I am not sure that the actual finishing of these tables is for me...a little bit tacky and tasteless (well, the actual idea may be a little tasteless also), but I like the idea.
Great furniture for telling your old war stories around! Buy one now...cheap at about $3,000 a pop!
The newly redesigned online furniture store Nest, features an excellently designed interface that is clean and simple, that complements well the classic lighting and furniture designs on offer.
As well as some pretty expensive cult products, the store also offers more affordable items from one of my favorite product designers, Suck. The dead man pen holder is pure genius, and their mat that reads 'come in' or 'go away' depending on which way you approach it is fantastic.
Three chocolate bunny melting experiments. Created by Sander Plug in collaboration with Lernert Engelberts, the video is both painfully sad and beautiful, and not for children under 7 or chocolate lovers. Watch the rabit meets his sticky end all in the name of art. Check out Sander Plugs site for more examples of his work.
Via Nice To Meet You
I like this fun bookshelf that is designed to allow you to prioritize books and objects placed on the shelf, by placing them between the different mathematical parenthesis. Designed by Estudio Breder, you can read their blog or visit their main site. Read on Trend HunterTrend Hunter.
Sent to my by a friend, this had me laughing. I can't tell if it is authentic (very good hoax if it is not, but my instinct likes to believe it is authentic). The cabin staff give an alternative voice over to the traditional safety message given at the start of each flight.
Not Your Standard Airline Safety Demo!
Aggiungi al mio profilo | altri Video
Finally it is here. But it has been worth the wait. You can now buy online from the Diesel site, from Europe and USA from a single online store.
The Diesel Online Store officially launches today, and does so with an interactive window called the Diesel Style Lounge, that is designed to explore things that would not be possible in the window of a normal highstreet store. Models are seen floating underwater in a submerged space that the user can explore and discover the key outfits of the season. The models spin and flip as the camera pans around them Matrix style, and uses effects that are more commonly found in Hollywood movies than online.
For those that prefer a quicker and more direct experience, they can navigate direct to the male and female sections and browse from over 1,000 specially selected items. There are about three times as many items in this store than you would find in a normal Diesel store, and the selection has been chosen specifically for the more demanding and forward thinking online consumer. Some of the most sought after pieces, including specialist denim and fashion show items previously only available in a few cities, are now made available to people worldwide.
The presentation of the collection in the Style Lounge, in my opinion really represents a new direction in fashion photography. The technique used is a kind of 'Motion Photography', where the focus is still clearly on presenting the product, but adds a new dimention to the emotional angle of the image.
I have been fortunate to be a part of this amazing project, which has brought together people and companies from many different countries, and had a lot of fun on the set of the motion photography. The shoot in Berlin, Germany used a specially hand built HD Digital Video camera. The models, suspended from rigging were shot at 250 frames per second at full high definition resolution, so that when played back at normal speed it would slow one second of time down to 10 seconds. It was a fun shoot, and there was an elemtent of luck that shone down on those days. Firstly one of the models turned out by chance to have worked in a circus as a trapeeze artist since she was nine, and my Apple Power Book that got dropped actually remained in full working order (despite now sporting a rather nasty dent!).
Here are some images of the site and the shoot.
As I wrote in an earlier post, there is a rapidly growing trend of designer USB devices. More and more commonly people have the need to share digital content, and for now the USB key is the weapon of choice. Having become relatively cheap to purchace consumers are willing to spend more on the design of the device, and not just on the capacity of the device. This is a prototype for Louis Vuitton, designed by Fred de Garilhe, the 40GB devices come with digital or analogue watches, and are uncrusted in diamonds. The cap's lock is opened with the attached gold key. There is a massive market for these devices, but I look forward to seeing more practical implementations! I can imagine that storage will be completely integrated into jewellery and watches, and will be wireless so there will be no need to connect the to any other device to share data.
