Bug Life

For a piece of visual entomology, look no further than Alex Wild Photography! Mirabelle has been following Alex's Twitter account for years now and this is one of my favourites: a Twitter perk that stands out from the Twitter mush!

There you get close with the bugs and once you magnify and get to their level, discover the beasts of engineering that they are: fascinating, awesome and pretty darn scary too!

Calliphora augur, Diamond Creek, Victoria, Australia

Myrmecia pyriformis, Yandoit, Victoria, Australia

Nesomyrmex wilda, Harlingen, Texas, USA

Nasute termite soldier, Yandoit, Victoria, Australia

Pogonomyrmex comanche, Red Rock, Texas, USA

Apis mellifera, Austin, Texas

The macro-photographic skillset of Texas-based American biologist Alex Wild plays its magic and his carefully-chosen
subjects are equally magical. The descriptives bear none of the generalist attributes that non-scientists like myself are guilty of using all too often when faced with unidentified small creatures: critters, bugs, insects, creepy-crawlies, flying things (ha-ha!) and other often-erroneous and somewhat disrespectful captions.

Here we dive deep into entomology territory, the taxa, order, genus, species and sub-species, and catch ourselves on a learning curve if we are serious enough about the views we entertain. This is how I found out, as a starting point, that myrmecology is the entomology branch related to ants.

When faced with the ingeniosity of life at its tiniest level, you cannot help but think about the Great Architect of the Universe and how none of this would have been possible without Him at the helm. Without politicising this post, I would venture the belief that atheists are deniers of God when you witness how the divine has engineered nature in a way that is humanely impossible to achieve.

Anastatus sp., Austin, Texas, USA

Ceratopogonidae forcipomyia, Cayó District, Belize

Hesperolabops gelastops, Austin Texas, USA

Tutelina elegans (male), Urbana, Illinois, USA

Chrysina lecontei, Huachuca Mountains, Arizona, USA

Tetragonisca angustula, Morretes, Paraná, Brazil

Alex Wild has managed to build a captive audience out of science proselytes like myself, and the macro-photographic journey amongst creatures of the tiny order is both captivating and humbling!

Source: All photography by Alex Wild Photography.

Floral Sophisticates

You needn't be looking for beauty for it is all around you in the natural world if you care to notice and observe. Flowers have it in spades of enchantment... The art of the artist is to capture the beauty they notice but which might be going unnoticed by others, emphasise it and restitute it for it to be (finally) noticed, acknowledged and appreciated. Kate Scott is bewitched by the beauty of the floral kind and Mirabelle has too been spellbound by floral beauty for as long as I can remember.

Flower power has hit home! The curves, curls and swirls, the shades, hues and ombrés, the seemingly laser-cut petals, the detailing, the precision, the floral geometry, Fibonacci of sorts that ushers floral art into the sacred, the intricacies, fragility, ephemerality, the sophistication of flora at its paramount best that is bound to leave you speechless... All of this skillfully captured by Kate Scott. Welcome to the floral art world, a delicacy for the senses and an instant mood lift!

Gipsy, Dahlia (detail), by Kate Scott Studio

Grace, Dahlia (detail), by ibid.

Fleur, Ranunculus (detail), by ibid.

Blush, Ranunculus (detail), by ibid.

Frill Seeker, Hibiscus (detail), by Kate Scott Studio

Peaches, Roses (detail), by ibid.

Folly, Peony (detail), by ibid.

Amazon, Tulip (detail), by ibid.

"I have always found flowers bewitching. My aim as an artist is to capture the essence and soul of each bloom and present it in a way which cannot otherwise be readily seen. No camera is used in this process. Flowers are scanned at high resolution then digitally painted, pixel by pixel, capturing the tiniest of detail, often invisible to the naked eye. A single specimen which measures only a couple of inches across is transformed into a sensual landscape and in this way, each flower is reinvented and reborn. It is a painstaking process, often taking hundreds of hours to produce one large printed piece." - Kate Scott 

Source: All artwork digitalisation by Kate Scott Studio. Her exquisite limited edition flower prints are available to purchase directly from her online boutique. Printed on museum archival paper.

Humbled by Hubble

Whenever you feel confined, restricted, by the paradigm of modern life, the Deep State and the fake news and the rigged financial system and the pettiness of politics and the media circus, when all of this gets to you... Look up the sky and reach for the stars!

