A-1 Scrabble is a prototype designer series Scrabble game designed by Andrew Clifford Capener, a graphic designer who recently graduated from BYU. The concept behind it was to give new life to the game while fostering interest in typography. You could pick the game to come in your favorite font, or else get a mixture of all the possibilities. The letter tiles are walnut with cream lettering. The board is a set of 6 walnut pieces with cork on the bottom and magnets to hold them together. These are stored in a walnut case which is housed in a birch box. All together, a really beautiful presentation.
Of course, you can't buy it. At least not yet. Check out the photos on his website and you can enter your email address to show interest in wanting to see it produced. You can also click through some of his other projects. Or check out his blog.
Cotton is a living plant that we make clothing fibers out of. Flax used to make linen is the same. We wear leather which was originally the skin on a living animal for pete's sake. Even knowing all that, the production of this "fabric" kind of made me gag.
Suzanne Lee, a senior researcher of fashion and textiles in London, is experimenting with a textile made from bacteria. (Sounds odd but that's not the gagging moment.) For what she calls BioCouture she pours into a tub a green tea solution, mixed with a sugar solution, and adds a yeast and bacteria culture. The bacteria eats the sugars and the bi-product is cellulose mat that rises to the top of the tub. The gross part is what this mat looks like before ring out and shape onto forms, dry, and cut out for sewing.
I know you are curious so watch a short video here for her and some scientists explaining what they are working on and see the product for yourself.
Her website shows some products they've made and the dying they are doing with fruit and vegetable based dyes.
As research and experimentation, I find it fascinating but something that looks like a human flesh dress? ... "It rubs the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose again."
