June 29, 2007
Apple Store iPhone Frenzy - The Video
Well, it’s Friday and this video shows the craziness that happened at Soho Apple store in New York. Spike Lee and our mate Johnny bought the first iPhones to raise awareness for kids with Aids in Africa - www.keepachildalive.org
Innovative CD Packaging
Our indie rock friends from Durban, South Africa SUPERHOTJOY, just sent us their debut album. The album is great, but what really caught our attention was the fantastic packaging. With the help of local design shop Disturbance Design, the band decided it would be fun to stick with a local theme and somehow finagled their way into Durban’s museum to pose with stuffed animals in an African savanna scene. Those images were then printed onto Polaroid pictures and stuffed into the album’s sleeve. Yet another creative example of people bringing back Polaroids.
Related PSFK articles:
Want To Host A Likemind Coffee Morning In Your City?
Next month is Likemind’s 1st birthday. In eleven months Noah’s and my idea for a coffee morning has reached 26 cities. Let’s try to double that for the anniversary?
Each city gets gets cash from our sponsor Anomaly for free coffee in the cafe of their liking. To host a Likemind all you have to do is find a co-host, have time to do it the third Friday of every month and you need to fill out this little form: http://likemind.us/contact.php
Parkour: Efficiently Leaping at Walls
Parkour, the French sport where participants’ known as traceurs leap up, over, and through urban obstacles has steadily been growing in popularity in Europe for sometime now. While skateboarders would probably shutter at the comparison, the new sport shares a lot of similarities to it’s wheeled counterpart - exemplified by action packed YouTube videos and even parkour walls where practitioners can hone their skills. However, what makes parkour unique are the utilitarian and philosophical aspects of the sport.
The New York Times explains:
The crux of the parkour philosophy… is usefulness and efficiency. A parkour practitioner, or traceur, trains his or her body and mind to be able to get from Point A to Point B in the quickest way possible in order to be useful to others.
“If someone is in a burning building, you’re not going to necessarily have to walk up all the stairs or take an elevator up,” Mr. Kravit said. “You might find a new way to get up and save that person.”
The article highlights the new sports emergence in the States and goes on to explain the frequently overlooked difference between parkour and freerunning - a stylistic difference stemming from a philosophical disagreement between the founders in which one felt that getting from point A to point B should be restricted to the most efficient and minimal movements; while freerunning encompasses more frivolous and exciting movements such as flips.
Bottled Water: A Questionable Choice
Core77 points at an article from Fast Company about America’s national obsession with bottled water. It has been difficult not to notice the astonishingly rapid ascension of bottled water, “enhanced” or otherwise, into the marketplace, and the question now is whether these alleged lifestyle choices have been ethically considered in the way they should be. Here are a couple passages from the FastCompany’s article that should make you pause next time you pass up the tap:
Bottled water is often simply an indulgence, and despite the stories we tell ourselves, it is not a benign indulgence. We’re moving 1 billion bottles of water around a week in ships, trains, and trucks in the United States alone. That’s a weekly convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers delivering water. (Water weighs 81/3 pounds a gallon. It’s so heavy you can’t fill an 18-wheeler with bottled water–you have to leave empty space.)
Meanwhile, one out of six people in the world has no dependable, safe drinking water. The global economy has contrived to deny the most fundamental element of life to 1 billion people, while delivering to us an array of water “varieties” from around the globe, not one of which we actually need. That tension is only complicated by the fact that if we suddenly decided not to purchase the lake of Poland Spring water in Hollis, Maine, none of that water would find its way to people who really are thirsty.
Fast Company: Message in a Bottle
[via Cor77 Design Blog]
The Future of Magazines
Innovations in Newspapers highlights quotes of interest from American magazine editors regarding the future of the medium. Some key excerpts:
While I do think online content could overtake newspapers, I believe that print magazines - because they are less ephemeral and more enduring, because they are more beautiful, because they offer perspective and amplify what people get elsewhere - will not be overtaken in the same way as newspapers,”
-Richard Stengel, Managing Editor, Time Magazine“Print will continue to be the primary engine of the magazine business, as long as we continue to offer great stories, great photography and great editorial packages.”
-Bill Falk, Editor-in-Chief, The Week Magazine
Though there is much discussion about the demise of the print medium, we believe that a considered approach to magazines will ensure they remain viable for years to come. Here are a few reasons:
1. Not many people seem interested in reading long-form journalism (The New Yorker, NYT Magazine, etc) in front of their screens.
