Engrave Your (Moleskin) Bookcover

Engrave Your Book is a great company from Portland, Oregon in the US which offers customised leather covers for the classic Moleskin notebooks. I can imagine they would only improve with age and use, and are a great way to dress up a Moleskin. They come in both pocket and notebook sizes. Who doesn't love customising their favorite notebooks? Better than using your favorite scratch 'n sniff stickers (although they were pretty awsome!).

You can choose from some beautiful artist designed covers or even design your own! The image is laser engraved onto the leather and the results are sharp. They also allow artists to submit three designs for possible production, successful applicants get 15% of the sales from their design. Never being a great illustrator myself, I think I may just have to buy one or have one made from a favorite photograph!


Covers illustrated by the following (from top to bottom):

'Mermen' by Michael Hsiung
'Drawing Yourself Into a Corner' by Neil Doshi
'Saw' by Dan Funderburgh
'Knifes' by Dan Funderburgh
'Elephant' by Jacob Escobedo
'Waves' by Justine Ashbee

Big Fat Duck Cookbook

Talented photographer Dominic Davies has produced some wonderful other-worldly images of chef Heston Blumenthal's food in the Fat Duck Cookbook. Stunning, whimsical and visually exciting, I love and covert this book! It's the kind of cookbook I would adore for purely aesthetic reasons- it's not to kind of food to attempt at home, but rather dream of experiencing one day.

Blumenthal, and exponent of molecular cooking, has very complex ideas and methods. His Big Fat Duck restaurant has been awarded three Michelin stars and has propelled him to huge heights globally. Read about his culinary philosophies on the Big Fat Duck restaurant website. The restaurant is located about 50 min. outside London in Maidenhead.

Blumenthal was recently in Melbourne as part of the Food and Wine Festival where, among other things, he ran a master class. Read his festival diary on the Gourmet Traveller website. The Big Fat Duck cookbook retails in Australia for $299. I'd buy it as an art book more than a cook book. I'll put it on my wish list for now! I hope you enjoy the magical and technically stunning photographs from Davies.

Chris Cobb: Abode Bookshop

Chris Cobb, an artist based in San Francisco, has created an amazing installation in bookshop called Adobe Books- he catalogued every single one of the 20,000 books by color. The project is titled "There is Nothing Wrong in This Whole Wide World". They were arranged by hand over a 10 hour period, and he enlisted the help of 16 volunteers. Such beautiful results, they transformed the bookshop overnight. I love the outcome.

Read an interview with the artist at McSweeneys