Wednesday, March 18
SXSW09: The Future Of Social Networks
links this week
They are multi-disciplinary and goal-oriented. Yet, they identify strongly with their parents and are even proud of Indian traditions and culture much more than their western counterparts, according to a global research conducted by The Futures Company of the WPP-Kantar Group.
Only 6% identify with celebrities. Instead, they look up to real-life heroes and their parents. They appreciate companies and brands that are trustworthy and authentic and stay true to their values.
Standing out in the crowd without being too different was much more important for the Indian Millenials than their counterparts in the uk and the US. It was to be achieved through diverse tastes, interests and not just brand choice.
All of them also said trying new experience and sensations held more novelty factor than possessions — 62% in India, 59% in the UK and 64% in the US.
The emergence of trickle-up innovation in BusinessWeek
This month, General Electric's (GE) health-care division will begin marketing a first-of-its-kind electrocardiograph machine in the U.S. Although packed with the latest technology, the battery-powered device weighs just six pounds, half as much as the smallest ECG machine currently for sale. It will retail for a mere $2,500, an 80% markdown from products with similar capabilities. But what really distinguishes the MAC 800 is its lineage. The machine is basically the same field model that GE Healthcare developed for doctors in India and China in 2008.
As such, the diagnostic tool exemplifies a way of thinking that may be ideally suited to dealing with the widening recession: creating entry-level goods for emerging markets and then quickly and cheaply repackaging them for sale in rich nations, where customers are increasingly hungry for bargains. The term for this new approach is trickle-up innovation.
The Convenience Store, much like the city dweller, has decided to take time out from its high rise roots to have an exclusively chic affair at the St Martins Lane Hotel. From March 19 to April 9 the high concept store will take over the Front Room at St Martins Lane and create a transitory showroom featuring the one-off, coveted designer pieces it is famed for.
Monday, March 16
Spaza-De-Move-On by Doung Anwar Jahangeer
Design Indaba 09: architect Doung Anwar Jahangeer won the South award for his mobile, fold-away shop at the Design Indaba conference and expo in Cape Town last week.
Called Spaza-De-Move-On, the product is intended to give dignity and convenience to street hawkers.
It incorporates a seat, trolley handle, wheels and fold-out display table.
Design Indaba took place 25 February -1 March.
via Dezeen
The House Café Kanyon by Autoban
From Autoban:
The latest branch of The House Café chain at the shopping mall Kanyon, is an integration of the mall’s original architecture, The House Café brand identity and the Atutoban design approach. A site-built structure made of steel and glass, which functions as a transparent box to house the café, is carefully planned and designed to fit the valley-like architecture of the mall and sat on a walnut platform to add warmth to the café’s interior. Although an extension, the structure bears its own strong design identity while blending in with its surroundings.
Visit Autoban’s website - here.
Photos by Ali Bekman
Architects: Sefer Çaglar & Seyhan Özdemir:
Photo by Emre Ünal
via contemporist
Visit Autoban’s website - here.
Sunday, March 15
Now Vending | The Luxury Automat
The automat — that ’50s-era icon of American ingenuity known for vending rubbery sandwiches from glass compartments — is back, and this time it’s boutique. Exhibit A: The most opulent and cheeky element of the Mondrian South Beach, a Marcel Wanders-designed hotel that opened in Miami in December, is a vending machine that now anchors the lobby. The Semi-Automatic was designed not by Wanders but by Ito Partnership for the Morgans Hotel Group, to conquer the cliché of the gift shop.
The Semi takes plastic instead of pocket change and is stocked with delectables (though nothing edible) curated by the Morgans creative director Kim Walker. Walker didn’t shrink from being naughty (24-karat gold handcuffs from Kiki de Montparnasse, a spa package called the “Masochist”), retro (Atari Classics for Playstation), tastefully sybaritic (a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow or 2000 Bentley Azure convertible — rental only), do-goodish (the Can of Gold, for $200, is a design-art “vase” whose proceeds go to charity) or obscurely hip (14-karat gold Retainer Necklace by the Brooklyn designer Kiel Mead). Best sellers include anti-recession T-shirts ($28) and Fred Flair heart sunglasses ($18), along with — who would have guessed? — marabou feather vests ($400).
via NYT: the moment
Fundación Alicia: food, science and transparency
Fundación Alicia: food, science and transparency
Clotet and Paricio have built a transparent garden of delights near Barcelona for the teachings of Ferran Adrià. Design Lluís Clotet, Ignacio Paricio, Abeba Arquitectes. Photos Lluís Casals.via Domus
Thursday, March 12
Links this week
Jason Irwin runs an art gallery called Privateer in his apartment, one of several nontraditional galleries in homes, storefronts and factory spaces in Bushwick.
