book cover of the day

I don’t even think I need to comment on how brilliant this book cover is, do I? I love Tina Fey, she is brilliant too.

I have been completely buried in work the last two weeks, but now I’ve managed to pull through and get everything – and then some – done, so that I can take the next 10 days off with a good conscience. Tomorrow morning me and my husband are going to the airport to pick his mother and brother up, and it will be lovely to see them again. I sure hope Stockholm will show itself from it’s most beautiful side the whole time.

Have a wonderful May 1st everyone!

barefoot in april

We’re having a heat wave in Sweden at the moment, and we’re all loving it. It’s a bit overwhelming though, I’m certainly not used to being able to wear sandals and no tights at the end of April. Luckily I bought myself a pair of beautiful and super comfortable Camper sandals in London, and I wore them for the first time today, going to the park for an icecream.



I think I might have thought too much about all the Clarks shoes I wanted to buy once I was on London, because when I finally got to a store, packed with goodies, I didn’t know what to get at all. I was just running around, turning every cute shoe around, looking at them from all angles, not trying too many on at all. And when I heard that everything was 20% off that day, I got even more confused. So I ended up buying a pair of perfectly cute black ballerinas, not the pink wedges I thought I was gonna come home with. I don’t regret it too much, but I still don’t really know what happened, why I shop choked.



I also got this little nice red leather bag from Clarks, I’m liking it a lot. And I really hope this weather will last for another two weeks, since I have some leave coming up after this week when my mother-in-law and brother-in-law are coming for a visit. We’ll be making lots of outings, so the sun better behave!

I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend!

book cover birds

Since chicken, and more importantly eggs, are an important part of Easter, I thought it would be fitting to show off this wonderful selection of exceptionally beautiful book cover design using birds. I have found most of them at the lovely Book Cover Archive, a source of endless inspiration. But this first one is made by Sara R. Acedo, a Swedish designer I know and work with on a regular basis. She is brilliant.



John Gall.



Henry Sene Yee.



David Drummond.



Duke Riley. (Disclosure: Not entirely sure I’ve got the right Riley.)



Jason Ramirez.



John Gall again.



No design info.



Rodrigo Corral. I also want to add that I LOVE this book.



High Design NYC.



Ben Pierrat.



Abby Weintraub.



Found here.



Gabriele Wilson.

Happy Easter everyone!

spring is somewhere else

Although the weather has been rather lovely and very springy the last days, it’s still not very green here. London, on the other hand, was. Just see for yourselves.









One day I would like to have a red door with lots of lilacs and ivy around it. Yes please.

london dresses

Just back from a few lovely days in London, only to find the weather in Stockholm being even lovelier this weekend. I was too tired (yesterday) and busy (today) to spend as much time outside as I should have, but what can you do. It seems spring is here to stay now, so hopefully I will get plenty of more chances for outdoors activities soon enough. For the warmer days I got two vintage summer dresses in Shoreditch, where I ran in and out of every vintage shop we passed. I didn’t have much time, and wasn’t really looking for anything special, but didn’t want to come home without anything vintage, so these are basically two things I really liked the look of and grabbed without trying them on. This first one is polyester, and I could tell it needs some fitting on the upper part, to fit me better, but can also be used with a vest underneath and a belt I guess. If I’m lazy, which sometimes is the case more often than I would like to admit.



But I feel in love with the print and the width of the skirt, and it only cost 15 pounds (about 150 kronor or rand at the moment, because the currency rate is very favorable!). I’m guessing it’s from the 70’s, or maybe 80’s. This was my first visit to Shoreditch, and apart from us being there on the wrong day, for all the markets in the area, I liked what I saw. This was the first time in London since 1999, a long time away indeed. I doubt I’ll wait that long again, I kinda feel back in love with the city.



This dress is one of my favorite styles, and I’ve already got a few similar ones and worn them so much during summers. Two of them are left behind in Durban though, so I thought I might as well get a new one to keep in Stockholm. The shop keeper was a bit amazed that I didn’t want to try it on before buying it, but I assured him I was a professional vintage shopper and knew it would fit. And it did, prefectly, and I foresee this being my favorite summer dress of 2011.



