How great of an idea is this?  Legos’ Frank Lloyd Wright sets, featuring Falling Water and the Guggenheim Museum, are architecturally accurate and a  beautiful display once constructed.  But even better, you get to play with legos again.  I want this.

Founded by two nameless individuals wrapped up in the busy world of graphic design and fashion, The Infinite Now emerged with simplicity on the brain. Bringing to life the idea that the understated often carries more impact, the duo launched their brand last Friday with only two T’s in their collection. Makes sense. But to be honest the two designs are pretty rad and are enough to get The Infinite Now noticed. You can pick up Crypt or Veiled, or both, on their site for $25 a piece. Printed tags and American Apparel T’s make it one clean, comfortable shirt. Keep an eye on The Infinite Now for other design/interior goods coming soon. If you like what you see become a fan on Facebook.

Imagine a Tenori-On that controlled Ableton, or a Monome with more features, or pretend for a moment God came down from heaven, walked into an electro club, and gave you the Ableton Novation Launchpad. It’s the second piece of dedicated, official Ableton hardware, and it looks like they nailed it. Oh, and by the way, it’s expected to cost $199 bundled with Ableton Live 8. Obviously I haven’t used one, but from the looks of the demo video, this little bastard is a full-featured, easy to use, tactile piece of equipment. Video after the break.

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One of the struggles for the haute-hipster is the search for the right wallet. The quality and style imbued into Coach and Diesel products was upset by the social ideals behind them, and the free spirited, DIY, hipster spirit of Poketo and Dynomighty was mired by the flimsy and unsatisfying construction. After the demise of db clay, I believed there was nothing worth finding. Then I stumbled upon Hlaska.

With a focus on nature and science, as well as design and function, and only made with the finest European materials, Hlaska’s products truly capture the haute-hipster ideal: they have style, they have substance, and nobody knows about them. If you’re looking for wallets, bags, cufflinks, neckwear, and other classist wares, but want to retain your unique, indomitable fuck-you spirit, check out Hlaska.

Based just south of San Francisco, in Burlingame, CA, Hlaska has two flagships, one located in Lower Pacific Heights at 2033 Fillmore St.

File this one under bads, not goods. Seems like Taco Bell is introducing kids meals that come with a toy, just like every other fast food joint. Their unique offering? The decidedly un-unique Bellhedz, blind-box vinyl toys that are almost certainly direct rip offs of KidRobot’s Dunny series. Next thing you know they’ll be putting feather earrings, typographic screen-prints, and fixed gear bikes in their kids meals.

It’s really no different from McDonald’s TY Beanie Baby promo, but I can’t help but feel personally wronged. Your thoughts?

Have you ever thought “it would be great if there was a company that made large format wall stickers so I could decorate my walls without painting them?” Because I have. And because I’m such a loyal follower, the gods have seen fit to grant my wish!

Blik makes large format wall stickers so you can decorate your walls without painting them. They also make small ones. They also make custom ones, for the little designer inside you. Designer lines include officially licensed Nintendo wall graphics and a number of Upper Playground creations. They aren’t cheap, persé, but if you’re contractually obligated to suffer white walls for an entire year, it might be worth it.

LINK: whatisblik.com

The wallet I use now is a slim bifold with a cool design on it, enough to merit exclamations, which is nice.  However, it is getting old and showing.  I mean, for the past three years the only separation between this hunk of leather and my butt is a piece of fabric of varying thickness.  So the search for a new wallet is on.  The search has led me to Freitag, a Zurich based accessory line that’s been turning used seatbelts, truck tarps, and bicycle tubes into eye catching wallets, messenger bags, and travel accessories since ‘93.  Simple products in bold colors with a nice eco philosophy.  I’m currently scoping out the E.T. wallet but, I must confess, I’m kind of (read: very) in lust with the Renegade Bag.  Two bags in one, one zips off the top to give you a day bag and tote.  A potentially perfect carry on.  *sigh*, I need to go to Switzerland.

Sometime this month, Vannen Watches will be releasing a new series of watches that includes one designed by Buff Monster. Vannen’s objective is to produce watches “designed by some of the world’s most innovative artists” in an effort to, as they put it, “build a global community that invites people to discover new art, embrace it and incorporate it into their lives.” They sold me on designed by innovative artists but of course I like finding new art too! The watches are pretty simple, but they all look awesome. Some of the other artists who designed this series are Damon Soule, Brian Morris, and Chris Ryniak. Their watches are also great, but I can’t wait to get my hands on a Buff Monster watch. I first heard about him when he came through the Andenken Gallery in Denver a couple years ago, and then saw a video of him throwing up pieces in LA themed to heavy metal (which I can no longer find) and loved it. In his work he’s inspired by heavy metal, ice cream, and japanese things, which you can definitely see and definitely makes it’s awesomeness stand out.

