One of the world’s most wearable music player just got even more wearable. iPod shuffle from Apple is just launched in five new colours. “Choose from five brilliant colours to make your musical fashion statement” as Apple describes it. Which colour of the iPod shuffle goes with your personal music taste?
Andra bloggar om: ipod, ipod shuffle, apple
Next week at the Stockholm Furniture Fair (7-11th of February) Finnish producer Artek is launching the production versions of its bamboo furniture called Bambu. The series is designed by Artek Studio/Henrik Tjaerby and is made of laminated bamboo. Prototypes were shown last year in Milan during the design week.
During the next week or two I will write some further notes and news concerning what’s happening at the Stockholm Furniture Fair.
Stay tuned!
Andra bloggar om: möbelmässa, möbelmässan, artek, möbler, design
The Mini Cooper is not only an example of a smart car with a “I would like to have one” appeal. Like the iPod or like the Rowenta kitchen series by Jasper Morrison (to mention a very few…). In other words a successful product based on a visionary design strategy. To build a strong community or a tribe among the Mini Cooper owners in the US a brand new billboard campaign has recently started. It is personalised in that sense that “talking” billboards are programmed to identify approaching Mini drivers through a coded signal from a radio chip embedded in their key fob. So when Kate is passing by she could get a nice personalised message saying “Hi Kate, nice day for your convertible”.
I hope that Kate still will have some attention on the road when passing these billboards…
Read more about it in a New York Times article here.
Andra bloggar om: marknadsföring, reklam, community, bilar
There are a lot of “school pop” icons in Japan. One of them is the indie band Kiiiiiii. Their style remind me of urban Tokyo and the creative street style (especially in Harajuku) and the bubbling happiness among the young generation. It is pretty cool music as well.
Andra bloggar om: indie, pop, tokyo
Eliot Noyes is one of the great heroes of corporate design. His work during the 50s and 60s at IBM, Mobil oil and Westinghouse led the way for future designers. Recently a new monograph by Gordon Bruce titled Eliot Noyes: A Pioneer of Design and Architecture in the Age of American Modernism has been launched.
Today most business executives knows that design is making good business. Design simplifies and creates boldness. But when Eliot Noyes some 50 years ago developed new and ground braking design programs the world had not seen anything like it before. IBM’s design chief, Lee Green says: “He also brought in the team of consultants who together were responsible for all of the visual expressions of the brand—everything from visual identity to architecture to publications to advertising and product design.”
But despite of this Eliot Noyes is not broadly recognised in the design community today. For example he hired Paul Rand to create the well known IBM logo, but very few know the person responsible.
Hopefully the new monograph will be able to change this by telling the story of the dawn of design in Corporate America.
Eliot Noyes was the first curator of design at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (the picture about is from their first design exhibition ever) where he early came in contact with some of the best modernist designers like Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Alvar Aalto, and Marcel Breuer. Eliot Noyes actually played a key role in making Knoll and Herman Miller producing furniture by Eames and Saarinen, furniture that have turned into design classics today. Eliot Noyes not only convinced Knoll and Herman Miller to produce the pieces, he was also deeply involved in making them understand that they had to develop both processes and technology to be able to realise the projects.
Later in his career Eliot Noyes continued collaborating with Eames, Saarinen, Alto and Breuer. His network did also include graphic designers like Paul Rand (mention above) and Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar, who together created the Mobil Oil identity. A great part of his success can be credited to his capability to connect with the best designers of his time. Only a few people got that special eye. In modern European design two persons stands out; Sheridan Coakley from British SCP got it (he discovered and promoted Jasper Morrison, James Irvine, Matthew Hilton among others) and Giulio Cappellini from the Italian producer Cappellini (Tom Dixon, Marc Newson, Konstantin Grcic, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and many more). To be able to do that you need something else than just an eye for good design, you need do understand the capability of a designer long before he or she shows you his/her full potential. You do also have to be able to read off present time and put your breakdowns in a correct context.
Gordon Bruce, the author of the new monograph, gives us this conclusion of the importance of Eliot Noyes; “he’s one of the giants on whose shoulders we’re standing. Eliot and his team changed the landscape of American design.”
Thanks to Business Week.
Andra bloggar om: design, varumärkesstrategi, designstrategi, identitet
Designws is showing ninety pictures from this years imm design fair in Cologne including pieces from Konstantin Grcic (picture above), Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Piero Lissoni, Hella Jongerius and Jean Marie Massaud among others. Take a look here.
Andra bloggar om: köln, mässa, design, möbler
Netherland-based Studio Smack was commissioned by the Museum de Beyerd (Dutch Museum for Graphic Design) in Breda to create “Kapitaal” (dutch for capital).
It is a typographical stroll through a Dutch city revealing the influence of graphic design and the ubiquity of advertising and branded messages in the urban landscape.
As you can see it’s an enormous amount of visual stimulation that affects us in one way or the other every day. Advertising has turned into a questionable effort both to build recognition and to build a brand. It’s commercial effectiveness is questioned. But still it is around us wherever we look.
Yoichi Nakamuta did put it this way in his text in a recent issue of my David Report bulletin; “Anyone who has been to Tokyo has probably noticed how every corner of the city is covered in advertising. It’s like a battlefield of advertising. It’s hard to imagine cities without it. Even if all the buildings in a city fall down probably the advertising would still be standing.”
Thanks to Ytlig
Andra bloggar om: reklam, marknadsföring, video, grafisk design
The design and product development company Ignition has recently developed an iPod alarm clock for the company Accurian. The alarm clock is a low-cost alternative — and has a completely unique look. The user simply sets the alarm time on the iPod (so there’s no need to learn a new interface), and then plugs in the alarm clock. The unit features a snooze button and a built-in charger, so the user wakes up to his or her favorite music — and to a freshly charged iPod. What’s best with this product is that it is based on cultural values easy to understand for people all over the world. And because it reminds of a classic alarm clock styling it immediately communicates not only the product’s function, but also its ease of use.
Andra bloggar om: ipod, apple, design, produktutveckling
The other day Olivier Rohrbach wrote a nice post called New Gentlemen from the fashion show Milan. What happened at the show this week in Paris then?
With “Madama Butterfly” in the speakers John Galliano did a beautiful show for Dior. The stage was full of Japanese elegance and embroidery. It was womanly beauty combined with moments of fantasy. John Galliano at his romantic best, his imagination running free.
Thanks to International Herald Tribune (where also further images are available)
Andra bloggar om: mode, kläder, paris, dior, john galliano
Luminous is Brian Eno’s first large-scale installation of 77 Million Paintings in London and is his latest work from over 30 years as a visual artist. It uses multiple monitors to display a constantly evolving painting, generated from handmade images, randomly combined by computers, creating an ever-changing ‘painting’ consisting of hand-made elements that evolve into almost countless variations.
Watch all 77 million possibilities and listen as layers if this trademark ambient audio mean that you never hear the same thing twice. This is a true marriage of sound and image.
Exhibition takes place on 27 January - 11 March in the Ultra Lounge - Lower Ground Floor - Oxford Street.
Andra bloggar om: konst, brian eno, selfridges
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