#20: Hey, look at that! Sorry I got distracted. See why in this week's Things

It’s my last week here at It’s Nice That! So I decided to curate a list of some of my favourite Things that I’ve spotted or noticed during my time here. And after this week, Things will never be the same again…

Michael Parkin: The World’s Most Distracting Desk Ornament

The award for The Most Distracting Thing in the It’s Nice That office during my time here goes to… this desk ornament by Michael Parkin. It’s a curious creature that is beginning to become a sort of It’s Nice That pet, or maybe a mascot, one that never blinks and is always, always watching you. You can’t even turn the thing away to face the wall, because it’s got a double-sided face.
www.parkinparkin.com

Ingo Giezendanner: Grrrr zines

I wrote about Ingo’s work a month ago, and I’m completely convinced that his art is some of the most intriguing and innovative that I’ve come across during my time here. Ingo’s website is a labyrinthine digital atlas that documents all of the places that he’s ever traveled to and illustrated. He draws overlooked places and unknown spaces in cities all around the world, and these detailed and very inky, black and white zines bring together some of his intricate city illustrations. I can’t wait to see where Ingo’s travels will take him next.
www.grrrr.net

Anna Kiernan and Harriet Lee-Merrion: Pick me up

This beautiful and silky white chapbook brings together the evocative words of Anna Kiernan and the stunning images of Harriet Lee-Merrion, whose incredibly intelligent narrative illustrations I posted about a couple of weeks ago. What I find so beautiful about this collaboration is that Harriet’s illustrations are a response to Anna’s poetry: the images and words inform one another and create a kind of conversation. At the back of the book, the pair share some of the exchanges that helped them develop the project, and I find it very refreshing to see illustration being used not as mere decoration but as part of a intellectual dialogue.
www.harrietleemerrion.com

Dale Crosby-Close: Hey

This is the best Thing that’s been sent to us this week. The pages of the ginormous comic book by Dale Crosby-Close are peopled with weird and wonderful scratchy figures going about their business. To look down at them makes you feel a bit like a god. After seeing this, I made up my mind – what is one of the best things about the It’s Nice That office? Getting to browse through comics all day.
www.dalenotjason.tumblr.com

London Terrariums: Tote bag

I think that when you start a new job, you end up learning things about yourself that you never knew. Since working at It’s Nice That, I’ve learnt that I really, really like terrariums, especially illustrations of them, like these by Barbara Dziadosz. London Terrariums make incredible little eco-systems, and it’s quite joyous to scroll through their tumblr page, looking at their process. Here is a tote bag sent to us by the green-thumbed London locals.
www.londonterrariums.tumblr.com