Top Ten at K&i this month

1809 was a good year

Our local Friday Market here in Muizenberg is filled with lots of good food and handmade designs. One of our favourite market stands is the vintage book section (oh, and the bar - they sell Darling brew, awesome beer). We found these amazing looking pages form an old book published by Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme in 1809. Love the technical drawings and the distinctive smell of an old book... Had to buy.

Thinking and drawing outside the box

Two artists that influence our work a lot are Jean Michel Basquiat and David Carson. We never get tired of looking at or discussing their work. We always seem to find another level, hidden message, or details we didn't see before when we indulge in their work.

One page in the Innovation summit's Black Book will have a page inspired by these crazy-thinking-doing people. It's all about lateral thinking...

Upcycling as part of innovation

We love doing our bit for the planet, we do live here and we kind of like the place… Recycling is a big part of our day to day and we work hard at reducing our waste as much as we can. Our veggie waste goes into our compost, all paper, glass, metal and plastic gets recycled, and we are also keen upcycleists. Our yoghurt pots and tins gets a second life as pots for herbs, and toilet rolls goes to the local school to help build rockets and castles.

Our introduction page to the Innovation lab in the ‘Black Book’ for the SA Innovation Summit will include some upcycled words. Karls fingers were bleeding after twisting the coke Y-letter... No pain, no gain hey...

The Innovation legends

We are working on a page in the book showcasing all the Innovation legends that are going to speak at the summit. We found this image from Nuclear Physics Congress in Rome 1931, in one of the books we borrowed from the library. K&i like old books, especially books with old photographs.

The idea of an idea

 The workings of an idea based on finding the idea.

Our reading list

Some of the books we are busy reading whilst compiling the innovation summit's 'Black Book' of 2011.

Monday Morning Monster

An innovative book for the Innovation Summit

This month is all about innovation for K&i. We are working on putting together a 200 page book to accompany the South African Innovation Summit held in Johannesburg end of August. This month we will keep you up to date with our work flow on this project. Here's some initial photos of our 'brainstorming' sessions. Oh, interesting fact: Brainstorming was proposed as a method for generating ideas/problem solving, using a group technique including effective rules to be followed, by Alex Faickney Osborn in 1953 through a book called 'Applied Imagination'. Something to think about...

Illuminated orange hair

The Innovation Summit advert in the Mail & Guardian

This is the  Mail & Guardian advert we created for the Innovation summit. Have a look at our website for more pictures of how it was made, lots of cutting and sticking down...

Cape Community Newspapers

Our redesign for the 14 local community newspapers here in Cape Town are now in circulation! Have a look at our website for more pictures.

Before and After - the veg patch

Remember what this space used to look like? See post below for a reminder.

Welcome to the 'After' vegetable patch. We've been grafting really hard of late with very little weekend time. So, to maximise on our time, we planted a few vegetables from seed; radish, swiss chard and beans, but majority of them from seedlings. We planted broccoli, rocket, coriander, onions, and celery. It feels like cheating but at the same time gives instant gratification as half the bed appears to be looking beautiful after an hours planting. We also put down our herbs from the bathroom and re-potted some too.

The veggie patch is also going to be full of vital nutrients for the vegetables. After the trenching, the decomposed matter, cardboard, paper, plant cuttings… we put manure, kelp, wood shavings, compost, a sprinkling of bought nutrients and finally a good layer of topsoil which we mixed in. Note the difference in colour of the soil around the veg patch, that's what we had to start with.

It was such beautiful weather on the weekend, so after our planting session we decided to end the day with a fire and a lovely bottle of red wine. Oh ja, the rocks that make up the fire place came out of the ground too.

The Big Dig - Saturday 18/06/2011

1 X Jackhammer, 1 X Angle Grinder, 1 X Pick, 1 X Garden Fork, 2 X Spades, 1 X Metal Mallet, 1 X Chisel, 1 X Wheelbarrow, 3 X Buckets, 1 X Skip, 6 X Humans (2 Ladies & 4 Gents).

Who on earth thinks that concrete is more attractive than plants hey?

Half a metre deep 'L' shaped trench with a layer of cardboard, followed by plant cuttings and a full bin of decomposed food matter. We put a light layer of soil over this and later in the week we'll put a layer of horse dung down followed by another layer of soil and then a final layer of topsoil. Once the layering is complete we'll be ready to plant our veggies… the veggie story to be continued another day.

A beautiful sunset over Muizenberg mountains to end off the day.

Monday Morning Monster...

Friday special: Quick questionable Monster sketch

What's in season in July

This chart shows a small selection of fruit and veg (and herbs) that are in season in the Western Cape in July. Click image to view full size.

Monday Morning Monster

Feeling a bit rough around the edges...

Super Sweet AW12 range from Lille Barn

Lille Barn approached us to help illustrate the AW12 range of jersey and knitwear to be shown at trade shows in the UK.

With lots of details, prints and different knits (and it's organic!), it's such a cool range. We would love it if they did the one piece suits in our sizes...