Categories
Design Everyday

Pig Heaven

Peter Pan House

We featured a wonderful Wendy House a few weeks ago, designed by UK Architects Sanei Hopkins for their daughters. They have followed up this success with an equally wonderful project for their sons. (Before we start, we have to explain that Pig Arcs in the UK are arched corrugated galvanized steel shelters for pigs to live in – like mini Quonset huts). To quote their own words:

“As there was no precedent for a ‘Peter Pan House’ we based the design on a Suffolk Pig Arc for ‘Flying Pigs’. This concept captured the imagination of all our children as they were all intrigued to know when the pigs would come? In fact, most of the design decisions could be explained to them simply by referring to the needs of the flying pigs. eg. the structure is suspended between two trees because the pigs need good clearance around them when they are coming in to land. Also, the structure is only six feet off the ground as flying pigs can’t fly very high etc. The boys have permission to use the structure only when the pigs aren’t there.”

Who said minimalism is no fun?

Categories
Everyday

Alternative Lifestyles

Monitors
hannspree.com

Bored with your minimalist Apple Cinema Display? Try this mean green apple monitor (shown with doors closed). Bored with your beige CRT? How about a lobster, or Buzz LIghtyear, or fries? These and many, many, other mindboggling alternatives available from Hannspree. (For those suffering from Flashophobia, there are, thankfully, many well-placed skip buttons on the website). Maybe its about time we designers loosened up a bit.

Categories
Everyday

Fruits of Our Labors

LACcomposite

As designers, we are more used to clients throwing this stuff at us, so the basket of fruit above which arrived at our studio today, politely and in edible condition, and from a very wonderful client, was very much appreciated. It is particularly nice when clients appreciate (presumably) what we do for them. In this particular case, an annual report for the Literacy Assistance Center in New York (we also designed their website). One unique aspect of this piece is that to keep costs down for this not-for-profit organization, we put the President’s letter and financials on an insert slipped between the staples and displaying the concluding two numerals of the year. Next year we simply print a new insert with a new letter and financials, and with 05 on it, and insert that into another thousand copies of the base document that the printer has kept in storage. Two annual reports for the price of one. That’s worth a banana or two.

Categories
Music Software

CoverFlow: Better Digital Music Navigation

Cover art

Remember the days when you’d long to listen to music by the album? You went over to your shelves and looked at the album artwork to find the music you wanted to listen to. With the invention of MP3s and digital music players, the concept of album covers as navigational aids got lost (along with shelves full of records). Suddenly looking for a song meant you had to know the artist, album, or song name. As a visual thinker, I can easily tell you what any album in my music collection looks like from memory, but have a real problem with knowing what album a given song is on.

Continue reading “CoverFlow: Better Digital Music Navigation”
Categories
Design Everyday Films

Concept: Netflix Drop Off Advertising

Netflix Drop Off
Netflix and the Netflix logo are copyright 1997-2005 Netflix, Inc. All rights reserved.

When you love Netflix, as much as we do, it can be a real nuisance when you arrive at work having forgotten to post your viewed Netflix DVD envelopes. You curse your eyes for missing the mail box and hope you remember the envelopes on your way home… but then you forget… again… and the cycle continues.

A vicious cycle.

Continue reading “Concept: Netflix Drop Off Advertising”

Categories
Design Everyday

Mail Planes

mailplane

I have noticed recently that a new street artist has been around New York stencilling aircraft silhouettes (P-47 Thunderbolts more or less) on mailboxes. This one photographed near the Apple store in Soho.

Categories
Culture Design Everyday

Friends of the Arts

friendsmontage

One of the great perks of being a designer, particularly of identity and branding programs, is that you become closely involved with some wonderfully interesting people you might otherwise never get to meet. A case in point is with an identity program we are just starting for Brooklyn Friends School. Last week, Ben, Saki, DK Holland and I spent a sweltering but fabulous day visiting the School, and were amazed that the entire building was packed with art projects of a level that was difficult to believe came from lower/middle/upper school students. It was no easy task to choose the three pieces shown here, a puppet, a mosaic, and a mural, from literally hundreds of equally accomplished examples. This work is done by kids just like any others, who, with the proper encouragement and nurturing were capable of achieving extraordinary results. The sad thing is that this is extraordinary where in fact it should be ordinary. All high schools could demonstrate the same achievement and vision if they wished. Art programs, including both the visual and performing arts, cut from one curriculum after another, are an essential element in the development of fully balanced and fulfilled individuals. It is a tragedy that so few other schools in New York or elsewhere aren’t following this remarkable example.

Categories
Everyday

Sign Repurposing

Spotted this on the face of a building (on 30th between 5th & Broadway) on my way to a tai chi class. The silver hand lettering transforms what was once a gas station sign into a message of peace… an advertisement for oil turned into a protest against the fight over oil. The message is outdated but I think it generally matches the sentiment of our current troubled times.

Categories
Everyday

It’s Going to be a Hot One

steamymorning

Central Park, eight o-clock this morning. The haze already building for a steamy ninety-plus day.

Categories
Books Culture Design

Mouse V Gherkin

Iconic architecture

The cultural differences between the UK and the US still astound. On recently visiting London, I noticed that Charles Jencks’ new book, Iconic Architecture, was bedecked not with mouse architecture as in the US (Frank Gehry’s Disney thing in LA), but with a highly amusing and pyrotechnic rendition of Norman Foster’s St. Mary Axe building in London, (known as the erotic gherkin to Brits) about to go into orbit. Are we in America taking ourselves too seriously? As a book designer among other things, I am sad that Rizzoli could not entertain such an entertaining (and Iconic) cover here. (On the subject of two cultures divided by a common language, gherkin in English translates to Pickle, like the thing you put in sandwiches, in American.)