Raves – Page 3

FutureThinkers

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself head deep in design books while doing research for a potential interior re-design of a local private club. I love being head deep in design books, and the one that continues to blow me away is Fingerprint: The Art of Using Handmade Elements in Graphic Design , by Chen Design Associates out of San Francisco.

Josh Chen is a bad-ass designer, with 20 years of experience in design, broadcasting, journalism, and music. I love renaissance men and women. Within the school of renaissance thinking comes humanism and self-awareness, and it seems much of the design work Chen has compiled and highlighted here is lacking neither.

Take, for instance, the Futurefarmersgroup, also from San Francisco, that fertile ground which nourishes SO MUCH talent. Futurefarmers collaboration includes creating prototypes of an urban planning tool which allows users to visualize The Great Park’s health and creating a “lunchbox laboratory” which will encourage students to screen various algae strains, ultimately helping to find the strains that are optimal as a renewable energy resource. Basically, design used as a superpower for the forces of good and not evil. Think of a modern day Leonardo or Galileo.

Futurefarmers website describes the group as:

practitioners aligned through an open practice of making work that is relevant to the time and space surrounding us. Futurefarmers work across many media. We enjoy creating platforms for sociability, play and culitvating consciousness.

One of my favorite pieces is this sundial watch, by Futurefarmers Amy Franceschini. I don’t wear a watch, but I would wear this one:

Described as:

a reaction to the ubiquity of technological devices in our lives today. Sundial watch reminds us to depend on our own devices. It is an interface with nature…

The sun will always rise in the morning and set in the evening, and the length of the winter days will be shorter than the summer days. This portable sundial physically illustrates the wonders of the sun and its motion through the sky providing a stage for the suns’ shadow to dance upon.

This book is FULL of inspiration and genius creativity from some of the best designers today. And although I am working on becoming a full-fledged interior designer, cultivating ideas from many disciplines, be it graphic design, architecture, music, science, literature, philosophy, film, graffiti, fine art, or nature is what this cross-platform, renaissance thinking is all about. Count me in and on the bus.

The Journal of Nomadic and Popular Culture

Pre-order the journal for a hard copy

Every two months, Polar Inertia rolls out extraordinary photographic installments via a magazine (and website) documenting “the story of the highway, mobile home, fast food chain, suburbanite, truck stop, and industrialized landscape.”

Here’s their manifesto:

Polar Inertia journal is an outlet and a resource for on going research into the networks that define the contemporary city. The journal began with the idea that an understanding of the conditions of post war urbanism requires immersion into the technologies and instruments that have molded the growth and image of the city. Using Los Angeles as a primary research laboratory, Polar inertia works under the belief that by exploring and documenting the infrastructure and land use patterns we can begin to understand the contemporary and future city. The research in the journal provides a basis from which to explore the potential for alternative proposals for urban development informed from the daily realities of the city.”

Some pretty heady stuff, with amazing photo’s to match. Check it out!

Sunday Ritual Spawns Ideas

For as long as I can remember, my family has had the ritual of stretching out Sunday morning in the pursuit of newspaper reading. This tradition involves all kinds of newspapers, depending on the location of any given Sunday, but it ALWAYS involves The New York Times. I almost always go to the magazine first, if I am not sideswiped by an unsuspecting “Style” section headline. (Plus, I have a guilty pleasure of reading the wedding announcements. PURE east coast lineage postings, really…)

This week, the magazine hosted its’ 7th Annual Year In Ideas. I adore this issue. I’m not sure if its because I was blessed with the “wonder bug”, whereas seemingly mundane things become incredibly interesting to me, no doubt implanted by my parents, or if it is purely that some of these revelations are truly incredible.

Some of my favorites this year are:

– Fake Tilt-Shift Photography, which makes pictures of actual life-size vistas look like pictures of miniature model’s of said vistas.

– The Honeycomb Vase, sculpted by bees

– Left-hand-turn Elimination, which would make one of my best friend’s mom proud, as she never made left-hand turns. UPS has incorporated the practice, saving three million gallons of gas and reducing CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons

– Mindful Exercise, a study concluding that self-awareness can lead to actual, measurable health benefits.

– Lap Dance Science, which deduces that women earn more while ovulating.

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