Marjan van Aubel's "Foam China"

Dutch design group Tuttobene (located in Italy) has shown some impressive new designs at this year's Milan Design Week. The overlying theme behind all the work is sustainability: from outdoor lamps made out of bird food to a series of tableware made out of plastic that look like ceramics. My favorite out of all the work is Marjan van Aubel's "Foam China". This new material is an open-cell porcelain that behaves like a foam. It resembles foam and is lightweight and easy to use. It appears to be lumpy and gooey but when cut open it is full of small air pockets. It has all the same properties as porcelain and can even be glazed. Van Aubel has made cups, bowls, small plates, and saucers out of this porcelain-like foam which she calls "Foam China". The designer has also made a full China closet to house the tableware. Tuttobene has also released a magazine called Connecting the Dots which shows all the Dutch designers and firms presenting at Milan Design Week 2010. The magazine is defiantly worth taking a look at.

(Original core77 post here.)

New Concept Cell Phone From Mobiado

Luxury cell phone company Mobiado has just released their new phone concept, the CPT001. The deign is totally modern yet made from materials used during the height of the Renaissance. Each phone is made out of a single piece of marble with gold-filled engraved letters. On the bottom middle there is a clock fit with roman numerals. The touchscreen will be made form one solid piece of sapphire. The phone sure is over the top and luxurious! The technology used inside will also be up-to-date. I personally think it is quiet ridiculous, frivolous, and unnecessary, but i guess that i what makes it a luxury phone. I would be scared to death to drop the thing considering that it is made out of marble and sapphire! Wonder if it will make it into production or not. I'm guessing that if it does that it will retail for well over $700.

(Original core77 post here. Another blog post on ubergizmo here.)

Curious Sound Objects

FINE COLLECTION OF CURIOUS SOUND OBJECTS from Georg Reil on Vimeo.

I find this student project by George Rail and Kathy Scheuring from the University of Applied Sciences in Wurzburg-Schweinfurt to be really awesome, interesting, and impressive! It is called A Fine Collection of Curious Sound Objects and it consists of six black everyday objects, a matchbox, a detergent bottle, a coffee mill, a messenger bag, a shoe, and a bucket that create crazy sound noises. These objects turn into magical instruments by the use of Arduion and Processing technology. In the video each object has a cute little story behind it that explains how they got their "magical capabilities". After the narrator tells a story, each object is put to use showing what it can do with the help of a man and his voice. Reil explains the intrigue of the objects by saying, "They are enjoying to use, they are suppressing and one wants to explore and investigate them." I know that after watching this video that I want to see these things in real life and experiments with them for myself!

(See original core77 post here.)

Stefan Sagmeister Essay- Draft

Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister was born in the quaint town of Bregenz, Austria in 1962. While growing up, his parents worked in the fashion retail business. After high school Stefan went on to study engineering but soon after switched to graphic design. He started his design career at the age of 15 when he designed layouts and illustrations for the Austrian youth magazine Alphorn.

When he turned 19 Sagmeister moved to the city of Vienna, Austria in hopes of being accepted to the University of Applied Arts. His first application was rejected and he enrolled in a nearby art school to build up his talents. His second application was accepted and he went on to earn an M.B.A. from the university. While studying, he was introduced to musician Alexander Goebel, who was dating Stefan’s sister at the time. After seeing his talent, Goebel introduced him to the Schausipelhaus theatre group. Stefan designed a few posters for the group by way of the Gruppe Gut collective. The posters designs made fun of traditional theatrical images by paring them with rough, grungy, punk typefaces.

In 1987 Stefan was granted the prestigious Fulbright scholarship to study at Pratt University in New York. The work the he produced at Pratt had great wit and humor embedded into design. This theme of humor was prevalent in many of Sagmeister’s designs and can be seen in his current works as well. In 1990, he returned to Austria to perform community service in a refugee camp outside of Vienna in order to fulfill his military conscription.

The following year Stagmeister moved to Hong Kong to work with Leo Burnett. The advertising agency wanted Stefan to become a typographer for them. One of Stefan’s more memorable projects for the company was his poster design for the 1992 4As Advertising Awards Ceremony. The design consisted of an image of four nude Cantonese male’s backsides. The poster design was very controversial and some advertisement agencies boycotted the awards ceremony in protest of the poster. Stefan left Hong Kong in 1993 and spent a couple of months working in Sri Lanka before he returned to New York.

Back in New York, Sagmeister began to design for Tibor Kalman’s graphics studio M&Co. One of Stefan’s most memorable projects of M&Co was his first project for the studio. He was in charge of creating an invitation to the Gay and Lesbian Taskforce Gala. His design consisted of a small, neatly packaged box of fresh fruit, which to say the least became a bit of a nightmare to keep from rotting in the summer heat. Only a few months after Stefan joined the team, Tibor Kalman decided to close the studio in order to move to Rome. Stagmeister had made a name for himself in the design industry and decided that it was time for him to start up his own studio.

