Federico Slivka Lederer is well-traveled and well-worded. He is a graphic designer (with whom you may be acquainted with, particularly if you’ve been to a little site called TreeHugger), an art director, and an interaction designer. He is also an amazing photographer — a skill he won’t mention himself, but one that is easily discernable after glancing over only a few of his penetrating snapshots. However, after talking with Federico about all the things that he so decidedly is, one of his occupations seems to fit the young Barcelona resident more than any other: Federico Slivka Lederer is a teacher. I say this only in partial reference to his actual position teaching students at the Barcelona Film School, because the ways in which he fills that definition seep well through the walls of his classroom. In this interview, you will notice exactly what I did: Slivka Lederer is the type of person that is nice to listen to; the type that should be teaching, because he says what is worth hearing. Or, in this case, reading (and hopefully more than once).

JoshSpear.com: Tell us about your upbringing…

FS: I was born (hyperactive) in Buenos Aires in 1974, the same year the Football World Cup was played (and won!) in Argentina.

I was raised with joy and health in a small medium-class family. Nine months of school, three months of holydays… what else could I ask for?

My Czech grandfather used to visit us every weekend, and brought us a little Matchbox car; one for me and one for my brother. While my brother played with them and broke them after five minutes, I took them carefully out of their boxes, arranged them and exhibited them with accuracy. READ MORE…

Billie and Tootie have been friends since high school. Starting in their teens, they dreamed about opening a shop together, a shop where they could sell the things they liked, where they could be nice to the planet, and nice to the artists and crafters whose inventions would make the store special and unique. Many, many years later, Billie and Tootie found a way to make their dream come to life. A store called ReForm School now lies in Silverlake, CA, and it is filled with art, books, bags, fun stuff for kids, and things to make a house homey. A lot of it is made in earth-friendly ways, and all of it helps Billie and Tootie support the creative people who have filled their store with good things. ReForm School is also online, on another pretty site by Also Design. Here, people from places other than Silverlake can look at those good things- which is rather convenient, particularly if one happens to be searching for a nice gift or two over the weekend.

A recent issue of Esquire included a feature regarding America’s best-dressed males. There was a section honoring well-dressed celebrities, and a section for well-dressed men (of the un-paparazzied variety). The men, of course, were asked to explain themselves, to offer some reason why they should be acknowledged as a proper dresser. One offered some variation of the following statement: Women can spend hours squeezing onto a dress. It’s only right that men should reciprocate that dedication.

Let it be known: The thought of a man spending the same amount of time getting ready as a woman does not settle well with me. Boys, you have distinct formulas (open to creativity but nonetheless straightforward) for dressing. Follow them. This should take anywhere from 3-20 minutes. However, If you do want to get fancy, devote your efforts to grooming, which will be made easier by products from Acca Kappa, an Italian company that’s been making princes look like kings since 1869 (while simultaneously making them feel like men). You can find Acca Kappa in select stores in the States; go here to see what’s near you.

“Hey, stop looking at my cards!” isn’t an uncommon refrain heard during a friendly card game between buddies, but Custom 52’s Cycle I cards are all but designed to prevent you from sneaking a peek. The group struck on an interesting idea when they imagined using playing cards as unique vehicles for artists and their artwork, literally one pack at a a time. So after culling artists from open submissions and inviting the public to vote on which art made the final round, Custom 52 divided the winning works across the faces of a deck of playing cards. The pictures are nothing like the ones you find in your Old Maid deck; these artists hold up to their game and there’s a lot of names to be discovered here. Head over to their site to order the premiere deck, check out the full set or submit your work for the next round.

Sometimes I think if it were possible, I’d marry Google Reader. It places all of my pertinent reading material in one central place and waits patiently until I am ready to read it. The downside of this, though, is that I miss out on site redesigns — unless I’m told about it or I read about it elsewhere. That was the case this morning when I found out Grace over at Design*Sponge had up and made the site all sorts of gorgeous (and a welcome, welcome change from the old Blogger template, I might add), introduced some new contributors and features, and is just what you’d expect from a site that delivers such incredible content: clean, elegant and sophisticated. Also Design is responsible for the new digs (they did the site for Julia Rothman, pattern designer-extraordinaire), who just so happen to have a totally kickass site of their own. Great job, guys!

In case you hadn’t figured it out already, I’m a HUGE fan of mid-century furniture…and the newer stuff inspired by the masters. So, naturally, I got a little excited when I stumbled upon the Mute Chair by San Francisco design group Council. The Mute Chair immediately hearkens back to greats like Bertoia’s Bird Chair and Saarinen’s Womb Chair. I love the slightly smaller scale of the Mute Chair and the calming, organic lines that it presents.

According to Council, “The Mute chair is designed to inspire serenity and calm.” And somehow it does exactly that. In fact, I’d love nothing more than spending what promises to be a disgusting Friday curled up in one with a good book. Or maybe my computer — at least then I can pretend that I’m being productive.

Back in the day when the Polaroid represented the most instantaneous means of photographic gratification, most people were using them to capture the moment when they pantsed their friend at their house party and then displayed it three minutes later for all of their fellow partygoers to marvel at. With the era of the digital camera destroying the novelty of immediacy, Grant Hamilton has found a better use for the progenitor of firsthand photographic amusement; using his prehistoric SX-70, the Polaroid prodigy turns this nearly extinct film fossil into the most relevant of artistic mediums with his collection of snapshots that tend to turn ordinary things into extraordinary images by focusing on lines and the separation of colors and textures making for pictures that are truly worth a thousand words.