Read originally on Trend Hunter, read more on New Launches
This is really amazing. Watch this video of Light Grafitti. Purportedly a new phenomenon (and I can imagine that there is a creative challenge to go out and make your own version of this video), it involves drawing with light and capturing the image with a long exposure on a digital SLR camera. A popular thing to do, especially as a kid using sparklers was to write your name in the dark, and this basically takes that concept and runs with it. The thing that interests me, is that the post that I found this on (from Trendhunter) refers to Maglite, and I wonder if they actually helped create this. If that is the case, I give Maglite huge credit, as it is surely going to get a lot of YouTube views, and spark a whole raft of remakes!
Following on from the Diesel viral campaign for Freezy Sneakers, here is another example of how odd videos can be remarkably addictive and how strangeness has a very important part in advertising online. Here a man slithers across a Burger King restaurant floor and swallows hole someone elses burger, as if he were a snake. I am not sure what is more odd. The snake-like way he swallows the burger, or the repulsive thoughts of actually getting down and lying on the floor of a fast food restaurant!
Stuck for interesting Christmas gift ideas this year. Why not give someone you love a dose of Clap, or a loving case of Malaria. American company Giant Microbes sells a range of 'cuddly toy' replicas of the most 'popular' diseases. Each toy is based on the real virus or bacteria, albiet much larger than the real thing and with some fun additions possibly not actually seen on the real thing (such as the knife and fork of the flesh eating ebola bacteria.
Click here to spread something else, and not just love this festive season!
The last time I heard viral and feet mentioned in the same sentence I had to buy some cream for athletes foot. This time thankfully it is a lot more fun than a fungal infection.
Diesel’s latest online campaign for their Freezy Sneaker shoes takes a 1970’s video of a Finnish Disco Celebrity, mashed up to promote a new sneaker design, that is decidedly 80’s. Try and make sense of that.
Don’t blame it on the sunshine. Don’t blame it on the moonlight. Don’t blame it on the good times. Don’t even blame it on the boogie. Blame it on Aarlf Smaks, This native Finnish disco dancemeister was ‘THE’ man that any self respecting disco-goer aspired to be like, and is single handedly to blame for the way your dad deploys those sexy moves on the dance floor (the ones that obviously got your Mum so hot all those years back). So maybe, just maybe, he is in a strange way responsible for your being born?
While part of the emerging trend of video remixing, in this case the remix and music was created by Hexostatic - Diesel’s choice of Aarlf Smaks to promote their new Freezy Sneakers pokes a big glittery finger in the eye of the current trend of big name celebrity product endorsement. That said, if this campaign video goes viral Aarlf may just may get again?
I remember being shown the original film by an old Finnish colleague of mine, and it made me laugh so much at the time. I am glad that some how Diesel have been able to bring this video into a piece of communication.
Oh yeah, I hope it has a viral effect, rather than a fungal effect, but either way it still makes my feet itch for some reason.
The new video from Pet Shop boys is such an intellegent and witty comment on the Big Brother society we are building around us. Containing QR tags that link to online articles about privacy and rights, the actual aesthetic of the video is based on these little digital bar code devices. Ironically the look is very remenicent of the 80's computer game aesthetic that is having such a revival, yet in this case it is actually something very much about now.
Thanks to Martina for sending me this.
Honda's revolutionary robot 'Asimo', one of the first humanoid robots to be able to walk on two legs, appears in this commercial for the company.
As visitors to the Tate Modern gallery in London enter the galleries giant turbine hall, they are confronted with the disturbing sight of a giant crack. Starting as a small fissure, the 167 metre fracture grows wider and deeper as it snakes the entire length of the hall.
Created by Columbian artist Doris Salcedo, the piece is titled "Shibboleth," after a Biblical massacre in which members of a defeated tribe were identified for slaughter based on the way they spoke. The artist describes the sculpture as laden with meaning as deep as the crack itself. It represents the divide and gap between Europeans and the rest of mankind.
Personally I enjoy the concept of creating a scultpure that is more about the space it does not fill, rather than the space it actually occupies. It is in effect a hole. An empty space, that due to it's dynamic and powerful nature created a piece that is thought provoking and demands time and contemplation to get the most out of it. In this respect it is very different from some of the previous commissions to the yearly installation, that have been more immediately involving of the viewer, such as the giant slides by Carsten Höller.
The crack, cast in concrete and lowered into a hole dug along the length of the hall will be filled in next year, leaving a permenant and giant scar.
