Three Menorahs

by Letizia Rossi

Even goyim can appreciate the charm of lighting menorahs during dark winter months. These three—whether tongue-in-cheek, made from inventive materials or an unobtrusive modular set— lend just the right amount of irreverence for surviving the season.

Acrylic Menorah
This acrylic menorah (pictured above left) by Italian design team Sawaya & Moroni combines a classic shape with modern materials. Reminiscent of the Mahua Huni acrylic candelabras by Ingrid Goessner (also produced by Sawaya & Morni), the mango- colored menorah adds high design to Hanukkah celebrations. Available online from Barneys for $400.

Minimalist Menorah
This minimalist menorah (pictured above center) from Urban Outfitters offers a sleek design with an equally minimalist price tag. The kit includes nine glass cubes that can be configured and six different shades of candles. Available online for $20.

Last Match Menorah
The clever Last Match Menorah (pictured above right) by Kathleen Walsh adds some humor to the "festival of lights." The base is made from clear white pine wood and the oil candles can burn for up to eight hours before being refilled. Available in black or red from Unica Home for $240.

Motofone

by Josh Rubin

Designed to be universally easy to use, Motophone, Motorola's sleek new "no-manual," no-frills phone, is almost here. Their experience website, just launched today detailing their design process and extensive research—including visits to multiple continents to conduct ethnographies of how people actually use their phones.

The upshot is a super-thin (9 mm) candy bar phone with several features that truly make it a phone for the people. One of the key differences is the EPD (Electrophoretic Display) screen which, like electronic ink, uses tiny black-and-white spheres in a display that is highly visible (even in bright light), drains batteries way less than LCDs and cuts manufacturing costs. To simplify the user interface, the design team looked at vector graphics and gestures that transcend language and culture, translating their findings into a set of universal icons, which drive all navigation without menus. Moving battery and signal indicators outside of the display leaves more space for the other icons and makes them easier to read.

Geared for use in rural areas and developing nations, the Motofone has enhanced audio for noisy street life, is overall more durable and exposed screws make it easy to disassemble and refurbish. Due out before the end of the year, the price is rumored to be somewhere around the $50 mark. Though it's meant for emerging markets we expect it to be a hit among Westerners who want something cheap, sexy, reliable and simple.

Beautiful/Decay Holiday Season

by Letizia Rossi

Beautiful Decay recently released the latest in their superior line of artist-designed T-shirts just in time for gift giving. The new designs include Kyle Thomas' manic stream-of-consciousness "Scribble" (pictured left), toy design duo Friends With You's whimsical "Black Magic" (center) and Rob Thom's ode to monkey faces and short-shorts "Tennis Club" (right). As always Beautiful Decay's designs are printed on custom-cut, custom-dyed, 100% cotton T-shirts using a "discharge" method for increased softness. Click the images for detail.

Available for $30 from Beautiful Decay Shop.

Also on Cool Hunting: Beautiful/Decay Tees andBeautiful/Decay Tees: Aya Kato and Jonathan Nicol.

Stain Teacups

by Leonora Oppenheim

For perfectionist tea lovers on your list, these beautifully designed teacups (on CH here last month) are now in production. The work of British designer Laura Bethan Wood the bone china cups are £35, come with a saucer and are all hand finished. This product challenges the assumption that use—i.e. scratches, discoloration, wear and tear—is damaging or bad. Designed to improve through use, the inside of the cup is treated so that it is more susceptible to the staining that results from tea drinking. The more the cup is used, the more the pattern is revealed and, over time, the intensity of the pattern will increase—the speed depends on the owner’s personal tea drinking habit. Contact Laura through her site to purchase.

Life

by SummerSeventySix

Published back in March in the U.K. (left) and in September in the U.S. (right), Life by Lennart Nilsson is a phenomenal book. Born in Sweden in 1922, Nilsson is regarded as one of the foremost scientific photographers ever, and looking through the 300 or so pages in Life it's easy to see why.

The heavyweight book is split into two parts. The first charts the creation of life, and features incredibly detailed pictures of the components and mechanisms that make all of us. Photographs of the male hormone testosterone look like alien, multicolored gems, while what looks like a beautiful coral reef is in fact a close-up of the Fallopian tube. Nilsson broke new ground in the 1960s with his images from inside the womb, and the equivalent pictures featured here are still breathtaking.

The second part of the book deals with life after after birth. The body's main organs are all minutely investigated, as are the senses. Far more uncomfortable to look at, but no less interesting, are the images of things that can kill us. A pox virus looks truly ugly while HIV spreading over a white blood cell is nothing if not ominous.

You can get Life from either Amazon U.K. or Amazon U.S..

CH Gift Guide 2006

by Ami Kealoha

For our third annual holiday gift guide, we're going for a slightly different approach. By visiting our 2006 Holiday Gift Guide page, you'll be able to see hundreds of items that we covered over this past year that make good gifts. This week we'll add a fresh crop to the mix, devoting all of CH to gifts only. What's more, if you haven't checked out the Gift Shop featuring our hand-picked selection of goods from Miami's BASE boutique, you're missing a bevy of exclusives and other clever gifts, like a Camo Pattern Book and a scent called "Sand."

Intern at CH

by Ami Kealoha

CH's looking for a smart, motivated Editorial Intern who has strong writing, research and organizational skills. We're looking for someone for the spring semester to start in January, but earlier is even better. You'll need to be NYC-based and able to commit to 20 hours weekly. See the full job description after the jump.