Industrial Circus

Subway life

2008-02-25T17:41:00.002-05:00

Oh the tragedy of an abandoned Pooh-Bear face down in the tracks. New York is a hard town.

God help us

2008-02-25T17:34:00.003-05:00

Apparently we now have so much unused stuff lying around that Better Homes & Gardens decided we need a magazine dedicated to where to put it. AND! we are shown inside ways to subtly show off our stored garbage to guests who come over. Power=Waste. You can find it wherever magazines that tell you you're fat and have no sex life are sold.

I wanna smell like Sex Forever!

2008-02-25T17:22:00.003-05:00

Along the hall at my local carwash where I can watch my car get clean through the glass on the left and peruse industry run amock on the racks to the right, I learned that my car does not have to go on smelling like the four year old station wagon that it is. I can choose between, among others, an air freshener to give my car that new car smell again, and a freshener to make my car smell like sex forever. Unfortunately the cashier would not let me get up inside that package to see if I would be making the best olfactory choice for the future of my family car.

Nut Horn cookies

2008-02-25T17:17:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure who's writing copying and naming stuff over at Heaven Scent (also very good), but if they should need any additional help getting their message across clearly, I'm right here.

Flushable Diapers

2008-02-25T17:10:00.005-05:00

Ever a step closer to throwing out the baby with the bath water, these flushable diapers could catch on. We'll have to wait and see.

Watch out Allan!!!!

2008-02-25T17:07:00.002-05:00

Signor Federico Rogers

2008-02-25T17:02:00.003-05:00

I love this packaging. It makes me want to eat polenta in front of the tellie watching Mr. Rogers reruns dubbed in Italian.

I saw you at Barney's...

2008-02-25T16:53:00.002-05:00

I saw you at Barney's last September. You were sitting alone at the bar at Fred's, drinking iced tea, dipping olive bread into oil and stuffing your face. You were wearing a hot Pucci short dress and screaming in Porteguese into your headset, waving your hands around while switching conversations between your gold Razr and your Blackberry and sometimes texting. God, you must have so many friends. Everyone at the bar was in awe and smiling at you. I love you. Did you see me? Did you see anyone?

Cadillac G3... yeah!

2008-02-25T16:47:00.006-05:00

This slick ride was outside my shop the other day. I had never seen this model before. Must be something new from Detroit in response to the whole eco-anti-SUV thing.

HVAC and Juliet

2008-02-25T16:33:00.004-05:00

There's something horribly sad about the unrequited relationship between this ventilator duct and the fish, trapped in a painting, that wants the ventilator to be an underwater sea creature friend. It's so close to coming true! Maybe it's just me.

Sustaina-bling

2007-12-12T14:03:00.000-05:00

Here are some better shots of the graduated trash bin, part of a ploy to get consumers to waste less or at least be more conscious of how much goes to waste. It puts your waste on display. POWER=WASTE. This is a luxury item, a big piece of glass. It takes a lot of money to show you care. It's expensive. It's bling. But it promotes sustainability. It's sustaina-bling.

Conspicuous Conservation: The Rise of the Sustainable Class

2007-12-04T11:32:00.000-05:00

This Friday, December 7, 2007, I am presenting my master's thesis entitled Conspicuous Conservation: The Rise of the Sustainable Class to the industrial design department at Pratt. It's been three long semesters on this puppy. I'll soon have a link to a pdf of the document for any one who wants extra punishment over the holiday break. So keep an eye out for that one. In the meantime, here's the blurb I send out when someone asks what this thing is about:

This thesis explores how product design is used as a currency for demonstrating social power (conspicuous consumption). It looks at ways of reducing the amount of waste created as a consequence of this phenomenon; and it looks at rising environmental consciousness in consumer trends. It proposes "transparency" of the entire production chain as a model for sustainable design and manufacturing. It further proposes that transparent sustainability will become a new form of social ostentation that helps drive the sustainability movement (conspicuous conservation).

So there it is in a nut shell. My products are done. I cannot show the product that deals most directly with the transparency mentioned above yet because it may go into production soon-- very exciting-- and so there's proprietary information and logos and stuff and I could get into trouble.... But the second product is below. The graduated trash bin draws attention to waste, showing off the sustainable awareness of the user. And being glass, it forces more careful behavior regarding what we "throw" away. You don't want to break this thing. It's really expensive. I'll need to reshoot I think; the sandblasted graphics aren't popping yet. It's a prototype....

