Hasta La Ideas

Handmade cruisers from the streets of Brooklyn

It’s well known that hiding behind the facades of many buildings in Brooklyn, NY are an endless array of companies producing artisanal pickles and locally designed clothes but rarely can you wander down a street to find a product being made out on the concrete. DL Skateboards is a unique young company that makes custom, handmade skate decks on the sidewalk outside a Greenpoint apartment building and in a retrofitted box truck acquired in New Hampshire. The couple behind the brand, Lauren Andino and Derek Mabra, have been skateboarding most of their lives and their passion and love for the sport drive their small business forward, producing fantastic cruisers modeled after 60’s classics. In our latest video we found the couple out on the street shaping decks for one of their final runs before moving to California.

Beautifully minimal wool felt and leather iPad and iPhone sleeves from Dutch design company Mujjo

Made in Amsterdam, The Originals Collection from Mujjo celebrates the understated but energetic nature of signature Dutch design, which Mujjo founder Remy Nagelmaeker describes as “contemporary and simple, but elegant and often innovative in shape or material.” Making beautifully refined sleeves for your smartphone, laptop and iPad in wool and leather, Mujjo charmed us with an overall aesthetic supported by impeccable hand-craftsmanship and attention to detail.

Nagelmaeker’s favorite piece, the iPad Sleeve‘s wool felt body is both treated to repel water and resist peeling with a sustainable material that’s both strong and still soft to the touch. Additionally the vegetable-tanned leather is naturally water- and wear-resistant. Made with just the two materials, the simple sleeve benefits from basic form for a functional design. The sleeve is opened like an envelope to reveal the main compartment that holds your iPad securely while the additional, smaller pocket is free to store anything from a book to cords.

Taking the minimalist mantra to its rawest form is the iPhone Sleeve. The lightweight sleeve, which also comes in white, is constructed entirely of top-grain leather that’s hand-stitched and hand-dyed with environmentally friendly pigments.

The Original Collection from Mujjo is available now directly from Mujjo online with the iPhone Sleeve and iPad Sleeve selling for €35 and €50, respectively. Also keep an eye out for the limited run 15″ Macbook Pro Retina Sleeve set to drop 28 August 2012. For more information on the collection visit Mujjo online and for additional looks at the iPad and iPhone sleeves see the slideshow.

Images by Graham Hiemstra

Goat milk caramels from an artsy Vermont confectionary

Billed as a “farmstead confectionary,” Vermont’s Big Picture Farms is dedicated to blending the sweet creamy goodness of goat milk into candy. As founder Louisa Conrad explains, the short fatty acid chains found in goat’s milk make for a smoother taste in their caramels. Conrad runs the business with her husband Lucas Farrell, both trained artists who have since turned to goat farming, cheese-making and confections. While caramel—a relatively simple blend of sugar, cream, vanilla and salt—leaves little room for variation, we were taken aback by the divinely silky texture of the pillow-soft sweets.

While their caramels are similar in style to those made by San Francisco’s Happy Goat, Big Picture’s secret touch seems to lie in their relationship with their goats. Each has a name and a personality to match, and the spoiled herd changes pastures daily for better grazing. Due to variations in the goats’ breed and diet, the art of the caramel comes from Conrad’s ability to blend milks from different animals in order to get the desired taste. For the packaging, Conrad draws portraits of the goats and Farrell works it into the label.

“If you’ve hung around goats long enough, it would be impossible not to name them,” says Conrad of the brand’s beloved faces. “It’s stiff competition being the cover goat. We try to be democratic about it; no goat gets featured more than once.”

Big Picture Farm goat’s milk caramels are available from their online shop. Interested eaters can keep track of farm life—and news the upcoming chai flavor—on the Big Picture blog.

Ben Blake’s growing collection of filter doodles celebrate the coffee community

Taking his belief that “coffee inspires creativity” to a literal level, Ben Blake documents his coffee journey in a series of doodles and sketches on filters, sharing his clever graphic narratives with a growing number of fans on his site, Draw Coffee. He considers all requests for java-related images, and his drawings span visual narratives about coffee companies, events, brewing methods and more. Blake even gamely incorporated CH dog-duo Otis and Logan into a recent set of filters.

Coffee drinkers are joined by the industry in taking notice of Blake’s art, with recent collaborations including a shell for a ZPM Espresso machine, and a line of mugs and apparel for Kuma Coffee in Seattle.

We asked Blake—who by day works in development for a liberal arts university—to share his thoughts about making, drawing and drinking joe.

When did you start drawing? Do you remember the moment when you realized that you love to draw?

I’ve been drawing ever since my Mom and Grandma told me to use my imagination. I started drawing famous cartoon characters from books such as Where’s Waldo, Dr. Seuss, and Calvin and Hobbes—over the years, drawing has really followed me. I remember all throughout high school and college using drawing as a way to pay attention in class. I don’t know that there is any particular moment where I realized I loved drawing—I think at some point I realized that I could sit down and draw for hours, wake up the next day, and still have an urge to put something on paper. There aren’t many things that drive me like drawing does.

What was your first coffee-related doodle? Why did you draw it?

