Spot Cool Stuff: Design

Colorful Colorful Joseph Joseph

Spot Cool Stuff — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:35:54 +0000

Bright colors, durable materials and smart designs come together in the selection of creative kitchenware produced by Joseph Joseph. The New York City-based company founded by twin brothers, Richard and Antony Joseph, makes all sorts of cool serving bowls, chopping boards, kitchen tools and food preparation items. Here’s our review of some of our favorites:

Joseph Joseph Food Preparation Nest

The lusciously colorful Joseph Joseph Food Preparation Nest looks so strikingly cool that it can take some time to realize how practical it is too. Mixing bowls, colanders, measuring cups and other such things that clutter counter tops stack together within the smartly designed Nest. All the pieces are dishwasher safe and the bowls all have large, non-slip bases. But our favorite feature is the way everything within a Nest intuitively stacks together, with gaps between the pieces. If you want to get a large measuring cup in the middle of a Nest, for example, you don’t have to take the whole thing apart—you can easily reach in and get it.

There are several versions of the Nest to choose from. Some stack as few as three items, but Spot Cool Stuff is partial to the Joseph Joseph Nest 9 Plus Compact Food Preparation Set. It includes five measuring cups—teaspoon, 1/4-cup, 1/3-cup, 1/2-cup, 1-cup—as well as a stainless steel mesh sieve, 1/2-liter small mixing bowl, 3-liter colander/strainer and a 4-1/2-liter large mixing bowl.

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Joseph Joseph Elevate Carousel Set

After stirring soup or scooping batter, most cooks place the spoon they just used down on the counter. With the typical cooking spoon creates a mess (and a potential hygiene issue). But with the spoons and ladles that make up the Joseph Joseph Elevate Carousel Set, the mess all stays on the spoon. That’s because each utensil features an innovative weighted handle with an integrated stand. Put a Joseph Joseph siring spoon down on the counter and the spoon part remains elevated off the surface. (See pic, below.)

The full Joseph Joseph Elevated Set includes a rotating storage stand and six utensils: a spaghetti server, slotted spoon, ladle, slotted turner, solid spoon and flexible turner. You can also buy the utensils separately or purchase the set without the stand, though the springing entire set is a better value. Each utensil is heat resistant and dishwasher safe.

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Joseph Joseph Compact Herb Chopper & Board

There are other combination knife-cutting boards designed for the chopping of small items such as herbs. But the Joseph Joseph Compact Herb Chopper and Chopping Board is the only one we’ve seen with a curved top. That curvature makes it easy to slice through herbs by rolling the included chopper back and forth; it also means that the herbs all stay on the board while being chopped. But don’t let the name limit you—the Joseph Joseph Herb Chopping Board also works well with foods like garlic, ginger, nuts and chocolate.

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Joseph Joseph Index Color Coded Chopping Boards

Cutting boards absorb the smell of whatever is cut up upon them. Use the same board for all your food and, over time, it will start smell like a less-than-pleasant concoction of meat, garlic, onions, oranges, fish and whatever else. The Joseph Joseph Index Chopping Boards make it intuitive to keep your cutting boards dedicated to a certain food type. The boards are each color coded and organized by an index system. If you are really keen on preventing cross contamination in the process get the Index Plus Chopping Board—it includes color coordinated knives.

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Joseph Joseph Fold Flat Grater

Most graters take up a lot of space. Not so with the Joseph Joseph Grater. It folds flat for easy storage. The dishwasher safe grater features one side with coarse stainless steel blades and one with fine. Take your pick of white, red, black or green.

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Joseph Joseph Folding Colander

After saving some cabinet space with a Joseph Joseph grater (above), continue the trend with Joseph Joseph Folding Colandersr. What’s cool about then—beside the fact that they fold flat and come in multiple colors—is that they look snazzy enough to serve food in. Get a selection of these colanders to bring various dishes to the table.

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Joseph Joseph Nest Utensils

In the same way that the Joseph Joseph Food Preparation Nest (above) colorfully combines a variety of bowls and cups, the Joseph Joseph Nest Utensils provides a space saver for utensils. The set includes a slotted spatula, slotted spoon, solid spoon, spaghetti server and ladle. Those five utensils stack together and sit in a slim storage base; they are held together by tiny magnets embeded in the handles. It’s altogether very cool-looking. And the Joseph Joseph Nest Utensils Set takes up much less space than that pot with cooking utensils sticking out of it that most people have on their kitchen counter.

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published: 16 May 2012

Psychology of Color Infographic

Spot Cool Stuff — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:30:19 +0000

Most of us are not consciously aware of the large extent to which color affects our moods. Green creates a feeling of tranquility. Blue makes you feel productive. Yellow infuses you with energy—and makes babies cry.

The Psychology of Color, a cool infographic produced by NowSourcing, is all about color and its effect on our psyche.

When deciding what hue to paint a room, or what color pallet to choose for your home decor, you might want to consider the psychological impacts of your choice as shown on this infographic.

