I'm moving away from New York this week :( I'm really going to miss the character of the city and all its inhabitants. This reminded me of the site Overheard in New York. It's part of a series of websites where people submit pieces of overheard conversations. Too funny! Overheard in New York is my favorite of the Overheard websites. You just have to read a few posts to appreciate the awesomeness of New Yorkers.
I was very inspired looking through the portfolio of fashion designer Aitor Throup. I'm not sure that fashion designer is a very good title for him. He seems like more of an artist/illustrator/storyteller who just applies his talents to the world of fashion. The end result is captivating. You can see the background story and characters oozing out of every piece of clothing. Aitor's stunning sketches add the extra wow factor.
Virtually Mine is an interesting exhibit created by CITIZEN:citizen for the Peel Gallery. The exhibit examines the value of objects. By value, they don't mean how much it would sell for at an auction, but what kind of value the object has to its owner. The general public is invited to bring objects into the museum to be cataloged for the collection. When someone submits an item they describe themselves, the object they are submitting and the explanation for its inclusion. One of my favorites is the Armani Handbag included in the image above. The owner explained its value by saying "It's my favorite bag. I think it's extremely classy and I got it on sale in SoHo for nearly nothing. I feel sexy when I use it."
On its 15 year anniversary, the Canadian design company Taxi created The 15 Below Project. The aim of the project was to give back to the community by designing and producing a jacket for the homeless. With the help of Lida Baday, Taxi created a very well thought out jacket that addresses the needs of homeless people. The 15 Bellow Jacket is made of black waterproof, breathable, lightweight fabric. It has 9 pockets that can be stuffed with newspaper to transform the rain jacket into a warm insulated snow jacket. The jacket also folds down to be worn as a backpack or used as a pillow. Taxi is donating 3000 15 Below Jackets to homeless people in Canada and the US. You can read more about this inspiring project at The 15 Below Project's website.
If you are someone who measures distances in football fields, height in Statues of Liberty, or is just plain all about opportunity costs, then you should definitely check out the How Much Does it Buy website. It allows you to calculate how many A380s, iPhones, Beers, Kidneys, etc you could buy with a set amount of money.
Ha! If someone served me a drink with denture shaped ice cubes in it... it would totally make my day! I can understand how people would find these ice cubes a little disturbing, but personally I think they are brilliantly hilarious. The Frozen Smiles ice tray is one of Jason Amendolara's witty designs for Fred. (Found through Pan-Dan).
I stumbled across the stunning information graphics of Christina Van Vleck today. I was particularly drawn to her Shape of Family project (shown above). It's a series of 5 graphics that depicts the family lines of herself and her 4 sets of grandparents. This is a nice, clean way of depicting a family tree. The circular shape takes lends itself to the expanding shape of the generations. Very nice.
I enjoyed this little animation advertising HEMA stores. It adds some personality to the world of online shopping. It takes a minute to start, so be patient and restrain your hyperactive mouse finger.
An important step in environmental change is to raise awareness. River Glow's raises awareness about water pollution by using a simple visual indicator to communicate water quality. Designed by The Living, River Glow is a floating system that monitors a river's pH level and gives off red or green light to indicate pollution levels. The system is energy self-sufficient, with energy supplied by one of a few experimental energy generating devices. The suspended light of River Glow has a certain artistic quality to it that reflects the beauty of the water it's trying to protect.
Check out this Current State concept that I worked on for Kaleidoscope's The Greener Grass project. Current State is a conceptual mobile application used to monitor and control energy usage in your home. The concept was inspired by our discussions about energy consumption and how to teach people to take responsibility and control over their energy usage. The conceptual application allows users to set energy goals for themselves and then monitor how well they are meeting those goals. Current State also gives users remote control over powered devices within their home. Users can turn devices on or off, as well as setting up automatic timers to maximize their energy efficiency.
My Oats is a crazy little online drawing application that allows you to create multi-sided kaleidoscopeing patterns. Patterns can be made with anywhere from 2 to 16 repeating areas. You have a range of drawing tools to work with and control over opacity, line weight, background color and glow. Users have created some amazing results. Check out their gallery and play around with it for yourself.
What If is a series of projects, by British Architects Gareth Morris and Ulrike Steven, that asks what if statements about architectural spaces. For example 'What if this vacant car park became a place used by the young people?' or 'What if you woke up with a heard of cows outside your door?'. One of their most interesting projects is called Vacant Lot. It looks at the idea of using a vacant lot for something useful, like growing vegetables and flowers. They opened up a vacant lot in London and filled it with 70 large grow bags of soil and a water tower. The residents of the community took over from there, planting seeds and tending to their makeshift allotments. I think this is a really cool idea. What I like about it is that using the grow bags gives it the possibility of being temporary and mobile. You could essentially just use a lot while it's free and then move onto another lot when someone starts building.
