A few days ago we posted a segment Yrjö Kukkapuro’s profile, a Finland interior design who is featured in the latest Apartemento Magazine Issue #9.  And while your nearest bookstore in Jakarta may not have stocked the latest issue #9 just yet, this bi-annual magazine on interior and prolific designers to photographers  have showcased a glimpse on what to expect in their latest issue. Be sure to have a look out for this yellow-ish cover.

Apartamento issue #09 features Tierney Gearon, Duncan Fallowell, Yrjö Kukkapuro, Conor Donlon, Nanos Valaoritis,Tomás Nervi, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Jean Abou, Li Edelkoort, Wolfgang Tillmans, Nic & Jackie Harrison, Gonzalo Milà, Jordi Labanda, Jem Goulding, Ramdane Touhami, Chris Johanson & Jo Jackson, BOPBAA, José León Cerrillo, India Salvor Menuez, Nicolas Congé & Camille Berthomier, Henry Roy, Jeff Rian, Max Lamb, Reg Mombassa. Plus: a fiction supplement by Jocko Weyland and Amanda Maxwell.

The 9th issue of Apartamento Magazine features photographs of interior designer Yrjö Kukkapuro‘s studio and apartment. These photos, taken by Osma Harvilanti, gives readers a brief look on the context in which the designer creates most of his works.

Yrjö Kukkapuro is a 79 year-old interior designer from Finland. He started his career in 1950s as a freelance designer who focused on ergonomic issues. This interest led him to create furnitures that are considered reliable and functional. He is best known for his ‘Karuselli’, which was named the world’s most comfortable armchair by The New York Times.

The studio and apartment, located in Kauniainen Finland, was completed in 1969. It has been since then the workspace and residence of Kukkapuro and his wife, graphic artist Irmeli Kukkapuro. The space, designed together by Kukkapuro and Eero Paloheimo, is a 200sqm loft type space standing on a contoured landscape. What stands out the most is probably its slanted roof, imitating the sloped terrain that surrounds it. This unique roof gives a dramatic effect to the space inside, which we can see on the photos below. The couple still works there to this day, as we can see from all the wet paints and stacks of papers that makes the whole set of photographs more genuine. The studio is also filled with colorful furnitures designed by Kukkapuro himself. Click here for more about the studio.

The Offscreen Magazine is basically a printed magazine about the digital industry. Published by Melbourne-based web designer Kai Brach, the magazine gives the readers a peek into what goes on behind what we see on the web: how it works, what is done, and who is involved. The first issue covers 6 people working in the digital industry, in interviews where they talked about personal things, what’s on their desks, and the process behind the making of their digital work. It involves some of the biggest names in the industry, while also introducing the lesser known people.

The magazine is Brach’s effort to create something more tangible; the fact that the magazine is printed originates from the concept that it tries to explore what goes outside the digital world, so a physical magazine seems to be the most logical media to represent that content. So far the magazine has released one issue, below are some previews, the rest you can check out here.

The Middle Eastern magazine on design and culture recently dedicated its latest issue 33 to music – specifically what they name the Music of the Generation. As a pace to our daily mood, the issue chronicles the regional music industry that sees centuries of traditions brought back with the current contemporary context. This issue highlights various musicians breaking musical stereotypes, highlights including Moroccan singer Hindi Zahra,and Hassan Hajjaj, a Moroccan artist who plays on European sterotypes of the North African world and turns them into a visual celebration.

Watch their video online or read more about the content of issue 33 on the website below:

www.brownbook.me

“We have been exposed to comics and cartoons since we are very little. Today, our means of communication are dominated by video, photography, and other forms of imageries. And way back before, ancestors of us Indonesians also used visual languages as a mean to communicate”.

Infografi is a bilingual visual media brand that comprises of a website and a magazine available in both print and digital formats. Their current quarterly magazine issue is here in digital available for preview.

Infografi, a form of social experiment, attempts to tell stories like that of online news sites or blogs with the use of visual communication. Graphics are their main medium in telling their stories and words have become the decoration. The magazine itself is an effort to deliver in-depth stories from Indonesia and the world from multiple perspectives and viewpoints.

The first issue is available online to be skimmed through and includes a collection of stories such as:

How “Expensive” is it? Gas Price Comparison in Tanzania, Germany, and Singapore. 
Indonesia’s Media Mogul
2012′S Finest Goals So Far
Norwegian Treasure
Journey to Kelimutu

Truck Works and Making Truck are available at Inventory. For those who can’t make the long trip to Osaka to visit their shop, check out the books for great sources of design inspiration. TRUCK creates a catalogue of all their products (excluding the most recent), a vast selection of furniture, house pets, family and lifestyle in Truck Works: 57 Sorts of Furniture. Making Truck is 192 pages of visual summaries of the process and everyday inspiration that goes behind a Truck product; it outlines the roots of the brand in modest items from everyday life as well as some basic manufacturing and the making of their TRUCK catalogues.

