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In a pop-up installation last week, British designer Lulu Guinness turned that classic stalwart of desktop novelties, pin art, into a life-size, interactive contest. The event marked the release of a pin-studded, mouth-shaped handbag called The Clerkenwell Lips Clutch. People who showed up and created an impression have been encouraged to submit their photos to Lulu’s Facebook gallery. The best impression (as decided by number of “likes” per photo) wins The Clerkenwell Lips Clutch (£450). As you might expect, the images run the gamut from kisses to headstands to pole-dance maneuvers to Charlie’s Angels to “bring out the gimp”. Click through for the shots that left an impression on us.
The High Line in New York is quite possibly one of the coolest urban parks on earth. This summer, the already art-filled experience gets an infusion of inflatable joy from FriendsWithYou.
Can’t wait!
Food trucks and Kickstarter: a perfect pairing? You decide. For as little as $1, a mobile chef’s dream can become a reality. Here are seven food trucks currently looking for funding. I’ve put them in order of deadline, so the first project on the list ends the soonest. Kickstarter is “all or nothing funding,” so if the project doesn’t reach its goal, the entrepreneurs get nothing. Just think: with your help, maybe one day these entrepreneurs will get to hit the road and be immortalized on food truck tumblrs like this.
Guten Brat: A Pneumatically-fitted VW Bus Serving Currywurst WHAT IT IS: Jorge is a welder and fabricator who loves painting and cooking. He wants to turn a 1957 VW bus into a food truck that serves German and Austrian food with a California flare. WHERE IT IS: Bay Area, CA WHAT THEY NEED: They have just 12 days to reach their goal of $10K. They are less than 10% of the way there. WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU: stickers, spices, sauce, meal tickets, bus pass, large original abstract realism bus painting, a year of brats, a LIFETIME of brats, a side dish named after you, catering as far as Oregon, Arizona and Nevada… WHY YOU SHOULD HELP: Of the seven food trucks on the list, this one is the most original. The project melds Jorge’s love for customizing cars and cooking. Wouldn’t it be great to help someone make a living doing not only one, but two things he loves? I’m rooting for this, and I don’t even like brats. Click through for six more food trucks.
I can’t stop watching these amazing edible zoetropes created by French designer, Alexandre Dubosc for The 2011 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. Check out his Flickr set for the “Making OeuF”.
You’re not looking at collectible miniature modern furniture, but scale models for a new collection by Red Hook, Brooklyn’s, Uhuru Design. Revealed during New York Design Week, the War Craft line is the agency’s third collection to feature local materials. To create the pieces, the designers used reclaimed wood taken from the deck of the decommissioned USS North Carolina. The ship was built at the Brooklyn Navy yard in the 1930s and fought during WWWII.
The War Craft line consists of six limited edition pieces including end tables that reference “the colossal diameter and caliber of the bullets that were onboard the USS North Carolina,” a rocking chair designed to “mimic the curves of the hull and the taper of the bridge tower,” a room divider “ shaped with the life-sized negative silhouette of the bullets that were fired from the ship, ” and my favorite piece: a coffee table that “ wears an interpretation of Dazzle camouflage that was used on battleships to confuse enemy ships.” Uhuru has a company policy of using materials that have been “reclaimed, recycled, repurposed, reused or otherwise rejected from their original function.” The company will produce only ten of each design due to the limited nature of the resources. Click through for full color, full size photos of the entire collection. I’d be happy just to own the scale models…
Andrew Lipson and Daniel Shiu meticulously recreated the art of MC Escher on a quest to see “whether it would be possible to produce a plausible rendering of any of his pictures in LEGO bricks.” Their first attempt, Balcony took three months of “intermittent” work. The pair continued working together over the years to Lego-ize Belvedere, Ascending and Descending, Waterfall and Relativity. You can go behind the scenes of Relativity here.
Since having my portrait rendered in the form of a ham sandwich, by bento artist, AnnatheRed, I’ve begun seeing food art all around me. The Jacket Lunch Box by Jake Obatchi combines food, art and music appreciation in one tasty tupperware. Obatchi recreates album covers using rice, seaweed and other edibles; and he doesn’t discriminate. His culinary covers range from hard rock to trip hop to nu-metal to Mozart. Lady Gaga, who is fond of food as fashion, would likely be honored by Obatchi’s bento tribute. And while Trent Reznor won an Oscar for The Social Network, lots of people have statues: Obatchi has dedicated a unique, hand-crafted bento box to the award-winning soundtrack. Other artists to receive the bento treatment include: Michael Jackson, U2, Radiohead, The Clash, Primal Scream, Prodigy, Slipknot, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Rage Against The Machine, Atari Teenage Riot, Cyndi Lauper, The Beatles and Wilco.
The EEP EEP EEP EP is a concept album by Boulder, CO-based designer, Rajeev Basu, made entirely using alarms. It’s meant to challenge the notion that alarms are often false, left unattended and mainly a nuisance. The project is an experiment to see if alarm sounds can be turned into music that people actually like listening to. I have very sensitive eardrums, and I’m going with a definitive yes on this one. The contributing artists include top sound designers, Michael Manning, David Kamp, Dominic Matar and Malcolm Goldie, and the EP was created across London, Berlin and New York. A sampling of some of the alarms used: Wireless car lock, school fire alarm, watch beeps, 80′s digital alarm clock, oven timer, car horn and an ECG scanner. Goldie describes his track as “Sitting down and listening to an alarm, rather than getting up and running away from it.” Basu is now opening up the project to other creators with Go Eep Yourself, a contest to produce more alarming music. For every track submitted, Basu will create a 1/1 artwork inspired by it, likely using clip art as he did for the existing tracks. The Eep Eep Eep EP is currently available as an iTunes download.
Israeli designer, Idan Friedman, has created a series of portraits embossed into disposable aluminium food trays. The collection showcases “ordinary people,” who are Friedman’s friends and acquaintances. Through his work “making objects I have no excuse for” at Reddish Studio, Friedman often poses existential questions. This 3D-printed faux Oriental vase asks: “What is the future of hand skills and traditional materials?” See more ordinary people and disposable objects on Friedman’s Flickr. [via Dudecraft]
The architects at New York’s RAAD have engineered a luxury urban chicken coop. Designed to maximize a hen’s productivity while ensuring optimal comfort, the Chicken Co-op is being marketed as a “new standard in living that liberates the lifestyles of modern chickens.” With the exception of “sliding tray for easy clean up,” the Chicken Co-op’s amenities list would entice most humans:
The cost of the Chicken Co-op is $3,500, but imagine how much you could save in eggs…
Urban farming is on the rise, and chickens are the gateway animal. Because chickens sit on the fence between livestock and pets, it’s legal to raise them in the backyards and terraces of most cities. For instance, Oakland city ordinances allow residents to keep chickens in an enclosed coop with some restrictions on how close it is to houses, schools and churches. Many city-dwellers who raise chickens cite their main reason for doing so as having a deeper connection with the food they eat. Practically speaking, chickens provide poultry, eggs and fertilizer. RAAD’s Chicken Co-op is the urban designer’s alternative to chicken wire. |