Another toy recall from China

2007-10-24T10:23:00.001-04:00

via Molly M. Thank you Molly for this information. By spreading the word you shield us from cannibalistic pedophiles who pray on our nation's playgrounds.

Is this universal design?

2007-10-24T10:18:00.000-04:00

I scratch my head....

And now a word from our sponsor

2007-10-24T10:14:00.000-04:00

At Lexington Gardens in Newtown Connecticut, we have the clear decor philosophy you seek for your home improvement purchases. So come on down and...

A very industrious tree

2007-10-24T10:12:00.001-04:00

"Pure Essentials" is classic greenwashing

2007-10-24T10:04:00.000-04:00

The ingredients and text on the label is identical to original Tide, Downy, etc. products. Shame shame. Go and read it for yourself. Don't let them get away with this!

Everybody writes Stairway to Heaven once.

2007-10-24T09:56:00.000-04:00

I designed these stools for a client and made them with me shopmatey a while ago:

They're laser cut steel legs slotted together and then some welding. Easy. What a genius! And then I went to ABC Home and saw these for sale:

An uncanny mid-century bummer as they say in the industry.

Flatiron Phallus

2007-10-24T09:46:00.002-04:00

33 years as a New Yorker, countless passings and photos and I just plain missed this. Huh.

On Color 1: Helga Steppan

2007-07-14T17:34:00.000-04:00

As blogged by hipstomp on core77 yesterday, Helga Steppan's new photographs in her series "Be Long A Part" are gorgeous portraits of her belongings arranged by color. (See them here.) Besides their being stunning works of art and examination of one's stuff, they provide an interesting look into what objects are typically what color. Color clearly has deep meaning for us in some amygdala place, and I ain't no color theorist so enough said on that; but I love scanning through Steppan's images to get a sense of functionality from the objects as an after thought to the sense I get from the colors themselves. For example the grey objects seem so predictably utilitarian, and the pink and yellow so joyful but unnecessary. There's got to be a lot to say about color and function, and a lot to read for that matter. Maybe someone out there will look at these photos and leave an interesting comment on this. Check em out.

Ice sinks to a new low!

2007-07-13T11:30:00.000-04:00

K and I were shopping in what we thought was our local conscientious grocery store when I spotted Genets' IceRocks. Inside the cardboard box are vacuum formed ice trays containing spring water that's hermetically sealed beneath a plastic peel-off top. Just freeze, peel, serve, and waste! How gross! And what's worse folks is that this is not another diabolically ignorant company from our own republic. Do not be fooled by their name, the Water Bank of America, these people are Canadians! Socialists! Their mission is some bullshit about preventing traveller's diarrhea (no pun intended) and providing clean water to those without. From the looks of the packaging and website, this is among the most effete and wasteful luxury products I've ever seen. Obviously these guys are not reading about our plastic waste epidemic due to bottled water consumption. (Poor Seventh Generation paper plates got stuck on the bottom shelf in the photo.) I'll take dysentery over this any day.

How can I be sure I'm in a Hotel?

2007-07-13T11:19:00.001-04:00

I wake suddenly in the early morning, disoriented from a dream. I look around. Is my taste really this bad? Do I have friends who decorate their guestroom so hideously? Where am I? Ah yes. I see that tell tale product that lets me know I'm in a hotel somewhere. The door closer. Vacation... back to bed.

U2 guitarist sues AT&T for defamation of pseudonym

2007-07-08T21:10:00.001-04:00

In the wake of poor public response to AT&T's "Edge" network which provides internet service to Apple's new iPhone, a lawsuit has been filed by Apple's own puppet and lead guitarist for the band "U2," David Howell Evans (aka The Edge). Mr. Evans, or The Edge as he refers to himself, claims that AT&T's Edge network "is slow and lame," and that its name is a defamaton of his pre-existing pseudonym and jeopardizes band loyalty. Furthermore, The Edge claims that the delay in loading a web page on AT&T's Edge network infringes on his signature guitar style. Neither AT&T nor The Edge could be reached for comment.

