Things

Date
28 January 2012

Things, glooorious things! Hot sausage and mustard! Cold jelly and custard? Oh, if only.This week’s round-up has an air of optimism about it – old collaborations are revived, haunted underworlds are commemorated and doomsday predictions get turned into lovely, lucrative things for us to enjoy. Apparently even apocalypse isn’t so bad anymore. Thanks world!

Religion for Atheists Alain de Botton

We talked about heroes the other day, and we’ll shamelessly admit that Alain de Botton is another one of ours. His latest in a long literary career is a sort of self-help book for non-believers, an effort to alleviate atheists and agnostics from the “stark choice” between total religious abstinence and full-blown cross-kissing zealotry. He encourages a cherry-picking method which acknowledges the pitfalls of piety while letting us steal the best that religion has to offer in terms of philosophy, moral values and art. In his characteristic, well-informed-layman’s style, de Botton tackles tricky issues with wit, anecdote and insight. Highly readable, and a beautiful object for the bookshelf to boot!
www.alaindebotton.com

Ghosts Sophie Adams

Ghosts is a travel brochure you’d struggle to find at the tourist office, though having browsed through it, it’s exactly the sort of thing I wish filled a few more of those crummy little leaflet racks lining the lobys of many a London hotel. Ms Adams has pulled a clever trick that flips the familiar Underground tube map – mapping all the abandoned stations in a series of well executed infographics. She’s even gone to the trouble of filling in historical details about the vestigial outposts themselves, when they were built, what went wrong – but wouldn’t we still love a British Museum stop? Lovely stuff.
www.sophieadamsdesign.com

Day One DayZine:

DayZine can do it all – photography, fashion, features, poetry (lots of poetry). This self-proclaimed “art project and zine” has got an ingenious concept – bring a group of creatives together for a 24 hour period and create a magazine inspired by the characteristics of that specific day. What’s the weather like? What’s in the news? What happened to you at the market? It’s all there and more in this spontaneous time-capsule. Exactly the kind of eclectic mix worth leafing through over the weekend, sitting in bed, mug ’o tea in hand. Inspired stuff.
www.dayzine.co.uk

Mayan Calendar NB Studio

Branding and communication studio NB really made us chuckle with their latest send through. In the wake of that event (you might not have heard of it) called “the end of the world”, it appears these commercially minded folks have concocted a plan for our communal monetary benefit. Along with an absolutely lush print of the Mayan Calender itself (illustrated by Paul David, Dan Funderburgh, Jean Jullien, and Andy Smith), they’ve placed, on our behalf, a £1 bet on the planet’s eminent doom. With odds of 1,000,000 to 1 our chances aren’t looking strong but, come 12 December, I think we might be crossing our fingers. Don’t give us that look! You’d do it too!
www.nbstudio.co.uk

Flamingo Paper

One part nostalgia, one part innovation, and one part sprightly initiative, Flamingo Paper has hit the trifecta of what makes a great new publication, in an effort to reinvigorate the relationship which was once so strong between music and illustration (think album covers, liner artwork) but often feels a bit abandoned in the digital world. With a collection of insightful interviews with the likes of Ghost Poet, Peggy Sue and Little Dragon – each accompanied by a visual interpretation of said conversation – Flamingo Paper is a one-stop-shop for the best in both new music and new illustration. Does it get much better?
www.flamingomagazine.com

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