If you're looking to freshen up your living area than these plumber bookshelves would be an added bonus.  I recently visited someones home who was rocking one of these in their kitchen and it definitively become a talking piece. Stella Bleu Designs has introduced some of the most creative shelving styles with plumbing pipe that I have seen so far. They're available in an array of style and are constructed of plumber pipes that look to be protruding from the walls. So if you want a slick book shelve that gets people talking, then BAM! Here ya go!



Source: swagsofresh

I'm always looking for sweet looking pieces for my room or just about anything that I think would look cool. I came across this wooden book rack from a friend on Facebook and immediately thought this was awesome. It was created by Gustav & Agusta from OldAndCold on Etsy. This custom made wooden book rack in Wenge wood ($199) comes with a set of 10 pins/bookmarks. These pins are detached and can be moved around on the rack. The books rest on a small wooden plate so the pages stay intact (see inlay on pic 3). The plates can be moved back and forth on the bottom of the book to control the height of which the book hangs, making it possible to use different sized books. Check out more of their items on Etsy.

Guy Laramee is the man behind these two series Biblio and The Great Wall, where books become the landscape and the pages become the scenery.  These books take on the shapes of mountains, plateaus and ancient structures and they capture a sense of peace and time.  Check out more of his book sculptures and his photography work on his site.

Advertising from the Mad Men Era ($59.99) is a two volume collection of fascinating advertisements from the 50s and 60s. It's a collection of thousands of images; this companion set of books offers the best in American print advertising in the age of the "Big Idea". It captures the colorful capitalism that dominated the 50s and 60s and shows the height in which magazines were flooded with campaigns selling everything from girdles to guns. It also includes a wide range of significant advertising campaigns from both eras; giving you an insight into the zeitgeist of the time but it won't be available until February 2012. You'll have to wait 2 months to get a copy but I think it would be worth the wait. Check out the other books as well on Taschen.

Jeremy Kool is the 3D artist and graphic designer behind "The Paper Fox Project". His aim is to create a children's picture book for the iPad and Android tablets to be release in 2012. The art style used in this book is quite unique and is created digitally to make it look like paper-craft and origami. I think this is a neat  project. If you want to help fund his project or find out more info you can check it out on Pozible or on his blog.

What is the browsing only project? It's a project that focuses on the unloved books of the world, ones that forever sit on the shelves and go unsold. These books were collected from various bookstores and designers were invited to use them as canvases to express their creativity. This catalogue features both series one & two of the project and the 45 designers that contributed and it shows the "before & after" results as well.

There are only 300 copies that were printed and circulated around the world's good bookstores, shops and design studios just for people to browse.  The catalogue will only stay for a short period of time before it's collected and passed on to another location. Condition of the catalogues and the places they been are document and can be found here.



Source: Behance

They also created the secret staircase, hidden from the main reception room to access the new bedroom lit by the roof light. They built the library staircase in the stairs for the owner who had to many books and no space for them. With the skylight above it illuminates the staircase, it becomes a perfect place to stop and browse or have a nice read.





Source: FFFOUND!

I don't think that I have written about a book before on The Collective Loop, so this will be a first. The book Symbol by Angus Hyland and Steven Bateman ($40) is a book that features over 1300 symbols, organized into groups and sub-groups according to their visual characteristics. Each category includes a short introduction, with expanded captions providing information on who the symbol was designed for, who designed it, when, and where appropriate, what the symbol stands for. The book is 366 pages with 1400 illustrations of symbols to get your design motivation kicking.

Below are some videos of Angus Hyland talking about the book Symbol. It's quite interesting because he talks about old school versions of companies symbols to now. It's a five part series and if you would like to watch the rest they are available here.