new ideas
A posting of thinking we like.
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Pentagram partner and renowned graphic designer Paula Scher continues her Map series with these complex and alluring geographies that map out the information context as well as the often overload we experience in 21st century society. These layered, swirling images are hell-bent on mapping context with content of cities, countries, and continents. Amid graphic colors, lines and words layered atop one another, the artist proves her place as one of the most provocative of contemporary artists. click: www.paulascher.com Respond to this post »-->
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| These super cool plastic bags suggest that even super-talented designer Todd Oldham must have to stand in airport security lines with the rest of us. Or, at least he had the rest of us in mind when he created these FAA regulation quart-sized bags for Mobi. Choose from three colorfully complementary designs and raise eyebrows and envy at the airport security line. click: www.mobi-usa.com/toddoldham Respond to this post »-->
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| Pritzker Prize winner architect Alvaro Siza’s spaces fit organically and emotionally into the spaces they inhabit. More established in Europe (and homeland Portugal) than high-flying contemporaries, Siza is nonetheless a sizable force in the current mindscape of architectural design and planning. click: http://www.pritzkerprize.com/siza.htm Respond to this post »-->
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| Moscow, 2007. Moscow is the new drug. One of the largest markets for Bentleys in the world, Russia today also has the most billionaires. A $15 bottle of California wine sells in restaurants for $150. This photo was taken across the street from Red Square, next to the National Hotel (were Lenin lived before moving across the street to the Kremlin, the hotel where while you might have Room 426 down the hall from where King Juan Carlos of Spain slept, the room is actually on the 6th floor to baffle assassins, also the hotel famed for eavesdropping on its guests). Young Russians pirate iPhones from the U.S. and have the software to not only connect into Moscow mobile phone service Beeline, but replace English characters with the Cyrillic alphabet. The red videotron (above right) loops commercials for Cadillac SUVs, Timberland boots, and Greek tourism. There’s a Levi’s store down the block, even a Sbarro pizza shop. On the 90th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the army lined up in formation in front of that block-long Rolex billboard. Lenin’s tomb is green with envy. Respond to this post »-->
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| An African liqueur, Amarula Cream is made from the exotic Marula fruit. Recipes, cocktails, and distributors are available to explore. Amarula is a South African cream liqueur made with the fruit of the African Marula tree (Sclerocarrya birrea) which is also locally called the Elephant tree or the Marriage Tree. Amarula was first marketed in September 1989. It has the taste of slightly fruity caramel. Amarula has received consistently good reviews, with the caveat that, like most cream liqueurs, it is too sweet for some palates. It has become the second largest seller in the cream liqueur category after Bailey’s Irish Cream, with particular success in Brazil. Recently, Amarula has attempted to break into the American market. Because of the marula tree’s association with elephants, the distiller has made them its symbol and supports elephant conservation efforts. It produces for marketing efforts various collectible items featuring elephant head decoration. Respond to this post »-->
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| Some people fall for nan when eating Indian food, but we go for pappadums. Reduced to crispy snacks in Britain (like American potato chips), we found these crispy microwavable Poppadums at a grocery in Cape Town, South Africa. Pop in the microwave for 90 seconds, and they come out just like Baba used to make. Respond to this post »-->
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| Damien Hirst’s skull is covered in $100 million worth of diamonds, which means this piece of art will spend the rest of its life in a vault or under guard. click:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Hirst Respond to this post »-->
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| Former Urban Outfitters designer Mike Perry (who designed our Thinktopia poster) has a book just out from Princeton Architecture Press titled Hand Job: A Catalog of Type. click: midwestisbest.com Respond to this post »-->
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| Japanese designer Rieko Miyata forms this clamshell lookalike from coiled ribbon. click: http://www.japandesign.ne.jp/ Respond to this post »-->
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| Kidrobot claims to be the planet’s premier creator and retailer of limited edition toys, clothing, mini-figures, artwork & books. And they may even be right. Recently relocated to Melrose in L.A. click: kidrobot.com Respond to this post »-->
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| The largest organism on our planet is not a whale, but a bit of underground fungus (mycelium) recently discovered in eastern Oregon. Nobody knows how much it weighs, but its mass is spread across 2,000 acres, and is possibly 8,000 years old. A perfect bioorganism for a remake of The Blob. Click: Mycelium Delirium Respond to this post »-->
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| This tiny ice cream shop in St. Paul, Minnesota is every marketer’s ice dream. As if flavors like Squad Car (coffee with donut chunks), Orca (licorice with vanilla swirl), Kalamansi sorbet (a bright citrus flavor), and Dinosaur Egg (malted vanilla with chocolate chunks) aren’t enough, you also get an “Izzy”–a tiny scoop on top of your double scoop. Handmade waffle cones have a surprise milk ball inside. click: izzysicecream.com Respond to this post »-->