If you don’t like the infographic or the information that’s on it, well, maybe that’s because it used too much red.

Click on the graphic to open it full size in a new window:

published: 11 May 2011

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4 Sleeping Bags That Look Like Something Else

Spot Cool Stuff — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:08:42 +0000

None of the four sleeping bags reviewed below are ones you’ll come across shopping the REI sleeping bag finder. Practical, portable, warm—these four sleeping bags have none of those qualities. But each does have a design that’s novel (to say the least) and a look that resembles something un-sleeping-bag-like:

Slice of Pizza Sleeping Bag

Up late one drunk night in college, Spot Cool Stuff had the idea of selling a sleeping bag that looked like a slice of pizza. We never followed through on our idea, probably because we thought of it while in college and sleep deprived—and drunk—but we’re thrilled that some one else did.

That some one is artist Brook Abboud, who sells on Etsy.com all manner of furniture and personal accessories that resemble food. Among her creations are a carrot scarf, a waffle bed with syrup sheets and a baked potato beanbag chair.

Abboud’s Slice of Pizza Sleeping Bag is completely made to order by made. She even dyes the fabric herself to give it that cheese ‘n’ sauce look. Topping choices include broccoli, mushrooms, olives and pepperoni. It’s probably for the best that anchovies are not an option.

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Tauntaun Sleeping Bag

ThinkGeek should come up with an April Fool’s gag every day. The online purveyor of cool stuff has a tradition of advertizing a completely made-up product every April 1st. Their shoppers, in turn, have a tradition of clamoring to buy that made-up product in real life.

That’s what happened with the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag. Of course, a Tauntaun is a dinosaur-like creature that the good guys rode into battle on the icy planet Hoth in the original Star Wars movie. Han Solo used his lightsaber to cut open the warm carcass of a dead Tauntaun to keep an injured Luke Skywalker from freezing to death.

With this sleeping bag, you can reenact that scene in the privacy (and warmth) of your living room. The bag features “simulated Tauntaun fur” (as opposed to real Tauntaun fur), a pattern of Tauntaun intestines on the inside and even a lightsaber zipper pull. Counting on it to save you from hypothermia—on any planet—is not recommended.

For another ThinkGeek product that got its start as an April Fool’s prank check out the iCade.

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Anatomical Model Sleeping Bag

The Anatomical Model Sleeping Bag is the creepiest thing we’ve seen since visiting Mexico’s Island of the Dolls. Perfect for a sleepover with medical students or a camping trip with Hannibal Lecter, this sleeping bag features a removable veiny face. The same Japanese manufacturer also makes sleeping bags shaped like tuna fish and Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen.

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Chumbuddy

The Chumbuddy gives a whole new meaning to “swimming with the fishes.” It’s really not so much a sleeping bag as it is a giant stuffed animal you can crawl inside. We really like the plushness of it, but the manufacturer, Patch Together, must have received complaints because they recently introduced the Chumbuddy2 with less stuffing. The newer incarnation is supposed to be “easier to carry and more functional as a real sleeping bag.” We don’t doubt that it is. Though are portability and functionality really prime concerns when in the market for a sleeping bag that looks like a giant shark?

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published: 4 May 2012

Design Your Own Dress Shirt

Spot Cool Stuff — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:44:17 +0000

You needn’t be an avid fashion designer, à la a Project Runway contestant, to create your own men’s dress shirt. All you need is access to a cool website. Like Blank Label.

On Blank Label most anyone can create their own shirt—within limits, of course. The basic shirt concept and range of fabrics is pre-determined. But within that, it is impressive how many design options you have.

Read the rest on our websites review blog

The Flintstones House In Real Life

Spot Cool Stuff — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:29:29 +0000

Recently deceased American TV and radio legend Dick Clark was best known for hosting American Bandstand, the game show Pyramid and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. But the man often described a “the world’s oldest teenager” left behind more than memories and an impact on American culture. He also had a house that was inspired by the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Flintstones.

Clark’s abode is not the first inspired by an animated film or television show. Among the fictional houses created in real life are The Simpsons house and the flying house from the movie Up (yes, with real balloons that really do make it fly!). But the Dick Clack Flintstones house differs from those projects in two distinct ways:

First, the house is not intended to be a replica of the cartoon version. There’s no bird record player. There’s no wooly mammoth shower. No attempt was made to duplicate the layout of the cartoon house in which the Flintstones family lived, which is just as well as the Flintstones animators weren’t faithful to the home’s dimensions show-to-show.

Second, the Flintstones house was designed to be a private permanently-inhabited home. It wasn’t built as some Flintstones marketing ploy. It simply had an owner, Dick Clark, who is obsessed with the show.

Or, rather, he was obsessed with the show. Before he passed away, Dick Clark put his Flintstones home for sale (which is how these interior photos of it became public). Maybe living in a cartoon-inspired faux-rock house wasn’t such a yabba dabba doo time.