New bookstore solely dedicated to photography: Clic Bookstore & Gallery is the latest venture from Christiane Celle, founder of the Calypso fashion boutiques.
Also in Times magazine: 10 ideas changing the world right now
Friday, March 6
Merci: a concept store that is good for the planet
Merci
111, boulevard Beaumarchais
75011 Paris
France
T. : +33.1.42.77.10.38
via Hoosta
Wednesday, March 4
Waku Waku
Photo © 2009 Zooey Braun. All rights reserved.
The restaurant's philosophy revolves around a consistently implemented concept of sustainability and good value, healthy food, which is prepared extremely quickly. The key theme of sustainability is realised in an undogmatic, creative and unconventional way. It is already inherent in the name: ‘Waku’ is Japanese and means stir-fried, cooking hot, and at the same time exciting and tantalising.Photo © 2009 Zooey Braun. All rights reserved.
Photo © 2009 Zooey Braun. All rights reserved.
Photo © 2009 Zooey Braun. All rights reserved.
Photo © 2009 Zooey Braun. All rights reserved.
Photo © 2009 Zooey Braun. All rights reserved.
Photo © 2009 Zooey Braun. All rights reserved.
Photo © 2009 Zooey Braun. All rights reserved.
Photo © 2009 Zooey Braun. All rights reserved.
via Yatzer
global march with Uniqlo
UNIQLO March is an online ‘presentation’ format showing a group of 33 people spanning a wide range of ages, sex and occupations marching across the screen. Footage was filmed with an ultra-wide RED ONE lens, never used for online content before. The lens allows video footage of scenes covering more than 50m in length. Viewers can interact with the marching group to make them run, walk backwards or wave at each other.
By clicking on an outfit that they like, users can see a profile of the marcher and get taken directly to the online store to purchase any of the items the model is wearing. Users can also choose to keep their involvement online as an icon in a virtual Google Maps march through the streets of Tokyo or apply to take to the ‘real world’ streets as a model for the next element of the campaign.
via Contagious Magazine
www.uniqlo.com/march
Unusual Shaper of Talent for a Changing Art World: Nicky Vassell


Photo: Librado Romero/The New York Times

This is the fourth in a series of articles in the NY times that follows people trying to begin careers in the arts and examine how that process may have changed over the years. This one is about Nicola Vassell former model turned gallery director.
The article also mentions a possible collaboration between Puma and the artist Kehinde Wiley
to create a collection of clothing and accessories for the 2010 World Cup — to be held in Africa for the first time — the kind of deal that Ms. Vassell sees as essential to the economic future of the contemporary art world.
Art trends to watch.......
Photo: Alex Quesada for The New York Times
Photo: Alex Quesada for The New York Times
Photo: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
see slideshow
via NY Times
Museum of Design and Applied Arts Opens Packaging - Wrapping to Design
| Panier de la ménagère 2009 », concept : mudac, 2009, photo : Marie Humair/Olivier Laffely. |
| LAUSANNE.- Packaging is a concept that goes well beyond wrapping. Even if its ultimate aim remains the protection and transport of its contents, over the course of the decades certain more subtle elements have been added to this list of specifications. Thus, one can attribute to it six main functions: to contain, transport, preserve, identify the producer, inform about the content and authenticate the origin of the product. Yet, before everything else, firms seek to put on to the market wrappings or packagings that will encourage the consumer to buy. It is this particular “design” that interests us in the exhibition staged at the mudac. Packaging thus plays a role as a showcase, adding short-lived value to an object that makes it stand out among a plethora of stock which can sometimes be intimidating for the customer. And even if brands know that it will very often end up in the trash can once the sale has been made, they do not hesitate to change the packaging frequently in order to renew interest in a product. Incidentally, one needs to know that investing money in research into packaging is often less expensive than updating or revising the product itself. An interesting testimony to a way of life that involves planned obsolescence and a time when change and speed are valued above all else, packaging is revealing of contemporary trends. It represents a direct consequence of industrial development and of a type of consumption that goes through numerous intermediaries: when purchases are made at the supermarket, in big quantities, and transported by car, the packaging of a product is of necessity different to one that is sold at the local grocery. We are currently witnessing a phenomenon of “over-packaging”, which runs counter to concerns about the environment. Hundreds of packagings pour into the marketplace every year and sometimes only remain on sale for a few months, since they are subject to the verdict of consumers. Analysis of these design creations is fascinating, and the mudac has for several years been observing the evolution and impact of packaging on our lives as consumers and citizens. The exhibition is deliberately focused on two sectors that are highly dependent on the impact of packaging: food and cosmetics. This bias is dictated by practical reasons, among other factors, since these sectors have a huge volume of output and the variety of approaches guarantees the possibility of a high-quality selection. But what is most striking is that