Orion Nebula

Hubble Captures Wide View of Supernova 1987A

Unlimited, free-flowing, unbiased, space transcends imagination. Gases, dust clouds, fired-up rocks, molten matter, hazardous fluids and solid ice in movement, forming, expanding, fusing, travelling, spinning, clashing to breaking point, recomposing and splitting some more... A composition piece made up of velocity and timelessness and never-stunted evolution. A humbling sight, even from a safe distance - light years away - from the safety of the telescope or the computer screen, (relatively for now) sheltered as we stand from the brutal, hostile, unredeeming, all-consuming and seemingly unpredictable mass-scale action of titans devoid of our human proclivities of reason and emotion.

"Dust is a really critical part of how a galaxy works, how it forms stars" - Dr. Karin Sandstrom, University of California, San Diego

NGC 248 in the Small Magellanic Cloud

Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635)

Hubble Space Telescope and Cassini and countless other shuttles are on a scientific mission of discovery, with aha moments and wows of wonder guaranteed every step of the way! And more unanswered questions popping up too! The viewer and the observer get sucked into the mermaid-like eery and dangerous beauty of nebulae and cosmic clouds, faraway, unnamed galaxies sitting on the edge of time and space, defying human comprehension just by their stark, blank, matter-of-fact presence, while putting us firmly back in check. No, we humans are not at the (epi-)centre of the Universe. Merely an adjunct fluke form of intelligence oblivious to the wider macrocosm made up of stellar births and meltdowns, black holes and intergalactic chaos.

M101 (HST) Spiral Galaxy

Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant

Source: All photography via HubbleSite, laid out chronologically, with most recent first.  

(1) The Orion Nebula, credits: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team. No picture caption provided.

(2) Hubble Captures Wide View of Supernova 1987A, credits: NASA, ESA, R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), and M. Mutchler and R. Avila (STScI). The picture caption reads: 'Supernova 1987A within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring galaxy to our Milky Way. Distant stars serve as a backdrop for Supernova 1987A, located in the center of the image. The bright ring around the central region of the exploded star is composed of material ejected by the star about 20,000 years before its demise. Gaseous clouds surround the supernova. The clouds' red color represents the glow of hydrogen gas, which is fueling a firestorm of star birth.'

(3) NGC 248 in the Small Magellanic Cloud, credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, K. Sandstrom (University of California, San Diego), and the SMIDGE (Small Magellanic Cloud Investigation of Dust and Gas Evolution) team. The picture caption reads: 'two festive-looking nebulas, situated so as to appear as one. They reside in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is a satellite of our Milky Way galaxy. Intense radiation from the brilliant central stars is heating hydrogen in each of the nebulas, causing them to glow red. The nebulas, together, are called NGC 248. They were discovered in 1834 by the astronomer Sir John Herschel. NGC 248 is about 60 light-years long and 20 light-years wide. It is among a number of glowing hydrogen nebulas in the dwarf satellite galaxy, which is located approximately 200,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Tucana.'  

(4) Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635), credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). The picture caption reads: 'For the 26th birthday of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are highlighting a Hubble image of an enormous bubble being blown into space by a super-hot, massive star. The Hubble image of the Bubble Nebula, or NGC 7635, was chosen to mark the 26th anniversary of the launch of Hubble into Earth orbit by the STS-31 space shuttle crew on April 24, 1990. "As Hubble makes its 26th revolution around our home star, the sun, we celebrate the event with a spectacular image of a dynamic and exciting interaction of a young star with its environment. The view of the Bubble Nebula, crafted from Wide Field Camera 3 images, reminds us that Hubble gives us a front-row seat to the awe-inspiring universe we live in," said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, in Washington, D.C. The Bubble Nebula is 7 light-years across – about one-and-a-half times the distance from our sun to its nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri – and resides 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia.'

(5) M101 (HST) Spiral Galaxy, credits:  NASA, ESA, K. Kuntz (JHU), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Lab), J. Mould (NOAO), Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana), Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/J.-C. Cuillandre/Coelum, and G. Jacoby, B. Bohannan, and M. Hanna/NOAO/AURA/NSF. No picture caption provided.

