These YumYum London toy characters designed by Beth Algieri and Jonny Plummer made me laugh. You might have seen their Parallel Parking Animation I posted two weeks ago.
(via getaddictedto)
Triangular
Triangular Design Manifesto, by Conceptual Devices:
00_ Design should not be based on formal principles – but always on an idea of society.
01_ Designed forms represent possible social orders and a lot of their contradictions.
02_ Design is everything. Anything could be designed. Everyone is a designer.
03_ Design allows social innovations. Often it is not made by designers.
04_ Design has not scale. It could be small and have great impact.
05_ Design is not an innocent practice. Designers are wicked.
06_ Design should engage people and interact with them.
07_ Design is an interdisciplinary applied science.
08_ Design produces visual consciousness.
09_ Design is a triangular manifesto.
10_ Design makes you smile.
11_ This is the top.
12_ Enjoy!
Alphabetic Bookshelf
This Alphabetic Bookshelf will certainly not win a price for being the most useful bookshelf out there, but it sure makes a typography lover like me happy.
Why I blog:
“Everything that’s ever come to me has been because I publish on my blog. It’s that simple.”
– Jay Parkinson
I feel exactly the same. Read Jay’s full post here.
Zurich/CreativeMornings with Michel Bachmann
DATE
Zurich/CreativeMornings Friday November 12th, 8.30 am – 10 am.
SPEAKER
Our Zurich/CreativeMornings November speaker will be Michel Bachmann, Co-Founder The Hub Zürich. Michel will talk about collaborative innovation: taking the social in social entrepreneurship seriously.
HOST
We are thrilled that The Hub Zürich offered to open their doors and host our Zurich/CreativeMornings. As you can tell from the images below, their space, designed by Antonio Scarponi, is stunning!
(images by Louis Rosenthal)
SIGN UP
You will be able to sign up starting Monday, November 8th, 11 am Zurich-time over at zurichcreativemornings.eventbrite.com. Mark your calendars as there are only 50 spots available.
COFFEE SPONSOR
Coffee will be generously sponsored by the wonderful Cafe Noir in Zurich.
ABOUT CREATIVEMORNINGS
Zurich/CreativeMornings is a monthly breakfast lecture series organized by Daniel Frei, originally started by Tina Roth Eisenberg (swissmiss) in New York City. Each event includes a 20 minute lecture, followed by a 20 minute group discussion. The gathering begins at 8:30am with the topic presentation starting at 9:00am and everyone taking off for work at 10am. CreativeMornings are free of charge!
Be the first to know when r.s.v.p’s open up, follow Zurich/CreativeMornings on twitter!
Check out pictures of previous NewYork/CreativeMornings over at Flickr.
Connect with us on Facebook.
View all the taped Zurich/CreativeMornings talks we’ve put up on the web so far over at Vimeo.
Speed Creating
Each day for 30 consecutive days Dominic Wilcox attempted to make something creative. He hoped to force himself into making quick decisions, creating things instinctively. On his site you can find an index of all 30 Days in the Speed Creating project linked to all the day’s pages. Impressive.
The Business Card Tie Dispenser made me laugh!
View all Speed Creating Projects
(thank you Liz)
Rainbow Princess
About a month ago, I sat down with our 4.5yo Ella Joy to talk about Halloween. She has been going through a never-ending princess phase and I wanted to make sure we are not entering yet another pink princess Halloween. So, I looked at her and said: “Ella, what would you say, if we, the entire family, dress up as a big giant rainbow!” She looked at me with big, excited eyes and said: “YES, Mommy, I’ll be a rainbow princess!”
Umpf.
I pulled out my iPhone, and typed a “Help me message” to my dear friend and studiomate Jessi Arrington. Jessi is the queen of dressing up, and never misses a chance to do so. Just take my 5 year blog-anniversary where she dressed up as a typical Appenzeller farmer. (Appenzell is the region in Switzerland where I grew up) Her costume was amaaaazing and the fact that she cut a plastic cow in half with her bread knife at 2am shows how dedicated she is. Dressing up is serious business in the Arrington household. (Right, Creighton?)
My call for rainbow princess help was taken very seriously. Jessi instantly proceeded to sketch out three dresses for Ella to choose from:
Ella’s choice took a mere 2 seconds. Number 1! Number 1! she exclaimed. And then, Jessi’s late nights and trips to the fabric store and Ella’s questions “When is it ready” began. The excitement in Ella’s face, when I brought the dress home last thursday can not be expressed in words. That morning, she woke me up at 6am asking: “Is my rainbow princess dress coming today? Is it today? Is it today?”
And so they met. Ella and her rainbow princess dress, made with an incredible amount of love and dedication by SUPERAUNT JESSI™. Ella’s wildest princess dreams have come true with this dress. We are scared of next year’s Halloween as there is no way to top this.
