Usually when walking around in shopping departments or shopping malls I see all kinds of different plates, and there are many that I like, some are fun, some nice, and many are very tacky, but the City Plates from Not Neutral are fun and original. From These stylish porcelain plates are gathered under the “City Plates” collection and feature maps of famous city centers. You can easily see these cool vivid maps on the large plates, seeing the lines of different cities. Their design is impeccable and the contrast between the black or white background and the strong colors is quite lovely. Rome, London, Tokyo, Mexico City, Cairo, Dubai, New Orleans are just some of the cities featured in this set. Its a total set of 20 and for $900 I think its very reasonable compared to a lot of plate sets out there.

Link: NotNeutral

Offices of Moleskine is always worth visiting, and this time around WhereWeDesign have taken a look of their offices. I’m not sure of which office this is but its just as nice as the Moleskine Italy HQ from my previous post. I would want to grab and use all those notepads on those shelves, I love that certain colors mean certain things, I got used to their labeling. I wonder what other ideas they have in the works, I just recently placed an order Moleskine Folio Cover for the iPad, but its out of stock but hopefully I will get it as they restock. Moleskines you can never have enough of them.

Link: WhereWeDesign

Jamie Durie is a person known for his outdoor design work and DIY gardening and outdoor projects. Now he seemed to have come up with a very lovely hammock, I don’t think there is anyone that does not like hammocks, I always want to lay in any hammock I see. In this case it is a beautifully designed hammock which seems to carry a whole lot of people, I would mind spending a few hours while sitting there, it looks very relaxing and comfortable. You would need a good amount of space to build this piece of furniture but I think it would be very nice in any garden.

Link: Freshome

I have gone to a few places to check out furniture over the last few months. Recently I saw a couch in The One that I wanted, when I saw it in February it was around 599 KD for the 1.5 seater which is a bit on the high side for a product made in China. I left it at that, then by May I passed by again to find it for sale at around 425 KD but I didn’t have the space to get it yet. Then I went back in the end of June to check its there and found the same couch for 265 KD, that does tell me something. Now that I can get the couch its gone, and I found something similar and its at the price of 589 KD which is again ridiculous. They do have nice stuff and I went and checked out other places but didn’t find what I want. Then I saw an office chair for 199 KD at The One that I remember seeing for 60 KD a while back, I think they would sell more if their prices are a little bit more reasonable.

Cable management is a headache that I have to deal with, and its one of the major problems that I have to deal with it. After some time I’m gonna reorganize my machines and all the connections since there are a few redundant items that I need to get rid off. I want to run all the wires together to make sure they all fit perfectly instead of the gridlock that I get to behind my desk.

Now I want to upgrade from my 22″ inch screens to the new Dell 27″ inch screens which are amazing. But I have to email the manufacturer to see if the Ergotron dual screen mount can left the weight of each.

Then I have a lot of CDs & DVDs in storage, the DVDs I want to keep but the CDs I honestly don’t want to keep. And I’m too damn lazy to rip them to the computer. So I have to figure out what I want to do with them. I only buy a few CDs every 6 months now, but the ones I have are really old and I only wanted one or two tracks from them.

Moto Art specifically make furniture out of Old Planes, from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Basically whatever they can get their hands on from these old school planes. They take a fuselage or an engine or a tail piece, they some how manage to turn it into a piece of furniture. I do love their style and they have done an amazing job with this piece from a B-29 Bomber. The problem is the price that comes with these pieces, since they have to go to the airplane scrap yard to get it and its not cheap, so something like this would probably be between $10’000 to $20’000 but I still like the way their furniture look, its original and can’t be copied.

The moment I saw this it reminded of the command chair on StarTrek The Next Generation with Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the Starship Enterprise. A very comfortable chair with a very capable command console aka The iPad, everything at your finger tips and you don’t lose the use of your cup holder. Everything at your finger tips including controlling your home theater system through the Crestron, Control 4, or Home Logic systems, or even controlling a Starship if needed.

Link: TheDesignBlog

I have picked up my chair back in 2004 and it has served me very well, but has also been used and abused. I have been looking for a comfortable office chair which can tilt the head, back, and arms without issue. After looking around it seems that there aren’t seats which are as good as what I have.

Now the Humanscale Freedom headrest has all the options I’m looking for, with the back support, moveable arms, moveable headrest. I like it to be cloth and able to move up and down, and lean back a lot so I can relax and watch shows on the computer, and lean forward and work when I need to. It start out at around $1305 and goes up with all the options, and I got mine up to $1600 with all the options. After looking at all the different possible chairs, this looks to be the best, not including all the systems they have for a personal or corporate office that I like. I will be taking a look and Humanscale when I do some remodling.

Link: HumanScale

Now this is fantastic! I love the idea of “Secret Stash” taking the advantage of daily items to hide objects and items in plain sight. This is like modern James Bond secret areas, you can hide your other passport, cash, secret documents in furniture and daily use items. I have always wanted to have a secret storage area, or a hidden wall or room, something of that nature to have in my house but these pieces of furniture in the video are fantastic.

This project is about concealing valuables, secrets, bad habits and personal information in our workplaces. Here, hidden spaces/ messages were created within 8 general objects such as wood boards, lamps and disposable coffee cups. We make judgments based mainly on our experiences and what we see. This dependency on visual information can create large blind spots. Thus, usual stereotypes of how we perceive solid, transparency and lighting are employed in this project to play with notions of ‘solid and void’, and ‘true and false’.

Link: Freshome

Now this was a surprise that I wasn’t expecting, I went to the Avenues to pick some Pinkberry since its been a long hot day. I completely forgot that they opened up Pottery Barn in the Avenues so I decided to go check it out. I know that in the states its in almost every major mall, and a few other locations as well but I always loved Pottery Barn. Half of my furniture in my apartment in the states was from Pottery Barn and the other half was from Crate and Barrel. As soon as I walked in I got this odd feeling, something I liked but I wasn’t sure what, I got reminded of my old apartment and I missed it a lot, I just love going back to the states as much as possible.

They built the Pottery Barn store in the first half of the Avenues right next to Zara, and it is a pretty good size. Right away there is a large selection of items and you don’t have to follow the arrows on the floor like Ikea to find your way out. Its built on 2.25 Floors, and the layout is very easy to walk around, a lot of nice things to see. The furniture is all spread out, you have normal living room furniture, dining room furniture, outdoor furniture, plates, throws, and a lot of other accessories. What I like about Pottery Barn is the amount of accessories that they have and all the different kinds, I’m not too fond of their couches even though they look really good. Pricing is a bit on the high side, just as it is with The One in Marina Mall, but I’m assuming that the pricing will drop in due time for the major furniture items, and some items are pretty reasonable. I took a walk around the area and saw some interesting items, and lots of people buying items from the store.

*All Pictures were taken with Google Android Nexus One