Category: design

Michael Graves cosmetic pencil sharpener

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I am a sucker for standout packaging, although I know that packaging often costs more than the product itself.  Examples of standout packaging are:

This pod is actually a cosmetic pencil sharpener. Designed by famed product designer Michael Graves, it features dual German stainless steel blades – you know that the Germans always make good stuff! 🙂

For stylish kitchen, beauty, home and office, and safety and industrial implements, visit Slice™. Besides Michael Graves, featured designers are the pink-suited Karim Rashid, Yves Behar, Scot Herbst, and Alfredo Muccino.

Flower Power

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A couple of items punched up with bold floral designs:


Agatha Ruiz de la Prada lip balm for GAL Perfumeria

These fruity-flavored lip balms features the exuberant designs of Spanish fashion designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada. I purchased the passion fruit-flavored lip balm, which is tinted blue, but goes on clear. I found mine at duty-free at the Copenhagen airport, but I’ve also seen these tins at anthropologie.


marimekko for AVON All Over Face Palette

Avon has partnered with famed Finnish design house marimekko to create makeup palettes with marimekko’s signature Unikko poppy print. Pictured above is the All Over Face Palette; eyeshadow palettes are also available. Unlike the rip-off that Dolce & Gabbana did with its poppy-print dress, marimekko licensed use of the Unikko print to Avon.

A fabulous resource on home design too good to keep to myself

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I was watching Sheila Bridges: Designer Living on the Fine Living TV Network yesterday, which had a feature on Pintura Studio, a design firm that designs and hand cuts stencils that are then used to hand print fabric and wallpaper. As Pintura Studio uses a lot of (Asian) Indian motifs, and I love these motifs (see my post on Block-printed textiles), I wanted to find Pintura Studio’s web address. I Google’d on Pintura Studio, and found this resource: HomePortfolio.

HomePortfolio - Home design & home design products

Although I had just discovered HomePortfolio, many others had discovered it before: there are nearly 1200 saves of its home page in My Web from Yahoo!

HomePortfolio is a fabulous resource for everything to decorate your home. It presents offerings from many vendors and enables you to create your own online portfolio of items for the home. That’s why I’m making special notice of this site through The Style Page blog.

Links for Pintura Studio and HomePortfolio may be found on My Web (tag: home).

PS Despite recent pictures of Sheila Bridges with a bald head, I am assured that she is in good health.

Cars and Stripes

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I am instantly drawn to stripes, and this article CARS AND STRIPES from Design Within Reach’s DWR Design Notes tries to verbalize the appeal and significance of stripes.

The author writes, “Once you take notice, you realize that stripes are ubiquitous in the environment. My earliest recollections of stripes come from childhood, and they’re all joyful: funny socks, Dr. Seuss hats, summer beach towels and surf mats.”

Perhaps that explains why I’m drawn to multi-colored stripes, as on pajamas. They are so cheerful.

The author continues, “If you doubt that they carry meaning and cultural significance, consider flags generally and the flag proposed for the European Union in 2001 by Rem Koolhaas; it was an attempt to combine the spirit of many nations through stripes.”

How could this author cite the hyperkinetic proposed EU flag (which wasn’t adopted; instead, the EU adopted a more sober flag with a circle of gold stars on a dark blue background) and ignore the Stars and Stripes? Out of snobbery?