I have been following Design*Sponge for the past few years and I remain a loyal reader for many reasons. Grace Bonney, its founder, along with other writers, cover interior/ graphic design, design products, DIY, entertainment, city guides, home tours and design-based businesses. I love that I can go to one site for all these things. The blog is updated multiple times every day.
We Love Typography provides a great selection of typography design. Anything that has a trace of typography, you will find it on this website. I find the website’s navigation to be user-friendly; the use of the arrows to move through the page is extremely helpful especially when I`m just skimming the visuals. I also particularly like that it lets me filter my searches by colour- it lets me absorb a great dose of typography in any color, depending on my mood.
FFFFound, an image bookmarking site that lets users post and shares their favorite images online, is always a thrill to visit. If you want to laugh, be moved, or simply just gaze over mouth-watering imagery, then this blog is worth visiting.
I go to this blog for a daily dose of fashion, art, travel and DIY inspirations. The contributors behind HonestlyWTF always deliver tasty reads. I particularly enjoy their easy and super chic DIY projects. In addition, I’m also a follower of their “Cool Hunting” category in which they write about funky products from fashion to home décor.
Florence is home to Michaelangelo’s David, which was as spectacular as they say. Along with David, Florence’s Accademia housed some of Michaelangelo’s unfinished works which I found just as inspiring as the David. Michaelangelo was known for not creating a model prior to starting his works, instead saw his work as freeing the sculptures from the block of marble. I also thoroughly enjoyed the extensive collection of work by neoclassical sculpture Lorenzo Bartolini.
Florence is a beautiful city, filled with beautiful Renaissance architecture. Although I didn’t get to see it from the inside, the façade of the Duomo is beautiful. I also enjoyed walking along the Arno river and across the Ponte Vecchio which is a medieval bridge. On the bridge there are all these little shops, at first glance it really seems almost like a bazaar but in fact they sell mostly jewellery! A very expensive bazaar!
On my day trip to other parts of Tuscany we went to the beautiful cities of San Gimignano, Siena, and Pisa. While I really wanted to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa after being so amused by pictures of it as a kid that was probably the least eventful part of the day. Siena is a beautiful city filled with medieval architecture. The Siena Duomo is spectacular and unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The inside and the outside are decorated in strips, which I found unusual for a church but stunning regardless.
Unfortunately my trip to Florence ended on somewhat of a bad note as I lost my camera so the only pictures I have from my trip are from my iPhone.
My trip to Milan was pretty short, and much like Florence and Siena the Duomo there was one of the highlights. It’s definitely a sight worth seeing. I enjoyed walking around the shopping streets of Milan event though I couldn’t afford to do more than window shop in stores such as Valentino and Armani!
Despite a complete lack of sunshine my two days in Venice, and the flooding (rainboots apparently are a must pack item which I didn’t happen to clue in on in my pre-trip research) I rather enjoyed my trip to Venice. I would love to go back and see the Venice when it’s not rainy but this was a bit of a funny experience walking across the flooded squares on a makeshift platform.
In Venice they have water buses called vaporettos, it was an interesting experience that made my stomach turn for the most part, but fun at the same time. The vaporetto also goes to the other islands including Murano, which I spent a lot of time on! I really loved popping into the different shops and viewing all the beautiful Murano glass jewellery (and shopping a bit too!). I also viewed a glass blowing demonstration which was pretty interesting! Also on the main island there are a lot of shops that sell beautiful masquerade masks and I was able to expand my collection.
My trip to Italy was filled with amazing sights from the ancient ruins, the beautiful landscapes of Tuscany, and the beautiful architecture. Words can’t explain the amazing gelato they have over there, and the food wasn’t too bad either (I’m not sure pizza here will ever be edible again)! There was so much to see and do I wish I could have stayed a month!
Back in October I took a solo trip to Italy (the perk of going solo is that you can do whatever you want!) In my 11 days in Italy I visited Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice and a few others briefly.
Rome is an amazing city filled with so many historical sights, you turn every corner and you come across more amazing sights. I spent four days in Rome and still found it somewhat of a whirlwind tour. There is an unbelievable amount to see and do in Rome.
I half expected the Colosseum to be on the city outskirts with not much around it. That was a misleading assumption on my part! I stepped out of the subway station and there it was.