Just how easy is it to find a source? Well, for most of us, it requires having a friend who has a friend who has party favors.  But, for some of us blessed with a nauseous stomach and a progressive doctor it just became a bit easier.  The fine folks at ajnag.com have created Cannabis, a $2.99 app that will determine the nearest legal dispensaries of every college student’s favorite cure-all, marijuana.  If you don’t happen to have glaucoma or troublesome insomnia Cannabis will also provide you a listing of the nearest marijuana activist groups as well so you can shake some sense into the system.

With the possibility of sounding like a total stuck up bitch, I would say in confidence that I have an incredible sense of fashion. I love keeping up on trends, especially when they involve t-shirts of wolves with the likeness of my dog, Kaiyuh. So to keep you guys on top of what’s hot this year, I’ve decided to post the 5 wardrobe must-haves of, well, right now.

Animal Shirts (so clever), has a slew of 100% cotton, hand-dyed, high quality garments, printed with water-based inks–giving them an incredibly soft feel. They are definitely worth the hefty investment of $17.95. You will find a variety of collections ranging from the high demand Wolf Collection, to the Fairy Collection, Fish Collection and American Flag Collection, just to name a few.

And the 5 must-haves? How about the Wolf Shirt Moon, Kitten Shirt Overalls, Breakthrough Lion, Horse Shirt Wild, and Wolf Shirt Spirit. They’re truely all you need to turn some heads this summer. You can thank me later.

I think you’d have to be pretty full of yourself to deny that Justin Timberlake has great style and taste in fashion, right? So like every self-gratifying pop star, the new king of pop must have a clothing company, right? The difference here being that Timberlake and his childhood friend Trace Ayala are apparently very passionate about the concept, and so they put together the company William Rast. So serious in fact that they have gone out of their way to hire Johan Lindeberg as head designer; you know, the swede who used to design for Diesel and then started J. Lindeberg. Anyway, they’ve got the money, they’ve got the publicity, and they’ve got the designer. On the hand of Timberlake, this says ten fold about him compared to all the other pop princes and princesses. On the hand of the company though, it means they’ve got to bust their fucking asses to make it seem that they are really apart of the fashion world and not just some pop stars wet dream.

If you’re wondering who the hell WIlliam Rast is through all of this, the name comes from the combination of Timberlake’s grandfather’s first name and Ayala’s grandfather’s last. Through the promos though Timberlake takes on the character of William Rast alongside the supermodel Erin Wasson. The series of shorts is some sort of desperado/confederate/criminal/running from the law with your lover type of situation that I might be interested in if I was a republican from WV. Since I’m not, I personally think they could’ve gotten a much better writer and a steadycam… and it really has nothing to do with the clothes as much as it is just an image of Justin as a rebel.

As for the clothes, you’d expect Lindeberg, under the the oversight of Timberlake, to bring about some great things. I can’t claim to have tried on any of the denim but they all look good, like really good. The Women’s clothing line is cool, not overly ambitious but rebellious and classic in the same. The part that I have a problem with is the Men’s clothing and the graphic tshirts. It’s easy to hate on graphic shirts though, everyone has a slightly different style and taste, but these just seem undeveloped and lack unique compositional decisions. The mens clothing line just lacks in ambition, and where it tries to do something new it comes off just weird and hardly embodies the image the company seems to be pushing. While J. Lindeberg has a real classic elegance to their clothes, William Rast doesn’t seem to know what it is doing. I mean, I am the last person to argue with the rebel without a cause look, but if they’re serious then they’ve got some work to convince me that they are anything close to authentic. Maybe it’s just because they’re so new that they’re feeling things out and have big things to come… but if that’s the case a little reassurance couldn’t hurt.

But what in the fuck is this?!?

German snowboard film production company Factor Films has released a teaser trailer for their upcoming DVD release, “They Came From…”, and boy, it’s a doozy.

I’m not sure if the budgets are getting bigger because the industry is doing well, or if it’s just getting easier for these guys to shoot quality productions themselves, but the results speak for themselves. The photography is colorful, well-composed, and breathtakingly beautiful. And it looks like they’re producing at least some of it in 3-D!

See it for yourself after the break.

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