Matthew Nelson

Had a delicious catch-up dinner with colleague Cameron Reed this evening. We went to Guu on Robson St. and gobbled down a feast of Japanese treats. Cold beer, fried rice, sashimi, chicken and deep-fried potato. Rather than discuss agency life or how to use social/digital media to discuss/promote social/digital media, we chatted about extra curricular activities. We touched on a wide variety of subjects: music, culture, fashion, relationships and even private investigation. Cameron’s got some tight projects on the go. Peep Babe Rainbow, Mental Beast and Music Waste. Mad decent Tuesday night.

I had the good fortune of meeting the owner of this 1957 Chevrolet Corvette this afternoon. It not only captured my attention, but the attention of everyone that passed by. The vehicles polished chrome, teal exterior and red leather interior form a perfect vintage colour palette. One can’t help notice the beautifully designed cockpit and all its subtle details. The speedometer, radio and associated gauges are perfectly positioned within the elegant crème dashboard.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, so they say. While walking home from work today, I came across this chair and abandoned vintage refrigerator sitting side by side in a Kitsilano alley. The fridge’s logo indicates that it’s a vintage Super Freeze from Italian manufacture Indesit. It was sad to see it abandoned there. I thought back to my college days, and about how numerous friends would have killed to have had a fridge like this to chill basic cooking staples, and more importantly beer. Worn by age, the fridge’s scuffed exterior creates a beautiful, worn aesthetic fit for a modern, contemporary dwelling. One can only hope that the last owner did not suffer from a limited vision and did everything possible to resuscitate its life.

When it comes to drinking, beer is my preferred poison. Sometimes though, you need to switch it up. If you’re after cocktails in Vancouver, Diamond has it on lock. My personal favorite is the Jersey. It’s a pleasant mix of bourbon, malbec, tuaca and aromatic bitters.

I’m officially obsessed with the Archigram Archival Project. I discovered it via Charlie Gower’s blog Tantramar and have spent the past two hours sifting through a wide variety of projects ranging from plug-in nodes to small-scale portable environments.

The images contained within this post are from two separate projects. The first four images are from Nomad - a small speculative design for a small-scale portable environment - and the second six from Lump - a speculative proposal for a development including offices and entertainments, entirely camouflaged by landscape.

Other projects of personal interest include: Manzak, Tuning London, It’s A and Bournemouth Steps.

Explore the site and let me know what your favorite projects are and why.

Life Magazine captured these beautiful photos of skateboarding culture circa ’65 for an article titled The Craze and The Menace of Skateboards. The simplicity, style and finesse of the sport during this period was really inspiring and inexplicably cool. Barefoot bar jumps? Insane.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Piping hot coffee, three eggs, a stack of butter drenched toast, crispy bacon and a heaping pile of home fries. Yeah, that will do!

The majority of this afternoon was spent writing creative briefs and catching up on unread emails, tweets and RSS feeds. I experienced a moment of intense anger when I came across GQ’s The Girls of Coachella, 2010 slideshow. I’m not bitter that I missed the festival; rather I’m jealous that an intern got tasked with documenting its fine scenery. WTF. When I was an intern my duties consisted of grabbing ad execs over priced coffees and picking up their pressed shirts from the cleaners.

Vancouver mansions. Old money. New money. Nature. Inspiring people. Good fashion. Great music. Tasty cuisine. The past. The present. The future. A shared taste for the finer things. Beautiful.