I have just returned from a shoot that used a camera that could capture video at 1000 fps, and the results were beautiful. I can't wait to post the resulting project here soon. High speed photography can create amazing results.
With a desire to see what else people were doing with this technology I had a look around and came across the work of Marting Klimas. We are all familiar with images of bullets speeding through apples, and the shattering of glass, but Marting Klimas has gone beyond the 'simple' cliche and made images that really create something unique. The smashing porcelain figurines not only look dramatic as they explode, but the way that the figures are fragmenting, and the fragments themselves complete a scene.
The magic split second moment when the figurines and their exploding fragments create a scene that perfectly expresses the original expression of the figurine. Each one amazing in its improbability of capturing such a perfect scene. The fragments seem to become crashing water into which the figurine is plunging. The fighting figures that seem to have caused themselves to have shattered through their own energy.
The images much better express themselves, than I could ever articulate and do justice, so just look at the images for yourselve. Awsome!
It also made me think just how did Martin come up with the idea - I can only imagine that it was through a lucky accident. and I would love to know just how many figures were smashed to achieve these results.
These are rare images where they say so much, yet the concept is so painfully simple. Totally awe inspiring.
Found on - Where We Play
It commonly felt that we are moving towards a future where technology rules the day and will make everones lives perfect, and there is an increasing fascination with technology and predicting how it will change our lives for the better. The current Diesel campaign takes a wry look at this imagined future and suggests otherwise...maybe the technology will be better (or not as the case maybe), but where there are humans involved, there will always be room for error...as the strapline states, we are only 'Human Afterall'. Be it human error or emotional, the future is a place where man is still man, and technology will take second place to the human condition.
Where there's transport, there are sure to be breakdowns. Kids that break your clone's capsule, rather than just the window that usually gets smashed. Do you really think that assembling your teleport cabnet from Ikea in 100 years time is going to be any easier than the KLIMPT desk you struggled with last year? See below some images from the campaign, that I am glad to have participated in the creation of.
See here some images from the campaign, and read on for more about the viral videos of the campaign.
The campaign is also being taken online with a series of viral videos that show that our relationship with technology may not be that different - with the guy who has to stumble out of his future home pod to go to the pharmacy for condoms and falls fail to his crashed voice recognition security door, leaving his hot date waiting inside. Another illustrates the possible dangers when using what will be no doubt the latest iPhone in the year 2050.
Teleporter
Voice Recognition
Space Dinner
This season has had a distinctly futuristic tone to it - with a spectacular holographic fashion show (watch it here), and the introduction of Diesel's Sister Yes shades that have integrated camera, phone, GPS maps, video playback...oh and can see into the future??? I kid you not...check out the shades here.
The Shades With Integrated Phone & Personal Assistant
The Holographic Show
It is nice to see cool product design coming to these ubiquitous little devices. This is only €32 from Brando.They are becoming the new jewellery. I really liked the idea of Nokia's 'Medallion' wearable digital photo device, but the design was pretty ugly. This is certainly an area where there should be significant development over the coming year.
The Nokia Medallion
Social networking has merged with TV program file sharing to in the form of TOITI.com. The new social network merges Web 2.0 technology with the world of TV and film downloads (both legal and illegal), making it super easy to find that elusive episode of your favorite show. TIOTI doesn’t actually serve the actual files for download, but it does aggregate links to the files.
It take the mess out of searching as the site sorts all programs by category, with associated series and episode linked. It also adds all the benefits of social networks—users get the chance to review programs, read comments from other members, get recommendations, and join groups based on viewing preferences.
Keep an eye out for this site—it will no doubt come under the eye of TV companies. The question is, will the industry try to fight it, or will they embrace it?
Start downloading here!
This device marks a real turning point in screen technology, and will change the way you view video and images in future! OK, so this actual device won't, but the technology that it is premiering will.
I met someone who has the priveledged possition to be given access to and test new technology for Sony and they are already using Sony's new OLED TV technology in their work (special effects for live performances) and say that it is amazing. Not only the high resolution but the way that the screen technology delivers the image in a way that renders black as pure black. Images will look far more realistic on this type of screen. The great thing is that they are far thinner than other screens, in this case the screen is only 3mm wide.
