Admitting You Have a Problem is the First Step

It's time for us to come clean about our magazine habit. Each month, we steal down to the corner newsstand (thank you, Rich's Cigar Store) for our fix...the latest issues of Elle Decoration (UK, if you please), and Living Etc. These rags have a knack for plucking fresh, of-the-moment inspiration from the air (a taupe and turquoise paint scheme! I didn't know I needed it, but suddenly I do!). The editors also know that good design isn't limited by genre. By promiscuously mixing furniture design with fashion and film and architecture and vintage shopping and lighting on their pages, these publications distill the great unruly mess of design into a meaningful catalog of inspiration...

A textbook example of that crack editorial eye, from January's Living Etc.: Vilde Form's teacup tealights. Platonic simplicity, turned upside down (literally). Clever work from Australian designer Louisa Vilde.