Eat.Live.Modern - a Modern Design Blog

Monocle Magazine - Global Culture and Design News

You may have seen it at the bodega or airport newsstand - a thick booklet that half resembles a magazine, slight bookish. I'm talking about Monocle, a monthly publication with interesting coverage on global news, culture, business and design. One read and you'll be hooked!

I first picked up Monocle to read on a long international flight, and I haven't missed a month since. The magazine started in 2007 with its headquarters in London. The content is fresh, interesting and inspiring. They report from the ground in over 100 countries every year - essentially eyes and ears everywhere they need to be.

With the bulk of content featuring news, design, style, and global affairs there's also a section with products. Monocle has actual shops in New York, London, Toronto, Tokyo and Hong Kong where they sell some of the products along with others that cater to their readers’ tastes. The New York location is right on Hudson in the West Village. Monocle also has Film and Radio content.

Lastly, 25/25 City Guides are published by Monocle: 25 Resort locations and 25 Business spots. They offer essential tips with some insider knowledge. The printable PDFs are quite handy too.

Copies of Monocle magazine in the US are $12 each, and you can also subscribe.

Monocle.com  -  Monocle City Guides

Not on the High Street - Unique Gifts

Building off the buzz around London and the UK after the fantastic Olympic showing, eat.live.modern was thrilled to discover Not on the High Street, a unique gift site with hundreds of contributing sellers. Think of it as Britain's version of Etsy.

Not on the High Street is packed with personalized gifts and unique products in several categories. Take a look at their site for global treasures for yourself or a gift. Below are some cheeky finds that we like.

Not on the High Street website

P.S. A little history on 'High Street'. High Street, or The High Street, is a metonym for the primary business or shopping area in a city especially in the UK. Similar to Main Street in the US, it is frequently used in reference to retailing.

 

MUJI store

MUJI is a fun little store I came across in Europe. They have simple travel, office, and home essentials along with crafty goods that use the best materials with environmental consideration. MUJI is IKEA-esque with personal, functional goods - no furniture.

Here's the MUJI travel brochure: Download Travel_brochure_UK

And, here are some product highlights. The press out airplane is a great project for kids (or adults!), and they have a London taxi press out too that's really sleek. Took me a good 2 hours to put it together, ha. Then, the cityscape stands can liven up your desk landscape.

Check out the full MUJI website They have store locations all across Asia and Europe, and 6 stores in New York City.

Must Have Design, Travel and Lifestyle Apps

There are tons of apps being created these days which makes it hard to find the true gems. Discovering a cool app can make a big difference in your day-to-day with location based features getting more and more advanced. 

Here are some of my go-to design, travel, foodie and lifestyle apps for your iPhone and/or iPad - in no particular order. Send or post suggestions of your favs too!

GOOP App (iPhone, $3.99)

Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP lifestyle brand released a new iPhone app today. It's a City Guide for New York and is filled with hand-picked favorites and suggestions from the actress. I can't wait to try out the GOOP app when I'm in NYC in a few weeks. It has a "What's Near Me" feature that pulls in the suggestions based on your location, and there are also a few NYC walks highlighted in the app with superb stops. Go Gwyneth.

Houzz App (iPad/iPhone, free)

The Houzz app has home design ideas and photos by room type. You can also layer on the Metro area filter or Style features to customize the pictures shown. Interior design at your fingertips.

FoodSpotting App (iPhone, free)

Looking for the tastiest key lime pie or a huge helping of lasagna? The FoodSpotting app lets you find food by location and picture. The user submitted photos allow you to navigate through the world of food - one dish after another. Eat your heart out!

Instagram App (iPhone, free)

The Instagram app makes every picture look better - without fail, guar-on-tee! This app is addicting and will have you whipping out your phone at inopportune moments to capture things just to see how they'll turn out with the various filters. A must-have for shutter bugs.

Number Guru (iPhone, free)

Ok, I selfishly debated about whether to give this one out - but here goes. Number Guru lets you get the identification for ANY telephone number. You heard me. Caller id for cell phones is freaking awesome.

Scoutmob (iPhone, free)

 

Based and started in Atlanta, Scoutmob is a mobile deal app that may determine where you are eating out each night because the deals are that sweet. What's really great about the app is that you don't have to buy anything in advance (like Groupon) all you do is show your phone to redeem the deals which in most cases is 50% off. Scoutmob is now in 13 major cities with 6 more on the way. Their marketing is charming and funny, and the deals tend to be at quality places. Mobile deals for the local curious.

 

Parallax Web Design - Creative Showcase

Your eyes are in for a treat! An interactive colleague tipped me off on this cool vertical web design technique called Parallax that adds an amazing sense of depth to the web. Parallax design and layering creates a 3D effect and adds movement to the page.

You must see for yourself in the cool parallax design examples below:

The sherbet colored shoes on the Nike Better World site standout incredibly! Reminds me of those circus peanut candies.

Visual flow for the SXSW Beer Camp page is similar to Prezi.

Fancy way to promote your business like this digital agency in Oslo.

Parallax is a great tool for high-end, luxury brands as seen above for Manufacture d'Essai.

Jan Ploch uses parallax design to showcase an online portfolio. Parallax resumes will be the future - much better than the boring black and white one-pager. Ick!

Wordle - Free Word Clouds

I've spent way too much time playing with Wordle this week and thought I should share. Wordle.net is a free site that generates 'word clouds', a graphic of text that emphasizes frequent text more prominently. You can tweak your word cloud by altering the font, design, and color. To create you own word cloud you can copy and paste text, enter the URL of a blog feed (like I did below for eat.live.modern), or enter a del.icio.us user name to see their tags. Have fun wordle-ing! 

TripLingo - Language Travel App

Before you pack your bags and jet set to amazing locations make sure you download the new language apps from TripLingo. The language guides are a fun way to learn a language but also teach you to speak like the locals. You can learn some before your trip or use the app on-the-go at your destination. TripLingo currently has Spanish, French and German available - but Italian and Portuguese are on the way too! (Cost on iTunes is $4.99 per languge.)

¿Necesito decir más?

www.triplingo.com

Inspiration via Instagram - Articles - Dwell

via www.dwell.com

Obsessed with the Instagram photo app? Get some inspiration from Dwell's design post and keep snapping away shutterbugs.

http://instagr.am/

Coming Soon: Exclusive Interview with Designer Emily Pilloton

Founder of the nonprofit design firm, Project H, Emily Pilloton is making a big impact in the design world. She along with 11 others were recently honored by the 2011 USA Network Characters Approved series. The program honors those that are changing the face of America's culture and who are innovators and inspirational. Along with Emily Pilloton honorees included influencers like the founder of Tom's Shoes, Blake Mycoskie, fashion designer, Prabal Gurung, and the founders of Foursquare.

You can view the USA Network telecast here. And, stay tuned for my exclusive interview with modern designer Emily Pilloton!

 

My Scratch Map | IWOOT

Imagine being able to subtly show off exactly where you've been on your holidays. Well, with the My Scratch Map scratch-off maps, it's easy to make anyone who pops round feel jealous of exactly how well-travelled you are. On first glance, it's a quite classy looking wall map, but if you carefully scratch off the places you've been on holiday, it reveals some lovely colourful and geographic detail. More importantly, it's perfect for letting everyone know how exotic, learned and very Palin-esque you are.

via www.iwantoneofthose.com

Brilliant concept - travel and check it off on your My Scratch Map. IWOOT! :)