swissmister = Tilo Red Eisenberg

Some of you might have been wondering about the lack of posts this week. Here’s the 8lbs reason:

Please welcome Tilo Red Eisenberg a.k.a swissmister. Born on February 14th, 2010 at NYU Hospital in Manhattan. Yes, February 14th is Valentine’s day and the first day of the Year of the Tiger. (The little man sure made a bold statement with that date!)

Unfortunately things haven’t been smooth sailing and Tilo has been in the NICU (newborn intensive care unit) for the last 3 days and will have to stay until at least tuesday. It has been a humbling experience to say the least. Please, send some good energy so that he’ll be coming home with us next week. We are home! We are home! Yay!

And a big thank you to everyone that helped us with the name finding.

Yay for Tilo the Tiger!

(For those of you wondering on how to pronounce Tilo: You pronounce the ‘i’ just like in my name, Tina.)

CreativeMornings with Allan Chochinov of Core77

I am excited to announce next week’s CreativeMorning, on February 26, 2010, with Allan Chochinov.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Allan Chochinov is the editor-in-chief of Core77.com, the widely read design website, Coroflot.com design job and portfolio site, and DesignDirectory.com design firm database.

Some of you might be familiar with his A Manifesto for Sustainability in Design or his fantastic article Those Who Can, Teach. 1000 words of advice for design teachers.
 that I have linked up before.

HOST
A big thank you to Liz Danzico and her team at the MFA in Interaction Design Program at SVA for hosting our February CreativeMornings. Liz will also be the one welcoming everyone and introducing the speaker as I am unfortunately not able to attend, due to the arrival of little swissmister. A big thank you to Liz, for taking over!

R.S.V.P
Interested in attending? Make sure to get your free ticket over on creativemornings.eventbrite.com quickly as we usually fill up fast. Please tell us your name and what industry you’re in. CreativeMornings start at 8.30am, end at 10am and are FREE of charge.

BREAKFAST SPONSOR

Breakfast will be generously sponsored by our new main sponsor MailChimp, a fantastic service that makes it easy to send email newsletters to your customers, manage your subscriber lists, and track campaign performance. A big yay-hooray to the team over at MailChimp!

Be the first to know when r.s.v.p’s open up, follow CreativeMornings on twitter!

Check out pictures of previous CreativeMornings over at Flickr.

View all the taped CreativeMorning talks we’ve put up on the web so far over at Vimeo.

CreativeMornings? ‘CreativeMornings’ is a monthly morning gathering of creative types. Each event includes a 10 minute lecture, followed by a 20 minute group discussion. The gathering begins at 8:30am with the topic presentation starting at 9:00am. The whole thing closes down at 10am. The events are hosted at studios/gallery spaces in NYC. (We are always looking for potential hosts that are willing to accomodate 50+ people. Please email us if you’re interested in hosting or sponsoring one of our events!)

Vintage Velcro Baskets

These White Vintage Velcro Baskets would look fab on swissmister, no?

♥ / The 99%

It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.

Need insight on how to make your ideas happen? Behance’s 99% think tank is a kick in the pants for creative minds. At The99percent.com, the Behance team has interviewed and profiled hundreds of proven idea makers. The site is packed with action-oriented tips and video talks that provide pragmatic insights on pushing ideas forward. Offline, the annual 99% Conference focuses on creative execution for two days in NYC.

The 99%: “Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.”

Try. Fail. Learn. Repeat.

‘How to learn from Failure’ Graphic from an interesting Wired Article.

(via thinking aloud)

Online Shopping in the UK

Rion discovered some unexpected options, while online shopping in the UK. Note that Prince and Princess were also in the list. Made me smile.

happiness

Jessa Crispin on by-products:

I was having a conversation with a writer the other day, and he stated that the best things are always by-products. Happiness is a by-product, and I loved that he said that. You can plot your journey to success or happiness or wealth or whatever it is you’re looking for, but if you’re too focused on the end result, you’re going to miss anything good going on around you.

Via always wonderful bobulate.

