Coffee Review: Bar 9

It doesn't have the same charm that its sister store has, but the coffee is easily as good.

Bar 9 pairs great coffee with impressive technology to bring you a tasty cup that seems to hug you while you drink it. I have visited both of their stores multiple times, but as this map is strictly based in Adelaide city I have reviewed their rundle mall location. 

The staff were friendly, the coffee was good, but I must say the decor was a little strange. Oh, and the flat white was a definite latte. But other than that, this eclectic store leaves nothing to complain about. 

A well deserved 9. 

MELON: track your focus

Melon is a headband device that pairs with your smart phone to visually depict your focus levels during various activities. It is also said to help improve your focus through activities based through the smart phone application. Melon was backed on Kickstarter and will be shipping soon, for $149 you can change the way you think.

Coffee Review: The Exchange

Welcome to your new favourite cafe - if you're into minimalist style, avoiding the normal bustle of shops and delicious coffee. 

Tucked away just off of Ebenezer place, the Exchange delivers coffee with the air of superiority. This place really knows their coffee, and everything about the entire service reflected this.

The coffee was great, and it would be a lovely place to go for breakfast or brunch some time with family or friends. 

But before you go signing yourself up to making the Exchange your every day hang out, be aware of the price. A small soy takeaway flat white will cost you a hefty $4.80, which is a considerable cost if you want to visit their shop regularly. 

Now generally throughout these reviews I have been accustomed to paying anywhere between $4.00-$4.50 for my coffee of choice, (with the exception of East End Providore, which I recall was also on the pricey end) and I know that it does not seem like a lot extra to pay for good coffee, but my point is that this adds up over time. 

What I did really like about this coffee was that they have nailed the milk to coffee ratio. The takeaway container was smaller than the average cup and because of this the flavours paired together so well. 

All things considered, the Exchange receives an 8/10.

Lunar Store: Homewares, Jewellery, Accessories, etc

I read about Lunar Store in the Yen Magazine Creative Issue. As much as I would have loved to have bought the beautiful gold foil mugs shown in their editorial, I think perhaps they have all sold out. Nonetheless, Lunar Store has some very cute and reasonably priced buys and is worth checking out.

Most of their stock would make great presents for your creative friends.

Coffee Branch: A little slice of Melbourne

For a long time coming I have meant to make my way to Coffee Branch. It's not really that far away from things it's just that it's off my normal route. 

Anyway, recently I turned up to uni to find out my lecture had been cancelled, and having an hour to kill I decided to finally go there. So I hobbled on down to Leigh st and found Coffee Branch tucked away in a narrow little hole in the wall midway up the street. 

The actual structure of the store was what first caught my attention. Long and thin, it can be a little cramped but there is a certain Melbourne-esk romance to it that the styling also reflects. 

The staff were friendly and the line moved quickly. Before I knew it, I had my soy flatwhite in my hot little hands and I was on my way back to class. 

The coffee was excellent - all of the raving reviews from my friends were spot on. 

I don't know if I'm allowed to give out a '10' for a rating, I feel like it is sort of forbidden. But heck, they really do deserve it, and without further ado Coffee Branch gets a 10 for being everything I had hoped it would be and then so much more.

Still Lamps that Look Like They're Moving by Martin Azua

A Spanish designer, Martin Azua, has created beautiful metallic pendant lamps reminiscent of pouring baskets. 

These are beautiful not only because of their crafting and design, but because of the way that despite being still objects they look to be in motion.

The Small Invention that will Revolutionalise Your Workout

This is such a simple idea again, but it holds so much potential.

For anyone that works out you will know both the innate need to listen to music while you exercise, and the subsequent hassle that it can cause. 

If I had a dollar for every time I managed to tangle or pull on my earphone cords and have my phone slam onto the ground, drawing the attention of the entire gym onto my sheepish face, I would have at least 5 dollars. But still, it's so frustrating. You're trying to work out. The music is meant to help you. When this sort of thing happens it only tends to hinder the process and worsen my mood. 

Along comes The Dash, the latest invention for this particular niche and it is a good one. Wireless earphones, reminiscent of the ones seen in the aforementioned movie Her, allow the user to store 1000 songs on the cord free device and control the amount of ambient noise, as well as allowing you to track your progress and make bluetooth phone calls.