(6) Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant, credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). The picture caption reads: 'NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. Called the Veil Nebula, the debris is one of the best-known supernova remnants, deriving its name from its delicate, draped filamentary structures. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan.'

Westerlund 2: Detail 3

NGC 2174

(7) Westerlund 2: Detail 3 (pictured just above), credits: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team. The picture caption reads: The pillars in the star-forming region surrounding Westerlund 2, composed of dense gas, are a few light-years tall and point to the central cluster. They are thought to be incubators for new stars. Besides sculpting the gaseous terrain, intense radiation from the most brilliant of the cluster stars is creating a successive generation of baby stars. The bluish haze is an indicator of oxygen gas in the nebula.'

(8) NGC 2174 (picture just above), credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). The picture caption reads: 'In celebration of the 24th anniversary of the launch of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (on April 24, 1990) astronomers have taken an infrared-light portrait of a roiling region of starbirth located 6,400 light-years away. The Hubble mosaic unveils a collection of carved knots of gas and dust in a small portion of the Monkey Head Nebula (also known as NGC 2174 and Sharpless Sh2-252). The nebula is a star-forming region that hosts dusky dust clouds silhouetted against glowing gas.'

El Raja Key Archive by Robert J. Kuntz

Rob Kuntz is a living legend and El Raja Key Archive is here to prove it. Now ask any of the people in the know within the Role-Playing Games (RPG) community, and they will agree. I also witnessed it first hand when Rob and I attended Lucca Comics & Games 2015, of which he was a special guest. Rob Kuntz is up there with Dave Arneson, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons® (D&D®), and Gary Gygax, he who made it all happen from the maproom to the boardroom, and from the figurines to the seven-figure profits. Meanwhile Rob's name will forever remain associated with the legendary Castle Greyhawk and his no-less-legendary character, Robilar. So yes, we are about stuff of legend here.

A timeless piece of gaming that is set to become a collectible!

Although Rob was one of the youngest in the original crew, back in the early 1970s, his formative years in Lake Geneva (WI) amongst a bunch of creatives and visionaries, shaped his style, honed his craft and nurtured his talent. Bear in mind that Rob has never sold out. He has remained true to his core values, and not lost sight of the power of creativity as a game designer, and imagination as a gamer - and how to unleash them both and keep them up. Rob has never ceased to be a prolific author and designer either. When he's away from the public eye, you can be sure he's holed up at home working on a project.

Throughout his career that spans more than 40 years, Rob has authored an impressive number of adventure modules and has consistently remained a firm RPG favourite amongst his loyal fan-base and those Original D&D® (OD&D®) afficionados.

Gem of many designs! The Sunken City adventure module has an original artwork by Jim Roslof.

Tread carefully for Rob doesn't want to be typecast. To associate him solely with the world of RPG would be to deny him his versatility. He branched into new territory years ago, as a screenplay writer and a novelist, and now as a game design theory author, with a few books in the pipeline!

Rob's brand new company, Three Line Studio partnered with TLB Games earlier this year in order to capitalise upon his impressive intellectual property. As a starting point, they produced El Raja Key Archive, a retrospective of his early work, brought together under the DVD project as The Collected Maps, Manuscripts, and RPG Artifacts of Robert J. Kuntz.

Rob's classic RPG adventures: imagination unleashed!

Fans are rewarded with four editions to choose from: Basic, Standard, Deluxe and Collector's. Psst, if you want to feel spoilt and special, go the extra mile and stretch your dime: treat yourself to the Collector's edition!

The DVD is a must-have, not only for the die-hard OD&D® aficionados and Rob's loyal fanbase but also to a new generation of gamers looking to explore the origins of D&D® and their legendary adventures. 

El Raja Key Archive DVD is a testimony to Rob's 40-year+ legacy, packed-full with fascinating OD&D® material that harks back to the origins of the game. With Christmas only four weeks away, this is one experience that will make you think (and strategise!) outside the box. Happy gaming y'all!

Source: All imagery via TLB Games.

Presidential Showdown: Triumph for a New Cultural Era

In the wake of the presidential election of Donald J. Trump, the air has turned sharp and crisp with optimism and the promise of a reborn America like our parents had enjoyed. A new dawn is rising over the socialist paradigm swamp that had gripped the West since before our parents were even born (1930s), namely The Frankfurt School, serving under different guises the socialist agenda that is now in full swing.