2. Magazines are easily portable for a plane ride, or the commute home. Also, they can be a good weekend digest of the week’s events when you are away from the computer/PDA. Though digital books and interfaces for the consumption of media are emerging, none seem poised to make a significant impact.
3. The medium allows for deeper analysis and context of daily news.
4. The sensory experience that print affords — the feel of different paper stocks, glossy photos, beautiful layout, design — simply cannot be replicated digitally.
Rex Hammock says it best:
“Magazines that people display on coffee tables will exist as long as there are coffee tables.”
The Secrets Behind Coke Happiness
We’ve all seen the Coke Happiness spot by now - the one where the coin goes into a Coke vending machine and into a magical world isnide. AgencySpy nudged us to let us know about the six minute documentary clip that the creators of the commercial have made as a follow up. Smart.
David Report: Today’s Design Is Not Good Design
Form follows function? Yes, it should. At least that’s what the latest issue of David Report discusses. Their argument is that art has overpowered design – and products that have been showcased at this year’s Milan Furniture Fair prove their point:
Teapots in super size, huge Pinocchio dolls in mosaic, porcelain horse heads and knitted dogs.
It is obvious that this circus doesn’t have smart user-orientated and functional design as first priority any longer. Today it is probably more about showmanship. Media could partly be blamed for the sprawly superficiality, as a result of their stressful hunt for news.
Vulgarism is how David Report describes the “vacuum in the design industry”, comparing the difference between the creations of postmodernists in the 70s and 80s, to today’s overrated “design on dope”.
More at David Report.
More Stories
China’s Long Future In Africa
One thing that made us stop and think as we were crossing Avenue of Americas at Houston Street was this paragraph where a commentator talks about the future vision of China compared to the US.
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Conspicuous Vintage & Vintaged Moleskines
We were in the Earnest Sewn store and by the front where they sell odds and ends, we found these Conspicuously Vintaged Moleskine books for sale. It might be hard from looking at the pic above, but ES have apparently removed the branded band around them, kicked these books about (and through a few puddles of coffee) to give them a well-worn, as used-by-traveling-authors feel, then returned the branded band and placed them on the shelf for sale. Interesting.
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Mo’s Bacon Chocolate Bar From Vosges
“Deep milk chocolate coats your mouth and leads to the crunch of smoked bacon pieces. Surprise your mouth with the smoked salt and sweet milk chocolate combination.”
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True Class Keeps to Itself
Newsweek’s July double issue has an interesting article about the current trend in upscale circles towards secrecy and discretion. Although it’s not too difficult to realize that true class is not the showing off of one’s money, the message is finally hitting home as more and more people are opting for tasteful elegance over yacht-sized [...]
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The End of Music?
Read this interesting paragraph from music critic Marc “K-Punk” Foster in Fact Magazine:
Some musicologists are announcing the end of music. Not because music has disappeared but, on the contrary, because it has become so ubiquitous that it cannot lay claim to a specific place any more. If music is no longer central to either the [...]
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Fever-Tree
There has long been something lacking in our choice of mixers. A certain disconnect, if you will, between the endless variety of good liquor available to us and the rather paltry selection of tonics, sodas and the like that we’ve been sentenced to choose from at our local stores. But if you’ve ever been [...]
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Fed-Up Chef Sues Over Menu Infringement
Rebecca Charles, the proprietor and chef of Manhattan’s West Village seafood restaurant, Pearl Oyster Bar, is taking a fellow restaurateur to court over the infringement of intellectual property. She says Ed McFarland of Ed’s Lobster Bar in SoHo, has knocked-off “each and every element” of her restaurant, from interior design elements to actual menu [...]
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Greener Electronics Celebrated
Greenpeace has released their 4th Annual Guide to Greener Electronics. Companies are judged on criteria ranging from having a responsible labor-guideline, to improving energy-usage, removing toxic chemicals from production and effective e-waste recycling programs. While nobody has yet achieved a score of 10, Nokia is closest…making 8/10.
E-waste is huge environmental concern. And with every hot, [...]
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Is It Time To Kill Marktd?
We launched Marktd, our ‘marketing news by marketers for marketers’ site, about a year ago. It’s built on a Digg like system where stories get voted on and the popular ones rise to the top. Would love to hear your thoughts on what we should do - in the comments section.