At some point in college, I started to love coffee—not because it helped me stay awake, but because I recognized there was something special about it. As I started to learn more about coffee, I started to think about it a lot more. That’s when it started making its way into my doodles. I don’t always do coffee-themed doodles, but nearly 100% of the time, a coffee cup makes its way into the doodle somewhere. It’s kind of my not-so-sneaky tribute to coffee.

Why did you decide to draw so many of your sketches and doodles on coffee filters?

I think it was a natural extension of what I wanted to do with Draw Coffee. I wanted to present something unique that wasn’t being done— actually, the more I think about it, its kind of a stereotypical and cheesy thing for me to have done. I think the Hario filters have a nice, symmetrical shape, and the borders give the drawing some sort of finality.

When did you start Draw Coffee? What was your inspiration for starting the site?

Back in November, I discovered the website Dear Coffee, I Love You. I think the thing that brought me there was the “Coffee Lover Gift Guide” post—it made me realize how many coffee gadgets I wanted. After browsing the site a bit, I was inspired to learn even more about coffee. Two things happened right after that—first, I won a high-quality grinder from Baratza, which helped kickstart my journey to learn about coffee and how to make wonderful coffee at home. Second, La Marzocco USA started a Facebook challenge where they asked fans to post a picture of their brew method and brewing recipe each day. I participated, but I started to realize that my pictures looked the same as everyone else’s pictures. I didn’t like that, so I started to doodle mine instead. I wanted to keep track and share what I was learning, so I decided to start a year-long project where I would learn as much about coffee as I could, and doodle about it.

Why do you like coffee and the coffee community so much?

I have experienced a community full of passionate and creative individuals who love coffee. I’ve been welcomed with open arms by so many people—the drawing thing helped, obviously, but people are so willing to teach and share about coffee. It’s exciting, and I think it’s contagious.

One thing that seems to set the coffee industry apart from other industries is its collaborative nature. I think most wise, knowledgeable people in the specialty coffee industry recognize that there is no current definition of “best”. That’s important, I think, because rather than investing time into battering the competition and living on an island, folks are investing time in bettering the industry—working together on maintaining best and sustainable practices.

Where is the next coffee place you will be visiting?

Well, I’m fresh off trips to Portland, Seattle, and Chicago, but my cousin and I have a coffee-touring trip planned for either Chicago or New York in the near future. Beyond that, I know I’ll be in Kansas City, up and down the East Coast, and possibly down to Atlanta to see Jason Dominy of Batdorf & Bronson before my wife and I move to Bologna, Italy.

After all of this focus on the coffee world, have your coffee-making skills improved?

The more I learn about coffee, the better the coffee I make at home tastes, and the more I realize how complex and intricate coffee can be. What used to be a dull, bitter, muddy liquid has now become this bright, sweet, fruity, and complex drink that I look forward to hand-brewing a few times a day. It’s pretty common for people—mostly me— to describe coffee as “the nectar of the gods”.

What’s next for Draw Coffee?

I think as long as I keep learning and experiencing new things related to coffee, I’m going to keep drawing on my filters, but I’ve been also been doing a lot of projects with roasters, companies, and other websites. Through those commissioned projects, I’ve started to weigh taking design classes to learn typography, graphic design, etc. I would love to continue evolving my drawing styles, and hopefully expand them into other industries and ride that into even more collaborations. It’s been a fun ride the last six months, and I’m trying to let this grow organically to see where it takes me. Hopefully people will continue to find value or inspiration in my doodles, and hopefully they’ll want to learn more about coffee, too.

Communist-era woodturning from a master Czech craftsman

by Adam Štěch

American artists like J. B. Blunk, Wendell Castle and Jack Rogers Hopkins are established heavyweights in the world of design and certainly represent the “haute couture” style of woodworking, but Czech master craftsman and turner Antonín Hepnar continues to work in relative anonymity behind the former Iron Curtain from his studio in the small village of Čakovičky near Prague.

Working in the art of woodturning since the 1950s, Hepnar is a unique creative mind in a local design scene traditionally associated with glass and porcelain. According to the artist and designer, wood is the most important material in our lives. “Man is born into the wooden cradle, sits on the wooden chair his whole life, and dies into the wooden coffin,” says Hepnar.

Thanks to his philosophy and love for wood, Hepnar has created various turned objects throughout his career. His vases, bowls, candlesticks and lamps, as well as large sculptural objects or realizations for architecture and interiors have been produced exclusively on the spinning axis of the lathe, a primitive and genial machine with seemingly never-ending possibilities.

Hepnar was a very productive artist during the former Communist era through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, making functional and decorative home accessories for the only Czech design gallery at the time—Dílo. Inspired by Baroque, modernism and folk art, his objects represented traditional craft with a modern edge. He sold well—and very quickly—due to the lack of quality aesthetic objects available at the time.

After a series of exhibitions devoted to Hepnar in Prague, his work has become well-known and now, the master craftsman is at work once again. Next to his own re-issued editions of popular products, such as his lovely 1950s Amanita lamp, or the striking abstract owl decorative sculpture from 1983, he continues to discover new possibilities in the world of woodmaking. His latest “Bosáž” series of bowls made of very thin turned wood and deformed by steam is a handcrafted gem.

Antonín Hepnar sells his work in the Prague-based DOX by Qubus concept store.

Images courtesy of Jaroslav Moravec, Matěj Činčera, Antonín Hepnar archive and the Phillips de Pury Archive.