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How Cool Is Kuler, Adobe’s Colour App?

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Damn cool. Adobe’s new point-and-shoot app for the iPhone allows you to instantly pull a color palette from whatever image your camera snaps.

Adobe Kuler

 

FREE & AWESOME | Have you seen Adobe’s new Kuler app?” my friend Giorgio Verzoletto of vanhit.com asked when we met up for coffee last Monday. “Watch this,” he said, waving his iPhone camera at the Frugalbits website displayed on the laptop screen in front of us. As G gestured with his phone, five circles on its screen bounced around like metal balls in one of those old-fashioned handheld puzzles, changing colour repeatedly depending on where the phone was directed.

When he snapped a shot, the circles turned into rectangles forming a band of the dominant colours in the image and creating what Kuler calls a colour theme on his phone screen. “These themes can be used, modified and shared in so many ways,” G said. “Anyone who works with colour is going to love this.” Or anyone who loves to play with colour, I added. Read more

Vertical Spine Bookcase - via The Design Files

4 Fab Bookcases That Take Up Little Room

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Short on floor space? Here are four fabulous bookcases that take up very little room.

Vertical Spine Bookcase - via The Design Files

 

DESIGN WISE | Those of us living in condos and townhomes are forever on the lookout for ways to save on space. One way to do this where books are concerned is to store them horizontally in a vertical bookcase that climbs up the wall rather than in one with a more conventional shape that gobbles up a larger floor area.

Vertical spine book towers can hold lots of books in a vertical stack. Here are four of our favourite models. Read more

Hunting For Ghost Chairs Repro Or Real

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High or low, original or repro, there is more than one way to track down Philippe Starck’s iconic chair that isn’t there.

 

SHOPPING AROUND | If asked to select one chair to represent the first decade of 21st century design, a lot of interior designers would point to the instantly recognizable Louis Ghost chair. Designed by Philippe Starck and introduced to the world in 2002, this elegant item, made of high-impact thermoplastic, is a cleaned-up contemporary take on another icon, the ornate 18-century French Louis XV chair. Read more

Kelly Deck

Kelly Deck’s Top Sources For Home Decor & More

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Top Vancouver interior designer and media personality Kelly Deck shares great + affordable sources for stylish things for your home.

Kelly DeckKelly Deck has immersed herself in the spirit and lifestyle of the West Coast design community. When she opened her interior décor boutique on Vancouver’s Main Street in 2002, she began a successful foray into homes and backyards, developing a design presence that champions the integrity of coast living and the importance of design.

Now the director of Kelly Deck Design in beachside Kitsilano, her full-service interior design firm specializes in private residences. Her ideas have gained national reach through her Globe and Mail column The West Coast Way; her HGTV series, Take It Outside; and her appearances on Urban Rush, CityLine TV and Breakfast Television.

Kelly Deck’s 5 free, cheap or worth it things to see, do or buy in Vancouver Read more
Alda Pereira

Shop With Alda Pereira, Designer Of The Year

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Frugalbits goes shopping with Alda Pereira, western Canada’s 2010 interior designer of the year.

Alda PereiraAlready considered one of Canada’s top interior designers with many awards and plenty of ink in glossy publications to her credit, Alda Pereira added another feather to her cap last month when a jury of her peers recognized her as Western Living magazine’s 2010 interior designer of the year.

While her private residential projects and multi-unit development interiors are always a delight to the eye, Pereira is no “shrinking wallflower looking to please multitudes,” commented Western Living editor Anicka Quin, who appreciates Pereira’s “knack for pairing the unusual with the well tailored.”

We love Pereira’s talent too—and her personality, which despite her early and prolonged success, is refreshingly unaffected. Pereira admits she loves to shop “Unabashedly. Period,” she says, “especially window-shopping. Did I mention that it’s free?” Here she shares a few of her favourite haunts. Read more