Magical. Here's hoping Apple buy, borrow or steal this idea to release it with their next product range. 

DESIGN FEATURE: THE NEW COATHANGER

Coat hangers are notoriously ugly, in my house at least. I have friends, and friends of friends, who spend a lot of money to buy wooden coat hangers which essentially do the same job as my cheap plastic and metal ones, just in a more stylish way. 

I am happy to pay extra money for extra style, but I'm not entirely sure that wooden coat hangers by themselves are worth the cost. 

The Cliq Clothing Hangers have changed my mind. Three words I always seem to come back to in this blog, "simple, sleek and beautiful" - and maybe that is what wall good design should be made of. 

The Cliq hangers eliminate the metal hook that is such a solid part of the coat hanger design. Not only does this save on vertical space, but it also allows for a more stylish design. Instead, these coat hangers rely on strong magnets (holding weight up to 2kg) to keep your clothing hanging in wardrobe. Not only do they eliminate the traditional hook, but due to the magnetic force they also organise themselves to be equally spaced apart meaning that your wardrobe will always look impressively tidy. So much cool in one design.

TURN YOUR iPHONE INTO A POLAROID CAMERA

I know what I want for Christmas. Or my birthday. Or just you know, for generally being a great person/ I need this in my life and how do I get it???

I own a little instax mini camera. I love it. It's great. It's a lot of fun; it's a novelty.

But this is way cooler and I must say probably a lot more useful, if you're into printed film and polaroids. 

Place your iPhone or Ipod Touch on top of the instant lab with the photo you want printed selected, and it will instantly be printed just like a Polaroid - but straight from your iPhone. 

The Impossible Lab began as a Kickstarter project and I am so glad to hear it was a success. Though not everyone appreciates Instant printed photos with the Polaroid aesthetic, they make great momentos and presents for when you want your photos to be a little bit more special than Instagram. 

The price tag is a little bit hefty so it would be great as a joint gift for someone, or as something to save up for if you are really into it. You can purchase it here.

Fan Girling Over Cameo's Latest Releases

Cameo is one of my favourite Australian brands. Actually, it's one of my favourite brands period. 

Most of the time what they release comes as a slightly unexpected take on the season's fashion, but nearly always I end up falling in love with it anyway. 

The newest style which I am mentally betrothed to is their "Left Alone" 2-piece range of a simple dress and tank. 

Somehow using so little they manage to say so much: less is always more. 

Have your credit cards on guard.

Designer Insider: Sagmeister & Walsh

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that every good design student knows of Sagmeister & Walsh. 

Based in New York City, these creative foxes have worked on everything from Adobe, to the Museum of Modern Art, to Warner Bros Records and beyond. Love their style and love their work. 

P.S. I eat more avocados than they do. 

Bassike Fashion Label

My clothing style is very plain and minimalist (though I use that like a dirty word because it tends to make me sound pretentious). My favourite colours to wear are blacks, whites, greys, and beiges. I'll chuck in denim every now and then but beyond that I'm going out on a limb if I'm wearing something else. 

It's like Bassike can see into my soul. Or perhaps it's just this season, I'm not sure. Whatever the reason they have some beautiful clothing that manages to stylishly celebrate being a woman without needing to show it off to the whole world. 

Simple, stylish and yet so edgy. It reminds me of how I would picture desert clothing, if it looked less warm and more resilient to the sun's rays. 

Nick Meek: Photography

Nick Meek has some really great work. 

I stumbled across one of his pictures on instagram, and was captivated by the colours, composition and stillness of his photos. I only wish that he would provide some more information on himself, and each of his images through his portfolio website, because his photos have left me wanting to know more. 

Coffee Post: Le Carpe Diem

I've had to take a little break in my coffee reviews for a while, simply because I have been somewhat snowed in with assignments, projects and work of late. Also because I made the decision to finally quit soy.

As delicious as Bonsoy is, I have read too many articles stating how bad soy is for us. But of course, for the sake of consistency this project cannot work if I change the coffee midway through. So while I took a few weeks off because of my workload, it was also a great time to switch onto normal milk as my everyday vice, and I will now only be having soy when I do a review. Switching back to cow's milk was hard. Firstly there was the thought of it coming from a cow's utter, and all of the horrible reports of the dairy industry. Secondly it tastes incredibly bland compared to Bonsoy, and it took me a while to get used to coffee without the enhancement of good quality soy milk. But luckily I am no longer feeling ill when I have it so that helped with the transition. Also because in between I tried to swap onto almond milk and holy wow that is not happening.

