This just in, for those of you lucky readers in the LA area CA Boom (west coast independent design show) is happening this weekend at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. The event is part trade show, part consumer show, part architecture tour, and part par-tay. This is THE place to get your fill of modern architecture, modern furnishings and lots of pre-fab for you pre-fab geeks… you know who you are. Tours are as follows Friday- Santa Monica (including a Living Home!), Saturday- Venice, Sunday- West LA. Tickets are $20 per day or $75 if you go on the tour.

We found a few really nice T-shirt designs by mutli talented designer/art director/whatever Jeremy Prasatik at JP33. When you’ve designed projects for the likes of Cadillac, Hummer, Saturn, Chevrolet, Wharton School of Management, Split, Emerica, Etnies, and Oddica, people might start to think you’ve got some skills under your belt. If you’d like a JP33 print of your very own you can find them here.

The new Ab Ovo collection, from William Emmerson of Emmerson Troop Los Angeles, brings contemporary furniture back to its roots. Both form and function reflect the mid-century flavor which is a staple in the Emmerson Troop showroom. They couple classic styles and core pieces with new creations from a variety of designers.

One must have piece is the Cetaceous ceiling lamp by Stephen White, shown above. The Ab Ovo collection can be previewed at the Emmerson Troop showroom through March 31, 2007 and is available on an ongoing basis.

It looks like it may be time to upgrade. If your like us, you wanted to wait for about six months after the release of the Mac Pro to make sure they’ve worked out all the bugs, and that of course means getting new copy’s of Adobe’s Creative Suite to work with the new Intel processors. We just caught a glimpse of the new CS packages through Adobe’s Creative License site and this looks a lot like what we hoped to see when we heard Adobe was acquiring Macromedia. Here are the highlights-

Photoshop- We got a chance to beta test the new Photoshop and we’d like to officially give it a big thumbs up. We really like the re-designed palette system and the non destructive filtering. We haven’t had a chance to play with the new 3-D features, but we’re excited to give them a test drive.

Flash- Finally, finally, finally, thank god finally. This was why we were excited Adobe bought Macromedia in the first place. Adobe has got rid of the awful drawing tools in flash and replaced them with the same pen tool and Bezier curves we’ve come to know and love in illustrator. We can only hope this also means that Adobe has burned to the ground and rebuilt Flash’s font rendering engine. This new version of Flash will not only support psd and ai formats, but will also allow you to import both as layered files. A friend of ours who beta tested this confirmed that transparency modes are also supported as well as a few new filters like motion blur. Lastly, Flash is set to receive a badly needed re-design of their palette system. Being that Adobe has been the reigning champion of software usability, we are excited to see what happens as they take a stab at making one of the most complex interactive design tools more user friendly.

Illustrator- It’s hard to improve on something that works this well. We are interested to see how the new bitmap tracing feature works out since adobe had mixed luck with this in the past (anyone remember streamline?), and it was about the only thing Flash did better that illustrator in terms of vector graphics. Illustrator is also slated to have a new color picking system which peaks our curiosity only because we like Photoshop’s system so much better.

Dreamweaver- We’re adopting a wait and see approach on this one. We thought Dreamweaver to be Macromedia’s best product from a usability standpoint, we just didn’t like the way it rendered code. Dreamweaver’s biggest challenge has been dealing with CSS and this is one of the few instances where we think Macromedia will be more of a help to Adobe than the other way around. Supposedly the new browser compatibility check is going to solve some issue with things being the same across browsers, once again, we’ll wait and see. Dreamweaver is sold as a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, but we’ve found ourselves cursing at Dreamweaver for not giving us what we saw on stage in our browser. Yet again, we’ll wait and see.

All of this is slated to be released in late April. If you want to pre-order you can get your copy here.

This new book from Die Gestalten contains close to 300 pages of contemporary illustration. The work is then categorized as the editors attempt to label the many styles and techniques.

Includes work by Brazilian Adhemas Batista, Big Active, and National Forest Design among others. Definately worth picking up.

Pick up the hardcover here for $39.

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If you thought Philippe Starck had retired from designing think again. Starck designed this simple and elegant watch for Fossil watch with a grommet at the center. The hour is displayed by a number and the minutes fill the circle as the hour progresses. Available on Fossil’s website for $110.

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Finnish textile studio Focus Fabric draws its inspiration from Finland’s nature and urban life. Their collection of modern textiles includes Katve (left) by Hanna Kerman, Fuusio (center) by Laura Jarvelainen, and Aarni (right) by Tiia Eronen. You can find fabrics, bags and skirts from their U.S. distributor.

Often contemporary spaces and open plans present challenges in terms of storage. Having adequate storage space which doesn’t clutter a home can be difficult. Fortunately, Poliform has solutions for closets, libraries, and wall units among other things. The wardrobe above is made of reflecting glass and grey oak. The wall unit below is made of glossy lacquer and ovangkol. Both were designed by Carlo Colombo.

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We love these two new prints just released by Scott Hansen of ISO 50. Vuela is on the left and Past is Prologue is on the right. They’re both printed on a hefty 100lb natural tone stock made in USA, and available with many other beautiful prints through his online store.
Hansen is also playing in the LA area with his audio project Tycho Music 3/27/07, which is bumping though our speakers this very second.

We’re going to let you in on a little LA secret here. If you want to see what the local talent is up to, there’s a small row of shops the rest of the world hasn’t quite caught on to yet Echo Park Blvd just north of Sunset.

Here you will find some amazing little places like Han Cholo. Half art gallery, half bling boutique for the retro hipster set here in Echo Park, Han Cholo brings the underground cool of music videos and fashion magazine to life before you ghetto fabulous little eyes.

Check out the art shows the 1st Saturday of every month and see some of the most amazing underground talent, as well as a fun party.