The place is unbelievably crowded (tip: buy a Roma Pass and you skip the line), and a bit on the touristy side but regardless it was one of my favourite parts of my trip to Italy (other than the amazing gelato! If you’re in Rome visiting Gelateria Della Palma is a must! ). It was a colossal (pun intended) structure, looking at the ruins I wished I could have seen it in ancient times with the Emperor on his throne and the crowds cheering for their favourite gladiators. If you climb (the very steep stairs!) to the next few levels there’s an exhibit filled with ruins. I actually really enjoyed the graphics that were part of the exhibit, you wouldn’t expect it to be so modern and vibrant in colour (think shocking pink and bright yellow) it was an interesting juxtaposition and let the ruins stand out, not blend in with the info graphics.
During my time in Rome I took a side trip to see the ancient ruins of Pompeii. They did an amazing job excavating it. It was a city buried under so much volcanic ash and dirt yet today you can see the city that once existed and walk the same streets as the people of Pompeii once did. Below is a picture of the incredibley well preserved bathhouse in Pompeii.
Other sights I enjoyed seeing were the Trevi Fountain (I saw it 3 times in fact!), the Roman Forums (beautiful columns), the Pantheon(beautiful structure, with the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome). I also visited the Vatican Museums on my last day and I don’t think I’ve seen so much art in one place, it was incredibly inspiring. Their collection includes everything from ancient ruins to modern art. I never realized how much I really enjoyed sculptures till I saw the enormous collection housed by the Vatican museums. However I think I might be one of few people who have visited the Sistine Chapel and been somewhat underwhelmed. No disrespect to Michelangelo but after seeing so much amazing artwork (many by him), and amazing ceilings on my way to the Sistine Chapel I think I was expecting more. Of course seeing the Creation of Adam was worthwhile enough to go into the chapel.
One of my favourite parts of my trip to Italy was to wander the streets around the piazzas and just take in the architecture. Even the buildings holding the shops and restaurants are beautiful, and this was true for the streets around the Spanish Steps and the Pantheon.
Dear Photograph is a new and brilliant blog that lets us merge old photographs into modern life. What do you have to do for your photos to be featured? "Take a picture of a picture from the past in the present." Photographs already let us time travel but I love that this twist lets us do more than that. After looking through the archive, I was left with a nostalgic, joyful yet heart-breaking feeling.
"Dear Photograph, This was the best day. 650 days and counting..."
"Dear Photograph, Dad always had the comfiest shoulder."
"Dear Photograph, Thank you for everything we had."
If you're into traveling, learning new languages and typography, you'll love the works of Stockholm based art director & designer, Albin Holmqvist. He was commissioned to create these fun logotypes for EF International Language Centers.
I love the use of the yellow (yellow cabs) for New York and the blue (Blue Jays) for Toronto.
If you were passing through Stockholm, Sweden between June 7-12, 2011 you may have heard about this realistic street illustion at Sergels torg central square. Unlike most street illustions created out of chalk Swedish artist Erik Johansson created this paticular one using photography as it is his medium of choice. The result of using photography makes the illustion very realistic, and some people (as seen in the video below) took the opportunity to have some fun with the illustion of the hole in the square!
When I received an email from Splendia giving an update on some of their new hotels, I had to click on the one labelled TREE Hotel.
This one is "The Cabin". I love the idea of being away from civilization and having a tree top view.
Or this one, called the "Mirror Cube". I love the concept of being invisible in nature. My only negative thought on this one, is that birds would fly into it not realizing that it was a physical structure.
If you want to make the trip to Sweden to stay in one of these creative suites take along a thick wallet as this type of creativity does not come cheap.
A few months back, I discovered Splendia when I was booking a trip to Miami. (Splendia is an online booking site for unique boutique, design and luxury hotels)
Every couple weeks or so, they send me an email giving travel inspirations as to where to go next. Normally, I delete newsletters, but these ones I actually open and click almost every link (the person looking at their analytics must just love me!!).
But I can't resist the photography. Here are some examples:
Cabana's in Spain,
Grandeur in Spain,
Private swimming pools in Thailand,
and Culture in China.
But even if you don't have a trip in the near future, it allows you to explore and dream of that next big vacation!!
Russia’s Arch Group designed the SleepBox! so instead of falling asleep in an uncomfortable chair at the airport you can check into your own miniature hotel room at your gate.
The sleep boxes in Toyko are apparently much smaller (much like their regular accommodations)
