More Letterpress action for this week. We return to Mr Joey Roth, better known for his beautiful ceramic speakers, here he turns his hand to poster design. Charlatan, Martyr, Hustler was originally created for the first issue of 48 Hours magazine, he states “It captures my approach to design: giving form to objects and then clearing a path for them to enter the world.” Printed on 32# Lettra text weight stock, described as “soft, fabric-like, warm white” by the folks at San Francisco’s Dependable Letterpress, grab this smart design on the website.

What is the real big new of the day? Will it be all the great timepieces from Baselworld? Or will it be the new Apple iPad? For this writer, the real news today is the release of two new AC/DC pinball machines.

I already have a wrist full of watches and at least two iPads floating around, but where the hell is my pinball machine? It is here in the form of the limited edition and premium models by Stern Pinball. While these may not be the original AC/DC pinball machines, they do bring back skill sets unused after years away from the flippers.

How can we not love the features? The Premium version gets ” “Hells Bell Swinging Newton Ball Pendulum W/Score Sensor and T.N.T. Detonator Animated W/Solenoid Actuated Handle” while the limited edition includes a “Shake And Quake” Shaker Motor and a booming 12-inch sub-woofer. Rock on.

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Deborah Sussman is a very talented lady. A graphic designer who has truly earned the right to wear eccentric spectacles, she honed her craft at the Eames office where the couple took her under their wing. Having worked on graphics for the likes of IBM, Disney and playing a pivotal role in the brand identity of the Los Angeles Olympics, she’s witnessed designs changing face over the decades and has plenty of stories to prove it. This video is part of the ongoing ‘California Design, 1930–1965: Living in a Modern Way‘ exhibition at LACMA.

The Tugendhat family commissioned Mies Van der Rohe to build their Czechoslovakia home in 1928. A lavish project funded by a seemingly endless budget, the family would eventually be forced to flee the country in the 30s with the Gestapo subsequently taking over the building during World War II. Suffering substantial bomb damage, the structure went on to house a dance school, a physio unit and finally a museum in the 90s. It has taken some time to bring this back to its former glory but the restoration has been a sensitive one, keeping much to the original design. Now a listed UNESCO heritage site, this remains a modernist architecture landmark, finally opening to the public this week. More on Villa Tugendhat here.

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Designboom brings us the tidbit that Prague-based agency RSCG has developed a clever campaign for the 50th anniversary of Amnesty International: photos of cakes sculpted to look like dictators Fidel Castro and Alexander Lukashenko (Belarus) silenced by big slices taken right out of their mouths.

The (slightly awkward) slogan “50 years together with you cutting down the voice of oppression” brings the message home. No word on what flavor the cakes are.

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A seriously impressive example of letterpress designed by Kerr Vernon for Glasgow Press. A set of postcards featuring lyrics from some of the cities bands, it’s not so much what they say but how they say it. One to run your fingers across, for those who know their paper, the cards are printed on duplex and triplex GF Smith colorplan and held together by a wax seal. The pack is yours for a small donation to charity, find it here.

There is something to be said for always having a bottle cap-opener on hand—whether for opening your own craft or import or for reaching over and making someone else’s evening easier. We have tried keeping them on our keychains but hate the pocket bulge. There was even an ill-advised period many years ago when some of us were wearing church keys on chains around our necks that ended with a fall on a skateboard and one bleeding and bruised sternum.

Of course, these days the one thing just about everyone has on them at all times is an iPhone, so the folks over at Intoxicase had the winning idea of putting a bottle opener on the back of an iPhone case. “Not simply a bottle opener welded onto an iPhone 4/4S case, [this is] the product of hundreds of design and experiment hours … [the opener is] embedded perfectly inside the pure Polycarb case.” Certainly sounds better than a chest wound. (ud)

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If you think about the logical next step for the Swedish home-everything retailer, IKEA, it would certainly be selling homes based around the IKEA systems of kitchen and home appliances. Ideabox was appointed to work with IKEA’s Portland Design on the new line of houses. The first house in the line, activ is completely tailored around IKEA appliances and flooring. The aktiv house is a compact 745sq/ft (69 sq/m) home with one bedroom and one bathroom.

“We designed the layout, and our clients can select the colors. IKEA appliances offer state-of-the-art cooking, so we included an induction cooktop and convection oven. A counter depth refrigerator keeps food fresh, and cabinet faced dishwashers provide seamless functionality.”

Ideabox worked in many modern components of house design including energy efficiency into the plans.

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Vintage Polish movie poster art from the ’60s and ’70s is pretty damn niche, but the vibrancy and intrigue of the stuff makes it a great fit for just about any wall. Eye Sea specializes in collecting such pieces and selling them online.

They are heavy on works by artists like Jerzy Flisak, Wiktor Gorka, Andrzej Krajewski and Maciej Zbikowski and are adding new stock regularly. Hard to think of a room that couldn’t use one.

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Lots of nifty ideas at play here as Japan’s Nendo unveils some new additions to their one-percent collection. Why one-percent, you ask? Because of each design only 100 pieces are made, meaning if you buy one of any of them, you own one-percent. We’re tempted to snatch up several percentage points, as every piece has something novel to brag.

Stacking is a big theme, with cups and flower vases piling up in artfully ingenious ways. Coffee guzzlers we are, and the single cup drip system pictured above is most alluring (there is a small hole in the bottom of the top saucer-cup piece). When our systems cannot safely process any more java, we have been known to switch to tea, and the tea cup set makes that shift more alluring—for the teapot and cups have little wooden lids that double as spinning tops. Via Dezeen.

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