Project paper
via engadget

Interesting project to start kids early in the thinking process in saving for charity! Very cool and needed.

“The power of piggy:

We believe that this simple product, Piggy, can truly make the world a better and more compassionate place.

Piggy helps teach kids about charitable giving, with the hopes of inspiring new generations of caring, sharing, philanthropic citizens.

With 12,000 children born each day in the US, imagine the social impact if just a fraction of them learned powerful lessons
of gratefulness and kindness to others.”

See the full project at goodlittlepiggy

A few pics after the jump.

Neat!

“In the sought-after London boroughs of Chelsea and Islington, inner city birds often have to claim their nesting space quickly! However, birds that are open to changing their wild ways might be convinced to try out the innovative bird-housing concept developed by the artists at London Fieldworks. The “Spontaneous City in the Tree of Heaven” opened recently as part of the Secret Garden Project by UP Projects and hopes to develop into a haven of biodiversity and create a new public awareness of the ecological and cultural value of urban green spaces.

With over 250 bird and bug boxes available in the stunning sculptural art installation, birds can choose from a range of shapes and sizes of boxes to use for shelter, nesting or feeding spaces. The diverse complex of bird boxes were designed to reflect the architecture in the nearby Georgian terraces and 1960s flats that surround the park in Duncan Terrace Gardens and Cremorne Gardens. We love the strangely organic forms that are created by stacking these distinct modular box shapes together and are happy to hear that they have been woven together using elastic bands, which means the structure can change over time as the tree grows.

Read the rest on Inhabitat with more pictures.

Hehe, so if your struggling to pick a typeface and don’t have a graphic designer to help you out, here’s a fun little infographic that might save you some thinking time in choosing a font.

via gawker (thanks shaun m)

“Sao Paulo ad agency Moma Propaganda created a wondeful series of retro future ads for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Skype as part of the “Everything Ages Fast” ad campaign for Maximidia Seminars.”

I’d really like an embossed large print of these posters… what a great project! Somewhat reminds me of Back To the Future.

via LaughingSquid (This Isn’t Happiness & Ads of The World)

See all the Retro Future ads after the jump!

Alphabet pencil heads anyone? Pretty random, but i gave me a smile.

“Many artists have used pencils to create works of art – but Dalton Ghetti creates miniature masterpieces on the tips of pencils”
via telegraph.co.uk

The NYtimes has a great post on “Strange Cargo at Kennedy Airport” by Taryn Simon. Everything from the bizarre, the obvious,  questionable, and extremely curious  objects.

“These images are from a set of 1,075 photographs — shot over five days last year for the book and exhibition, ‘‘Contraband’’ — of items detained or seized from passengers or express mail entering the United States from abroad at the New York airport. The miscellany of prohibited objects — from the everyday to the illegal to the just plain odd — attests to a growing worldwide traffic in counterfeit goods and natural exotica and offers a snapshot of the United States as seen through its illicit material needs and desires. ”

See the project here, read more about it, or  see many of the picture mirrored after the jump.
Buy the book with all 1,075 images on Steidl.

What a great installation in Tokyo! Wish I were there to experience it…as if I were inside a big snow globe!

“‘sensing nature‘, an exhibition which rethinks the japanese perception of nature, has just opened at the mori art museum, tokyo with interpretations of the subject made by takashi kuribayashi, taro shinoda and tokujin yoshioka. the three japanese artists / designers give abstract or symbolic expression to immaterial or amorphous concepts as well as natural phenomenon such as snow, water, wind, light, stars, mountains, waterfalls and forests. their ideas of nature suggest that it is not something that is to be contrasted with the human world, but that it is something that incorporates all life-forms, including human beings. the exhibition consists of newly commissioned works by each of the three artists, each attempting to stimulate our sense of nature through large-scale installations.

designboom gave a preview of some of the works that would be on show in the exhibition, now here’s a look at the final installation of tokujin yoshioka’s ’snow’ that is on show.”

more images after jump mirrored from designboom

Melbourne based graphic artist Benjamin Hammond offers some fun, original, fast 1 minute portraits on his new website OneMinutePortraits ! Yup, 1 quick minute! You submit a picture, he post a picture of what he did in 1 minute, and you decided if you want to buy it for $20 which includes shipping!
I have to admit that sometimes the quick drawings have more personality  and jazz than the longer ones… It’s somewhat like an elevator pitch.. where you just get to the point and do the obvious., or the twitter of portrait making…your self-portrait in less than 60 seconds!

This does take me back to the RISD days a bit when one of the lasses was to draw 200 self-portraits in a few days… what a rush!

Check out OneMinutPortraits.. and of course see more of Benjamin’s work here…and let me know if you try this out!
via coolhunting

“http://davidkassan.com A quick Apple ipad live fingerpainting demo that I streamed live from my Brooklyn studio on Monday June 21st. 2010, The model sat for 3 hours as I painted and answered questions on how I use the iPad and the Brushes app. Just thinking of creative uses for the ipad.”

Watch the video above or here.

The talk our buddy Dan Ariely gave at Poptech2009 is finally up. Watch it here, and be sure to pick up Dans books Predictably Irrational or his new book The Upside of Irrationality.

Fast lane please! A great shout out to Volkswagen for another great project!
via facebook/volkswagen

Following an old but still fun trend in pixelating products in our world is turning digital icons into products. This is probably one of my favorites but I really can’t wait until our entire physical world is represented by 2d objects… graphics and products at their best… at least visually.
(pics mirrored after jump)

via designmilk (source: brigandacreative)

I’ve seen some pretty creative proposals (ie, the designers proposal), but when the person proposing is in the film/entertainment world, this is what you get! How awesome. Watch the entertainment proposal above or here.

I’ve been incredibly busy helping organize the TEDxCambridge event occurring May 16th at the MIT Stata Center. The theme “How do you eat”  is based off of this year TED prize winner Jamie Oliver in regards to Food and education. If you are in Boston May 16th, apply to get an invite and let me know. We can only invite 300 attendees and registration will close soon. You can learn more on tedxcambridge.com

Also, if you are in a position to sponsor any food, funding, or gifts for the event, please contact me asap. (now! =) ).
We will have 2 break sessions followed by an evening event in eating, drinking, and idea sharing!

Lots of awesome speakers in the line up!
- Wylie Dufresne: WD 50
- Chandler Burr: Times Scent critic
- Dan Ariely: Behavioral Economist
- Richard Chisolm: Filmmaker
- John Gertsen: Mixologist
-  many more!

update: Photos on flickr, via eddric(350),Tino(40), JB (60), millie(16)

Artist Peter Root takes 100,000 staples to create Ephemicropolis representing a small city ranging in building sizes.
via designboom

tons of pics mirrored after jump.

I’ve mentioned  1 sheet cardboard furniture studies as one of the RISD freshmen foundation projects, but one other great project was making furniture with lots of cardboard. I do not have any pictures from my time there, but Lazerian Studio has a great example with similar results. Oh the memories!

via inhabitat

The 2 x 4 ring. Comes in Sterling Silver or 14 kt gold!  I want!
via digandiona

Right after that I’ll be scurrying off back to Boston for ROFLcon II for a rather fun 2nd day of the web in a room!
Several posts to follow, otherwise, lots of extra mini links on the facebook fanpage.