adidas Outdoor Vertical Store

How far would you go to visit a certain store? Normally, I'm looking at a twenty minute tube ride at an absolute max. In South Korea, adidas have definitely been testing their fans loyalty with this climbing-inspired vertical store.

Did I say climbing inspired? I meant climbing dependent. How far would you go to visit a store...? Nik.

You can find Nik at - Twitter | Instagram | Heavy Denim | Newsletter

The IDMC° Liverpool Map + Weekend Links

With Liverpool being a city close to my heart, I was very pleased to hear that my friends at IDMC° (Independent Map Company) are about to release Issue #1 of their city map guide. The first in the series is dedicated to one of the north's most culturally relevant cities, showcasing its thriving independent scene - including coffee shops, design stores, restaurants, boutique hotels and menswear shops. I was invited to be a part of Weavers Door's Wardrobe feature last year, and I'm thrilled for them to be included in the map. Pre-order a copy here.

Enjoy your weekend my friends! It's ice cream weather right?!

Weekend Bucket List 

Speaking of ice cream, how about this bright green macha soft serve?
The new Brooks Brothers campaign looks at why American style works so well in the UK
Jeff Bridges has major love for panoramic photography
A look around "Tall Boys Beer Market" in Leeds
Trainers from the future can get on my feet anytime
We came across this open forum-style site dedicated to interior design
In case you missed it - Our latest adventure in the Forest of Dean

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Coca-Cola 2nd Lives | Bottles with Alternative Uses

Coca-Cola continues its crusade to think more responsibly about the lasting impact of their products with the next installment of their "Open Happiness" campaign. Entitled "2nd Lives", this campaign shares alternative ways to reuse their iconic bottle, giving it a whole new function, and whole new life after its primary goal.

We know plastic bottles aren't good, but we may as well make the most of them until we find the alternative. I'm up for a water gun fight this summer.

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Inside the Studio of a Traditional Sign Painter

This guy is living one seriously cool existence! TJ Guzzardi is a Traditional Sign Painter from Australia - He fell in love with the art at the age of 15, after customising his first Hot Rod with his Dad. Since then he's never looked back.

For a full set of images visit here.

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Wedding Ideas - DIY Confetti Balloons

DIY Confetti Balloons via Studio DIY. I can't wait to show Hollie this, she's going to love it. Potentially a really cool idea for our wedding I reckon. Plus it looks pretty easy to recreate, so it's something I could actually lend a hand with. Win win. Does anyone remember the Balloon Invitation I made?

Visit Studio DIY for instructions.

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Gingersaurs by Mat Bogust

Image source

Sometimes you just want to sit back after a hard day at the grind with some build-your-own dinosaur biscuits. After signing off an email in response to a job role for a design agency with "...and not to bribe you...but I'll bring biscuits", Mat Bogust hadn't anticipated the company's reply. "Great, we love biscuits...not from the shop though, homemade is best!"

Bohust got to work, thinking of an idea that would grab the employer's attention. He turned up to the interview with a genius creation, Gingersaurs, a DIY build-a-dino biscuit set! It certainly made the agency take notice. But this wasn't to highlight his baking skills, Bogust had cleverly designed the box to reveal a secret compartment which housed his packaging portfolio, business card and an amazing fold-up paper tank.

It's safe to say he walked away with two new briefs to work on and a job at THINK Pack.

See more of Mat Bogust's wonderful packaging here.

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Food Art Pairings by David Schwen

Everyday popular food combinations put together in an organised and eye-catching way. Food Art Pairings by designer David Schwen. In the words of Forrest Gump, "We go together like peas and carrots".

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A Visit To...Raw Creative Agency

Raw Design Agency. Islington Mill, Salford, Manchester.

On one of the hottest days of the year so far, just a few weeks ago I headed down to Manchester to pay a visit to the Raw studios. Raw are a Creative Design Agency based in Islington Mill, a converted Victorian Mill, which houses masses of studio space for local designers and artists to use as work space and hold visual art exhibitions.

After a few wrong turns here and there, we found our way through the backstreets of Salford, finally arriving at the mill which is located about 5 minutes from Manchester city centre. After a brief background into the type of work Raw have been creating for the past few years I was able to go for a nosey around their studios, with my finger on the trigger. The spacious studio was packed with graphic, design and branding inspiration as well as previous design projects and lots of funny collectables and keepsakes (always good to see!).

Thanks to the whole Raw team for inviting me down to their offices. Find out  more about what Raw do and examples of their work here.

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The Hill-Side & Co. Short Videos

Today I wanted to share with you some amazing 10 second videos by The Hill-Side & Co. The Brooklyn, New York based small accessories connoisseur usually concentrate on ties, pocket squares, scarfs and smaller good but they have recently extended their range to clothing, hats, bags and quite excitingly, furniture.

It's amazing what you can do in such a short period of time, I cannot think of a better way to spend 10 seconds. I don't tend to post videos much but please do watch them, trust me you won't regret it!

The Hill-Side & Co. is available at Hickoree's Hard Goods. For more of their videos click here

Inspiration - Ikea Kitchen by Carl Kleiner

One of my favourite posts I've ever done was on Carl Kleiner, back in August '11, so I was pretty pleased when I heard he's be working on a new project. The photographer, along with stylist Evelina Kleiner (they must have got married since I last blogged about them, excellent!) really do have some  brilliantly creative ideas and their latest effort really does get the excitement veins a-popping. Above is the second time Kleiner has worked with Ikea, the first was for their successful cookery book Home is Best. This time around he concentrated on Kitchenware, with pretty effective results. Now these photos tick three boxes for me, my love of homeware/designy stuff in general, cooking and of course OCD heaven, Things Organized Neatly.

Tidy house tidy mind, well here's to wishful thinking.

You can check out more of Carl Kleiner's projects on his website

Advertising - Amtrak Wi-Fi Ads

I really liked these Amtrak adverts promoting their onboard wi-fi, for their trains. It's something that is usually promoted in a mundane way or not at all, but how important is wi-fi these days? You may as well show it off in a creative and most importantly engaging way. It's a super simple idea and what I really like is that they have clearly been inspired by old Art Deco travel advertising and have mixing it with modern technology. Each ad in the series uses a quality which is associated with the destination, I wouldn't mind doing one of these for the Blackpool Tower!

I might make this advertising thing a bit of a Sunday feature actually, it's quite a nice way to start off the week. Image source

Remember I'm running a short competition to win a Murdock London fancy pants candle, click here to enter.

Inspiration - Carl Kleiner

Golden Ratio & Friends

Cafe M - Beirut

Finding stylist, photographer and all round creative bod Carl Kleiner couldn't have come at a better time. Yesterday I was wearing a waterproof jacket and hiking boots, I got soaked at approximately 2pm and still hadn't dried out when I eventually got back home in the early hours of this morning. I know British summers are notoriously sporadic and "average" but this takes the biscuit. A couple of good things that came out of it though were that it seemed to put a lot of the rioters off venturing outside and I also had ttime to browse for some inspiration.

If Kleiner's clever and playful work doesn't cheer you up on days like these I don't know what will. The projects featured here are "Golden Ratio & Friends", which was created simply by folding various types of paper. The second, "Cafe M - Beirut" is just what we all tried as kids, sticking fruit together to make faces! The Swedish photographer works closely with stylish Evelina Bratell. Together they produced the super popular Ikea cookbook Homemade is Best, which was all over the web a while back.

So, did it work? Have I cheered you up on this gloomy day? All images from his website.