Having moved from an Edwardian terrace to a 1970s dormer our ‘period’ furniture looks out of place – especially the dining room. If I had the money (and didn’t have cats) I’d buy original modern classics, (as an alternative to a pension), instead I’ve gone for copies – the chairs are Arne Jacobsen’s series 7 - the butterfly chair – made from a single peice of moulded plywood, first designed in 1955, originals cost around £300, ours (in brown leather) cost £40!

The chair is perhaps best known for the prop used to hide Christine Keeler’s nakedness in Lewis Morley’s iconic portrait of 1963. However this chair, like mine was a copy!

Having successfully made my first lot of jam I was keen to label it up, being a graphic designer meant of course I would have to design my own! I’m a great fan of those 1950s fruit crate labels and so tracked down some inspiration. I’d taken a digital pic of a hastily arranged basket of apricots before I made the jam, so using the Watercolour filter in Photoshop I quickly turned it into an illustration before adding some period type, Underground font from P22 along with a really nice script font Liorah. Think I’ll use the design as a templte for all my other jams, just change the image each time.

Some great work for the new Marmite Squeezy by DDB. The illustrations are cool and a simple idea you can run everytime something topical crops up in the media. Brilliant!

Our daughter is constantly drawing and making things so I was quite delighted when while helping me make dinner she started making a picture out of bits of vegtables on the chopping board! Think she’s been watching that excellent art programme ‘Smarteenies‘ – the modern equivalent of ‘Take Hart’, they even have the same music!

George Vlosich has mastered the humble Etch-a-Sketch to an amazing extreme – his sketches take between 60-70 hours to complete – bear in mind an etch-asketch is a single line is work is amazing!

The National Library of Scotland’s ‘The Word on the Street’ is an ‘online collection of nearly 1,800 broadsides lets you see for yourself what ‘the word on the street’ was in Scotland between 1650 and 1910.’Broadsides’ were the tabloids of their day – pinned up on walls these single sheets carried public notices, news, speeches and songs.

You can search the collection and download PDFs of the broadsides. A fasinating history, made better by a great website.

The four Thursday Next books have all been given the pulp fiction cover treatment by Mark Thomas – following the style for the recent book ‘Something Rotten’ the other three look fantastic – of course now I’ll have to go and buy them again!

Well actually more the guy who designed the icon – Hicks Design Learn more about the process here

One of may favourite animators Bill Plympton has had an Oscar nomination. Bill’s short film “Guard Dog” is one of 10 films on the “short list” for consideration. You might remember the Nic Nac ads from the early nineties, but his films are far funnier – the violent comedy of Tom and Jerry, but drawn in pencil. My favourite is ‘I married a strange person’ about I guy who gets hit buy a satellite and suddenly is able to bring his thoughts to life – very funny stuff if you have a crude sense of homour! Enjoy more here.

Online at least! Well actually to the Skyscraper museum. Thanks to a clever Flash program called VIVA you can visit all the skyscrapers in Manhattan – clever stuff. Discover more here.