Sustainable Branding

2007-07-08T20:31:00.001-04:00

Walking past The Trash Bar in Williamsburg tonight was a breathe of fresh air. What commitment they show to their brand image!-- unsightly people loitering, a huge pile of trash bags, and a man digging through their garbage, and right outside the front entrance! No big bucks spent on glittering signage, no flyers being handed out. This is the recommodification of trash in true form. The people behind Trash Bar aren't creating trash in order to grow, they're using existing and available resources from the streets of Brooklyn to build their brand image. Bravo!

24hr silence @ core77.com

2007-07-01T03:23:00.000-04:00

It seems that a whole saturday has passed without a new post at core77. I smell blog dorks buried thumbs deep in their new iphones. Shit, why not? But I just posted this from mine. Ahhh, multi-tasking. I love this thing!

iPhone behavior forecast

2007-06-30T20:50:00.000-04:00

I've had my iPhone up and running for about eight hours now and it's AWESOME! I won't waste time with all that can be read elsewhere, and get straight to the three new behaviors and uses I see occurring as unintentional results of this wonderful new tool-toy.

1. Women and men alike will begin using the sleek dark glass as a compact mirror almost immediately.

2. People will begin reaching out to their computer screens to wipe to the next application.

3. Someone will snort blow off of one of these before the night is through.

Rubbermaid-- get it?

2007-06-28T15:17:00.001-04:00

No really. Rubber-maid. Get it? How weird is that? Not really that weird, considering the company started in the USA between the wars and around the time of the Great Depression when the plastics industry was developing and the country's class structure was changing; people couldn't afford maids to make their homes as presentable as may have been required for upward mobility. Can't afford a real maid? Get Rubbermaid! (Apparently Rubberwife was already taken by another manufacturer.)

There's little that's green about the Amazon

2007-06-19T14:24:00.000-04:00

Amazon just sent me an email. Their algorithm figured that if I bought "Worldchanging" then I'm sure to like a whole slew of books about being green.... You know the drill.

And that's totally true. So in my best effort to be green-- halo adorned-- I'm going to order all of these books and have Amazon ship them to me in individual cardboard boxes that could each house a moose, stuffed with plastic balloons for stability, glossy coupons for my next internet purchase, and a little extra cardboard and plastic wrap for protection within the moose box. And I'm gonna make sure that Carlos, our UPS guy, takes separate trips to my door in his big brown super combuster, so the air in the east williamsburg industrial park prevents any need for future deforestation. When the books arrive, and I've absorbed all the lessons, I'm going to shoot myself for what I've done.

Writing about the iPhone can be sexy!

2007-06-18T19:36:00.001-04:00

I just posted my first blog post in the "real world" of blogging. Click on the link now:

The Keyboardless iPhone: Less poking, more stroking

China celebrates Puerto Rican Day with export of 100 millionth Puerto Rican flag

2007-06-11T21:07:00.000-04:00

Dear editors of The Onion,
I am still looking for a job.

1000 Words: A Manifesto for Sustainability in Design

2007-06-05T17:40:00.000-04:00

Design guru Allan Chochinov is not only my mentor, and not only editor in chief at core77.com, but he is also a design guru. I cannot believe that I haven't posted this yet. Now I know why I only got an A-. Allan will split your head open with face-your-own-shit-and-stop-thinking-like-an-idiot g-force dialectics and send you cryin' for mama. Design is serious business folks. We cannot afford to overlook its influence and impact. And you cannot afford to overlook his manifesto. Come on, it's 1000 words! If you don't read it you'll be dumb.

http://www.core77.com/reactor/04.07_chochinov.asp

Read it.

10 design behavior questions for a successful first date

2007-06-05T17:23:00.000-04:00

1. Do you progressively roll your toothpaste tube from the bottom or do you just squeeze on it wherever until it seems empty?

2. Do you use a soapdish?

3. Do you use separate sponges for cleaning the dishes and cleaning the counter?

4. Do you store trash bags at the bottom of the trash can?

5. Do you arrange your clothes by cut and function or by color and pattern?

6. Do you work with more than three windows open on your desktop?

7. Do you clean your mouse periodically?

8. If you bought a Breuer chair on Monday, having never heard of Breuer, would you tell a friend on Tuesday that you "just bought a Breuer chair?”

9. In the summer, do you close shop doors that have AC billowing into the street?

10. Do you pick up the check with your left hand or your right?

If you know your own answers to these of life's essential questions, then when you hear them answered by your date, you'll be sure to know if this is the one.

