‘Let’s Talk About Me’ Postcards

Devised by Scott King [scottking.co.uk] for Polite [politecards.com].

Hakkusan Pottery Cat

For the Hakusan pottery company visit [www1.ocn.ne.jp/~hakusan].

Go-Ped Know-Ped

I love my Go-Ped [goped.co.uk]. There, I’ve said it. Sure I look like a some wierdo 30-nothing super geek wizzing about olde London town on my sooped-up LA-stylee ride-on scooter. In a compact city where cyclists take their life into their hands every time they hit the road, becoming part pedestrian seems much more appealing. Proper Californian Go-Peds come with wooden decks and an ‘aircraft grade’ chassis so they take a lot more punishment than your tin-foil, fold-up variety. Only gripe is the occasional grumpy-arsed shop keeper who kicks you out the store if you bring it in with you… oh and that tacky silver logo. The old logo is so much better, just needs a bit of a redraw.

[Thing #002]

Eames House of Cards

Much imitated but never bettered, the Eames House of Cards is our second ‘thing’. It’s a thing of things really, depicting what Charles Eames famously described as ‘good stuff’. If you ever stumble across the 1970 revision entitled ‘A Computer House of Cards’ grab it, they’re like gold dust (just make sure you post a few pics of ‘em somewhere so all of us can have a geez).

Show One launches the events and features painters, designer-makers, photographers and print-makers. Worth having a gawk at (from a graphic point of view at least) are Alastair Levy’s ‘Proposals for everyday living’, Richard Healy’s wall of geometric work [richard-healy.co.uk], George Charman’s flat-effect 3D assemblages (the internet doesn’t do them justice) [george-charman.co.uk], Edward Austin’s ceramics and Kathryn Hinton’s inter-locking cutlery [kathrynhinton.com].

Ever since working at The Future Laboratory [thefuturelaboratory.com], particularly with the awesome Ms Caroline Till, I’ve been hooked on colour palettes and there were some lush examples of palettes well used in the show this year in painted pieces such as those by Ross Ruislip Taylor and Ellen Stanford [ellenstanford.com]. I have to admit I stood and started at Ellen’s large scale painters for an inordinately long time hoping I’d be able to remember every little shade of colour she had employed and how they worked together. Once you start seeing palettes everywhere, it’s addictive, I tell you. Again the intrenet does not do them justice but I’ve included a coupe of her pieces in this here post. It’s worth mentioning the work of Clare Maunsell too just cause she injected a joyful burst of humour into the proceedings with tombstones that tell you when you’re running out of stuff and loads of crazy bits and pieces.

BTW If you’re feeding a colour palette addiction too you probably already know about Adobe’s Kuler website thingy. If not you should go there now. Honest, it’s dead fun. You can choose palettes from your Flickr photos now too [kuler.adobe.com].

Scott Dadich’s [st-artdesign.com] ‘maximal’ (more about this later) redesign of Wired magazine is turning me into a geek… okay, even more of a geek. I don’t think this is such a bad thing, although I’m not getting out as much anymore… anyhoo, the latest issue of Wired (April 2008) [wired.com/16-04] features a lead article on Wired Business Trends 2008 and under the title ‘Rise of the Instapreneur’ (kind of a clunky name for em, if you ask me) they mention a few sites where you can design stuff and get it manufactured via the internet. Being a recent fan of POD (Print on Demand) printing [wikipedia] I checked a few of them out. Zazzle, in particular, caught my eye and as I had a few random designs lying around, it took me no time at all to set up shop. I’m calling my label ‘Retail Fashions’ [zazzle.com/retailfashions] (it’s a bit tounge-in-cheek). If anything, it’s another interesting experiment, although like most online manufactures (or should that be ‘webofacturers’… or something) it’s still a tad pricey when it comes to shipping and the interface could do with a bit of a tidy up. Have a look at see what you think, the mug shown above is my personal fave.

This lamp, available in white or black, has been all over the ‘cool hunting’ blogs but is so ace I had to mention it here too. It’s a collaboration between Boicozine faves P.A.M. (Perks and Mini) [perksandmini.com] and some ‘edge’ clothing label called Undercover from Japan [blog.honeyee.com] (so it’s too expensive for you, my friend… or is it? Maybe you’re rolling in cash? Not me. I’m happy enough just to blog about the crazy looking thing).