The Cool Tools website focuses on handy, useful, proven tools. But a lot of great stuff that Mark and I come across are not really tools. We created the Recomendo… Read the rest of the article: My new book, Recomendo, available as a searchable PDF

Every week for the past two years, Mark Frauenfelder, Claudia Dawson, and I briefly recommend 6 things to our friends. Sometimes we suggest tools, but most items aren’t tools. Rather… Read the rest of the article: Recomendo: A new book with 550 recommendations

Barlow (that's what most of his friends called him) flaunted his complexity. He advertised himself as a Republican Deadhead, as a cowboy hacker, a spiritual rationalist, a womanizing feminist, a… Read the rest of the article: John Barlow: Mayor of the Internet

These vintage cards and old placards display optical illusions, visual witticisms, hidden images, rebuses, and artistic paradoxes from yesteryear. They were the equivalent of Gifs back then — eye candy… Read the rest of the article: The Playful Eye is a virtual feast of games and visual tricks gathered from around the world

Cheap visual charts were the main educational aid in Indian classrooms until recently. Meant to teach children good behavior, and to assist their reading skills, these inexpensive posters were plastered… Read the rest of the article: Ideal Boy, An: Charts from India

Look, it’s Indian design! Everyone has heard of Japanese and Scandinavian design, but few know that India also has a long history of design. It doesn’t permeate the culture as… Read the rest of the article: A catalog of Indian style and design

Albertus Seba was a Dutch pharmacist working in the early 1700s who collected exotic plants and animals samples that may or may not have medicinal purposes. He crammed his Amsterdam… Read the rest of the article: Cabinet of Natural Curiosities – A treasure trove of exquisite botanical images, copyright free

My skin doesn’t have a single tattoo, but I am touched by the art in tattoos, particularly traditional ones. The Japanese have a long and deep affinity for skin paintings,… Read the rest of the article: Japanese Tattoos – Full of traditional and modern designs, characters and history in this photo-heavy book

See sample pages from this book at Wink. How to Wrap Five Eggs: Japanese Design in Traditional Packaging by Hideyuki Oka (author) and Michikazu Sakai (photographer) Harper & Row 1967,… Read the rest of the article: How to Wrap Five Eggs is a real inspiration for both designer and maker

See sample pages from this book at Wink. Trees of Life: A Visual History of Evolution by Theodore W. Pietsch Johns Hopkins University Press 2013, 376 pages, 8 x 10… Read the rest of the article: The most unusual and beautiful evolutionary tree maps from the last 200 years

Beginning today, the editors of Cool Tools will be recommending 6 items in an extremely short email every week. Mark, myself, and Claudia — the entire staff of Cool Tools… Read the rest of the article: New Recomendo newsletter, Issue No. 1

See sample pages from this book at Wink. North African Villages: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia by Norman F. Carver Documan Pr Ltd 1989, 200 pages, 9 x 10.5 x 0.5 inches… Read the rest of the article: Shot in the '70s, North African Villages shows medieval villages unchanged by modernity

In 1988 Kevin Kelly (my friend and business partner at Cool Tools) edited Signal, a book about “Communications Tools for the Information Age.” With articles about smart phones, artificial life,… Read the rest of the article: In the future you will own nothing and have access to everything

See sample pages from this book at Wink. Things Organized Neatly: The Art of Arranging the Everyday by Austin Radcliffe Universe 2016, 104 pages, 7.8 x 10 x 0.8 inches… Read the rest of the article: Things Organized Neatly: The Art of Arranging the Everyday

See sample pages from this book at Wink. The Sartorialist by Scott Schuman Penguin Books 2009, 512 pages, 5.2 x 7.4 x 1.6 inches (softcover) $19 Buy a copy on… Read the rest of the article: The Sartorialist – NYC stylish strangers happily caught by a candid camera

See sample pages of Humans of New York at Wink. Brendon Stanton started photographing random strangers in New York City in 2010. He treated each of them like a celebrity,… Read the rest of the article: Humans of New York – Photos of random strangers in NYC and their life stories

See sample pages from this book at Wink. Beyond graffiti. The artists featured in Street Craft apply non-paint to the urban landscape. Instead of spray cans they use yarn, cloth,… Read the rest of the article: Street Craft: Yarnbombing, Guerilla Gardening, Light Tagging, Lace Graffiti and More

See sample pages from this book at Wink. There are only five “pages” in each of these books despite their 3-inch thickness. That is because each page is stuffed with… Read the rest of the article: Sharks and Dinosaurs – Pop-up books on steroids

Some call this the greatest graphic novel ever. I tend to agree. Written and drawn by a young Hayao Miyazaki between 1982 and 1994, his final Japanese manga reached 1,100… Read the rest of the article: Some call Miyazaki's Nausicaa the greatest graphic novel ever

When you are trying to imagine the details of an alternative world, try Moebius. Moebius (one of the pseudonyms for the French artist Jean Giraud) practically invented the now-common idea… Read the rest of the article: 40 Days in the Desert – timeless, eternal mythical tale by Moebius