Furniture for Food for Thought

2007-06-05T15:51:00.000-04:00

About a month ago I had this string of days when I repeatedly saw food and furniture being fused together. It was a bit strange to see these four projects back to back, but they're all really fun and they make me want to sit and eat. I share now.

First stop is theoriginalsushipillow.com.

I saw these at the cherry blossom festival. "The makers of these great pillows, Cindy Tomm and Mel Maghuyop, are actors who toured with the musical Miss Saigon in North America," and "it all started when Cindy mentioned wanting a pillow that looked like a sushi roll." So goes their website. I mean, doesn't all great work start that way? It was the first time I ever wanted to curl up with edamame. Collect them all!

Next stop was the presentation of industrial design master's theses at Pratt Institute. There, Judy Hoysak wowed us all with her exuberance and passion for vegetables. Her thesis began with the simple challenge of wanting to have a garden in the industrial park where she lives in Brooklyn. (Sorry Judy, it's an "INDUSTRIAL" park.) So she designed indoor planters that act as furniture. "Gardening is a fun, satisfying hobby, and indoor vegetable gardens can beautify the home while providing tasty and healthy foods. Lighting, soil substrates, and heirloom plant varieties were researched before determining successful combinations that would maximize existing negative space possibilities." What a sentence! Brilliant! Judy also won an award for this work from my favorite retail design nemesis, Design Within Reach. Go Judy! Pictured below are her "Vege Table" and "Bean Screen."

The third stop was the final furniture studio presentation at Pratt. There, 2nd year ID grad students Heather Taylor and Noel Spangler had a furniture-food-fight-off. "Stop designing with your food!" "Awe, Mom!"

Heather Taylor's "Take-Out Table" takes its cue from chinese to-go containers.

So the scenario is familiar: you take out the food from the restaurant; you take out the containers from the bag; you take out the food from the containers. But then where do you put the food? You take out the Take-Out Table! Put it down, open the leaves, and sit on the floor. Containers sit in removable stainless baskets within the table. Chopsticks sold separately.

Noel Spangler fired back with his Sandwich stool for kids.

"The piece is composed of separate stackable layers - or cushions - that the child can play with and use to create a stool of any desired height. The child can also change the design of the chair by changing the order of the individual layers."

So I gather it's okay to design with your food after all. Is this setting up a dinner table disaster or a new breed of Top Chef? Who cares? This is so much fun, it's obscene! I love it. How cool would it be if Noel's stools pimped out the inside of this ride?

The above designs make me hungry. But more importantly, they make me happy to see that young designers are working on the consciousness of eating in new and playful ways. Many thanks to the all who agreed to let me show their work herein. If you would like to contact any of these brilliant people, leave a comment and we'll get in touch.

And lastly, none of this would have caught my eye in quite the same way were it not for "Egg-blanket" by Cricket Ricardo, as previously showcased right here, on the IndustrialCircus.

Goodnight!

Waste not, want not

2007-05-10T22:51:00.000-04:00

After last week's rant against DWR, I've had to explain myself to many people. And I've been doing some occasional kicking of the shins beneath the table, like when I get this in my email:

To a designer, getting a picture of Saarinen's Tulip line is the junkmail equivalent of hearing Abbey Road on the train because someone's ipod is cranked too loud. What am I supposed to do? Tell them to stop? I love it! But then again, why am I being forced to fetishize this? Saarinen is one of my heros; as a child, I made my first wages in nickels cleaning my father's white Tulip chair with Fantastic. Still, I cannot praise Saarinen tonight. I must resist temptation and vanity. But it's so beautiful, my precious....

Seriously though, let's talk about waste and wasted opportunities. Today, Saarinen's TWA terminal at JFK lies abandoned except to wilding hippies who manage to throw elite parties there. (At least that's the most recent activity of which I've heard. I wasn't invited.)

We can blame the tragedy of this wasted gem of modern architecture on the failed business practices of TWA, OR we can blame its vacancy of the inability of its design to remain a viable transit hub for a new airline in today's traffic of air travel. Yes, yes, it's my favorite building in New York, second only to... but its flaws must be reckoned with, and Eero's shortsightedness along with them. I suggest we take a look at some triumphs of long term vision in New York design.

