We had the great privilege and honor of speaking at LEGO's internal Design Camp last week - a day away from the office for the creative team in beautiful Enfield, Connecticut. Scott Decoteau, along with the talented and generous crew at LEGO, were gracious hosts during our time in New England. Highlights of the trip included the LEGO HQ tour (wow), dangerously delicious indian food, bowling and sharing sentimental stories about the infamous drawstring denim LEGO bag.

To commemorate our talk, we decided to make some things. One of them being a poster of us creating our new mark out of 4,236 bricks - flown in from all over the world. After 2 hot days, 1 broken mallet (don't ask), 6 iced coffees and 3 blisters, the mosaic came to life. Extra special thanks to LEGO for supplying the baseplates.

Unfortunately these posters and prints are not for sale, but who knows - we may throw some in future IC poster orders ...

Well, The Spit Swap has come and gone. The 2-night stint with yours truly in Portland and Mr. Draplin laying it down in Seattle was one for the record books. Portland, I can't thank you enough for cruising out to The Ace to watch me sweat it out up there as I attempted to tell our scattered story. It was a fun night of sharing great conversations with real folks. I had a blast. And Portland - your art, design and illustration community is one to be envied. Hats off to you nice people ... Massive high-fives to Eric Hillerns for the hospitality and for dreaming this baby up. Seriously. Aaron Draplin (and family!) for the obvious reasons. The man has talent in about a zillion areas, including the English language. But you guys knew that.

And of course The Ace Hotel, Lloyd Winter, Duane King, 52 Limited, Always With Honor, Portland AIGA, Fort Port ... the list goes on. Thanks to everyone who helped out, brought beer, food, tweeted, you name it. THANK YOU!

A few rad shots of the night, courtesy of long-time broseph Mr. Arges:

We stopped by the mighty W+K to visit one helluva guy Lloyd Winter and to apparently have our socks knocked off by the sheer awesomeness in that building. Wow.

"Yup, that's a bear"

Before the gig started, we stopped by Instrument's new spot to see our buds and visit the infamous teepees. Incredible space. Incredible talent.

J.D. and Vince giving us the tour ...

"Is this thing on?"

We meet at last ...

Tyler and Elsa from Always With Honor with a touching and funny introduction ... thanks again, guys.

Zac strong-arming folks into buying paper and sticky things ...

"It's just a theory" ... Duane, Josh and a few others hear me out regarding my thoughts on relativity.

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Anyways, it was a rad night. Thanks again, Portland.

We'll have 100 of these 3-color silk-screened posters for sale at our Spit Swap gig this Wednesday. Printed by the fine folks at Seizure Palace right there in PDX. Oh, and we've seen Draplin's poster. Get ready, Washingtonians.

It's 100% official and tickets are now available. Draplin and I will be riding the rails and corrupting each other's respective cities October 19th & 20th.

Something awesome is unraveling. IC vs. DDC. Portland and Seattle. October 19th and 20th.

Our buddy Josh surprised us with a nice little gift last Saturday in San Diego. Killer engraving by Garrett Patz.

Last year, our buddy Josh Higgins asked if we'd cruise down to his city sometime to tell our story and flash some .jpg's on a big screen. We happily agreed, so here we are. We're excited to bring our dog and pony show to the beautiful city of San Diego on April 2nd. We'll be speaking at the legendary Casbah club, but what we're most excited about is The Black Heart Procession will be joining us to shut down the evening. Oh, and a little bonus for you early birds: The first 200 folks through the door get an 18" x 24" silk-screened poster, namely the one you see above. Tickets are $10 advance/$12 day of show and you can purchase them here.

One of my all-time favorite architects, William Krisel is being honored at a new show at MODAA in Culver City. Along with Joseph Eichler, Cliff May, Richard Neutra and others, Krisel was instrumental in developing California modernism as we know it today (over 30,000 living units to his credit). One of my favorites of his was the home he designed with Dave Palmer for Bobby Darin in 1955. Love that butterfly roof.

These images of the Ijburg house by Dutch architect Marc Koehler is making my Monday morning a bit better.

Via Contemporist

Bookmark time! Apartment Therapy just posted an article featuring the 'Top Ten' online shops for vintage furniture and accessories. Now you know what to do this weekend.

Anna-Maria Sviatko from Canberra, Australia may have created a dollhouse or two that my daughter and I would actually have to arm wrestle over. And yes, dollhouses are METAL!

Loving these Atlas shelving units!

Via Workalicious

You'll never look at gas stations the same again. Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van der Rohe, Arne Jacobsen ... I had no idea they also contributed epic work to the world of auto fuel. I am guessing it was a tad cheaper by the gallon back then, no?

Thanks Frank.

Congratulations to Grain Edit for turning 1! One of my favorite sites on the interweb is throwing a big birthday bash, offering giveaways from some pretty stinking amazing artists. Grab a slice of cake and enter to win!

Loving the new Lifework Portfolio pieces from Herman Miller.

Loving Anna Weiss' home AND blog!

Richard Neutra's Maxwell house (built in 1941 for $6,750) recently moved from Brentwood to Angelino Heights.

LA Times: "Saving the house has become a labor of love -- some say obsession -- of the owner, developer Barbara Behm, who does business under the name Princess Bovlana. She plans to restore the house "from top to bottom, and everything in between," before selling it."

See the amazing pictures here. Many thanks to Barbara for realizing this home was worth saving - can't wait to see it finished.

If Bruce Wayne owned a garbage truck, it would look like this.

In another chapter of my "House Industries Continues To Do No Wrong" book, Andy Cruz (who is currently guest-blogging over at Dwell) just unleashed this ridiculously cool dollhouse, promoting their new typeface, Studio Swing. Just stupid awesome.

Got kids? I do. And I dig cool kids toys. Small Paul furniture by 10 Grain. Not expensive, but not cheap. Face it, you'd rather have this stuff all over the house instead of this.