It’s cotton, and I love the pockets and the many different sizes of polka dots on the maroon background. Usually these dresses are German, but this one didn’t have any original tags on, so I’m not sure where it is from, but I do think it’s from the 70’s at least. Just like me.

beautiful barnes and noble classics

Designer Jessica Hische has made this unbelievably beautiful boxset of classics for Barnes and Noble. She says on her website that this has been her favorite project of all times, and I can certainly understand why. It seems no expense has been spared in this production: the books are leather bound and stamped with two colour foil, they’ve got marbled endpapers, tinted page edges, and matching ribbons and headbands. Basically they’ve got everything that books in the old age had, that modern publishers are too cheap to spend money on, because customers are too cheap to pay for that kind of extras. I can only say thank you, Barnes and Noble, for going that extra mile to produce something as exquisite as this. And thank you, Jessica Hische, you are clearly a genius. The box is available for order here.













By the way, The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of my all time favorites. As is Oscar Wilde. Here is why: “The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.”

antique animals

The other week I had a very inspiring work day mostly spent in the Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, for a catalogue photo shoot. Publishing can be a very versatile line of work! The object we mainly were there for was this Asian leopard from 1912 (since our publishing house is called Leopard). It was tricky and a bit scary and very heavy to try and move around, since it’s so old and quite fragile, but it was well worth it.



The museum building is from around 1750 and very beautiful with great architectural features. For me, who loves architectural features and animals and most things old with a history, it’s definitely the place to be! Weirdly enough I haven’t been to this museum since I was a kid, and I didn’t have time to really walk around now either. But I’m so going back to check every corner out one day. This dung beetle, one of the weirdest and most wonderful insects in the world, got a very nice statue for himself in the stairway.



And not surprisingly I was in awe of this impressive owl looking down at me.



In the gift store I had to really contain myself not to buy everything, and did pretty well I must say. I’m trying to not buy every cute and unusal plastic animal I see, which is more difficult than it may seem. And a bit ridiculous, I know, I know.



But look at the owl, and the peacock, and the flamingo!



For a few minutes I very seriously considered letting this crazy and cute looking flying squirrel coming home with me, just because I’ve never seen anything like it! Isn’t it great?! It looks like it wants a hug, but that it might just as well attack you should you lean in to give one ... So I put it back on the shelf.



But just before leaving, I spotted this adorable creature, who pleaded so nicely to take him out of there, and I simply could not resist.

particularly pretty and tactile penguins

Seeing these completely amazing new Penguin Classics covers yesterday made my fever go away. I’m serious! They are so brilliant and vibrantly colourful and lovely I just can’t get enough of them! The wonderful embroidery is made by illustrator Jillian Tamaki, and will be printed with sculpt-embossment to make it feel like each cover is actually hand embroidered. Genius. Have I missed out on an adjective? Beautiful. Obviously these are beautiful.











They won’t come out until October this year. Please feel free to come back here and look at them until then.

nordic vintage

Swedish photo agency Nordic Photos is releasing a new archive called Nordic Vintage. An excellent idea in my opinion. Here’s a rather lovely and inspiring sneak peak. The first one is by one of my favorite Swedish photographers Georg Oddner.



Man on the run. Photographer: Sten Didrik Bellander.



A Swedish Saab in America. Photographer: Pål-Nils Nilsson.



1960’s. Photographer: Hans Hammarskiöld. This is so much a typical Swedish summer scene!



1966. Photographer: Bengt-Göran Carlsson. This looks a little bit like my mum in the 60’s, she had really long red hair and was covered in freckles.



Young woman, Stockholm, Sweden 1967. Photographer: Anders Petersen. This is also a very typical Swedish summer setting, and I can almost smell the lilacs.



1950’s. Photographer: Georg Oddner. The master of style.



1950’s. Photographer: Sten Didrik Bellander.



1950’s. Photographer: Sten Didrik Bellander.



A proper police escort. Photographer: Hans Hammarskiöld.