We begin in 1832. A Cholera epidemic has erupted in London, the result of contaminated drinking water from the Broad Street Pump. Similar outbreaks occur in New York City. In 1835, the Great Fire of New York wipes out large parts of the city, burning to the ground the newly framed wooden homes of the city's immigrant poor. Insufficient water supply was blamed for the failure to extinguish the inferno. In 1837, in response to mounting concerns about disease and fire, Municipal Engineers in NYC damn the Croton River to create the Croton Resevoir, and dig an elaborate water distribution system to supply water to the growing population of the city. These were thinkers of enormous imagination. They pushed for a scale of construction and innovation unthinkable at the time. (Look at the little dude in the huge tunnel!)

These are the very tunnels that continue to drip and quench us today— 8 million strong! That's forward thinking.

Let's flash-forward to 1930 when a New York urban planner, without a driver's license mind you, envisioned our city consumed by automobiles— the mass transportation means of the future. Robert Moses gave us inner-city transit ways like the BQE, Henry Hudson Parkway, Belt Parkway, and the Triborough Bridge among others.

Thank god he was stopped before unleashing his dream of a freeway across Canal St. (I reveal my elitist attitudes.... He left us Soho. Errr. I have second thoughts...) Moses is often hated for ripping through working class neighborhoods to provide leisurely paths of driving for those with cars. Of course he saw it as leisurely— he never drove himself. His roads remain with us, but alongside are countless poor neighborhoods, often attributed to his developments, which are slowly returning from generations of urban blight. So here's my Colbert "Tip of the Hat" to Moses for creating roadways that continue to be used and wanted, and "Wag of the Finger" for roadways that continue to bypass, alienate, and waste working people needed for our city's growth. To boot, his visions encouraged decades of oil and auto lobby interests, resulting in our current air quality and climate dilemma.

But then there's Mies. Pretty, utopian, fascist Mies and his Seagram Building, all too overlooked for its role in Stanley Kubrick's 2001.

Long story short, in 1958 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe convinced a rich and greedy tycoon to forfeit almost one half of his Park Avenue lot to public space. Unconscionable! From my measly perspective, the only blindspot in his foresight is that he would be less thoughtfully imitated. Park Avenue is now lined with ugly step-back boxes of glass pushed up against the sidewalk. There is no public space except for that left by Mies in '56.

How wonderful was his foresight though, that our crowded mid-town has an oasis of flowing Croton water for the pleasure of those who drive upon and sleep beneath the roads of Moses. For the cost of height, Mies gave open space. The Seagram Building is an enduring success of municipal design. It houses the man and hosts the working stiff. No municipal or technological revolution, nor increase in corporate trading has rendered its generous space out of date.

We return to DWR and poor Eero, whose airline terminal was lyrical, but insufficient over time. Perhaps he was too concerned with his own gestures— his planes and curves, his organic twistings within. Perhaps he was not yet related to air travel and its customers. So to DWR, learn from Saarinen and Moses; some designs of the future are fated to fail and others to succeed while they fail others. Let's look to Croton and Mies for the foresight to provide infrastructure and design to all who need it. And when we take a little here for one party, lets give a little back to the other.

Dear DWR,
Please tell me in your next junkmail how you are working to support public education of design history while disseminating consumer suggestions for sustainable living.
Sincerely,
Ringleader

Read the fine print

2007-05-10T00:52:00.000-04:00

My friend Maxo took a look at last week's post about the smokestack humidifier and was like, "wait, is that the Amadana humidifier?!" Huh? "Amadana's this great Japanese home appliance company," he continued. "I've been trying to find their stuff in the states, but only see it in Japan." Well, I can't corroborate any of that, but he did some snooping and directed my attention to the disclaimer at the bottom of this page on the Amadana website:

http://en.amadana.com/product/fh109/fh109.html

For your ease of research, here's the product (a small desktop humidifier):

And here's the disclaimer:

Desktop Rapid Prototyping

2007-05-07T12:10:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, the lead article on nytimes.com announced that rapid prototyping printers may be appearing in the home within the next two years. Those of us in the field of industrial design are familiar with available technologies for rapid prototyping, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Stereolithography (SLA), etc. Basically, these technologies allow a product which has been modeled in the computer to be spat out in solid form by a machine. So for example, I drew this:

An FDM printer gave me this:

I removed the support material (the plastic is hot when it's printed— imagine crossing a hotglue gun and an ink jet printer— so it needs additional material to ensure the prototype doesn't sag while cooling) and got this:

Which I then painted and got this:

A prototype of a sangria pitcher for a line of mexican tabletop items.

