think it's totally cool. Dunno if you guys have heard of this site before, but it's such an interesting idea!

http://blackle.com/

Here is the excerpt from the site about what it is:

"Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle searches are powered by Google Custom Search.

Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." Roberson et al, 2002

In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of the energy savings that can be achieved and the cost in terms of readability of black web pages.

We believe that there is value in the concept because even if the energy savings are small, they all add up. Secondly we feel that seeing Blackle every time we load our web browser reminds us that we need to keep taking small steps to save energy."

Enjoy!