Subway life

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

God help us

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!

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

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

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!!!!

Signor Federico Rogers

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...

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!

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

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

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

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

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?

I scratch my head....

And now a word from our sponsor

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

"Pure Essentials" is classic greenwashing

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.

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

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

On Color 1: Helga Steppan

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.