So you see, rapid prototyping is very cool, and also very useful for ironing out kinks like scale and connections, before you go and produce 100,000 pieces of more junk. But there's been a lot of talk in the ID community about the ramifications of everyone being able to design and print there own stuff at home. As core77.com editor Allan Chochinov laments, desktop publishing gear like inkjet printers has made everyone having a tag sale into a graphic designer. And now the trees along country lanes are littered with bad signage. So what will become of product design? Forget that, what will become of our landfills when every Tom, Dick, and Harry is busy turning his macintosh into an industrial production line of one offs? These neato gadgets and technologies can have tremendous consequences that need to be considered. Fortunately, the Times article included some encouraging pictures:

Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/technology/07copy.html?ref=technology

Proletarian Accessories at Large in Midtown

2007-05-06T20:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was out doing anthropological research, but Paul Smith's 16th St. store didn't have any in my size so K and I went to Barneys. Truth be told, we were in the area for drinks at the Grolier Club, where we met the fine gentleman who will engrave our wedding invitations. He was absolutely charming— the very image of gin at noon over Newport harbor. I'd share his contact, save he's ours— and such perfect cuffs! But enough of that, I am a man of the people, so on with the show....

So we're at Barneys and I come across these:

Admittedly, the Industrial Circus is not the first to present this act. Trovata's canvas and patent leather bag was presented in September of 2006 as a part of their Spring collection. Alas I missed it. Sorry I was busy at Marc Jacobs that night. But a quick search of ye olde goegle reveals that whatshaute.com gave this review along with the following image:

"September 23, 2006

Trovata’s Spring ’07 runway show showed off their breezy nautical inspired collection accessorized with unpretentious duffle bags. Based on an old carpenter’s bag, the styles are unisex and were designed in collaboration with bag guru Reed Krakoff, Creative Director and President of Coach.

Trovata's debut accessories collection has the simple and unembellished feel of traditional Coach bags. The canvas body is highlighted by a metal frame, polished leather and patent leather trims. The large tote is unfussy, chic, versatile, and highly practical. The unisex styling makes it appropriate for both men and women to carry.

The handbag collection is set to debut in January of 2007, exclusively at Barney’s New York."

So this:

Became this:

Nice. Score one for the master. But even more disturbing may be the discovery that a similar bag, albeit ignorantly referenced and retold, is on the market for chic yogis. This bag from Crescent Moon offers all the feigned disdain of one's proletarian roots, without all the sweaty yoga mat holding:

Here's the math: $50 for the Klein Tools bag, $595 for the Trovata bag, and $130 for the Crescent Moon bag. Step right up, and pick your poison. But wait! It gets better. Do you know the Coleman brand?

Makers of such fine camping and outdoor gear as this cooler for $31?

If you don't know Coleman, you're a ponce who's been raised in splintered tower's of ivory, all adrip with hemlock. But more power to you now that Barneys is selling Coleman and "Thermos like products" clad in the finest of leathers, like this cooler for $600:

There's a new trend in town. But's it's not new at all, only unpublished to my eyes and ears. Well, I guess it falls under David Brooks' "Bobo" concept. People are desperately dressing down. Casual fridays ain't enough anymore. New sources are necesary, and the stuff of the working class is here to lend its hand again and again. Tool bags with sophisticated colors and materials; roto-molded thermal maintenance camping stuff clad in calf's leather. Please don't set your drink directly upon my cooler.

As for the input of whatshaute.com, somehow I missed how carrying a tool bag decorated with patent leather became unpretentious. I guess pretense only works in an upward direction. Of course! What carpenter could ever club with us and foil our casual plot?

The Coolest Bike in Brooklyn

2007-05-05T20:02:00.000-04:00

There are many bikes in Brooklyn. But there's only one of these. This guy's on a mission against the street cavity creeps. Remember? "We make holes in teeth! We make holes in teeth!"

Behold! Eggblanket.

2007-05-05T10:05:00.000-04:00

It was a design revolution like any other— born of necesity. Basically what happened was that in giddy anticipation of sleeptime and cuddles, the kitty crapped the bed, ripping from our shivering claws the trusty duvet. K reached for anything she could find to keep herself warm— a Design House Stockholm blanket and two oversized, quilted pillowcases. Hours and dreams later, as she sat up and opened her eyes to the morning sun, my darling K looked down at the bed and uttered her first word of the new day, "Eggblanket." How I do love her....

