Header of the homepage of Igor Stagljar Lab at the Donnelly Centre, University of Toronto. Featuring the oh-so-endearing glowing crystals animated gif. India ink illustration by Marc Ngui, digital colouring and development by Magda Wojtyra.

Primarily, the home page Igor now has jet flames shooting out of his boots and an even swishier lab coat than the last one. The speed lines are a nice touch. Don’t miss the nano technology flying spaceship under the cell membrane illustration on the Links page.

This website was originally developed by us in 2005. Igor was impressed with the floating amoeba website that Marc and I had developed for one of his colleage’s, the Grant Brown Laboratory website, also at the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at the University of Toronto.

The original idea for the Staglar Lab was inspired by Igor’s impressive height – an even two meters tall – and his exuberantly good natured character. Like, if Krypton never did blow up and a Superman’s uncle continues, working away in his lab, probing genetics for the cures to the last problems that stand between society and the shining utopia it imagines for itself. Doesn’t that sound nice? And Igor, being the coolest client of all time not only said yes to the concept but three years later came back for more. Oh, yeah.

Knit log pillows by Chick sin Design.

I just love these knit bolster pillow covers by Hong Kong based Chic sin Design. Originally I found the items in their Etsy shop.

The pillows are in the shape and size of tree logs “chewed by beavers”, and the tree bark and other texture graphics are knitted into the textile in several colours, rather than printed on the surface.

In this image you can see the stockinette pattern of just several colours of yarn knitted to make the white birch texture of one of the logs.

“Special knitting machine”. Hm. Sounds like I have some googling to do about a very fun process, because this stuff looks amazing.

Have a look at this cosily realistic looking grizzly bear bean bag.

And how about the pillow of… folded Hong Kong dollar bills…? And the three foot tall calendar pin-up girl calendar pillow that is… a functional calendar for 2010?

And the… Wait. What is that? Is that a pillow knitted to look like a 12 inch bag of weed, complete with a purple-blue press seal and glare off the “plastic”?!

It IS a pillow knitted to look like a press seal sandwich bag of weed!! Click the photo to check out the product webpage .

The product description for this series is a treat:

Drugs give easy way outs in life. They cause reliefs by de-stressing, unrevealing your true hidden self so one could express without boundaries, and providing an escape route to problems in life. However, all these “seen-to-be” enjoyable moments are temporary illusive and addictive.  The stronger desire for drugs the more you travel between unreality and reality and eventually you will lose the control over drugs and drugs will start taking control over you.

There seems to be quite a bit of travel between “unreality and reality” in this unlikely combination of pillow themes, and Chic sin Design explains on their website:

…our products are classified into two line: “Chic line” and “Sin line”.

Chic Line: A line of products, which are most emphasized on the esthetics, simplicity and visually impression.

Sin Line: A line of product that launches with a message conveyed uniquely and intently.

Different themes are set up for different seasonal products around the year. All products and created with true emotions and expressions, usually on dissatisfactions to the society today. As views to aspects of life and society may be something very personal and ephemeral, you might find some of our products presented in an unpleasant style. However, we believe it is this uniqueness and sarcasm which make this line of products attractive to like-minded consumers.

A lovely display of the flexible and forgiving nature of English grammar and a dizzying array of dualistic ideas on the home decor front.

The icing on the cake for me is that Chic sin Design makes for “chicks in design” in the website domain, www.chicsindesign.com, and the contact page for Chic sin Design lists Charles and Keith. Charles and Keith of Hong Kong. Of course. I love this world that is getting crazier and more wonderful by the minute.