Stefan started his New York-based design studio Stagmeister Inc. in 1994. Following one of his design philosophies and the advice of Kalman, Stagmeister keeps his company very small. His team only consists of himself, one other designer who compliments his work, and an intern. One of the studios very first commissions was from Martin Sagmeister, Stefan’s brother, for his new chain of jeans stores in Austria called Blue. Stefan created a brand identity for Blue, which consisted of black lettering of the store’s name on an orange background.

When Stefan created his own studio his dream was to create music graphics and design album covers for some of musicians that he liked. His dream came true when H.P. Zinker asked him to create the CD Cover for his album entitled Mountains of Madness. The design consists of a CD case with a red plastic sleeve over it. The image seen when the sleeve is on is of a calm and peaceful looking face of an aging man. When the sleeve is taken off the images changes to the complete opposite and the man’s expression is livid and dangerous looking. This CD cover design got Sagmeister his first Grammy nomination.

Stefan received more commissions for album designs by other famous musicians including Lou Reed, David Bryne, The Rolling Stones, and Talking Heads. One of his more difficult jobs was his design for The Rolling Stones’s album Bridge of Babylon in 1997. Stefan had to do a lot of convincing to have his original design accepted by the band’s management. He was inspired by an Assyrian sculpture of a lion which became the main image in the cover’s design. The lion also symbolized Mick Jagger whose astrological sign is the Leo. Stefan believed that the image of the lion could be easily reproduced for the album’s tour merchandise. After it passed through management, the design was very well received by the band and their fans.

During this time Stagmeister Inc. also took on many commercial commissions, most notably the AIGA lecture poster created between 1996 and 1999. He thought up three different poster designs for three different lectures in New York, New Orleans, and Detroit. The design for the New York Fresh Dialogue series consists of texts overlaid with two elongated, wiggling tongues coming from both sides. The New Orleans’s poster is an image of a headless chicken running across a field with prominent red lettering in the top right corner stating “Hurry!”. The text on both of the posters seems like it is handwritten and is not evenly spaced or straight. The last and most unsettling poster is the Detroit poster created in 1999. The image consists of a photograph of Stagmeister’s torso. Stefan had his intern carve the text for the poster into his skin using an x-acto knife. The photograph has a grotesque and depressing feeling to it that defiantly caught the eye of many viewers.

In the summer of 2000 Stefan decided that it was time for him to take a break from his studio work. About every seven years or so Stefan takes one of these yearlong sabbaticals to focus on more experimental work and to look back at what he has done. Stefan believes that if his work is too much then it becomes a job and he starts to not enjoy it anymore. These breaks allow him to not let this happen. In 2000 Stefan looked back on all the work that he had accomplished since he started the studio and compiled a book entitled Made You Look: Another Self-Indulgent Design Monograph. The book recounts all of Stefan’s past projects, even the ones that he is not proud of. In 2001 he returned to the studio and published his new book.

Over the course of the next few years Stefan created a couple more album designs, most notably the Once in a Lifetime box set design for Talking Heads in 2003. Stefan received a Grammy for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package in 2005 for this album design. He also received a second Grammy in 2010 for Best Recording Package for his design for David Bryne and Brian Eno’s album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.

Stefan’s latest project is one that he has been working on since 2004. It is a series of typographic billboards captured in print images, moving media, installation work and on film called Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far. In 2008 he gave a lecture for TED.com on this series of work. In the lecture he lists his small philosophies which include the following statements: “Having guts always works for me.” “Keeping a diary supports personal development.” “Trying to look good limits my life.” “Worrying solves nothing.” “Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.” and “Everybody always thinks they are right.” Sagmeister originally wrote this list down in his own personal journal. He was able to make them into a very compelling design series with the support of his faithful clients. Stefan has published a book of images from the series entitled Things I Have Leanred. He also has asked his fans and followers to submit their own philosophies via his website thingsihavelearnedinmylife.com.

Currently, Sagmeister is on another one of his breaks from the studio. He is working on some personal projects while living in Bali, Indonesia. While on break he has turned down many tempting offers including a poster design for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Sources

Artist Series: Sagmeister 08. Hillmancurtis: Film |Video | Design for the Web. 2008. Web. 04 Apr. 2010. .

“Stefan Sagmeister/ Design Museum Collection: Design/Designer Information.” Design Museum London. Web. 03 Apr. 2010. .

“Stefan Sagmeister.” Interview. Designboom. 23 May 2006. Web. 04 Apr. 2010. .

Sagmeister, Inc. Web. 03 Apr. 2010. .

Sagmesiter, Stefan. “He Will Make You Look, an Interview with Stefan Sagmeister.” Interview by Brandon Luhring. Scene 360 - The Online Film and Arts Magazine. 29 Nov. 2002. Web. 04 Apr. 2010. .

Stefan Sagmeister On What He Has Learned | Video on TED.com. By Stefan Sagmeister.