Thanks to Mr. Trump, the global agenda of the private interests and corporate elites has been exposed to a wider segment of the population, and the new presidency will tackle it. Mr. Trump assured that under his presidency no dream will be too big. The forgotten man and the forgotten woman will rise and the USA will become prosperous again.

Alongside it, the cultural marxism that has infiltrated, compromised and jeopardised the mainstream media (MSM), education, religion, morality, family, employment, private property, cultural identity, national sovereignty, and thought process, will be challenged further and hopefully dismantled by the powers that be. The population will hopefully join in once they come to the realisation that they have been duped all along under the false premise of freedom of speech and freedom of choice.



Political change in America will send ripple effects and political change to Europe. Now unless you were born in Europe and have been enlightened about the detrimental effects of socialism and communism to a Nation, you will have no idea of the levels of mediocrity that European nations have been forced to sink to under the EU-UN umbrella over the last 35 years, and this includes design and lifestyle.

You will understand that as a design blog, Mirabelle has an obligation to report these facts to you and get political. I do respect voters choice yet I cannot help but be baffled by the Hollywood backlash against Trump and the dissent from the college kids who should know better but would rather burn the American flag and envisage their whole lives under a jobless, future-devoid, open-border, state-controlled economy that only serves the likes of Goldman Sachs, Bilderberg Group, George Soros, Monsanto and nefarious trade agreements like the TPP. Get a grip, kiddos!

(Pict source)

Although Mirabelle has strong reservations regarding Trump's policies for the environment, the new presidency will however redefine a new society, and creativity will soar to new heights like skyscrapers. Mirabelle is launching a new series: TrumpPower. Over the coming weeks, we will be exploring and celebrating the representation of prosperity and success in culture, art, design and fashion. Stay tuned!

Source: (1) The Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump John Lewis Christmas Ad, is based upon (2) the British high street retailer John Lewis Christmas Advert 2016 that was cleverly 'reworked' by the creative crew at Joe. You gotta love Buster the Boxer... and the garden critters! (3) Congratulations to President-Elect Trump and to Vice President-Elect Pence on their electoral win! Thank You America photograph, via Donald J. Trump's official website.

Good Design according to Dieter Rams

When a product designer rambles on about good design, the first thing you do is check their designs. If said designer is Dieter Rams, you can pay closer attention to his word for you will learn invaluable information (design rules). And you can take his word for it because the gentleman knows his subject. If this weren't enough, he proves it too with his immaculate timeless executions!

PCS 45 Record Player, designed by Dieter Rams for Braun (1962)

Design without the Noise

As Chief Designer at Braun (1961-1995), Dieter Rams applied the winning formula of form and function to the 'T' of technology,  with a concise, methodical, pared-down ('Less, but better'), sleek and sober design. The end result was electrical consumer goods that served beyond the mere consumer act. We had the fusion of practicality, functionality, discipline into a stand-alone style icon that we may describe as a useful object of desire. Expect no brash, tack, bells or whistles. This is a case of unadulterated and enduring design. We're talking the 90% pure cacao bar of the chocolate world: potent, punchy and a classic.

"Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design." - Dieter Rams

Mirabelle wouldn't be surprised if the likes of Apple took a leaf out of Dieter Rams' design book in their formative years or whether they themselves came up to the equation of form and function that would challenge planned obsolescence by standing the test of time, trends and fads, and never fade or date. A quick online search validates my assumption.

Clockwise from top left: Early Shaver Series, F 1 Mactron Lighter, H 3 Heater and F 26 Flash Unit for Braun

You get it: there is design and then there is good design. For the former, expect the average, the bog-standard, and the mediocre, uninspired, imitative mass-produced hotchpotch from a mass of sycophantic designer cheats.

"What Dieter Rams and his team at Braun did was to produce hundreds of wonderfully conceived and designed objects: products that were beautifully made in high volumes and that were broadly accessible." - Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple

However for good design, expect a small distinct number of measured - usually quiet - dutiful and industrious personae like Mr. Rams, busy working on their next ground-breaking design innovation. Good design is not a case of here today, gone tomorrow. It makes a statement and it lasts the distance.

