Ex.f

Norwegian graffiti

Dawn — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:20:53 +0000

Graffiti is no longer just an American hobby. It’s Norway’s turn to present you with some nifty art-inspired graffiti, courtesy of Dolk.

Chocophilia

Dawn — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:32:03 +0000

This delightful creaton comes to you courtesy of Nendo and Tsujiguchi Hironobu. The pencils of chocolaty goodness come in a number of cocoa blends that vary in intensity.

The only pencil shavings one would want to eat

Just take the picture

Dawn — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:26:06 +0000

New York Magazine takes a peek inside photographer Jay Maisel’s home. 109 Bowry was purchased 42 years ago for $102,000 (now worth an estimated 30 million), and currently lives there with his wife and daughter. Three people in a six-story, 72-room, 35,00-square-foot family home…do you think everyone has enough privacy/space?

If you’d like to read more about this home, here is the full article.

If you can’t tell, especially via the last picture, this building was previously a bank.

Not your average game

Dawn — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:25:43 +0000

Yasmin Sethi is one of many inspired by ‘Alice through the Looking Glass‘ by Lewis Carrol, a story in which Alice falls through a mirror and on the other side of the mirror, she becomes a piece in the game of chess. The pieces have an opaque finish, but once they touch the board the piece is revealed.

Excerpt from her site on the game of chess -”The theme of ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ is the difference between the real world and the world behind the mirror. In keeping with this theme there is a contrast between the unlit mirrored piece and the clear glass piece. Each unlit mirrored piece is a smooth and modern shape. Each lit piece is clear glass, with the negative shape of a traditional, delicate Staunton chess piece enclosed within it. In the book the White Knight talks about how he thinks better when he is upside down. In a reference, the White Knights in the set only work when they are placed upside down. This joke is hidden to all but those who know the background of the chess set”

Till death do us part

Dawn — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:01:27 +0000

These red wine glasses, based on the seven deadly sins, are handcrafted in England by Kacper Hamiliton. Sinning never looked this good.

Lust

Gluttony

Greed

Sloth

Wrath

Envy

Pride

And a handcrafted display case for all your sins

Save trees… write on a ceramic notepad

Sarah — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:30:14 +0000

Benjamin Franklin kept notes on his virtues in a single ledger which he carefully wiped clean of pencil marks every week - obviously the American forefather was an early adopter of the eco-trend as well. Helen Johannessen has designed a similarly-themed ceramic notepad (produced by Yoyo Ceramics) that speaks for itself.

From the Yoyo Ceramics website - “Supplied with a special pencil to write on the ceramic with, wipes or washes off easily, and believe me, it is most satisfying to write on the glazed surface with these waxy pencils (simple pleasures!) The hole through the top not only mimics a spiral jotter but also keeps the pen and pad together for convenient use.” The ceramic notepad can also be displayed on a wall or simply kept at your desk, bedside, or even in the bathroom (why not? I do a lot of good thinking in the bathroom).

Houston, we have take off!

Dawn — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:16:52 +0000

Can you guess what this is?

If you guessed pop out jewelry, then you’d be right. These lovely designs come courtesy of Melissa Borrell. You just pop them out, add a necklace or earring holders and you’re sporting jewelry that everyone can’t help but be entranced by.

This is what the jewelry looks like as it ships

And voila! Beautiful innovative jewelry!

Her work is available for purchase here as well as here

Melissa took time out of her busy schedule to provide me a bit of information so you can get to know the artist better.

Melissa creates jewelry as well as innovative products for interiors. Her designs emphasize the interaction between an individual and a product. These objects have taken the form of jewelry, wall coverings, sculpture, textile design, lighting, home accessories.

A native Houstonian, Melissa has lived on both the East and West coasts. After earning a BA in French Literature and Studio Art at Tufts University and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston she moved to San Francisco. Self-taught as a jewelry designer, Melissa opened her jewelry studio in the Mission district of SF in 1999. She sold her jewelry to galleries and museum shops across the country. In 2005 she received an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and moved back to Houston to establish Melissa Borrell Design in 2006.

*She also provided me with her artist statement. Enjoy.*

Where do art and design intersect? How does visual art meet functional art? How does scale influence the perception of an art piece? My artwork challenges a viewer’s notions of space, art, and functionality and facilitates a new understanding of these concepts.

I create designs that individuals can interact with and that will affect their perception of the space that they inhabit. My work addresses the complexities that lie in the in-between spaces: the tension between structure and fluidity, systems and chaos, movement and transformation, perception and reality.

