Archive for the 'style' Category

Happiness: the Tribute 21 Plate Challenge

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Tribute21_Most Popular_Reminiscent Innocence“Every year, global design and merchandising company Felissimo produces a series of charitable plates that traditionally feature the illustrations of present-day icons. This year, as part of Felissimo’s mission to promote better design for the greater good, the company extended the project to designers across the globe by hosting Happiness: The Tribute 21 Plate Challenge on DESIGN 21: Social Design Network. Felissimo is now proud to unveil its selection of winning plates, whose designs communicate a wish, inspiration or message for children and future generations about seeking happiness in harmony with our surroundings. A portion of the proceeds from plate sales will benefit the UNESCO/Tribute 21 DREAM Center Fund, which provides arts programs to children in post-conflict regions.

Giving designers a chance to share their work with the world, DESIGN 21 posted all submissions for the Tribute 21 Plate Challenge to the competition site. After reviewing 732 entries, based on originality, relevance, aesthetics, and ranking in an online public voting poll, representatives at Felissimo headquarters in Japan have chosen seven winners. According to DESIGN 21 Founder Haruko Smith, “Whether symbolic, literal or euphoric, all of the designs represent hope for a better future.”

The “Reminiscent Innocence” plate by U.S. designer Jody Boyce was selected as the “Most Popular” design as well as a DESIGN 21 “Judges’ Pick.” According to Boyce, “My goal was to try to capture those feelings we all felt as children; the innocent, naïve and green ideas we had about the world before we were thrown into it head first.”
The other six top designs chosen as “Judges’ Picks” include: Giorgio Cattano (Netherlands) for “Happy Forest”; Eugene Gu (China) for “TRUELOVE”; Arlene Birt (U.S.) for “Water Cycle: For Life”; Jeong Seok Oh (South Korea) for “Public Bath”; Alexandre Esteves Neves (Brazil) for “Soap Bubbles of Happiness”; and nen (Spain) for “How to be happy without.” Honorable mentions were also given to Ji Yeon Yoo (South Korea) for “The Blooming Happiness” and Bonnie Jordan (U.S.) for “Happy Harmony.”

all the winning artwork after the jump.
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United States Bookshelf by Ron Arad

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

us-bookcase
Pretty cool idea for a bookshelf by furniture design guru Ron Arad. A bookshelf shaped like the United States with each state having their own space.  So now when someone asks me where a specific book is, I can say it’s somewhere between Kansas and California. Ha, not for sale, but I’m sure someone can make one pretty easily.

via DesignMilk


New York City Cutout Map by StudioKMO

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

City.map.cutouts

How awesome. A city map of New York City, Paris, and a few upcoming spots cutout being held together by the street paths.
Check out StudioKMO on Etsy. NYC cutout is $550. Paris map is $250. Lots of hours cutting.

via thejailbreak


Gadgetoff 2009: Boom!

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

gadgetoff.2009_deka.arm2

gadgetoff.2009_mondo.spider2

Gadgetoff 2009 unleashed an intense series of kabooms,  zaps, chomps, and kerplurks rattling 400 attendees on the beautiful 83 acre Staten Island grounds September 25th while slinging Lenovo laptops with a trebuchet,  cooking hot dogs with Telsa Coil Towers, riding jet fueled 5g merry-go-rounds, writing code drunk for autonomous cars legally, and thrashing a series of incredible lectures and demos throughout the day! Welcome to the Gadgetoff 2009 Experience: Boom!

Robots rumbled in every corner ranging from dancing tai chi robots to tiny micro toy hex bugs that jittered their way into everyone’s pockets. The gigantic mechanical Mondo Spider chomped it’s way through the lunch gardens while on lookers enjoyed delicious alcohol infused sorbetDean Kamen of DEKA brought his breathtaking and ingeniously engineered “luke” arm (video) and toy inventor Brian Walker tinkered with large crossbows and rockets made to launch humans 20 miles across the air! Invisible inks, toys, gadgets, art, fire, illusions, magic, and disruptive ideas scorched the island while participants roamed in excitement and curiosity!

Just as I experienced last time, Gadgetoff invited the coolest hand’s on creatives to celebrate the Smart and Useless for an unforgetful day in disruptive goodness!