I appreciate the idea of buying used clothes but I also find it hard to get past the fact that they once belonged to someone else. My overactive imagination gets caught up in thinking about who owned the clothes before me, what kind of life they lived in them and what sort of mischief they got up to. Re-Shirt has taken advantage of this fact and turned the story behind a used t-shirt into a selling feature. People donate their used t-shirt along with some insight into its existence so far. An orange label with a registration number is added to the shirt. From then on, all owners of the shirt can document their experiences with/in it, giving the shirt a life and history of its own.
I really enjoyed the story behind the t-shirt shown above. Here it is as told from its previous owner's perspective: "I was wearing this t-shirt on a Sunday picnic with friends, kids and dogs. It was a nice autumn day and we enjoyed our sandwiches and a really very nice homemade chocolate cake while sitting on our blankets in the grass on a sunny hill north of Vienna, Austria overlooking the skyline of the city."
Artists Christine Santora and Justin Gignac have come up with an uber creatively practical approach to art - they simply paint what they want. The project is called Wants for Sale. Each oil painting that they do is of an object or concept that they desire (i.e. an iPhone or some buffalo wings) and then they sell the painting for the cost of that object. For example their painting of a Slice of Pepperoni costs $3 while the Financial Security painting cost $1000000. They are also willing to trade if you have the exact item they want. There is something really refreshing about the honesty and directness of this approach.
Christine and Justin also have an even more brilliant sister site called Needs for Sale where they use the same approach to raise money for charity. You can buy paintings of a Toilet ($100 for Habitat for Humanity) or a Can of Peas ($250 for City Harvest). Not only do you get to donate to charity, you also get a piece of art with a great story behind it.
The Puma Glow Rider is the next rev of the Puma Bike, available this spring. The bike is part of Puma's Urban Mobility collection, focusing on products for young city dwellers. Similar to previous versions of the bike, the Glow Rider has several urban-centric features such as a built in auto-destruct lock and a semi-fold frame for transporting on buses or subways. The Glow Rider's main new feature is it's glow-in-the-dark frame to increase the bikes visibility at night. The frame will be available in two colors (Buttermilk which glows green, and Orange which glows more orange). The new bike will also come with a matching currier bag, riding jacket and t-shirt. This is a very well thought out city bike. All the features you need, and nothing you don't.
I'm going to be stepping away from the computer for a few days to enjoy some fun in the sun. While I'm gone, please feel free to browse my archives or venture to some of these suggested links.
I've been researching videos with environmental messages lately. This is my favorite video that I've come across so far. It's called Who Knows What's Next by Three Legged Legs. What I like about it is that it is done from the perspective of the Earth, who has a 'case of the humans'. The short film entertainingly illustrates how humans slaughter all other forms of life, guzzle natural resources and poison the atmosphere - throwing off Earth's equilibrium. That all sounds very daunting, but the movie is done in such a way that it is funny and effective. I wouldn't want a case of the humans!
Lakai has a refreshing approach to environmentally friendly shoes. They call it The Recycling Program. To eliminate waste, material offcuts that would otherwise be thrown out are used on the panels of The Recycling Program shoes. The shoe's sole is created from a mix of regrind rubber waste and new rubber, reducing the use of new material by 50%. No two shoes are exactly alike. In being honest to the recycling approach, designers only specify which of the shoe pannels are to be make out of recycled material. It is up to the manufacturers to determine what materials they have excess offcuts of to apply. Two of Lakai's shoe styles are available in The Recycling Program, the Kost-One (shown here) and the Coda. (Found through Sub-Studio Design Blog).
The other day, my coworker Jessie was telling me that her New Year's resolution this year is to not use plastic bags. This struck me as a very smart and sensible resolution. It's a positive change, it's a bit of a challenge and it's realistically achievable. Anyway... this reminded me that I've been meaning to purchase these Baggu reusable shopping bags. I know there are a lot of reusable bags out there right now, but these are the ones I chose to go with. I like them because they are large (as in they hold a lot of stuff), but fold down to a small wallet size package. They come in all sorts of wonderful colours and cost $8 each (or $22 for 3 or $38 for 6, if you are really committed).
Online portfolios are a really hard thing to create. I'm always thinking of the next revision of mine and looking for good examples to take inspiration from. I came across this gorgeous one today. It's called Glashaus (Glasshouse) and it's the online portfolio of German graphic designer/illustrator Peter Hoffmann. It's elegant and minimal, allowing the work to be the main focus. Peter has some excellent content as well, including packaging design, logos, sketches and illustrations.
