Friday Finds 7.22.11

Jaime: Child's Play, Grown Up Cash

I am both compelled and disturbed by this story on super-high-end playhouses and treehouses in the New York Times, which cost up to $200,000 (yes really) and which one woman (a former Playboy model and now-wife of an oil executive) describes as "bling for the yard." I love treehouses, and these would be amazing structures to grow up with. But what extraordinary wastes of money. Whatever happened to the good old, imagination-stoking cardboard box-and-marker hideout...? Alive and well, I assume, in other people's yards…

Miyoko: Print Making with Yellow Owl Workshop

PRINT WORKSHOP by Christine Schmidt from Yellow Owl Workshop on Vimeo.

Last year, our resident crafter, associate editor Jordan Kushins, introduced us to stamp making with her first Home Work post and a how-to with tips from her and Christine Schmidt of Yellow Owl Workshop. The two took to the stage at Dwell on Design for a live demo and I was inspired to give a go myself. Check out this video about projects from Schmidt's book Print Workshop. Warning: You may end up spending your whole weekend stamping too.

Aaron: We Mourn the Loss of Alex Steinweiss

One of my first stories for Dwell once I'd come on staff was an Archive on the wonderful graphic designer, illustrator, and father of the record cover, Alex Steinweiss. I interviewed the man and he was charming, playful, and insightful, taking me through the evolution of cardboard-packaged records in the white goods section of the department store to their current state as essentially a graphic expression of the music. He died on Sunday the 17th and his legacy is difficult to fully capture. Here's a nice obit from the New York Times as well as the story I did on Steinweiss.

Diana: Splashy Typefaces

Perused Fast Company's design blog today and read up on a typeface created by Skyrill, a design team out of Bahrain. "I really love how fluids look when floating in the air like raindrops, or splashing as they hit the ground," Hussain Almossawi told Fast Company. Click here for the full story and 5 animations showing how the letters are made.