TRUCK, founded by Tokuhiko Kise and Hiromi Karatsu in 1997, present furniture that are true to themselves, basing their ideas solely on what they want their furniture to be like and respecting the properties of their materials – wood, leather and steel. Their creations are timeless, always classic and long-lasting.

Available at Inventory Stockroom

Firstly, I must give a shout out to my sister for opening her library of digital books to me and introducing me to Never Let Me Go, a novel by Man Booker Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro. The story follows three friends: Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, growing up in boarding school, then living together as young adults before parting ways when they reach adulthood. The three are, as the book calls them, donors – human clones that are bred to have their organs transplanted (morbid? indeed).

Never Let Me Go very much focuses on the human experience, via the eyes of Kathy we follow the three developing their relationship to each other through their daily interactions. This is where Ishiguro really grabs the readers attention. Through each of her stories the manner in which Kathy describes their experiences is detailed – not so much on the setting but on the emotional momentum that influence the things they say and do. Developing the depth of Kathy, Ruth and Tom’s character through these interactions, the Japanese-born British author reveals the often contradictory nature a person as simply a product of being human – but most importantly why do we do the things we do. Ego, temperament, and maturity all play parts in making the characters’ decision in each isolated incident, and how Kazuo Ishiguro weave their actions with their core personalities leaves us (at least, me) with a sense that I can relate to them because I am human.

Which brings us to them being clones. Like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep‘s androids, the “donors” in Never Let Me Go asks readers what it means to be human. Following the lives of the characters, Ishiguro’s answer seems to be bitter and sweet memories and love. A reoccurring theme in the book is the three friends remembering and sometime not remembering what they experienced earlier in life, which characterizes their relationship to each other. Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth not being human amplifies this notion. As donors, it is established early in the book that they know the fate that lies ahead (being organ donors then of course death). This also makes their interactions feel much more meaningful – letting us know early the fate they cannot escape is as if making the statement that what is important isn’t so much the end, but the journey (yes, I cringed when I wrote that).

Never Let Me Go is superb, it develops complex characters whose personalities mature as the story progresses and their experience relatable to, I’m sure, any reader. Highly recommended. Oh and for those that do not know (I didn’t until fellow Whiteboard Journalist Mar Galo told me), there is a movie adaptation of this book starring Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield – Although apparently it is an underwhelming one.

A magazine that looks beyond the products and focuses on the people and process that created them, Inventory returns with their latest issue for spring and summer 2012. Having Boston vintage dealer Bobby Garnett and WP Lavori’s Andrea Canè, the 6th issue features editorials featuring the likes of Visvim, works by Dieter Rams, and photo essay of New York by Jeb Allred – which will also hold an exhibition tomorrow (April 11) in New York City in conjunction of the magazine launch (click here for more info, New Yorkers). Always a good read, be sure to pick up a copy of this publication if you come across it, and if you haven’t read the previous issues be sure to pick up a copy at W_Space in Goods Dept or visit our online store.

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description from Inventory’s webstore:

INVENTORY Volume 03 Number 06

$20.00

Our cover stories for Spring-Summer focus on Bobby Garnett, the legendary Boston based vintage dealer, and WP Lavori in Corso Creative Director Andrea Canè. These are complimented by, among other things, a Spring-Summer ’12 Neighborhood editorial, photo essays by Jennilee Marigomen and Jeb Allred as well as articles about Truck furniture, TooLs, Batten Sportswear, Tory Leather and Visvim.

Printed in Canada
6,000 Copies w/ Andrea Cover
184 Pages
Perfect Bound – 8.45″ x 11.25″

Continuing his love affair with Cannabis and all things related, Calvin Brodus aka Snoop Doggy Dogg releases Rolling Words: A Smokable song book. Printed on rolling paper with non-toxic ink, the book includes pages of lyrics to some of Snoop’s older songs, including “Gin and Juice” and “Drop It Like It’s Hot.” Constructed mostly of hemp materials, the book even features a strike paper spine so that readers can light up whenever and wherever.

There is no official word whether the book will be made available for sale to the public, at present the book itself is being used to promote Snoop Dogg’s line of king size rolling papers. With 4/20 fast approaching now would be a great time for the book to go onsale. King Kreate, I think I’ve found a way to help you read more books. Please buy two if you plan to smoke one.

One of our favorite print publication about small gatherings, Kinfolk, has recently released it’s 3rd issue. Equally rich in sharing entertaining pieces of places to gather, favorite menu and music playlist. The third volume of Kinfolk explores how we can incorporate a little of our weekend or vacation activities into our daily routine, while keeping it on a smart budget. Followed by essays and personal stories of the 50 contributors, Kinfolk will always keep your eyes refreshed and ourselves excited to plan our days ahead.

The third volume can be purchased at their online store here.

Kinfolk Volume Three from Kinfolk on Vimeo.