My former studiomate Jessica Hische put together this flowchart answering the question “Should I work for free?“
Dancers Among Us
Dancers Among Us is an ongoing project by Jordan Matter featuring top professional dancers in everyday situations around New York City. There were no trampolines or other devices used for these images, just thousands of hours of training! Watch the ‘making of video’ below.
(via designworklife)
Pearl Person Brooch
This Pearl Person Brooch made me laugh. Instantly wishlisted.
Ceramic Hip Flask
Not sure if all that practical, this Ceramic Hip Flask sure is beautiful to look at.
Bunny Pillow
I can totally see how little ones would take to this Bunny Pillow in an instant. And never let it go.
Polaroid iPhone Decal
PhotoJojo is on fire! I don’t think I have ever ordered anything as fast as this Polaroid iPhone Decal. A total winner!
(via the always fabulous bblinks)
Heart-Shaped Hole Punch
This heart shaped hole punch made me smile.
Aphrodite USB Hub
This Aphrodite mini sculpture will bring elegance and class to your workspace with the 4 port USB hub as the base.
Mini Robot Vacuum
This Mini Robot Vacuum won my heart. I think I need to make space for it on my desk. This fun desktop robot will clean up all your messes! Simply press top button and zoom over crumbs, pencil shavings or other debris and he’ll sweep ‘em up.
Basics of Business
David Airey’s Be brilliant at the basics post really made me look. It’s good to remind ourselves of the basic rules of business every now and then.
The business tips in David’s post were excerpted from the mini-book Brilliant At The Basics of Business 100, by author, designer, and teacher Nicholas Bate of Oxford-based Strategic Edge.
Read the full 100 business tips in this free PDF (70kb).
♥ / Citizen Stock
A big thank you to Citizen Stock for sponsoring this week’s swissmiss RSS Feed.
Real People Rule in 2011! That’s why we love Citizen Stock! They are a stock photo agency that uses real people, not models. Shooting against a white backdrop, photographers Sherrie Nickol and David Katzenstein create images of children, moms, dads, grandparents, skateboarders, musicians, nurses, chefs, dancers, office workers, magicians, executives and more. Don’t miss their series of silhouettes!
Citizen Stock keeps it REAL, check out their site. Sign up and have access to free comps and other great features.
YouTubeDisco
YouTubeDisco.de. Brilliant and exactly what the name says.
(via Swiss Christian Leu’s Newsletter: Linkriss)
Custom Lapel Pin
Has anyone of you ever had a custom lapel pin made? If so, is there a company/service you could recommend? I am thinking about having one made for CreativeMornings. Please add your recommendations in a comment below. Thank you!
mappiness
I just found out about the Mappiness project over on Liz’s blog. In her article about Happiness she writes:
Mappiness, part of a research project at the London School of Economics, maps happiness across space. The researchers intend to better understand how people’s feelings are affected by features of their environment — from pollution to noise to green spaces — while they’re doing ordinary things. They hope to publish the research; meanwhile, users who download it can enter data that is charted for them hour by hour over time so that they can visually monitor their own happiness.
Potential for Happiness
Experiences — those that we have the potential to create opportunities for — can amplify happiness. While we can’t predict or control what people will or won’t do, we can create potential.
…
Even if the entire experience isn’t a good one, people may not remember it. Founder of behavioral economics and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman’s research reports on the “peak-end” rule, which shows what we remember about the pleasurable quality of an experience is determined almost entirely by two things: 1. how we feel when experiences are at their peak, and 2. how we feel when experiences have ended. We rely on these two-part summaries to remind us of how we felt about experiences. The summary is the one we remember. We’re taking happiness shortcuts.
…
Excerpts from Liz’s interesting post: What we talk about when we talk about happiness
Robot Quilt
While I am not all that crazy about quilts, this Robot Quilt by Boo Davis made me look and smile. It’s called “Does Not Compute”. Boo Davis shares the pattern and everything you need to know to make it in her book, “Dare to Be Square Quilting: A Block-by-Block Guide to Making Patchwork and Quilts.”
(How appropriate that the cover features an owl, my ‘obsession in the making!”)
The Noun Project
The Noun Project’s mission is to share, celebrate, and enhance the world’s visual language. The goal is to collect and organize all the symbols that form our language into one easy-to-use online library that can be accessed by anyone. All the symbols on their site are completely free to download, and can be used for design projects, architecture presentations, art pieces – just about anything. The folks behind The Noun Project think a visual language that can be understood by all cultures and people is a pretty amazing thing. I fully agree.
Watch a video about their project over on Kickstarter.
(thank you Edward)
Gift A Stranger
Spread a little bit of happiness in the world: Send a gift to a complete stranger using Google Maps.
Gift a Stranger from Happiness Brussels on Vimeo.
A project by Happiness Brussels.
(thank you Tom)
Dow Piano
The Dow Piano audiovisualizes the ups and downs of 2010 into musical notes. Using a five-note scale spanning three octaves, pitch is determined by the daily closing numbers of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The variance in volume mirrors the trading volume changes throughout the year. The notes are clustered in series of five, representing Mondays through Fridays. The weeks are punctuated, separated, and started by drum hits. Follow along with the graph to experience the market in a (somewhat) musical way. Created by Bard Edlund.
(thank you Dominique)
Soap Flakes
Swiss Nathalie Staempfli designed two ingenious soap dispensers that turn a soap bar into beautiful little soap flakes. One version attaches to the wall and allows you to use it with one hand. The other version is a grater that can stand by itself. It can be placed in the same way as a shower gel or shampoo.
Soap bars are more concentrated than liquid soap which has an ecological benefit: You don’t transport water around the globe and they only use paper for packaging. The solid blocks can easily be piled and allow a greater space efficiency during transportation.
This invention already made my week: Soap Flakes.
(Thank you Jason)
ZH/CreativeMornings Video with Michel Bachmann
Our speaker at the third Zurich/CreativeMornings was Michel Bachman, co-founder of The Hub Zürich talking about Social Entrepreneurship.
A big giant thank you to the team of Redsmoke Productions for their amazing work on documenting the event.
The Zurich/CreativeMornings chapter is run by Daniel Frei.
11/10 Michel Bachmann | The Hub Zurich from Zurich/CreativeMornings on Vimeo.
LA/CreativeMornings Video with Alissa Walker
Our speaker at the December 2010 Los Angeles/CreativeMornings was Alissa Walker of Gelato Baby. This event took place on December 17, 2010 and was generously hosted by Ford & Ching.
How incredibly charming is Alissa?
2010/12 Alissa Walker | Gelato Baby from LosAngeles/CreativeMornings on Vimeo.
A big giant thank you to Grant Withington and Stephen Haynes for offering to shoot and edit the video, with assistance from Michael Mahaffey.
The Los Angeles chapter of Creative Mornings is run by Jon Setzen.