The difference between work and Work

“(Capital-W) Work is what we have considered for years: your boss tells you to do something, you do it, and you get paid. By contrast, (little-w) work is motivated by inherent interest and generally unpaid. Think of the difference between an Encyclopedia Britannica editor doing Work, and a Wikipedia editor doing work during spare hours. Big Work drives the economy; little work drives the Internet. Big Work builds skyscrapers; little work generates a half million fanfiction stories about Harry Potter.”

Clay Shirky: Doing work, or Doing Work?

(via pforti)

Studio 360 Challenge: Redesign Valentine’s Day

Bryony and Armin were invited by Studio 360 — the beloved Public Radio International show hosted by Kurt Andersen — to tackle a rather interesting problem: Redesigning Valentine’s Day, everything from the hearts, to the roses, to the chocolates, to the expensive dinners, to Cupid. Everything we know about Valentine’s was due for a new approach.

See the results here. (And here’s a page where anyone can download the icon.)

How to Make It in America

How to Make It in America / How To Make It In America: Episode #1 (HBO)

(via @tim_mckee)

fav4.org

Here’s how fav4.org works:

– Pick your favorite four websites from their settings list.
– Set this fav.org as your browser’s start page.
– Enjoy!

UPDATE: Just emailed with fav4.org, they will be adding the TeuxDeux Icon! YES! TeuxDeux is part of the selection now. Fantastic!

(via @mikearauz)

Teach every child about food

Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

John Updike on living in NYC

the true new yorker secretly believes
that people living anywhere else
have to be, in some sense, kidding.
– john updike

BabyBunk

Finally a nice-looking co-sleeper: BabyBunk.

(great find, via minor details)

Drawings by Marco Fusinato

Fascinating drawings by Marco Fusinato, investigating if there is a connection between sound, vibrations and physical reality?

Chairs

Limited edition laser cut of classic chairs from the 20th century.

(thank you tony)

Grey Donkey Bodysuit

Grey Donkey Bodysuit by Bobo Choses. Awesome.

Everything is amazing…

Everything is amazing and nobody’s happy-Tee. Made me smile. (Make sure you watch the Louis CK skit on this.)

Knot Door Stop

The attentive swissmiss reader in you might notice that I blogged about this door stopper before. (I was bummed when I found out a few months back that DWR is no longer carrying it.) But I just found it over at Haus Interior.

(Added to my ‘wishlist‘ category, which I created for family and friends, who constantly complain, that giving me a gift that they know for sure I will like, is nearly impossible.)

Chicken Wisdom

Yes, I admit, I have a thing for chickens. So it’s understandable that this post by Bobulate’s struck a nerve: Chicken Wisdom.

Watching the common chicken can help us understand human behavior, evolution, and ethics:

Watching chickens is a very old human pastime, and the forerunner of psychology, sociology and management theory. Sometimes understanding yourself can be made easier by projection on to others. Watching chickens helps us understand human motivations and interactions, which is doubtless why so many words and phrases in common parlance are redolent of the hen yard: “pecking order”, “cockiness”, “ruffling somebody’s feathers”, “taking somebody under your wing”, “fussing like a mother hen”, “strutting”, a “bantamweight fighter”, “clipping someone’s wings”, “beady eyes”, “chicks”, “to crow”, “to flock”, “get in a flap”, “coming home to roost”, “don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched”, “nest eggs” and “preening”.

Chicken wisdom

Pop Arty Beads

I just received the sweetest hand-written thank you note by one of my readers, Gisela Voss, thanking me for the inspiration she’s getting out of swissmiss. With the note, came a tub filled with these Pop Arty Beads which will make our almost four year old Ella’s head explode when I show it to her tonight!

(thank you Gisela!)

Joy Soda

We all should drink more Joy Soda.

Overcoming Creative Block

Alex of ISO50 asked some of today’s most exciting artists and creators what they do when the ideas aren’t flowing. He left the question fairly open ended and asked, What do you do to inspire your creativity when you find yourself in a rut? As expected, he was presented with an array of strategies, ranging from listening to Boards of Canada in a forest alone, to cooking up a storm (recipe provided) and waiting for the mind to clear: Overcoming Creative Block

Vanity Barcodes

Vanity Barcodes‘ goal is to help businesses take advantage of the little-known marketing potential of decorative — yet functional — UPC barcodes on their products. It’s a great way to add brand value and engage customers in a way that no other graphic design can!