Archive for February, 2009
February 25
Following on from my recent spat of “I don’t really love Star Wars, but this is pretty cool” posts (which can be seen here and here), here be another one (I’ll try and make it my last, but as long as people keep designing stuff like this, I’m going to keep blogging about it). It’s a flipping well cool At-At Boombox. I’d love one, especially if it were radio controlled.For some reason it makes me think it should be in a Beck video possibly.
I can’t really tell you a great deal about it. A short bit of research didn’t yield much info. Something to do with these guys.
As seen on noquedanblogs
Posted in Music, Other Stuff | Leave a Comment »
February 20
This beautiful bit of folded high quality materials is the new design by Lars Amhoff, out of Kinkyform, called the Neo Gramophone.
It’s an update of the traditional gramophone shape, that uses modern technology to yield a top-notch sound quality via itunes streaming or music loaded onto it via bluetooth. The base holds all the info and a nice sub and the trumpet, growing out of the base, is a speaker. Kinkyform are currently looking for investors to push this idea forward and to develop it in such away that quality can be maintained whilst keeping it in a non-luxury price range. Huzzah!
I’d buy one.
Posted in Music, design | Leave a Comment »
Tags: design, folded, form, function, gramophone, hifi, ipod, itune, kinky, kinkyform, mars amhoff, Music, neo gramophone, player, product, sound, system, trumpet, white, wireless
February 20
This may be a bit short notice (or geographically inconvenient) for some of you, but it’s worth posting anyway.
Dieter Rams is doing a talk this evening at the V&A in London. He’ll be discussing his design ethos and the future of design. Its bound to be fascinating. Along with the Eames’, Rams is probably my favourite designer ever. His work for Braun was consistently amazing. Brilliant man.
As seen on DesignBoom
Posted in design | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Braun, design, Dieter, hifi, lecture, mid-century, Rams, talk, V&A
February 19
Dutch Architects, MVRDV are pretty good at what they do. Very good, in fact. This is a project of theirs, completed a couple of years ago now, called the Didden Village. Located in Rotterdam, the structure is rooftop extension to an existing building below. The idea is that each of the little “houses” are bedrooms – one for the parents and one each for the two kids. The way these houses are placed on the roof creates a series of miniature outdoor spaces, streets and avenues – creating a tiny sleeping village on the roof of their house. Great stuff.
Outside is all done out in bright blue poly-urethane finish and inside is simple and clean, with bloody lovely staircases and nice little playful touches.
Found on good old Arch Daily
Posted in Architecture | 2 Comments »
Tags: architects, Architecture, bedroom, blue, building, construction, design, didden, dutch, extension, holland, mvrdv, poly-urathene, roof, roof terrace, rotterdam, timber, village
February 19
First off, I think Bryony might be one of my favourite names. I’m not sure. I’ll confirm that later. Anyways, on to task and I’m featuring here Bryony Quinn who I can’t tell you a great deal about except that she is currently studying Illustration at Camberwell. She enjoys making Magic Lantern slide shows, I’ve only seen this one image, but it is beautiful…
If you go down to Hove Museum (which everyone should do, regardless of geography) you can see a little exhibition on Magic Lantern shows and watch one in a mini mock-up picturehouse. I’ve seen it a few times now…. Anyways, apparently Bryony Quinn is working on a website, but in the meantime seems to have “involvement” in this “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation “marks”.
As seen on the wonderful It’s Nice That.
Posted in Illustration | Leave a Comment »
Tags: art, boat, bryony, bryony quinn, camerwell, design, graphic, Illustration, illustrator, its nice that, lantern, magic, magic lantern show, quinn, ship, slide show, unnecessary quotation marks
February 19
Right, I know I mentioned in a previous post (here) that I’m no big Star Wars fan. Well, I’m back, to annoy Star Wars fans by saying that again. BUT, I”m am very very impressed with talk of this new range of Star Wars Science Toys. This one in particular…
“The Force Trainer” by Uncle Milton includes a headset that you don that has EEG sensors that read your brainwaves. This then controls the fan in the Force Trainer and thus, how high the ball goes. When I first read this, I thought it was a hoax, because when I was a kid we had Big Trak and thought it was cutting edge. This is unbelievable. Using your brainwaves to control the movement of the ball. It’s got a series of skill levels and the mildly annoying voice of Yoda as your trainer. Imagine the possibilities outside of the Star Wars realm!
