All clocks tell time, but not many of them do so in such an aesthetically pleasing way. With a price to match its beauty ($995) the QLOCKTWO by Biegert & Funk may be a bit out of reach for most, but definitely brings a new meaning to ‘watching the clock.’ Available in a variety of colors and languages.
The Endless Notebook
For those who don’t want to retire their sketchbooks when they fill up, there’s the option of the Endless Notebook ($7 to $15). By grouping together a special pocket on the front cover of each individual notebook, it’s easy to combine different types of paper (graph, lined, blank,etc.) or to simply add on to an existing sketch book, retiring only one of the used volumes. The Endless Notebooks are composed of chlorine-free, post-consumer recycled paper and produced in the USA using 100% renewable energy.
Monocle Magazine
A magazine on world affairs, business, culture, design, and editorials, Monocle is setting a new bar for publications. Beautiful inside and out, the magazine’s design itself can be an inspiration, let alone the content within. Pick up a subscription this holiday season for £38 (6 months), or £75 (12 months).
Photo by ElectronicRenaissance
V-Moda Crossfade LP Headphones
Kicking off our holiday wish list (we’ll be posting a great gift for your creative type friends up through Christmas!), is the V-Moda Crossfade LP Headphones. If you’re a creative, odds are you spend most of your day either with speakers blaring or headphones pumping, and with the rigor of daily use, you want something that can take a beating and sounds great. Extremely well made, with a great metal framework, kevlar coated cables, and quality fabrics, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better construction without spending far more money. We’ll leave the technical nuances to the spec sheet, but suffice to say we’ve been impressed by the sound quality after comparing them to as many other headphones as we could find in their price range—and did we mention they look great?
Available in a variety of colors from Amazon ($130!) or your local Apple Store ($200).
Raleigh Denim
Not your ordinary machine made jeans, each pair of jeans from Raleigh Denim is handcrafted and sourced in North Carolina, made from White Oak Cone Denim, hand signed and individually numbered. You can pick up a pair of the raw straight cut variety for $276. Check out a mini-documentary on how husband and wife team Sarah and Victor Lytvinenko started the company in their apartment and how they make their high quality denim after the jump.
Things
“Getting things done” isn’t just matter of taking care of business, but it’s a mindset. Meet Things by Cultured Code, an application that is so simple and well designed that it is genuinely beneficial to any designer’s / creative’s / professionals workflow. Available for Mac OSX for $49, iPad ($20), and iPhone ($10).
Saba Italia Bookcase
Book shelves are typically boring rectangular affairs. Not so in these Alice-in-Wonderland-esque shelves from Saba Italia. New for 2010, the Prima Quarto shelves are about as dynamic as they come: looking blown in the wind or twisted in psychodelia—whatever floats your boat. they’re also available in a wall-hanging friendly size. Pricing $TBA.
Hat tip: Contemporist
Johnnie Walker – Black Label
Johnnie Walker is the most distributed scotch whiskey in the world for the last 40 years—and the Black Label (aged 12 years) is a big part of that. A blend of 40 crafted whiskeys melded together in a single scotch that will not break your wallet, but will certainly wet your palette.
Obligatory Designer Clock
We’re in love with this take on an analog clock designed by Saikat Biswas: the Obligatory Designer Clock. Look ma’—no hands.
From the designer’s description:
For example at 3 o’clock the 3rd hour marking becomes dark and then a colored bar starts growing within the 3rd marking at every minute until the 59th minute. Then the 4 o’clock marking become fully dark and the same process continues. Even though it looks unique and has kind of ‘digital’ look and feel because of the growing bar, it uses exactly same mechanism as a normal clock.
We’ve got a time-lapse video that shows how the clock works after the jump. This looks like a concept clock, but we’ll be sure to update you if it heads for the production line.
See more →
Put This On
Not everyone was born with a taste for fashion. For those of us with a thing or two to learn, there’s Put This On, a webseries about dressing like a grownup. Put This On’s video series are an excellent introduction to dressing well every day. Don’t know much about jeans? They’ve got you covered. Shoes? Yep, episode two. With a great blog to boot, Put This On is a great resource for learning how to dress as good as you design.