Anyway I was able to start reviewing again when I had a morning off this past Saturday. It was a cold but sunny morning in Adelaide, and while the city looked rather empty Le Carpe Diem on Grenfell St was buzzing. 

Prior to visiting the store I thought some annoying hipster-type had thought they were being trendy by calling it "Le Carpe Diem". I was pleased to find out that it is actually owned and run by french people, and I no longer felt frustrated by the name. 

This cafe is very cute and entirely different to any of the cafes I have reviewed before. To tell the truth, Adelaide has a really high standard of cafes. When I lived in Brisbane, beautiful cafes that were decorated to a particular style or theme and also managed to produce amazing coffee were hard to come by. Adelaide seems to have really nailed this niche. Each cafe that I have reviewed seems to have picked a theme and then they have ran it the whole way through and to a very high standard from a design point of view. Not to mention the quality of the coffee I have been reviewing has made it tough to differentiate between cafes. In fact, it's sort of getting to the point where I now know of so many good cafes I have no idea which one I want to go to.

Anyway, the cafe was buzzing. The short line took a little while to get through but once we got to the counter we were greeted with a friendly French accent and our order for takeaway coffee was placed. From what I could tell of the menu, a lot of it seems to revolve around being in a strange sort of savoury crepe that looked very enticing and suspiciously delicious. I'm very excited about this because I found out that they are gluten free.

There was a short wait before I received my coffee and we continued on our way. Unfortunately they did not use Bonsoy - it tasted like Vitasoy but I cannot confirm on this occasion. Had they not been so busy I would have asked. Even still the coffee was very well made. It's strange for me to give a high rating to a soy coffee made without Bonsoy, but it was so good that I have given it a 9.

I'm looking forward to returning to Le Carpe Diem for breakfast or dessert some time. 

Design Tool: Type Connection

"A typographic dating game"

Type Connection is what I have always dreamed of. I am inherently bad at recognising type faces. It's very frustrating. It makes me feel limited by my subsequent lack of knowledge about which typefaces I like. 

I see these amazing fonts being used but am left short by my own downfalls. Sometimes, I even try to use What The Font, but mostly I quit because I find it too frustrating or it has no idea what I'm asking for.

But now Type Connection exists, things are going to change. 

What is great about this website is that even though the typographic options may be limited at this present point, it is useful and informative along the way. By using this website you will probably not only find a new font family to rely on, but you will learn about the history of it along the way. 

My only hope is that they expand this website to have more options available soon. 

Aura Seltzer created this for her thesis topic at Mayland College Institute of Art, and it seems to have been a hit on the internet ever since.

A movie for the designer: Her

Recently I picked up the Wallpaper magazine WOWA design awards issue which was actually released in February. So many beautiful things have caught my attention within it, but with so many mentions of the movie Her I had to watch it.

This movie is great. So very, very strange but good. Very different to anything I've seen before. The acting is so convincing, I can't keep my thoughts out of the futuristic world they have created and all of the set, prop and clothing designs are great too. From a design perspective it is beautiful seeing how they have dealt with all of the different pieces - from the extremely high waisted pants to the desktop systems reminiscent of a modern day Mac. They worked on the notion that all design trends rotate, so if we have recently had a love for the retro styling fetish in the 2000s, then by the time the world reaches the era that the movie is set in that would likely be back in fashion again. 

I was interested to read that the original lady voicing Samantha was cut before the final edit and replaced with Scarlett Johansson, though I must admit that this version of Samantha is extremely convincing.

For a slightly depressing but beautiful and engaging film - and most importantly suitable for you and your designer friends - I would tip off Her to be the one to watch. As long as you have 2 hours to spare and a person and/or creature to hug. 

Chain Store Crush #2: Witchery

I had a lot of views on my last post about clothes I liked from Country Road, so today I decided to continue the theme on with my favourite picks from Witchery at the moment. 

Once again with grey being one of my all time favourite colours, this season presents a dangerous temptation at every store front for me. 

See my favourite choices from Witchery this season below.