This is a big giant virtual thank you to the bestest most creative friend out there. Jessi, I wanted to buy superaunt.com for you today, unfortuantely it was taken. So here is my big, fluffy blog thank you. You are an inspiration to me and Ella is your biggest fan. Thank you for making our Halloween absolutely fantastic.
Oh, and for those of you wondering, yes, our entire little family dressed up in the Rainbow theme. G and I went as a double rainbow (so intense!), Ella obviously as rainbow princess and our little Tilo was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Read about Jessi’s rainbow princess experiment here.
All photos are by wonderful Erin Sparlin.
Ask Better Questions
Debbie Stier posted about David Weedmark’s 5 Keys to the Art of Listening. Advice #5 struck a nerve:
#5 Ask better questions: To truly engage someone in a conversation, there is nothing more important than your choice in questions. I am fascinated the why’s behind people’s stories. Take them deeper into their own thoughts and feelings by asking them why they did what they did and how they got to where they are. Every story has a better story behind it, beggint to be opened with a single, “Why?”
5 Keys to the Art of Listening, from David Weedmark.
“Dead Drops”
‘Dead Drops’ a new project by Berlin based artist Aram Bartholl. ‘Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. Aram is ‘injecting’ USB flash drives into walls, buildings and curbs accessable to anybody in public space. You are invited to go to these places (so far 5 in NYC) to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop contains a readme.txt file explaining the project. ‘Dead Drops’ is still in progress, to be continued here and in more cities. Full documentation, movie, map and ‘How to make your own dead drop’ manual coming soon!
Current NYC ‘Dead Drops’ Locations:
87 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, NY (Makerbot)
Empire Fulton Ferry Park, Brooklyn, NY (Dumbo)
235 Bowery, NY (New Museum)
Union Square, NY (Subway Station 14th St)
540 West 21st Street, NY (Eyebeam)
(via laughingsquid)
First Stop…
Once Tilo has his own room (in a few month’s hopefully, if everything works out as planned) then I’d like to hang one of these bedtime posters on his wall. What an adorable, typography driven, kids room print. Great gift too!
(via pinterest)
Little Times
Sometimes the little times you don’t think are anything while they’re happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.
– Andy Warhol
(via Liz Danzico’s CreativeMorning talk this morning)
Paris versus New York
Paris versus New York is a friendly visual match between those two cities, as seen by a Parisian-based-and-lover on New York details, cliches and contradictions. Absolutely fantastic.
(thank you Jolayne)
O happy day
This cheery print from Lesley and Pea oiver at Keep Calm Gallery is enough to brighten any room! O happy day!
Studio612A Intern
Studio612A, our collaborative workspace in DUMBO, is seeking a one month studio intern. (Yes, this is an experiment) What does this mean? Hang out with all of us on a daily basis and help us on a variety of projects and tasks. Enjoy our massively awesome view and listen in and participate on our daily geek talk over lunch.
Our collaborative workspace consists of designers, developers, interior designers, copy writers and bloggers. We are:
Cameron Kozcon, FictiveKin
Larry Legend, House of Legend
Rob Weychert
Jennifer Ward, Minor Details
Erica Heinz, Energy7
William Burks Spencer, Spencer Empire
Chris Shiflett, of Analog
swissmiss
Interested? Email us and tell us why you think you’d qualify. Make sure to include a link to your website. (You need to have either designer or coding skills and bring your own laptop.)
But wait, there’s more: Our studiomates across the hall are a superduper perk in this whole thing.
One Hungry Mama
Anyone with little ones knows that feeding time can get stressful. Unless you have a kid that just likes everything, feeding a junior can be tricky.
As a mom, I love One Hungry Mama, a blog run by a Brooklyn Mom called Stacey. ‘One Hungry Mama’ is full of wonderful advice on how to make feeding time playful, easy and delicious. I often find myself perusing her recipes and my mouth watering while sitting at my desk. (Doesn’t the above Brown Buttered Cauliflower Pasta look delicious?) I love how Stacey let’s you filter the content by age, ingredient or type.
(On a sidenote: The site was designed and developed by my former studiomate Chesley Andrews)
Ohio Cushion
Ohio Cushion. Simply beautiful.
Multi Blocks
These MultiBlocks remind me of the colored math blocks we had in school in Switzerland when I was a whopping 7 years old. I vividly remember enjoying playing with them. Little did I know that they were tricking me into learning math! Ha! These MultiBlocks will find their way to casa swissmiss this holiday season.
Letterpress Y
I am in love with Jessica Hische’s Letterpressed Letter Posters. I especially love the Y, the O and the R. Check them all out over at JessicaHische.com. A perfect gift for new parents, or any type-lover that is.
The Black Hole
The Black Hole written and directed by Phil & Olly.Video.
(via RobbiePorter)
New Twitter Microsyntax
Interesting post by Chris Messina spelling out a new microsyntax for Twitter. (If you’re not into Twitter, this will make NO sense to you.)
(via @shiflett)
remember hope
Where were you on November 4th, 2008? Share your memories as a nation celebrated its participation in a historic victory.