Sakura Matsuri

2007-05-05T09:39:00.000-04:00

Last weekend's cherry blossom festival was a beautiful occasion to see the colorful birth of Spring in our own Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. The Japanase gardens were beautifully tended, with just the right amount of wabi-sabi.

The Apple Elite

2007-05-05T00:49:00.000-04:00

It's official. A corporate lifestyle-tech conglomerate is taking over the American class system. Apple has audaciously assumed the position of bouncer in the world of who's whom. For $99 dollars, you can now unabashedly cut in front of any schmuck waiting for service at the Genius Bar. How good does that feel? Of course it feels good. You deserve it. Because as they've already made clear, you're a PRO! Banks used to honor business checking lines in a presumed effort to boost local economies and boost business. Now Apple is catching on to the game, except this time, no free toaster is required, only the purchase of a $3000 PRO MAC. Now that you've put your money where your profession was and have mastered the art of elite computing, why wait?

In fact, it's a perfectly reasonable money-making ploy for Apple. But the whole "PRO/Priority" thing is vulgar. See more:

http://www.apple.com/retail/procare/?cid=CDM-NA-TE-5120C

All that aside, who can't wait to be the first one on the block to have one of these glistening badboys?

With all the monthlies? I bet you can't afford it.

DESIGN WITHIN REASON

2007-05-02T23:18:00.000-04:00

This company makes me nervous. Initially I took their name to mean they were going to make it easier for people to afford beautiful things. You know, like they were gonna knock off everything and get away with it. It looked like a cheap strategy to me, but everything was so expensive! I saw no reason to further seduce America with trophies of classes past, and I saw it as a marketing degradation of classic product designs. But then my lady smacked me on the head and said, "not everyone has access to a designer who can buy these straight from the manufacturer!" Oh. I get it. I feel better about DWR now, but not healed.

DWR is sending me unsolicited emails about Zaha Hadid's newest bathrooms and suites on some hotel floor in Madrid where "each of its 12 floors are designed by a different architect at a lavish expense." HOLD UP! Do we need this? Is this within reach? Are our design heroes designing for the future of humanity or for the future of their AMEX bills? The blog goes on to explain that, "it also happens to be an exceptionally good value (rooms begin at under 200 euro), which helps keep the spirit surprisingly unpretentious." Huh?! DWR is including me in an overtly exclusive email /blog based on my prior purchases. I am now part of a DWR consumer elite. What could be more pretentious? After all of my initial doubt and subsequent benefit of the doubt, I think DWR's up to some yucky stuff. They need to really consider their objectives if they want to continue positively in this generation. May I suggest,

Kasparov vs. Deep Kremlin (Go Gary!)

2007-05-02T22:09:00.000-04:00

I was just driving home and heard World Champion chess player Gary Kasparov talking to Tom Ashbrook on "On Point," the radio show from WBUR. You may remember that in 1996 Kasparov represented the human struggle against computer intelligence and lost— in chess. Kasparov's a fascinating guy— warm, concerned, fiercely intelligent, speaks beautiful English— and he's leading a grass roots movement to challenge the upper-most constituency of Putin in a possible run for president in Russia's next election. Before I lapse into irony, let me say that I was in awe as I listened. You could hear the concise political logic and strategy that only the world's greatest living chess player could bring to the table. He had every possible corner of the Kremlin's aging bureaucracy in sight, as well as every action the Kremlin could take in vain defense over the next few decades. Though the man was recently arrested and jailed for political dissent after leading protests for the "other half," he remains commited to his cause. Bear in mind, he mentioned that the 100 wealthiest Russians hold assets totaling one third more than the entire Russian federal budget. So he's a man of a lot of the people. I like him. He's a fighter.

But I can't escape the irony of his situation. Yeltsin's market revolution provided a political choice after his presidency: the money or the people. Putin has gone for the money, chasing western economic and industrial growth. And now Kasparov's going in for the people. He want's to raise the power of Russia's people to challenge the power of Russia's interminable oligarchy. Okay, wait, rewind, deja vu. Wait, oh yeah. But I'm a designer fixated on the social power of industry, and Kasparov's last major political opponent was who again?

