When hell froze over

In the wonders never cease department, Apartment Therapy's The Kitchn picked up my post about Richard Holschuh from Saturday. They got my name right, my URL right and most of all they got Richard a world of exposure I never could have on my own.

To make matters even better, the lead paragraph started with an Apartment Therapy royal we.

We're smitten with these concrete countertops from Richard Holschuh, an artist and artisan from Vermont. His company creates custom concrete countertops for kitchens, baths, and other areas, and some of them blow away our usual ideas of what a concrete surface can look like.

I guess the key to getting websites with traffic counts in the millions to notice me is to mock them endlessly.

Apartment Therapy's The Kitchn: Concrete With Soul

Who needs a chocolate Easter bunny?

Vosges Haut-Chocolat has a new collection of truffles that celebrate spring. And then some. While it's true that Vosges Haut-Chocolat is an advertiser, a good turn always deserves effusive praise.

From their press release:

Inhale the scent of fresh cut grass and springtime blossoms, gallivant in your galoshes in April rain showers…spring is a time for renewal, rejuvenation and a reminder to celebrate our magical Mother Earth. The Green Collection was inspired by the spices, teas, fruits and flowers indigenous to Asia, including Japanese cherry blossoms. The launch of the collection is centered on the life cycle of these beautiful blooms, and is available for a limited time only!

The 16 piece Green Collection includes:

• Ellateria (4): Indian green cardamom + dark chocolate + white poppy seeds
• Kaffir (4): Thai kaffir lime + fresh coconut + dark chocolate
• Kayoko (4): Japanese matcha green tea + white chocolate + cherry blossom petals
• Buddha's Leaf (4): Malaysian pandan leaves + dark chocolate + cocoa powder

Vosges Haut-Chocolat has three locations in Chicago, including one in O'Hare. They have two locations in New York and one in Las Vegas. Of course their amazing chocolates are available everywhere through their website.

I love good chocolate and the offerings from Vosges Haut-Chocolat are the best I've ever found. Which by the way, is why they're an advertiser in the first place.

See the rest of their offerings here.

Industrial design from Prague

Martin Žampach  is an industrial designer in Prague, the Czech Republic. He does really interesting and varied work and as with so many of my recent finds, I met him through Twitter. Industrial design represents a nearly perfect convergence of wide range of disciplines. It's art, it's science, it's engineering, it's math; pick a skill set and it comes into play. I've been fortunate to meet a number of industrial designers in the last year and getting glimpses of how they do what they do is a thrill to say the least.

Martin's been involved in some beautiful and clever projects and his entire portfolio is on the web, you can find it here.

Some highlights include glassware designed for Moravské Sklárny Květná. In English, that's the Moravian Flower Glassworks, from the Czech village of Strání-Květná.

Here's his Jar Rádiovka, based on an old beret.

Photo by Jiří Jevický

This is a container inspired by a spinning top.

Photo by Jiří Jevický

And my favorite, this is the Vespertillium clothes pin set. Martin was on the team that designed it for the Art Lebedev Studio in Moscow.

You can see these creations and the rest of his portfolio on his website, Martin Žampach.

Lookie what KitchenAid's selling in Europe

It's not fair. KitchenAid's selling this gas/ induction combination cooktop in Europe but not in North America.

It has three gas burners and two induction burners and it's the perfect hybrid. Gas plus electric means that nobody converting to induction needs to buy new pots and pans. Cross the Atlantic with that thing already!

Step 90cm by KitchenAid

Every picture tells a story don't it?

As a designer, I believe that every room tells a story too. Whether it's consciously or unconsciously told, there's a narrative that connects a room. So with that said, what story does a bathroom that looks like this tell?

And here it is in silver, though to class it up we'll call it platinum.

So what's the story? Or more tellingly, what story would you tell after coming into contact with a bathroom such as this?

All fixtures by Lineatre.