My adventure brief after the jump! (lots of pictures and videos)

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Viktor & Rolf Spring 2010

Monday, October 5th, 2009

viktor_rolf_1
I found the Viktor & Rolf Spring 2010 collection rather disruptive. Cool!

via todayandtomorrow


Where The Wild Things Are: Limited Faux Fur

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

where.the.wild.things.are.outfits

Where The Wilds Things Are releases soon, but in addition to the upcoming premiere Spike Jonze has commissioned Opening Ceremony to make some pretty awesome limited Edition Faux Fur pajamas! I want I want!


Philippe Starck: Design For Life TV series

Monday, September 21st, 2009


Design.for.life.tv
Philippe Starck has a reality show about design called Design For Life on the BBC… but not just design, but more importantly design thinking, observation, understanding, and how design is almost more about everything outside of what most think of design.

If your in the UK, let me know how the show is. If your not in the UK, you can catch a glance of the first hour long episode on Vimeo here or above.

Thus far, I’ve enjoyed the first episode and think it’ll be a great insight into what design really is… not just aesthetics or making cool objects, but understanding a story as a whole, a process, an eco-system and a rather complex element that is widely ignored.


Helvetica Web Love

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

helvetical_screenshot
If you’ve got some Helvetica love and use  twitter, Google Calendar, or Google reader, your in luck… give your web tech a clean graphic makeover using Helvetical (Google Calendar), Heletwitter ( twitter), and Helvetireader (Google reader).

I use the Helvetical(above image), tweaked it a bit and love it!


The Font War: Ikea Fans Fume over Verdana

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009



IKEA’s 2009 online catalogue uses the old typeface. (Futura)


IKEA’s 2010 online catalogue features the Verdana font.

Unbelievable! IKEA switches up their long lasting Futura font that everyone has grown to love to Verdana which though great, just quite doesn’t do the trick for me for an icon like IKEA! Outrage I say =)

Much like the whole Tropicana rebranding disaster that got rejected by consumers once it came out, I’m not sure this is a good move, though change and understanding take time… I’m sure ther was a reason for this… wait, isn’t Verdana a free font from Microsoft? I’ve had recent troubles in license agreements with font foundries.

Article:
“Thumbing through his local Swedish newspaper, Göteborg resident Mattias Akerberg found himself troubled by a full-page advertisement for Ikea. It wasn’t that the Grevbäck bookcases looked any less sturdy, or that the Bibbi Snur duvet covers were any less colorful, or even that the names given to each of the company’s 9,500 products were any less whimsical. No, what bothered Akerberg was the typeface. “I thought that something had gone terribly wrong, but when I Twittered about it, people at their ad agency told me that this was actually the new Ikea font,” he recalls. “I could hardly believe it was true.”

full article after jump via Time.

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Weekend Links

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009


Thought: Whoever taught us wine taste better in a glass container over  plastic, paper, or styrofoam container? Did we learn, or just observe and accept the norm?  Do we drive our own opinions, or just accept the norm?

Weird: San Paolo subway Fat seats.
Tech: ThisWasExpensive.com Info Viz chart, domain price vs visits.
Architecture: Wooden House
Trick: How to fix a car dent, with hair dryer and can of air video.
InfoViz: How different groups spend their day


TEDx YouTube Channel

Thursday, August 20th, 2009


The TED conference has transformed dramatically over the years thanks to the launching of TEDtalks which I’ve posted on several times. This past year, TED launched another brilliant event called TEDx which allows individuals to host their own local unofficial TED like events. Since March 2009 several events have taken place around the world. How awesome!

A few weeks back, I attended the TEDxBoston event which I wanted to post about, but had no videos to share. As of today, TEDx videos from around the world can be viewed and shared on the TEDx YouTube Channel as well as play lists from each location like TEDxBoston. I’ll post the TEDxBoston videos after the jump, and make sure to watch the last video with our favorite Ben Zanders conducting the Youth Orchestra of Americas.

TEDx YouTube Channel

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Weekend Links: SF

Thursday, August 13th, 2009


I’m off to San Francisco for a Weekend Wedding, so I’m posting my weekend links a bit early. If ya’ll have any must see, eat, go to events in SF this week, please let me know.

- Travel: Jetblue offers a all you can fly month pass, Sept 8-October 8 ) for $599! hmm, I do need a break, perhaps each weekend!
- Graphics: Incredible digital flowers by Macoto Murayama! very cool, I want the larger images!
- Fashion: Socks are fun, go get happy socks at happysocks.com
- Tech: Nerdy cool web2 pillows! haha, I want I want!
- Fun: Colored bubbles! yah, colored I said…and no stains! its magic!