A blast of clean water at a camp site is an invaluable resource. Aquabot is a new compact water pressurizer that fits on top of most standard drinking bottles with the potential to make our time off the grid less grimy. The product works by swapping the lid of a water bottle with a hand pump made with food-grade plastic, capable of three spray patterns of varying intensity. Outside of obvious creature comfort uses like improved camp showers and hand washing, the Aquabot's Kickstarter points out it's also useful for cleaning game and fish on hunting and fishing trips without running water.
Check out the ongoing Kickstarter campaign to read more and pick up an Aquabot, starting at $29.
A few weeks ago we came across a Dewar's ad that involved 80,000 bees building a honeycomb in the shape of a whiskey bottle, with the punny title "3B" printing.
We didn't write about the ad, but a comment on the Designboom's post notes the project's similarity to the work of Slovakian artist Tomáš Libertíny, who's known for similar honeycomb sculptures. Last week Libertíny reached out directly to Dezeen to comment on the Dewar's spot claiming the ad "unabashedly exploits the poetry" of his own work. While creative theft and artistic license has a long and essential history in the art world, do a different set of rules apply for advertising work?
The most famous item in Museum's permanent collection is the shoe thrown at George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. The other exhibitions, collections of "modern day artifacts from around the world" may not have been part of international news stories, but are equally curious. Museum specializes in found items: last month's stack of rejected menu photos from a burger place in Cambodia, or, currently on view, creepy transcriptions from pornographer Al Goldstein, and rocks and tools from artist Tom Sachs' Mars expedition.
Museum occupies only a single elevator shaft, but has all of the trappings of large institutions, including a café (a single espresso machine), and a gift shop (on single shelf).
Museum is located in Cortlandt Alley between Franklin and White Streets in Lower Manhattan. It's open on weekends from 11am to 7pm. Find Museum on Instagram. 
In the UK, wheatpasting posters in public spaces is often referred to as wild posting or flyposting. In the Manchester, UK project No Fly Posters, Jon Bland invites designers to produce unthemed posters for wheatpasting on the boarded windows of an abandoned building in the Ancoats area of the city. Seven posters in quad format by seven creatives are displayed in seven windows, each stating "No Fly Posters," a common admonition seen in urban spaces. Round 5 has gone up recently featuring designs by Dr. Me, James Joyce, Pascal Anson, Wim Crouwel, Atlas, Zoran Lucić and others. There are two more rounds yet to go up.
While the Beauty of Nature Tumblr might have a name that sounds like a "natural souvenir" outpost in the mall, the scientific cross sections and microscope images posted there daily are more visually compelling than typical chain store offerings. The images come from an unnamed biology student, possibly studying Life Science at the University of Las Vegas, where many of the images link back.
The masterwork of renowned arts educator Josef Albers, Interaction of Color has occupied a hallowed place on many bookshelves since its publication in 1963, becoming a go-to reference on pigments and perception. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the design firm Potion, in collaboration with The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation and Yale University Press, created an interactive iPad app updating this bible of color theory for the 21st century, allowing users to delve into his ideas and, as the teacher would certainly approve, play and experiment.
The former Bauhaus professor, who worked alongside Klee and Kandinsky before emigrating to the United States in 1933, spent decades teaching at institutions including Yale and Black Mountain College, experimenting and refining his ideas about how colors influence one another. This new version of Interaction includes more than 125 of his original color studies on the topics of intensity, transparency and temperature, as well as more than 60 interactive plates and a palette tool, allowing readers to directly apply his ideas. Archival videos of Albers, as well as commentary by contemporary practitioners like textile designer Christopher Farr, graphic designer Peter Mendelsund and painters Anoka Faruqee and Brice Marden, round out the educational experience. If only all textbooks were this exciting.
The App Stores released a free version of Interaction of Color today containing a full chapter and color palette. The full version, with more than 125 color plates and 60 interactive studies, is available as an in-App purchase for $9.99.
In the early '80s, the South Bronx DJ Afrika Bambaataa created "Planet Rock" for Soul Sonic Force, a staple track for breakdancers everywhere and a foundation for all hip-hop thereafter. Bambaataa was a seasoned sound system DJ, community activist, and founder of the Universal Zulu Nation. While he's known for harnessing the rhythmic power of electronic beats and drum machines, his record crates were deeper than the Kraftwerk he referenced on those early electro funk jams. Now, we have a chance to dig those crates, too, which are by any measure American cultural artifacts.
This month and until August 10, Johan Kugelberg and Gavin Brown's Enterprise are hosting an open archiving project in which the public gets to visit and hear gems from this important collection before it moves to Cornell University's Hip Hop Collection in the fall. In 2012 Afrika Bambaataa was appointed visiting scholar at Cornell, home to the largest collection on hip hop culture in the world. During the day at the gallery, archivisits will be sorting, organizing, and spinning selections from the hundreds of crates for the public. Visiting DJs will be announced via Facebook and mailing list. Visit Gavin Brown online for more info.
Often times when we see minimal furniture, we wonder if clean lines sacrifice comfort and hinder functionality for the sake of a sexy look. When we came across designer Christian Dorn, and discovered his process for his line of seating, we found sexy and practical in the same vicinity. Simple can be better when constructing loveseats, chairs, and couches. Polyurethane foam padding covered in high-quality fabrics and leathers are secondary to the shape of the master frame (available in five powder-coated colors), marrying understructure to forefront appearance.
See more Dorn at Stiltreu Design.
Fans of early photography and shutterbug steampunks will want to investigate the latest from Lomography + Russian camera brand Zenit, the Petzval lens.
The Petzval lens shot many, if not most, of the great photos of the 19th Century. Invented by Joseph Petzval in Vienna in 1840, the lens design was known for its swirly bokeh effect and ability to focus crisply on objects in the focus area while producing a dreamy blur on elements out of focus.
Zenit and Lomography reverse engineered the original 1840 Petzval lens with adjustments to make it work on modern (D)SLR cameras—so it is compatible with digital and analog cameras. The new Russian-made lens features the Petzval lens's famed swirly bokeh effect, sharpness, large f2.2 aperture, narrow depth of field, field curvature, and high contrast in multicoated glass. Worth noting: it is evidence of Lomo warming to the digital photo shooting consumer.
Check out the images below, all shot on the Petzval.
The Petzval lens is available for pre-order exclusively on Kickstarter.com.
Princeton Architectural Press' upcoming Shadow Type book is actually the first comprehensive collection of three-dimensional typefaces. The book, which collects images of three-dimensional lettering dating back to the 19th century up until the middle of the 20th century, compiles examples from use in advertisements, business signs, and posters, while providing a history of three-dimensional typefaces from their experimental invention by metal type foundries to their eventual mainstream use. [Images via Princeton Architectural Press]
Shadow Type is available for preorder now.
