International fashion label Closed just introduced (alongside their Fall collection) a new and beautiful site. Initially known for their creation of the first pedal-pushers (gasp!) in late 1970’s, Closed has maintained a history of staying a bit ahead of the trends, a characteristic they have nicely carried into their latest web design. In a palate of comforting, rainy day colors, the site immediately enters full screen mode, making clicking through their simply displayed men’s and women’s collections feel more like a private showing than an internet breeze-through. The styles themselves are certainly nice enough, but the real reason I felt like posting about them was so our readers could check out a example of a site that does an equally impressive job carrying out Closed’s overall brand message as it does displaying their product. I didn’t have any luck finding out who is responsible for this amazing site, but if anyone happens to know, be sure to let us know so we can give them a post of their own.

If you want to see LEGO models go acid and then make them to impress all your non-techy, too-cool-for-school friends, pick up a copy of Forbidden LEGO: Build the Models Your Parents Warned You Against by former LEGO Mindstorms employees Ulrik Pilegaard and Mike Dooley. Pilegaard was a senior designer and studio manager and Dooley was senior product manager at the LEGO arm responsible for the design of the consumer robotics kits, which unfortunately weren’t around yet when I was a youngin’ but hasn’t stopped me from checking out as an adult. Under their step-by-step tutelage, you’ll tap into your inner geek and construct a ping-pong launcher, a candy catapult, a high-voltage car and an insanely sick toy gun that shoots out LEGO plates (see the video of it in action here) — all from whatever LEGOs you can root out of storage and other material catching dust around the house. They also do a lot of encouraging on how to think out of the box and come up with other snazzy models good for terrorizing the family pet and siblings (and so what if you’re in your 20s?). Just don’t shoot your eye out.

Electronic this and downloadable that have served to smother what used to be music coupled with art. Once upon a time, the design of a cassette tape fold-out or a compact disc insert was as much a reason to purchase a particular album as the music itself…but today marks the separation of sight and sound, making music-accompanied visuals vintage, especially where vinyl is concerned.

Kavel Rafferty, commercial artist, collects herself company sleeves from the record era. An eye for deliberate design, Rafferty understandably deems record envelopes wall-worthy, and she’s sharing her little library of factory sleeves with the Web, by way of the Crossed Combs site. From the basic black on brown incarnations of both London Records and Columbia Records, to the colorful caricature-esque horn player belonging to Swedish EMI, these little record slips are big on design; Kavel’s collection is something to behold by record collectors and artists alike.

-Thea Beemer

I trust Ryan Catbird with my ears. Ever since we first mentioned him and his indie (no, but seriously. Indie.) label a few months ago, I’ve been watching his music blog, Catbirdseat, like a stalker, and have panther-pounced a nice percentage of what he recommends. Therefore, while there may be debate as to whether I am worthy of telling you what to listen to, I feel totally comfortable telling you that you should listen to what he tells you to listen to… and the latest word from Catbird states that you need to stick your ears into the music of Clear Tigers. In fact, the man not only recommended we listen to them, he also “veered off towards hyperbole land” in saying that we will soon refer to them as our “new favorite band.” For those of you unfamiliar with music snobbery, to use a term of that strength is sometimes analygous to dumping at least 80% of your musical street-cred right down the gutter (unless, of course, you can back it up). I’m going to have to wait until I listen to the entire Clear Tigers EP for the final verdict, but I already am leaning towards “cha-ching,” because that’s how it normally works with the stuff he recommends. You can get our own copy for a pleasantly un-risky $3 here, but move quickly; like most of the releases from that place, the CD has been produced in a tiny little run of 200, and will probably be swarmed upon by throngs of blood-sucking hipsters, stat.

On any given day, I’ll look at fifteen, twenty porfolios of graphic designers and artists, not counting the ones I close down immediately because of overly-annoying flash, obnoxious music or plainly horrific layouts. After six months of this being a daily ritual, it’s turned me into a bit of a portfolio snot, in turn making it pretty hard to really impress me. This wasn’t the case at all when I clicked through to FeatureThis, the sexy portfolio of a rather politely-worded Los Angelian named Eric. From the low-key but totally effective layout displaying his forays into branding, photography, packaging and web design to his Film+Motion set to a swingin’ big-band soundtrack, I couldn’t stop clicking around for a good half hour. Who knew pesticides, fly traps and nursing pads could be so visually intriguing?

The new site of designer toy brand UNKL is up and running, and the new pages are rapturously stocked with all the characters we’ve come to obsess over plus a “whole crapload” of newbies. Blank UniPos, the new SUG and Ulligus figures, and the HazMaPo carbon Series are among the spankin’ fresh offerings, as is the awesome Wilco by UNKL six-pack. The re-boot also introduces their very own blog covering all the UNKL news you’d ever want to hear, including the latest on their upcoming CBS Saturday Morning Cartoon debut featuring a few knome-ish TinPos (which I didn’t know about but am now stoked about- now there’s a good show for a hangover). Congrats on the new site, guys, it looks great!

I absolutely LOVED these pieces when I saw them at Moss here in New York a while back but go figure, I didn’t bother to write down any information about them. Thanks to our friends at Things of Random Coolness, however, I’ve been reconnected with my long-lost love. Or at least with some awesome pieces of furniture.

Featuring comic art by the late Guido Crepax, an influential European comic book artist, the Kadhora Cabinet and the 4-drawer Crepax Cabinet are works of art in their own right. They absolutely suck you in, inviting you to read the storyline and peruse the provocative (and sometimes dirty) images adorning their surfaces. When I saw them, they were perfectly displayed on the gallery-like pedestals that Moss is well-known for and while I’m sure they’d stand out in the home setting as well, these need a well lit corner to be thoroughly appreciated. And it’d be a shame to put one of these beauties against a wall for fear of covering up the art.