According to the BBC they are to go on commercial release at the end of 2007. The first screens will only be 11 inches and will cost around €1400, a fair bit more expensive than LED screens, but for professional use this still seems to make the technology viable until Sony develop cheaper and larger screens for personal use in coming years. As the screens are created using a form of printing this means that there will likely be little limitation in making the screens to any size. While people where showing off with their fancy 40 inch plasma's, they will be wowing us with full wall to wall screens in their living rooms in the not too distant future (seriously!).
These photos really caught my eye this week, in the current edition of Wired 15.09.
Shot by Daniel Stier, featuring people participating in scientific experiments that aim to seek out the physical limits of the human body. There is something very retro looking despite the hi-tech and advanced nature of the subject.
Check out more of Daniel Stiers photography here.
Really nice project by Phillip Worthington, where the shadows generated by the user are 'read' by the computer and then additional elements are projected onto the shadows.
Something that caught my eye today was the Million Penguins project. Designed with the intention to see if 'the novel' was immune from the trend of collaborative network/community based creative projects, the wiki based site allowed people to collaboratively write, edit and ammend the book. The site is now locked down, and you can no longer participate in the creation of the book - but you can read the results. I have not read it yet, and do not have high expectations of the results...but the process of making the book makes for interesting reading.
These are 'official figures', following a serious and extensive research campaign conducted by Marco van Hylckama Vlieg, and published on his blog 'The Web Is Dead'. Check out more ironic musing here.
For those of you with €60,000 to burn and with space issues on your huge luxury boat here is the product that you have all been waiting for. Personally if I had that much free cash, I'd simply buy a bigger boat! The engineering being the table is pretty smart though. I can just imagine the people that own this must spend all day opening and closing it repeatedly just for fun. Could get you into some painful situations though on those hot sunny days - make sure you are safely contained within your trunks before using the table!
Check out more products by D B Fletcher here.
This is an interesting update on the One Laptop Per child programme that aims to produce computers for developing countries for under $100. While currently at $170 per laptop (no mean feat either), the interesting thing about this new computer, is that it was completely rethought from scratch and introduces some energy saving concepts that should find their way into everyday computers.
This article by the BBC also incorporates embedded video content, which is part of a new trial for the BBC. Much better that the video viewer that has favored PC users over Mac's in the past. See below, an embed from the article.
The Little Bird project was initiated by Daniel Arendt and Christian Lindemann, graphic designers working in Germany, who asked illustrators worldwide to contribute an illustration of a 'little bird'. Apart from the weath of really cool submissions, the project's blog site of submissions is a great location to find cool illustration talent, especially as the subject matter means that the illustrators can easily be compared amongst each other.
The submissions can be seen online here. You can also by a poster containing all of the works, with a large cut of the profits going to UNICEF
I do not know if this project was run by the same guys as 'Bunny'. If you did not see the Bunny project, run on occassion of the Pictoplasma character design conference, Check this out. The same concept as 'Little Bird', but...yes you guessed it with rabbits!
Here are some of my favorite 'little birds'.
Marcos Zerene aka FormatBrain
Cecymeade
Sandra Schmalz
Eliane Mancera
I really love this video. While the ending is so inevitable, it is impossible to watch it through to the end. This is like art for YouTube. Will we see a growth in more 'artistic' video's made now for the web? I hope so!
The video is part of a series of protest videos against the legalisation of a new product, FUEL FOR LIFE. If you do not know what that is yet, you probably will do soon!
I really like the bold style of Christiaan Nagel's recent work - a mix of figurative but abstract paintings.
