Coulson Macleod is lov­ing Pen­guin’s Great Food series. 400 years of culin­ary writ­ing. Beau­ti­ful cov­ers by Cor­alie Bickford-Smith.

The Geo­metry of Pasta — part recipe book, part design book — and very cool look­ing it is too. Over 100 authen­tic recipes. Simple graphic black-and-white designs. What’s not to like?

AGNOLOTTI DAL PLIN

CANESTRINI

CAPPELLETTI

GNOCCHI (SHELLS)

So, if you’re ever stuck for a gift idea then this could be it. Food lov­ers. Design lov­ers. Italian lov­ers (or maybe that should be lov­ers of Italy) should all be pretty pleased with a copy of The Geo­metry of Pasta.

Related art­icles:

• ‘1,000 More Greet­ings: Cre­at­ive Cor­res­pond­ence Designed for All Occasions’
• Coulson Macleod Swoons Over Simple Home

We men­tioned in a pre­vi­ous post that our typo­graphic art had been pub­lished. So of course we imme­di­ately went to Amazon and bought the design book, which is called 1,000 More Greetings.

And here it is, our copy…

1,000 More Greet­ings by Rock­port Publishers

1,000 More Greet­ings by Rock­port Publishers

It’s a great book, even if we weren’t in it. There’s some fab­ulous cre­at­ive work, and we’re in exceed­ingly good com­pany. Donna Karan and Anthro­po­lo­gie show­case their designs. And one whole page ded­ic­ated to a little UK-based art busi­ness mak­ing waves glob­ally. Yep! Coulson Macleod. Need­less to say we are giddy with excitement.

If you fancy own­ing a copy you can buy it from Amazon.

Related art­icles:

• 1,000 More Greet­ings: Cre­at­ive Cor­res­pond­ence Designed for All Occasions
• 1,000 More Greetings

We’ve just been approached by Design Refuge to see if we’d be inter­ested in giv­ing one of our typo­graphic prints as a first prize in their com­pet­i­tion. Of course we’re interested!

This is a huge hon­our. Design Refuge is the largest meet­ing place online for interior design blog­gers. Their mem­bers com­prise the very best blog­gers in the design world. The super­stars of design blo­g­dom. Our heros. Mem­bers include {this is glam­our­ous}, coco&kelley, Bright.Bazaar, Lob­ster and Swan, Made by Girl, Nick Olsen, and sfgirlby­bay.

To win a Coulson Macleod print, Design Refuge mem­bers have been given the chal­lenge to describe their style aesthetic.

Mem­bers of Design Refuge come from all over the world includ­ing Greece, Nor­way, USA, Canada, Rus­sia, Sweden, UK, Aus­tralia, Montenegro, Fin­land, Ser­bia, Bel­gium, Neth­er­lands, Malay­sia, France, Thai­l­and, Ire­land, Den­mark, Israel, and Spain.

We’ll let you know who wins and what typo­graphic print they choose.

I’ve writ­ten about the gor­geous Tuscan family-run bio­dy­namic farm / hol­i­day lets / mail deliv­ery maes­tros Fat­toria La Vialla twice before.

Today I wanted to share their Christ­mas product cata­logue with you. It arrived last week and before I ripped it open, I took some photos.

The multi-award win­ning La Vialla do pack­aging beau­ti­fully. They do food beau­ti­fully. They do hol­i­day lets beau­ti­fully. In fact the entire Lo Franco fam­ily are beau­ti­ful. I can’t find fault with them. Which is why I keep on writ­ing about La Vialla.

The first tis­sue wrapped layer with secret door

Bandino Lo Franco, the young­est son

spa­ghetti the La Vialla way

Related art­icles:

• Mangiamo
• Coulson Macleod Goes Italian

As a child I was, like most chil­dren, a massive Enid Blyton fan. Massive.

The highly inform­at­ive Enid Blyton Soci­ety list all the book jack­ets and I found the ones that I actu­ally read. And the memor­ies came flood­ing back. So I thought I’d share them with you.

My all time favour­ite books were the Faraway Tree adven­tures, where I spent many a happy hour hav­ing fun with Moon-Face, Mis­ter Watzis­name, Silky, and the Sauce­pan Man. I ima­gined feast­ing on Pop Bis­cuits and Google Buns and slid­ing down the slippery-slip that spir­als down inside the trunk.

And of course I can’t for­get the Fam­ous Five…

What’s your favourite?

I used to live in Scot­land. At the very top. In the High­lands. With views of purple heather clad hills and the wild north sea.

The air was cold and clean. Whisky was pure single malt. Made in the vil­lage where I lived. And ven­ison was a staple.

So I thought I’d revel in a little bit of Scottishness.

The first is ANTA. Their fact­ory shop was just down the road. And I fell head over heels in love with their hand­made tartan stoneware.

Everything from ANTA is made in Scot­land. The woolen yarn used for their car­pets and tweeds is sourced in the West­ern Isles and is woven in the Bor­ders. The oak fur­niture is made in the High­lands and some of the wood is homegrown. ANTA was cre­ated by design­ers Annie and Lach­lan Stew­art. And this is their amaz­ing home.

The second bit of Scot­tish love­li­ness is Papa Stour. An online mar­ket­place for all things hand­made in Scot­land.  Papa Stour embraces art, crafts­man­ship and design in its purest form, like this bone china pod…

or this hand­sewn notebook…

or this lambswood baby blanket…

Slainte Mhath!

Received an inter­est­ing email last night that said,

“We’re fans of the work you pro­duce and would like the oppor­tun­ity to include it for pub­lic­a­tion in a new Rock­port book, entitled 1,000 More Greet­ings.  We found your Love col­lec­tion on Design*Sponge and thought it would fit well in the book.”

Sounds good to me!

Out­side In