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| Cure malaria? Sure. Stop global warming? Why not? From developing a less expensive cure for malaria to fuel energy cells, Amyris Biotechnologies has received funding from a host of investors including the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation. Using metabolic engineering, which is startingly different from genetic engineering (based on the work of Jay D. Keasling, professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s synthetic biology department), Amyris is able to translate synthetic biology into solutions for real-world problems. Watch for novel pharmaceuticals, renewable fuels, and specialty chemicals. click: amyris.com Respond to this post »-->
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| The game that gave insomnia a reason for being, Halo 3 is launching on midnight September 24 in Times Square. Third (obviously) in the Halo series from Bungie, the studio Microsoft purchased years back to help support their Xbox, the new version amps up everything. Respond to this post »-->
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| The right to eat movement is taking shape as Locavores, a group located in San Francisco, challenges the world citizens to eat within a 100 mile radius of their home. click: locavores.com Respond to this post »-->
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| Have trouble parallel parking? How are you at stacking? These electric CityCars designed by the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are perhaps the perfect fix for dense urban jams. Grab a CityCar to your destination, then deposit it at another CityCar site located at shopping and culture centers. click: CityCars Respond to this post »-->
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| This new book of photographs by Chuck Close, A Couple Of Ways Of Doing Something, displays head shots of Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson and Chuck Close himself. The book is amazing not only for its lucidly aware photographs, but because the images themselves have been printed over a silver tint in the book printing process that gives the prints a halographic reality. As you turn the pages this way and that, the eyes seem to follow you. click: amazon.com Respond to this post »-->
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| Thinktopia CEO + Founder Patrick Hanlon will be speaking at the T3PR Conference in New York City, June 19, 2007. T3 will provide high-tech public relations practitioners with intelligence, education and tools for successful public relations campaigns. The one-day conference will have a mix of sessions led by PR industry leaders and innovators. click: www.prsa.org/networking/sections/technology/2007conference.html Respond to this post »-->
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| This Pigalle chair by designer Kenneth Cobonpue is the perfect place to sit and think. The natural contours slope and weave so you can sit, lay, scrunch. Available at fine design stores. click: mocoloco.com Respond to this post »-->
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| Former Urban Outfitters designer Mike Perry (who designed the new Thinktopia poster) has a new book coming out from Princeton Architecture Press titled Hand Job: A Catalog of Type. click: midwestisbest.com Respond to this post »-->
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| This might seem like a stretch, but German television network Deutsche Welle not only offers a different perspective on the news (like they show dead bodies in Iraq) but they also feature new fine artists in all medium: photographers, opera singers, painters and more. click: www.dw-world.de Respond to this post »-->
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| Finally a company that knows what exemplary customer service is all about. ULINE is the Four Seasons of supply companies. Using 21st Century technology to its advantage, they know who you are when you call to repeat an order, and have your past orders at the ready. If only the airlines, credit card companies and phone companies would consider what a mailing tube supplier has already figured out. click: uline.com Respond to this post »-->
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| Our new Thinktopia® credo poster was hand drawn by Mike Perry and designed by Emily Anderson. click: thinktopia.com Respond to this post »-->
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| Architect Steven Holl was named as “America’s Best Architect” by Time Magazine in 2001. Holl’s phenomenological approach (man’s existential bodily engagement with his/her surroundings) can be found in a book of essays he co-wrote with Juhani Pallasmaa and Alberto Perez-Gomez, in Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture. Holl’s Whitney Water Purification Facility and Park won the 2007 Top Ten Green Projects from AIA/COTE. Respond to this post »-->
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| National Geographic and IBM started the Human Genome Project to produce a sequence of DNA representing the functional blueprint and evolutionary history of the human species. click: www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0603/feature2/map.html Respond to this post »-->
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| Aesthetic Apparatus is Dan Ibarra and Michael Byzewski, two terrific designers slash screenprinters based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They are responsible for some great rock posters. click: aestheticapparatus.com Respond to this post »-->
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| Painter Tom Christopher’s scenes of New York City’s Times Square sell out in Berlin, Paris, Tokyo and other places that are supposed to hate us. Why? A master at painting human beings and automobiles, he captures people dodging traffic and bike messengers and the madcap swirl of New York City like no other. Small wonder his paintings hang in collections around the planet. click: tomchristopher-art.com Respond to this post »-->
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| Futurismo Zugakousaku is Mamoru Kano an art director at Japanese production company WOW who has established his own web site “Futurismo Zugakousaku”. Simple but amazing image expressions of algorithm as program art. “I was always interested in the information design and adopted programming to image production,” he says. click: zugakousaku.com Respond to this post »-->
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From the birth of Krishna to the birth of He Who Shall Not Be Named, a history of religion in 90 seconds. click: mapsofwar.com/ind/history-of-religion.html Respond to this post »--> |