“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” – Margaret Mead
(via @johnmaeda)
Absolutely Unique
Designy New Forever Stamps
New Forever Stamps from the USPS are dedicated to 12 pioneers of American industrial design. I am seriously excited about these. Here’s where you can buy them.
(via design-milk)
Checklist for great talks
To help celebrate the recent release of Scott Berkun’s paperback edition of Confessions of a Public Speaker, he compiled a checklist you can use to help make sure things go well at your next presentation.
(via @aaron)
Broccoli House
This Broccoli House will most definitely make my daughter smile.
The B•Line
Reaching out to prospective clients can be a fragile and difficult process, especially for a new company. Cold calling just seems, well cold. So, BREAKFAST came up with the B•Line – a way to get those whom we were after to call them instead. The B•Line is a custom built phone that connects prospective clients directly to all the co-founders of BREAKFAST. They get a cool toy in the mail, and can’t help but plug it in and pick up the receiver.
Brilliant? YES!
(thank you Rusty)
Melvin The Machine
Melvin The Magical Mixed Media Machine from HEYHEYHEY on Vimeo.
Melvin the Magical Mixed Media Machine (or just Melvin the Machine) is best described as a Rube Goldberg machine with a twist. Besides doing what Rube Goldbergs do best – performing a simple task as inefficiently as possible, often in the form of a chain reaction – Melvin has an identity. Actually, the only purpose of this machine is promoting its own identity.
(my favorite part is when the umbrellas pop open)
(thank you Frank)
Malthus, a Meal a Day
Malthus, a Meal a Day is an interesting idea by Conceptual Devices. It shows us how we can learn to stop worrying about the food and love the (population) bomb.
Malthus is an in-home aquaponics unit designed for the next generation kitchen or living room. It grows one meal a day: a portion of fish and a side salad. Aquaponics farming is a technique that combines the cultivation of fish with the growing of vegetables. The fish provides rich fertilizer for the plants and in return, the plants clean the water from the tank. The fish and the plants co-exist in a symbiotic relationship.
Sip-N-Spoon
Anyone with kids will nod their head in approval of this object called Sip-N-Spoon. It allows kids to eat their cereal and then drink the leftover milk right through the handle! But let’s not stop at cereal, think about how great finishing a bowl of ice cream is going to be when you have a milkshake to drink when you’re done!
Magazine House
MAGAZIN is a beauty of a magazine stand in shape of a house. Not finished with your reading? Just lay the open magazine on the roof of the house, and you can easily pick it up again to carry on reading, without loosing the page. Meanwhile your other favorite magazines can be stored ‘inside the house’.
Wishlisted!
Here’s looking at Hue
By now, color-coordinated bookshelves are nothing new. But hey, why not organize your website content by color? Yep, that’s what Here’s Looking at Hue does. Neat idea.
Class Room
Lovely Photograph by Aaron Ruell.
(via ignant)
Vintage Atomic Molecular Model
I admit, I have a thing for Vintage Atomic Molecular Models.
Latex Dipped Canvas Tote
This Latex Dipped Canvas Tote is a beauty.
Quick Pop Maker
I keep coming back to this Zoku Quick Pop Maker. And now I am trying to convince myself that ‘blogging about it is in fact the new buying’. Hopefully this post will keep me from hitting that buy button.
It looks like so much fun though. (sigh)
cBox
The cBox is a multifunctional, mobile storage unit that would look quite lovely in our studio. The cushion on the top turns the storage unit into and extra seating area for impromptu brainstorming session. Designed by Gianmarco Blini. Two thumbs up!
Play with Trash
These playful floor stickers made me chuckle. It’s an initiative by the city of Lucerne (Switzerland) to get people to notice and use garbage cans. What a fun idea! Hat tip!
(via curious about)
Lytro
Lytro is a camera that lets you focus on shooting and not worry about focusing. You can do that later. It sounds too good to be true, if you ask me, but seriously fascinating. Try it on their site by clicking anywhere in the sample photos to focus on that element of the picture. I can not wait to see this in action.
(Thanks Rusty)
A collection of bears
Mikey Burton runs a site on which he keeps cool looking bears. I heart the internet(s).
(via ChrisGlass)
Human orchestra
A lovely early example of special effects when the motion picture was still at the beginning!
(via wearedesignbureau)
♥ / Nextness
A big thank you to Nextness for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed.
Hover cars? Personal jetpacks? No one knows what’s around the corner. But these guys know what’s now and are spotting what’s next on their business and creativity blog, Nextness.
It’s run by STW Group, Australasia’s largest marketing, content and communications group made up of more than 70 specialist agencies. Their mix of think pieces and thoughtful curation make it a must-add to your RSS reader.
Their modest hope? In six months, a year, two years, their blog archives will function as a history of the future unfolding one day at a time.
(Interested in sponsoring a week of my RSS feed, learn more here.)
Field Kitchen
This field kitchen would come in really handy at casa swissmiss these days. Why? Well, for the past 6 weeks G, our kids and I have been living in a tiny fraction of our new apartment, sans kitchen, as we are doing construction on the rest of it. Interesting set-up, to say the least. Having to make do with a microwave and a tiny fride, I am literally having dreams of owning a stove!
So, discovering this Field Kitchen in my submissions inbox made me chuckle and realize just how desperate I am to cook my own food again.
Collaborative Fund + Creative Mornings
I started CreativeMornings in september of 2009 wanting to create an accessible, inspring morning talk series. Little did I know that it would grow into a global series. With an evergrowing number of chapters, CreativeMornings currently take place in NYC, Zurich, LosAngeles, and SanFrancisco with Chicago kicking off this friday. A London chapter is starting in July and Berlin and Vancouver are going to be kicking off shortly after. All of this has came from the help of my fantastic hosts and their volunteers in every city. It’s impressive that my idea has been received such generous support. Every event fills up within minutes. (Take this week’s first ever Chicago CreativeMornings with Jim Coudal. It was full in a mere 3 minutes.)
And things are only going to get better. Why?
In the winter of 2010 I had the pleasure to meet Craig Shapiro, former president of GOOD Magazine and now force behind Collaborative Fund. Craig took me out to lunch and I could tell he was interested in CreativeMornings. To my surprise, he was so interested, he asked if he could become a partner. I was stunned to say the least. We are talking about a man that has invested in companies like Kickstarter, Skillshare and BankSimple. I was speechless.
Curious as to why he wanted to become a partner, I continued to listed. He explained that he is drawn to CreativeMornings because of two important things:
a) There is a new breed of entrepreneurship and it is based on using creative facilities to solve big and small problems.
b) When you Bring like-minded (creative) people together, magic happens. New projects, job and business opportunities, friends and much more can all come from thee meaningful gatherings.
After my initial shock, I realized what an incredible gift it was to have met Craig. I can tell that he understands my vision for CreativeMornings and seems as excited as I am to make it happen. Craig obviously is a very smart business man and I am excited to know that I have a skilled partner to help me navigate the CreativeMornings ship. His support is allowing me to spend more time on CreativeMornings and focus on growing the series.
Beyond that, we here at Studiomates love when Craig comes and hangs out at our space. He is fueling our entrepreneurial spirts and is just an overall wonderful person to have around.
I am excited and incredibly humbled to be part of Collaborative Fund. This year cannot get any better, I think.
(raising my glass of bubbly stuff in excitement)
Daily Levitation
Natsumi Hayashi is a Tokyo based photographer that makes flying look easy. She takes daily levitating self-portraits. Fascinating. “Sometimes I need to jump more than 300 times to get the perfect shot,” Hayashi told MSNBC.com on June 8.
(Thank you Nate, via Dare.co.uk)