Ever wonder what your perfect vacation is? 50% Relaxin', 40% Adventure, 10% Culture? Try out this Vacation Fun-a-lyzer. Just pack the objects that appeal to you into the mouthy suitcase and out spits your perfect vacation (Uh... or at least your perfect Royal Caribbean vacation). Very fun site.
Shinebox is trying to reinvent business cards by providing them in little perforated booklets. It's actually quite a good idea. The booklets keep the cards neatly together and you can put each booklet in a different spot so you are never without your cards. They are not the cheapest option at $149.60 for 10 books of 20 (card prices get lower with increased quantities), but there is something strangely satisfying about the idea of ripping cards out of a booklet.
I like the idea of this simple outdoor sink. It seems like a lot of added functionality for your backyard without too much cost or installation effort. The sink hooks up to your outdoor tap using a 4' hose; no complicated pluming involved. It includes two small work surfaces, a coverable sink, hanging hooks, and a 40' winding hose. (Found through Outblush)
I was playing around today with an app called Moody by Crayon Room. It is an iTunes add on that allows you to tag songs based on emotional criteria. Songs are tagged using a colored grid to indicate how happy or sad, calm or intense your find them. Songs can then be played back using one, or multiple mood tags, essentially creating a mood specific playlist.
I like this idea because I do listen to different music depending on what mood I'm in, but I wish there was a more automated way to create the tags. I appreciate that adding the tags yourself makes them personalized (as in, a song that makes me happy could make another person sad), but I don't have time to tag all 2500 songs in my library. It would be better if songs were automatically tagged based on variables such as song speed, genera, etc, and then I could go back and adjust them later.
I was also really intrigued by the idea of using colors to represent moods, as opposed to smiley faces or some other method. It takes a little while to get your head around which colors represent which moods, but I think it works. (Thanks James!)
The Smoon Bijou necklace turns lighting into interactive jewelry. This glowing silicon orb is like wearing your own personal moon around your neck. It comes with a silver chain and replaceable battery. Available through Generate.
If I ever get a fishpond, I'm definitely adding one of these fish lofts. It is basically a clear capped plastic tube, filled with water, standing off the bottom of the pond and rising out about the water. Assuming you have curious little fishies, they would swim up the loft to enjoy the view and you could enjoy watching the fish swim around above the pond. (Found through Teckie Diva's)
I'm sitting here in the unseasonably hot New York weather and all I can think about is how much I want one of these Selk'bags. Designed by Musuc, the Selk'bag is an evolution of the sleeping bag. It has the same puffy goodness as a sleeping bag but with a form fitting shape for warmth and added mobility, both in and out of the tent. (Found through The Cool Hunter)
I came across the work of Lori Early last weekend in SoHo's Opera Gallery. Her work was so striking and beautiful that it drew us in from the street. All of her paintings have a certain eeriness that grabs your attention. The big gothic black frames enhance the grandeur and mystique of the images they contain. Once you see the paintings up close you are drawn in even closer by the fine detail, until your nose is almost touching the surface and you have to fold your hands together to keep from reaching out and touching the hair or fur. Neither the artist's site nor the gallery's site do the paintings justice. Her show has only been on for about a week and already all of her paintings have little sold stickers beside them (each selling for a reported $55,000-$95,000).
I just spent the last 15 minutes daydreaming about which of these murals I want on my office wall and which would be best for the bedroom wall. Surface View has a large collection of beautiful wall murals that can be customized for any wall and sent to you in wallpaper style strips for easy application. Of course if you can afford the wall coverings than you can probably afford the professional installation option as well. The images include about 120 pictures from the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as a wide range of illustrations, photography and etchings. Their website is very nice and offers to show you the murals behind different pieces of furniture to help you daydreaming along. (Found through FWA)
This witty name tag cracked me up. Any fellow Princess Bride fans will appreciate it. (Thanks Q and Courtney)
This is an interesting twist on the traditional music box. It's a music box kit that comes with a small hand cranked music box and strips of paper music to determine which song the box will play. The kit comes with the paper strip music for Happy Birthday as well as some blank sheets, a hole punch and instructions on how to make your own music. This is a fun way to learn how to write music or show off your music box composer skills. Available at Grand Illusions or The Curiosity Shoppe. (Found through Cool Hunting)
Peter Callesen creates some amazing artwork out of cut paper. I particularly like his A4 Papercut series. Most of his pieces use the cutout in the paper to create part of the imagery and the sculpture formed out of the cut area to complete it. You can't help but be amazed at how much thought, effort and delicacy goes into each piece of paper.
Worldmapper is an interesting website that contains 366 maps that visualize different global stats. The maps use equal area cartograms that re-sizes each country according to a variable. For example, the above map shows Research and Development Expenditure. The country size is shown in proportion to the worldwide research and development spending. These types of maps are very good at quickly illustrating statistics and their popularity seems to be growing.
I get very excited when someone does something unique with a website. There are so many awesome websites out there that it is hard to pull off something new and interesting but I think Red Universe has done it. Each user to their site becomes a character in their universe. You get to run around exploring the site and chatting with other visitors. You even get to fly about in a little superman pose. It is simple but also fun, interesting, and most importantly engaging. The site recently won a well deserved FITC award in the Self Promotion category and ultimately won Best in Show. (Found through the FWA)
What If is one of my favorite new blog discoveries. It is a collection of random interesting ideas from the brains of Phoebe Coulton & David Goss. Some of the ideas are really good!
Solid Poetry is the graduate project of Susanne Happle and Frederik Molenschot of The Netherlands' Design Academy. It is a design for concrete tiles that reveal a hidden pattern when wet. The idea behind the project is that weather, especially rain, already changes the look and feel materials. Why not utilize this natural process to add beauty and style.
I think this project is so brilliant. It takes the negative of a rainy day and turns it into something positive to look forward to. The Solid Poetry also utilizes one of my favorite design ideas, a hidden delighter. Something that you don't see right away or isn't apparent in regular use but reveals itself as a pleasant surprise later on. This reminds me of my very first post on this blog, the Stamp Mugs. (Found through The Style Files)
Living in New York I can really appreciate this redesigned NY subway map. It is much cleaner and easier to read than the existing map. Anyone who has been to New York knows that the current subway map is a lot harder to understand than it seems. The color coded lines are easy enough to follow but then you add the lettered trains and good luck to you! Unfortunately this redesigned map is only a concept, developed by Eddie Jabbour of Kick Design, and apparently not being adopted by the NY metropolitan transit authority. Check out comparative images of the old map and the redesigned map here. (Found through Swissmiss)
Thanks to some of the Milan Furniture Fair coverage, I was recently reminded of this gorgeous radiator design by Joris Laarman. The radiator was Laarman's graduate project at the Design Academy Eindhoven back in 2003. It's made out of tubing, similar to that found in floor heating, cast with glass fiber reinforced concrete. The large amount of surface area on this radiator makes it highly effective at dispersing heat. That, and it's not your regular eyesore of a radiator. Laarman website describes that he is "searching for ornamental but somehow necessary form" and wants to "demonstrate that functionalists are also sinners of styling, and that soberness is not always more functional than highly decorative form".
In need of a new screensaver? How about this nice Polar Clock by Pixel Breaker? It shows the date and time in growing color coded circles. Although it's not particularly effective at saving your screen (because it has a fair amount of non-moving or very slow moving graphics), it is fun to watch. Available in 2 versions (I kind of like the first better) for Mac or PC. If you don't want to install this as a screensaver you can also just experience it online here.