(L-R) SK 4 Phonosuper (1956), and TP 2, portable transistor radio and phonograph (1959), via Wallpaper

Dieter Rams Ten Commandments of Design:

1  . Good design is innovative
2  . Good design makes a product useful
3  . Good design is aesthetic
4  . Good design makes a product understandable
5  . Good design is unobtrusive
6  . Good design is honest
7  . Good design is long-lasting
8  . Good design is thorough down to the last detail
9  . Good design is environmentally-friendly
10. Good design is as little design as possible

Source: (1-2) All photography via Das Programm, the UK-based specialist dealer of Dieter Rams' designs for Braun and Vitsoe (1955-1995), described by the company as "some of the best 20th century modernist industrial design". Photographic montages by Mirabelle. (1) PC 45 Record Player by Dieter Rams for Braun (1962). (2) Clockwise from top left: Early Shaver Series by Futterer / Braun / Rams / Muller / Gugelot for Braun (1954-1962);  F 1 Mactron Lighter by Dieter Rams for Braun (1979);  H 3 Heater by Dieter Rams for Braun (1962); F 26 Flash Unit by Dieter Rams for Braun (1963). (3) Left to Right: SK 4 Phonosuper, combined audio system by Hans Gugelot, with Otl Aicher, Wilhelm Wagenfeld and Dieter Rams, for Braun (1956); TP 2, portable transistor radio and phonograph, by Dieter Rams for Braun (1959). Photography by Marcus J Leith, via Wallpaper. (4) 'Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible', the definitive monograph on Dieter Rams' life, work and ideas, by Sophie Lovell.

Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible by Sophie Lovell

Tiny Living with All the Trimmings

There are some ingenious companies out there that have been redefining the concept of tiny living over the last decade, rethinking the space under a mobile model that is both stylish and innovative, and Tumbleweed Tiny House Company springs to my mind. However the design I am presenting to you today has - I believe - taken design one stride further by injecting the WOW factor into it, making it truly a compact mobile home that foregoes none of the trimmings associated with a home, comfort that includes stainless steel farmhouse apron sink, solid walnut hardwood floor, reclaimed barnwood wall and ceiling, fold-down decking and awning that form a pop-out porch, quality sanitaryware (including Jacuzzi® tub and shower!), clever organising solutions all-around, and even a mezzanine bedroom hosting no less than a king-size bed! And so much more that is bound to surprise you!

Would you have guessed by looking at the pictures that you were dealing with a trailer home? The Alpha Tiny House by New Frontier Tiny Homes is the luxury of a standard quality home cleverly condensed in size but not in form and function! It was featured on HGTV’s Tiny House, Big Living, Season 3, Episode 9. Now this is what I would call 'Glamping on Wheels'!

'Among the Alpha’s stand out features is a custom fold down deck and awning, tempered glass garage door, a giant sliding glass door, and a custom 8 person dining table. Multi functionality and a maximization of space are the calling cards of this tiny house. Everything about the design and materials in this home are the highest luxury.'

Let's have a morning-till-night tour of the 'rolling' estate: it is teeming with ingenious organisational ideas that could be rolled out from trailer living to the more general tiny living...

Yours for a cool and breezy $95,000.

Source: All photography New Frontier Tiny Homes.

Goldfinger! Liquid Gold for Photoshop and Illustrator

Hands up those looking for shimmer and sparkle at their fingertips in order to sublimate creativity out of the flatpack! Liquid gold all your while and there's no returning to the safe harbour of conventional font and design colours! Rose gold shall never be laid to rest for we shall lay it onto screen, print and beyond. Foil effects shall never foil as they unfold from the palette. Watercolour shall deliver its specks and streaks and watery blends like the real McCoy once translated to digital. Textured metallics that glitter and undulate with or without sunlight. Thanks Studio Denmark!

Source: Liquid Gold bundle for Photoshop ($20.00) and Liquid Gold bundle for Illustrator ($18.00) were both created by Alaina Jensen @ Studio Denmark, and are available to purchase from Creative Market.

** P.S: This is an affiliated article, it's got the magic links! If you like what you see and decide to make a purchase on Creative Market, Mirabelle will get some pocket money - thanks to you, my friend! Invested into cups of regal cakes and fancy coffee that will fuel this blog! How rad is that!