The Malibu, California estate sits on 23 sprawling hill top acres with views of the Pacific Ocean. Yet the house has only two bathrooms and one bedroom, which doesn’t quite seem enough for a modern stone-age family. Nevertheless, Fred and Wilma wannabes make it theirs for a mere US$3.5 million.

published: 19 April 2012

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Musical Furniture

Spot Cool Stuff — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:32:50 +0000

If you have kids who incessantly bang on whatever pots, pans, books, bowls, saucers, spoons and sibling’s heads they can get their hands on, the last thing you need is a furniture that’s designed to double as musical instrument. But if your home is in need a certain melodic touch, the furniture from Musical Furnishings is very cool.

Every item from Musical Furnishings is meant to be enjoyed as a bone fide musical instrument; all manner of tunes, from simple songs to complex scores, can be played on them. At the same time, each item serves as a useable piece of furniture. Your can eat on the musical tables (the tripled-layered polyurathane finish is resistant to spills), sit on the musical chairs and store stuff in the musical chests.

There’s a variety of Musical Furnishings items to choose from. A look at our favorites:

Duet Table

We’ve seen dueling banjos, dueling fiddles and dueling pianos. But until we came across this table we had never seen dueling xylophones. The 13 xylophone keys that cover the top of the Duet Table are arranged back-to-back, allowing two people to play together—or against each other.

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Musical Drum Table

Any table can be banged upon but how many can sound like a chime, cymbal, tongue drum, birch drum, snare drum and cow bells all at once? Viewed from above, the Musical Drum Table looks like a regular table with a square pattern. It’s only when you peek underneath that you see how each of those 12 squares houses a different percussion instrument. The extra cool part: The squares are modular, allowing you to rearrange them and add your own.

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Musical Treasure Chest

We love the Musical Treasure Chest with the colored keys (pictured to right) but it’s also available in a whitewashed, cherry and honey finish. The keyboard, hand tuned in the key of C, sits a few inches above the cedar base of the chest, allowing for air flow (and preventing fingers from getting pinched). Still, the character of notes change slightly depending on what’s stored inside the chest.

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Musical Porch Swing

Musical Furnishings has a few different pieces of outdoor furniture, of which we are partial to the Musical Porch Swing because, well, it’s a porch swing. Made out of red cedar, the swing is designed to live out in the elements. The character of the 13 notes the keys produce changes with the temperature, humidity and wood moisture, which might frustrate hard core musicians but delight amateurs. Click here to listen to very short snippet of how the swing can sound.

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published: 20 Mar 2011

A Good Night’s Nest

Spot Cool Stuff — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:27:47 +0000

Spot Cool Stuff wrote previously about a rental villa in France where guests can live like human hamsters. But perhaps you’re looking for an animalistic unusual hotel experience more avian than that. We have your answer: The Human Nest.

The Nest is literally a human-sized abode made of branches and woven wood. Think of it as a piece of art that you happen to be able to sleep in.

Read the rest on our travel and glamping blog

The Trap Door Wine Cellar

Spot Cool Stuff — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:34:31 +0000

We love trap doors and hidden rooms. And we love wine. So how can we not write about the super cool Spiral Cellar wine storage area?

Now, by “wine storage area” we aren’t talking about dedicating a section of your closet to a wine rack. And we don’t mean some electrified wine storage appliance where you can keep a case or two. The Spiral Cellar is a special room placed underneath the ground floor of your house where as many as 1,870 bottles of wine can stored under perfect conditions.

A Spiral Cellar doesn’t subtract from the existing livable space of a home because it is buried in the ground and because it is accessed via a trap door—of a sort. The door isn’t of the type a James Bond villain would use to dispose of an incompetent henchman. But it is space efficient and potentially cool looking. Some Spiral Cellar owners have a glass door (pic to right) that can be lit up from below with LED lighting. Others have doors that stand out (eg. a wood door surrounded by a tile floor) or are hidden, either by covering the door with a rug or blending the door in with the floor.

Another cool feature of the Spiral Cellar—it requires no electricity. The cellar uses the natural laws of physics to keep wine stored in perfect conditions. Having only paid partial attention during our physics classes, Spot Cool Stuff doesn’t understand how the physics of it works other than knowing that the placement of vents work to moderate the cellar’s temperature and humidity. (Read more on the Spiral Cellar website.)

There are certain geographic locations were it isn’t possible to add a Spiral Cellar to a house—in the Yukon Territory, for example, where ground permafrost is an issue. Generally, though, the Spiral Cellar can be adapted to the local climate. For houses located above a high water table, the cellar can be placed inside a waterproof butyl liner.

The cost of a Spiral Cellar depends on the size you choose and the exact details of the installation. The 650-bottle Spiral Cellar (the smallest available) typically runs £12,835. The mega 1,870-bottle Spiral Cellar will set you back £25,515. At those prices, we hope you’ll have enough money left over to actually buy wine.

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published: 16 March 2012

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