First off, i just want to apologize to Wright, they've been kind enough to send me some of their incredible catalogs, but the timing was when i was caught running around between trips this spring ~ and i've only just gotten to cleaning house and organizing and catching up on everything (yes, perhaps i do need an assistant?)...

Anyhow, i've been reorganizing like crazy, and i have notes and lists and scribbles everywhere, finally deciding and prioritizing the future of NOTCOT and where i want to take this ever evolving company we've grown ~ and inbetween it all, finally finding more time to have fun and catch up on all these books that have stacked up. For those who may not know, Wright is pretty much one of the most impressive auction houses of modern design pieces, and their catalogs are completely mind blowingly inspirational for any designer. Based in Chicago, i have been kicking myself that its just to far to make last minute invites to openings, but for today i'm catching up and drooling over their catalogs, and while doing so i just stumbled on these Enzo Mari Animali and Pesci Puzzles from 1974. They even come in their original boxes. Can you name all the species? See images of both and the catalog page on the next page!

p.s.
I'm thinking maybe my new way to deal with sharing books on NOTCOT will scan in favorite pages that are extra visually inspiring... thoughts? ideas? I've been having a hard time trying to figure out how to "review" books - and i certainly want to avoid the grade school summary styled book reports!

TO PAGE 2 of "Wright: Enzo Mari Animal Puzzles"! ----->

Tags: book - puzzle - wright

Zune has been a great supporter of the arts with their Zune Arts initiative, and its been incredible to see all of the artists - illustration, 3d, animation, and now graphic artists they have been supporting! The latest project is The Lost Ones: "a graphic novel written by celebrated writer Steve Niles. For the Zune-commissioned novel, Niles was paired up with visual artists Dr. Revolt, Gary Panter, Kime Buzzelli and Morning Breath to take the reader on an epic journey through time and space. Each artist illustrated a different chapter of the novel." On the next page you can check out a trailer video... i've also pulled some of my favorite pages from the novel, as well as the covers of the various chapters.

GIVEAWAY! There are two sets of a special collectors edition of the novel with a silk screened cover and poster waiting for two lucky readers ~ so leave a comment with your favorite on/offline comic and why you love it (by monday night PST) for a chance to win it!

TO PAGE 2 of "GIVEAWAY! The Lost Ones"! ----->

Tags: art - book - comics - contests

So this engraving trend has been huge lately... grab a laser engraver and you can throw everything from moleskines to macbooks to.... well, you name it! Joe from EngraveYourTech and EngraveYourBook, sent over one of his creations, and it arrived while i was out of town, so by the time i got back i was so jetlagged and tired that when dan and i first looked at the moleskine, it took a second to remember that it was laser engraved. In fact first we were there touching it and looking at it up close arguing whether it was engraved or just silkscreened in this matte brownish color, since you could barely feel the indentation...

So we did the only thing we could do... get SUPER up close (200x) shots to see what was really going on... and here you can see, its clearly engraved enough just to scrape that black layer off... and then we even cut a tiny chunk out of the corner to see the colors underneath (you can also see pics of that, and slightly less upclose pics on the next page)... and if you still aren't convinced, there is also a video on the next page of this exact pattern being engraved on a moleskine...

TO PAGE 2 of "Engrave Your Book - Up (200x) Close"! ----->

Tags: book - engrave - gifts - laser - microscope - shopping - technology