They are having their first solo UK exhibition. Working on framed masonite boards, which are spraid with 2k car paint. See some more glossy modern art online at Christiaan's site
The exhibition takes place:
Friday, August 24, 2007
6:00pm - 9:00pm
Coningsby Gallery
30 Tottenham street. (Get off at Goodge st.first left is Tottenham st.)
London
MAP
Simultaneous Vows - "With This Click I Thee Wed" Online & Off (VIDEO)
Japanese robotics engineers have created a robot that can with a fair degree of accuracy replicate a dancers movements. The dancing robot demonstrates how far bi-pedal robots have come in recent years, and the accuracy with which they can move in as similar a fashion to humans. It is no small feat to develop a robot that can shift its weight from one foot to another without falling over, let alone create one that can move with a great deal of grace and fluidity. Credited with being used to 'record' and then replay traditional dances that with time may otherwise be lost to history, this could become an interesting way to document spacial information, and then have it replayed back later. It could be applied not only to dance, but also to sport, saving the curling free kick of David Beckham, or the swing of Tiger Woods. Then the robot could beocme a teacher, complete with all the best moves in the industry. Not to be too distracted by the artisitic good intentions of its developers, the Guardian points out the often darker military reasons why such robots have been developed. So perhaps even if we are really not so far away from having humanoid robots on stage, it probably isn't long before they are patrolling the streets.
This flexible surface is computer controlled, so that it is in effect a 3D screen, capable of projecting three dimensional effects along it's length.
So only a few hours from the next announcement from Apple.
This company has gotten so good at generating anticipation and exploiting the immediacy of the web in making it's announcements. So the rumors are all about the new iMac line, which seems the most likely. I am also going to shoot that there will be an annoucement about new iPhones, a revised iPod, but most importantly a new software that would bring more community and social networking aspects to iTunes and .Mac and the iLife line.
Here's waiting til later!!! Does any other brand have such salivation before product launches???
The BBC launched it's peer to peer TV software 'iPlayer' two days ago as part of a large scale beta test. Only currently available to UK residents using the PC platform, the software allows users to download programmes broadcast on the BB over the previous seven days. These programmes are stored on the users computer and can be watched within the next 30 days. Once watched the file cancels itself, so it is not clear if a programme can we rewatched once seen. Being based in Italy, I do not think that I will be able to see the service in action yet. The programmes on offer do not include all programmes broadcast by the BBC, but only ones that the BBC has the rights for. An interesting annoucenment from the BBC also claims that the service will also be integrated within YouTube - though it is not clear exactly how this will be done.
Not the most practical or safest way to get to work, but looks like a lot of fun, and may be a good way to over come traffic jams!
Yes there is hope for dogs with weight problems and eating disorders. Entering an new realm in the world of exercise videos, Mariko Takahashi's workout should leave your pooch in perfect shape. This deliciously surreal clip is actually a short film to promote Panasonic during the 2004 Olympics, and was one of ten short movies in the Capture The Motion series . Made by Japanese designer, commercials and short film director Nagi Noda this film will freak you out. This is one of my favorite shorts, I can't imagine how Nagi came up with the concept, that comes across in such a positive way, yet on another level does seem to allude to more serious issues about our obsession with exercise and it would also not really surprise me to hear that there really were dog exercise video's on the market either!
I am really chuffed as I have been asked to join the 2007 judging panel for THE FWA (The Favorite Website Awards), which is really strong this year. This is a really great site that manages to turn up cool and innovative sites on a daily basis. It is a very useful tool for researching good design and and leading designers and agencies and has fast become one of 'THE' regular destinations for designers and online marketers. I shall be looking forward to the judging later in the year. The rest of the judges can be found THE FWA.
It has been a very busy period, with only a few recent postings, due to the amount of time I had been dedicating to the recent fashion show I had been working on. I am now back from my holiday and hope to be posting more frequently.
Just got back from Florence where I was a part of the team that put on this show. It was great fun! Enjoy!
An impressive animated video for Fujiya Miyagi, by Wade Shotter. More of his work can be seen here, at Factory Films.
Was this done by hand or generated by computer? If I had directed this, and the animator had complained at the tedious nature of manipulating each dice by hand, I would have told them to check out Google's latest addition to Google maps, and told them to think themselves lucky that they are not the individual that has to photograph every street in the world.
Check out the new amazing functionality here, and go to San Francisco to see it in action. How cool to see a real image of the exact place you are going to have to find - like this you will know that you have arrived exactly where you meant to go. Super useful!! And try clicking and dragging the image - you can pan around the image like a QTVR, and zoom in also.
Posts
All Comments