Saw this on Cool Hunting t’other day.
Posted in Other Stuff | Leave a Comment »
Tags: big trak, brainwaves, eeg, force, game, games, jedi, science, star wars, telekinesis, the force, toy, toys, uncle milton, yoda
February 18
I don’t know what I prefer. The idea. The fact someone carried out. Or the design of the packaging.
Brooklyn went and got itself a Superhero Supply Store (372 Fifth), stocking such Superhero essentials as X-Ray vision in a bottle, 1 Gallon of Gravity, Oxygen Gum, Canned Chaos (my favourite) and the Antidote. Everything the budding superhero could ask for.
The whole thing is a front orchestrated by 826NYC, a non-profit organisation that exists to encourage high school kids to write creatively and to inspire teachers to encourage this further. That just makes it even more brilliant! There’s a secret door (of course) in the store that leads to an area filled up with kids reading, learning and doing all kinds of good what-not under the supervision of the 826NYC staff and tutors.
Mindblowing. I believe (I beleive…) Sam Potts Inc. is responsible for the design. If that’s true, bloody well done Sam Potts Inc.
Posted in Other Stuff, design | 26 Comments »
Tags: 826NYC, anitdote, brooklyn, brooklyn superhero supply, cape, design, graphic, Graphic Design, gravity, new york, new york city, non-profit, nyc, packaging, secret door, superhero, superhero supplies, x-ray vision
February 18
Back when architecture was booming everyone got to draw fun buildings there was little booms in niche buildings. Buildings that performed functions outside of what we typically design for. This has always happened of course, recession or no recession, it just seemed more common then. Anyways, here’s a little round up of buildings from which to watch birds. Birdwatch, if you will.
First up, Alllies + Morrison’s building at Welney Wildfowl Trust in my dear ol’ Norfolk.
Followed by this little peach from GMP Architects. A 15m high observation tower in Heiligenhafen.
Finally, this amazing concept for a birdwatching hotel from Morris Architects for “Extreme Birding” (it sounds better if you shout “EXTREEEEME”). Interesting stuff. Did you know America has over 48 million twitchers?
Posted in Architecture | 1 Comment »
Tags: allie, america, architect, architects, Architecture, bird, birds, birdwatching, extreme, extreme building, gmp, holland, hotel, morris, morrison, rock, sea, timber, tower, twitching, watching, welney
February 18
Lets get some colour and fun in here, courtesy of fantastic illustration by The State of Things. I wish I could tell you more about it all. I know a young gentleman called Heiko is involved and he seems very nice. He also speaks German, French, Spanish AND English. He also runs a great blog, which I’ve only just discovered.
Lovely stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.
The state of things.
Posted in Graphic Design, Illustration | 2 Comments »
Tags: art, colour, design, drawing, graphic, Illustration, monkey, panda, pen and ink, sailor, sea, the state of things, waves
February 17
Following on from yesterday’s post about augmented ski jumps into stadiums in the US, this is a fantastic old poster advertising the London Glaciarium from 1844.
A 3,000 sqft. replica of Lake Lucerne was constructed in Covent Garden, along with a replica glacier. It was then thawed out. If this were to occur today, it’d be a massive environmental statement. The Victorians didn’t care much for that, they just thought it’d be a laugh. Sledges were available for women and children and the members of the London Glaciarium club (yes, they had a club) did skating shows on the ice. Murphy Outdone! Awful Prediction!
This comes from the always incredible bldgblog, definitely worth checking out.
Posted in Architecture | Leave a Comment »
Tags: bizarre, covent garden, glaciar, ice, ice skating, invention, lake, london, lucerne, melting, skating, sledge, victoria, victorian