these products are for the most part in everyday use. The public’s familiarity with this type of packaging makes an in-depth analysis all the more interesting. How people look at an object, known from first glance, is different. Parallel to the products sold every day in supermarkets, the exhibition presents a choice of more luxurious objects, the packaging of which is astonishingly close to more commonplace objects. Packaging – Wrapping to Design presents hundreds of objects, for the most part drawn from the contemporary marketplace, local or international. Multiple comparisons can be made between these objects, whether regarding their use of colour, form and typography or the use of photographs and illustrations. One products that would like to appear sophisticated: packets of coffee or tea, luxury grocery products, perfumes. Despite – or because of? – its opaqueness, black is currently synonymous with luxury. The purity of white, on the other hand, has always been associated with cosmetics, but this colour also appears in certain foodstuffs packaging. As for gold and silver, they certainly symbolise luxury and “bling” but also maturity, including in the case of cosmetic products aimed at the “mature” skin. From the perspective of form, only luxury brands can allow themselves to produce unexpected packaging in more “noble” materials. One thus finds perfume bottles with seductive curves. But this deliberate originality is also reserved for alcohol and, since a short while ago, for mineral water, sold as a rare product. Already for some time now, producers have been practising a sort of confusion of genres that is definitely worthy of attention. Certain shapes and forms traditionally reserved for foodstuffs have been assigned to cosmetics, and vice versa. This, for example, is the case with certain Body Shop creams, sold in packaging which resembles that of old-fashioned preserves in glass jars. On the contrary, olive oil and balsamic vinegar presented in the form of sprays evoke the world of hairdressing. can see, for example, that there is enormous enthusiasm for black, associated with products that would like to appear sophisticated: packets of coffee or tea, luxury grocery products, perfumes. Despite – or because of? – its opaqueness, black is currently synonymous with luxury. The purity of white, on the other hand, has always been associated with cosmetics, but this colour also appears in certain foodstuffs packaging. As for gold and silver, they certainly symbolise luxury and “bling” but also maturity, including in the case of cosmetic products aimed at the “mature” skin. From the perspective of form, only luxury brands can allow themselves to produce unexpected packaging in more “noble” materials. One thus finds perfume bottles with seductive curves. But this deliberate originality is also reserved for alcohol and, since a short while ago, for mineral water, sold as a rare product. Already for some time now, producers have been practising a sort of confusion of genres that is definitely worthy of attention. Certain shapes and forms traditionally reserved for foodstuffs have been assigned to cosmetics, and vice versa. This, for example, is the case with certain Body Shop creams, sold in packaging which resembles that of old-fashioned preserves in glass jars. On the contrary, olive oil and balsamic vinegar presented in the form of sprays evoke the world of hairdressing. When it is necessary to economise on packaging, there’s nothing like making it attractive by devising an original graphic presentation. Whether this is done by recourse to humour (a dimension that can be observed in many British products) or by using photographs or carefully chosen illustrations, a very simple packaging can be transformed thanks to its graphic design. The Greek cosmetic products Korrès, which have won several awards for their original design, are a good example of this. Closer to hand, we must point out the intelligence of the Sélection product range sold by Migros. Their graphic design building on simple principles – gold line and white background – is able to promote elements that make their contents particularly attractive. Another section of the exhibition traces the evolution of certain packagings, notably thanks to a batch from the design collection of the Museum für Gestaltung, Zurich, which has loaned objects from the Swiss marketplace of the 1960s to 1980s. An exceptional collaboration with the patrimony of LU [a French biscuit manufacturer] permits us to analyse a specific case, that of the packaging of the famous Petit Beurre chocolate biscuits, devised by Raymond Loewy among others. In parallel, we present works by designers and artists who tackle the theme of packaging in their own fashion. The “Pack Sweet Pack” furniture range by the Big Game designer group hijacks the world of packaging’s standard reference systems and transforms them into furniture. As for the installation constructed from Tetrapack cartons by the graphic designers Bark of London, it develops a completely imaginary visual language and makes us aware of the impact on the observer of the graphic presentation of packaging. Finally, the “Supermarket” photographs by Frenchwoman Floriane de Lassée take into account the effect of massing with which we are all faced as we walk round a supermarket. All these deliberately off-centre observations on the theme permit the visitor to place a finger on the artificiality of packaging, while revealing to him/her the touches of inspiration offered by certain brands which have made their packaging into little treasure chests. via Artdaily |