My objects illustrate my ideas about space, gravity, and form and how these elements move fluidly in the landscape of our minds. My designs have taken the form of wall coverings, sculpture, textile design, and home accessories and jewelry designs. The concepts I explore cross the lines between sculpture, graphics, and architecture.

Okay, so I couldn’t help it. I love more than just her jewelry. I had to share this as well.

Music notes

Dawn — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:00:34 +0000

A few tunes for a (windy and rainy) Monday afternoon.

Daily Illustration To Warm Your Heart

Mia — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:17:16 +0000

“Kate Bingaman-Burt makes her painfully mundane purchases irresistible or at least gives us something to make us feel less self-concious about how frequently we spend to fill the void.”

I love Kate’s flickr stream. Her daily drawings are inspirational and touching, and her illustration is to die for.

Rise and sigh, Martina Carpelan

Sarah — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:27:28 +0000

Suggestively clever bed sheets by Finnish designer Martina Carpelan for Helsinki Hotel. Blurb from the website - “Show me your skin and I’ll tell you who you are. Rise and sigh is a collection of revealing bed sheets that plays with incidents often taking place in hotels. Different sleeping positions give different imprints on the sleepers’ body. The imprints give you a hint about last night’s atmosphere, suggest you what to do and tell things about you.The Rise and sigh collection consists of three embroidered bed sets; for the bachelor, for the love affair and for the one night stand.” Hopefully we see more from Carpelan soon - check out her website here.

Idea piece

Dawn — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:50:40 +0000

“Hans Tan operates as an independent designer, focusing on contextual research that yield conceptual propositions through design. With an abiding interest in plowing the relationship between tangible objects and their intangible meanings, he pursues opportunities to discern the world afresh whilst threading on the thick line between design and art.” (excerpts from the Hans Tan webpage)

“In essence, the design is the sentence itself, where language is used to convey a clock as an idea, reducing a timepiece as an object to the immateriality of an “idea piece”. The idea behind a designed object finally loses its pretense with matter and stands in front.”

“The object, in this case a lighting fixture, is represented literally by the pictorial image of itself. Using the lightbox as a lamp, the lampshade is a picture of itself. When the switch is on, it is the pictorial image of a lamp (in a lamp) that reacts and illuminates!”

“The routine of eating alone diverges from rituals of dining being a social ceremony, and the Placemat Paperback suggests a new ritual for the solitary diner. It is a complete novel served as a book of disposable paper placemats where each page is torn from the book for use at each meal, where each episode of the novel Against the Grain (A Rebours in original French, 1884) by Joris-Karl Huysmans progressively narrates the story about one man’s solitude and his bizarre self-indulgence.”

Water works

Sarah — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:13:29 +0000

Industrial design by Michael Sieger. I especially love the garden tree shower (lower right quadrant) and not just because it’s a sexy picture. I adore outdoor showers. They’re like sprinklers for grown-ups and precocious children.

Weekend round-up

Sarah — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:18:42 +0000

What is good design? Alice Rawsthorn has written an excellent article for the International Herald Tribune on this topic. Graham Hill takes a more holistic approach to design in this video for bigthink.com.

Modern design unveiled for Lehi’s The Point. New concept, inspired by the landscapes of Utah, from the renowned Frank Gehry.

In Asia, eco-friendly design creates possibilities in the style and fashion industries. Interesting concept, and as far as the use of organic and natural dyes… wouldn’t it have made sense to be using these types of dyes all along?

New design for the Lincoln penny have been unveiled by the US Mint. The log cabin design is charming, but who uses pennies anymore anyway?

The colors of Steven Meisel’s Vogue Patterns. I posted Meisel’s editorial a couple months ago - click here for the link.

In site-related news, we have been working on the link directory. If you’re interested in exchanging links or would like to recommend a website, please feel free to contact us.

Photo log - location scouting

Sarah — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 16:39:37 +0000

I’ve been hiking up mountains and trekking through ravines this past week all in the name of making a movie. It is glorious in the mountains… and this movie is going to be so equally glorious that they will name these peaks after me -

What a job this is. I love making movies. Anyway I’m sure not sure how much I can spill about the production yet so I will let the pictures do the talking for now.

The birds in Garibaldi provincial park are the friendliest birds I’ve ever met. And they’re sort of attention whores, they were practically begging for their picture to be taken. I enabled them.

That’s all for now… I have literally hundreds of pictures. You can see more here and I will keep sharing the gorgeousness of these locations!

The bee’s knees

Dawn — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:13:28 +0000

Now these are bee houses I can get near, as there is nothing inhabiting them that will give me blood poisoning. As of now, this is more conceptual piece from Yar Rassadin, but I sense in the near future it will be available for sale.