IBM's Deep Blue

Main Attraction!

2007-05-02T12:47:00.000-04:00

Productdose.com just posted this smokestack looking "Chimney 2" humidifier and air purifier with just commentary. I wanna kiss the wacky creative director who came up with this one and spank the designer who listened. Go team! Fresh air for your home with that zesty 1870s Manchester feel. Ahhhh. (Available in five colors.)

I had a philosophy teacher who used to try to figure out which corporations foot the bills for big political agendas; he racked his brain for weeks over pro-life until he realized it must be Eastman Kodak, cause everytime a baby goes to take a dump, someone's there with a camera. (It was the 90s— predigital.) So in his spirit, I'm wagging my Colbert finger at WorldCoal, Kleenex and Benjamin Moore for this. You do the math. Only a team effort could so insidiously capture the anti-eco zeitgeist and shove it right up your ashtray.

The Capital of Detroit

2007-05-02T00:16:00.002-04:00

Forgive my greco-automotive obsession, but am I the only one who sees an Ionic capital on the front end of a Jeep? I always saw the Jeep as a working man's car, more of the Doric order. Alas, times have changed. The Jeep has become the workhorse of America's middle class. What was once a military vehicle used to shuttle our generals is now a luxury vehicle used to coddle our generals. That's Ionic. Look, it's right there in the Jeep logo:

Frank Lloyd Wright & The Atlantic Front

2007-05-01T15:04:00.000-04:00

I recently read an industrial design masters thesis by a Pratt graduate named Byron Morris on the subject and history of design for weapons and warfare. I neither recall the title nor the date of his thesis— poor citation— but it was fascinating. Somewhere in the middle he showed contrasting images of Frank Lloyd Wright's work and concrete bunkers built by the Nazi's along their Atlantic Front. I'll let him do the talking:

"Although Fallingwater was constructed before the Atlanitc Wall, many later designs of Wright continued to bear this remarkable similarity to military bunkers... [in part] because he was was always very fond of reinforced concrete.... Wright strived throughout his career to design buildings that followed the mandate of modern architecture, "form follows function." It is interesting that buildings with such drastically different functions have the same form. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, "form follows materials" in respect to modern architecture."

As an aside, the above picture depicts the view from which people most commonly shoot photographs of Fallingwater. Interestingly, I've heard that after Wright completed the house and saw similar shots, he said he never really expected that the house would even be looked at from that angle, let alone that it could be shot so successfully from that angle. I'm sure the Germans had similar thoughts.

Driving Miss Ictinus, Callicrates, and Phidias

2007-04-30T17:29:00.000-04:00

So I'm stopped at a light in a total trance, right, and this old Rolls pulls up at the light across the street, and I'm staring at its grill when all of a sudden I'm like, OH MY GOD! THAT"S THE PARTHENON! I couldn't believe it. Now everywhere I look I see the Parthenon riding around on the grill of some car. Especially real classy ones like the 1975 Lincoln Continental Mark IV. I'm like, oh shit! I thought Detroit in the 70s was all about Liberace. Turns out it's Fibonacci! Who knew?

What the FCUK?

2007-04-30T15:31:00.000-04:00

The Chinese seem to do whatever they want when it comes to production. If it means putting lethal doses of melamine into petfood to make it look protein rich, fine. If it means shuffling popular brand names into anagrams to corner the dyslexic sector, well that's fine too. I just love this trend of tapping into nonsense to duck liability.

See more at hemmy.net

http://www.hemmy.net/2007/04/29/chinese-fake-brands/

Viagra goes NUTS!

2007-04-30T15:17:00.000-04:00

Viagra has gone to new lengths with its latest commercials. Totally dodging FDA regulations that impose strict rules regarding disclosure when making articulated claims about a product, Viagra has chosen to be completely inarticulate. The men in these new TV commercials are speaking in complete gibberish. No good sensimilaty make, no responsitility take. Read the full story in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/business/media/30viagra.html

Maiden Voyage

2007-04-30T01:47:00.000-04:00

Hear ye, hear ye!

Let us now embark upon these treacherous seas and soils run amok with man made things both wild and wanting of consequence! Open your eyes! Calibrate your calipers! Some of what you may see will surprise, astound, and even bore you with its patency. But no thing will be viewed without mystery! In every ring is the fruit of man's industry. Behold, The Industrial Circus!