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. Sept 2008. Web. 04 Apr. 2010.

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Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far. Ed. Stefan Sagmeister. Web. 04 Apr. 2010.

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Examples of Work

Bridge to Babylon: The Rolling Stones. Stefan Sagmeister. 1997. CD Cover and Sleeve.

AIGA Detroit. Stefan Sagmeister. 1999. Lithograph, 39 x 27 1/2"

Keeping a Diary Supports Personal Development. Stefan Sagmeister. 2008. Video of Installation.

Baplushave's "Arq" Lamp Design

Potemine IIia of the Italian design studio Beplushave created this lamp design named "Arq" in honor of Achille Castiglioni's famous Arco lamp. Castiglioni created the elegant, modern Arco lamp in 1962 out of steel and marble for Flos. IIia's lamp is more low budget and homey looking with its bare bulb, PVC, and wood design. Instead of a chunky marble base this design has a knotty wood base and instead of steel, spay-painted PVC. The design has a bare diffuse bulb in place of the Arco's steel shade. But the lamp doesn't have anything to represent the hole in the marble base of Castiglioni's design. As pointed out in the design-milk article "The concept was born from the combination of two materials that have no connection , and typically have for completely different use."

(See original core77 post here.)

Grosse8/Lichtfront's "Augmented Sculpture"

Augmented Sculpture by GROSSE8 & LICHTFRONT / Passagen 2010 from Lichtfront on Vimeo.

This installation work by German designers from Grosse8/Lichtfront named "Augmented Sculpture" consists of both 3-D sculpture and time based digital media. It was first presented last January at the Interior Design Week in Cologne and video documentation of the installation is not available online. The sculpture consists of two wooden parts about 2.5 m in height. Images and designs are projected onto this sculpture to create a very interesting effect. The projected graphics were created using AfterEffects and 4 videos are played by 2 different synchronized computers. The viewers mind is tricked by the projected images and the sculpture seems to change form as they are projected. (See original Core77 post here. See Designboom post here.)

Klaus Rosburg's Vertical Clock

German designer Klaus Rosburg just released his new clock design called Vertical Clock. Rosburg's design firm called SONIC Design is based out of Brooklyn, NY. The clock itself is made out of laser-cut anodized aluminum and brightly colored painted acrylic. It comes in nine different vibrant colors. Each design is hand-produced and they are only going to be producing 144 clocks in total. They are available for sale for $95 here. I really like Rosburg's other cuckoo clock designs alot too!

(See original core77 post here.)

(See another blog post about this design here.)

Studio Job's Wrecking Ball and Crane Lamps

Designers from the London design studio, Studio Job, have created the Wrecking Ball and Crane Lamps for a upcoming exhibition at the Carpenter Workshop Gallery. The pieces were commissioned by the gallery and will be shown with Studio Job's new furniture line from their Industry Series. The lead designers and founders of Studio Job are Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel. The lamps are both miniatured versions of the iconic industrial inventions: the wrecking ball and the crane. They are both made out of bronze and wired to be used as fully functional lamps. I love the whimsy and humor that these pieces have. Their miniature size makes them somewhat childlike but the dark color and material and the lighting features make them more sophisticated.

(See dezenn.com blog post here. See core77.com post here.)

Andy Hall Creates 24 Chairs in 24 Hours

Andy Hall, of HallMfg in Chicago, created 24 chairs in 24 (non-consecutive) hours in a Chicago Loop Alliance gallery space. Hall set up all his equipment in the empty gallery and created these 24 chair prototypes in this make-shift workshop. Over just the course of one hour, Hall created a to scale drawings of a design and then created a chair prototype. He did this for 4 hours for 6 days, adding up to 24 hours and 24 chairs. The process of which Andy builds is very different and interesting. His drawings are the basics for each chair's measurements. He does not use a tape measure, rather he traces each piece of wood. Then using the drawings creates each prototype chair. The wood that Hall used was provided by Rebuilding Exchange, a company which recycles materials ripped from old buildings and houses. The video below shows Hall creating each piece fast forwarded. It really gives you a sense of how little time he had to create each chair.

(See core77 post here)

Bodum's Ettore Kettle From 1986

Why is a 1986 design for a kettle being released in 2010? That is what I asked myself when I started reading this core77 article. Ettore Sottsass first designed this kettle during the Memphis Period (an Italian design and architecture movement during the 1980's) for the housewares company Bodum. The reason why it has not been produced until now is because of a manufacturing problem due to the kettle's stainless steel spout. Bodum had finally found a factory that can produce the Ettore kettle design and has released the product at this year's Home and Housewares Show alongside their new line called e-Bodum. The Ettore kettle will be sold in Sottsass's original pastel colors as well as Bodum's large range of vibrant colors. Below is a core77 interview with Jørgen Bodum (co-owner of Bodum) in which he describes the Ettore kettle.

Jørgen Bodum on the Ettore Kettle from Core77 on Vimeo.