Books

You are probably often thinking how to improve your life and what are the steps you need to take in order to live better. Turns out the answer is quite simple - just constantly do the thing that you were thought to do when you were around 7 - to read. Whatever you need to know about how this world functions, be sure that tons of books filled with wisdom are out there just waiting to be reached. Chances that somebody has already stumbled upon a problem that you are trying to resolve now are very high. So why not learn from experience?

Here are few tips to hook you up into reading, that has worked for us: Don't finish a book if you are not really into it. Don't start a book if you are intimidated by its length. Start with titles that are appealing to you and create the habit of reading every day. Every day for 30 minutes. If after one year you have 20 books on your belt ,your mind will be re-programmed.

So how to find another 30 minutes in your already cluttered life? The good thing is that you don't have to find them. Just substitute the time you probably spend on watching TV with reading. You can also take a book in your office and spend some time with the author during your lunch break. It is not that hard.

And finally if you wonder how to allure yourself to start reading again, just grab a book and open the first page. Each journey starts with a simple, small step.

Our way to help you in this journey is to remind you about the existence of books and how their soft beauty can bring beauty in your life.

Unconstrained Bollards

Doctor”s garden

Doctor”s garden

What do you do when there is an obstacle in your way? How do you set your boundaries in life and how stretchable they are? Do you usually cross the per-defined social borders or you constrain yourself strictly in them?

My wife, and me, we come from completely different backgrounds and the way we were brought up, the way we had lived our lives before we met could be easily described as parallel. She was and still is, artistic and free, while I was and still am more focused and methodical. So recently when time came to introduce our adorable 2 years old to life essentials, we stumbled upon some impediments. We realized that we need to spend tons of hours discussing and working our way up towards construction of a common understanding of what is good, bad, right, wrong, how to define happiness and sorrow, when to say wholehearted YES, and when firm NO. To this day we are still struggling to find what is the best way to tackle these challenging issues. What we had agreed so far is to give her as much freedom as possible in some broad, but per-determined boundaries - a structured frame in which she can operates and feel secure, loved and appreciated. A frame, a set of bollards. Beautiful bollards. Check the project that we did here.

National theater Ivan Vazov

We preach that usually there is more than one way of doing things in life and if you live with that mindset it will help you make better choices, including setting more meaningful restrictions.

National theater Ivan Vazov

Here are few books that has helped us to shape our understanding on boundaries:

1. "Thinking fast and Slow" - Daniel Kahneman (brilliant book on how mind works)

2. "Gut feeling" - Gerd Gigerenzer (beautiful hacks, pointing on how to make decisions. Speaking about perspectives, this book contradicts in many ways with the first one)

3. "The development of personality" - Carl Jung (classic book on how to behave and approach life in general)

4. "The art of learning - a journey in the pursuit of excellence" - Josh Waitzkin (useful ideas on how to develop one's attitude towards studying and achieving).

5. "No!: The art of saying No! with clear conscience" - Jesper Juul (must read if you want to understand how to operate and be adequate during the first years of the child's upbringing)

6. "The seven good years" - Etgar Keret (adorable short stories and comprehensible life philosophy)

Enjoy!

Bollard Yoga Bag

The beauty problem

Beauty is a point of view. We give you a perspective on that.

They say that a powerful image worth a thousand words, but we will add few more to this one. Some will say that our logo elegantly portraits two warm lines that had murdered the parallel between them, desperately trying to be different. Others will say that it is ugly, dull, disorganized, too chatty, We won't argue with both.

Pink
Yellow
Me

Reflection

We are stunned how few questions people ask themselves and how little time they spend on internal scrutiny. We believe that there is unexpected, unexplored beauty in the profound thinking, in the deep mind digging that one should experience. It will give you richer perspective and help make better choices, especially when your beloved and trusted gut feeling loose ground.

When you drive on your way to work, walk to your favorite grocery store or simply ask your colleagues the customary “how are you today?” you perform a set of routines that construct big part of your everyday life. With the help of time and repetition they are transformed into automatic procedures and perceptions, called habits. Because of them you perceive the surrounding scenery as granted and perform number of actions on autopilot mode, rarely paying attention to them. So we take the habitual out of its uniformity, transform it and force you to challenge your typical emotions, perceptions and understandings. This fires-up and involves different parts of the brain and actually pushes you towards thorough thinking.

Designing different provocative projects is our way of breaking habits and pushing towards more thoughtfulness. For a start we won't create something completely new, we will re-work something that already exists through a technique called yarnbombing.

*Inspired by Simon Sinek, Tim Ferriss, Alain de Botton