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Our Hyperlocal Future - From Nano To Astro
“You see, the difference between the old-fashioned semantic Web and the new hyperlocal Web — that’s hyper as in linked, and local as in location — is that the databases of the new Web are stuffed with geographic coordinates. Real positions. Real distances. So the bodyware I carry in my pockets and travel bag broadcasts its location to any device within earshot.”
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Get Naked (or close to it) With Puma
Puma’s new line, dubbed Starck NAKED Body wear, is launching for the Spring/Summer 07 season. The designs get as close to the skin as possible, revealing just enough to keep you cool, sexy, and stylish; but not enough to cross into skankland (when worn properly, of course).
Pumatalk Reports:
World-renowned designer Philippe Starck has successfully [...]
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PSFK Conference Los Angeles
Just a quick note to let you know we’re all on for Tuesday Sept 18 in West Hollywood. We got distracted this week with a Korean client hanging out with us all week but once he’s gone (and we will miss him), we’re all over it next week.
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Flatpack House
Treehugger reported today about Gregg Fleishman’s new DH1 Disaster House and his Shelter System. Both are made from “sustainable European birch plywood with phenolic resin on both sides”, and are relatively easily assembled with the aid of fasteners or glue. The aesthetic is quite appealing, as the above photo can clearly demonstrate better than we [...]
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Three Region Theory For Mobile Phones
OK, so here’s a theory about mobile phones and their use: in terms of phones their are three regions: Region 1 where the internet reached most people before mobile phones (North America); Region 2 where the internet reached most people at the same time as mobile phones (Europe); and then Region 3 where mobile phones reached most people before the internet (Asia, South America, Africa). The timing of the adoption of the internet versus the mobile phone within a region affects the relationship that region’s citizens have with their phone; and therefore should govern the services that will be used there.
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ZENN Motors: Zero Emission, No Noise
The dream of a silent, sustainable car is here at last. The ZENN, which stands for Zero Emission, No Noise, is destined to revolutionize the way we think about driving, offering for the first time a viable and relatively cheap alternative to petroleum-based vehicles. Earthtimes reports:
Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, ZENN Motor Company is dedicated to [...]
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Lining Up For iPhone Aid
If you’ve been reading the blogosphere you’ll already know that the chaps at the NYC agency have the first place in the line outside the SoHo store to buy an iPhone on Friday. When they buy it, they’ll immediately raffle it to raise money for charity for Keep A Child Alive.
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Hans Rosling on the Seemingly Impossible
If you haven’t heard about it already, check out this amazing speech for the 2007 TED by Swedish statistician Hans Rosling about the speed at which developing countries are pulling themselves out of poverty.
Combining levity with deadly seriousness, Rosling uses his Trendalyzer software––a bright, bold and revolutionary statistical method for showing differing rates of development [...]
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Printable Electronics
The printing industry is quite excited right now due to the rapidly developing field of printable electronics. The technology will allow for innovations ranging from flexible e-paper displays (which, in turn, could radically change the way we read books), more easily manageable RFID tags, and, among other things, animated posters. Today’s Gizmag.com article on [...]
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Design Research: Nokia Connection 2007
Nokia have been doing some serious research into the complex and diverse world of mobile phone usage. Their current study, which they presented earlier this month at the Nokia Connection 2007, focuses on South East Asia and the lifestyles of the people there: how they live, where they work, what needs they are addressing [...]
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FON Update
For those of you who have read our previous posts about FON, the WiFi community that allows for easy access to other people’s routers via specific “hotspots” such as coffee-shops, this is simply an update.
FON ended up giving away just under 7,000 routers, 5,000 more than they anticipated. They saw a huge increase of FON [...]
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Creative Solutions to Global Problems: Social Entrepreneurship
There has been a lot of talk recently about the influence of new media on the decentralization of corporate power and, in a similar manner, the increasing importance of individuals and small-scale movements in the global marketplace. What has not been extensively considered––although it frequently gets sited on a case to case basis––is the [...]
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Swap Meat: A Forum for Creative Trading
Ever made anything really awesome that you just can’t get out into the world? Ever wanted to bypass corporations entirely and get what you what, when you want, all handmade to order or to swap? Well, Coudal.com’s project Swap Meat allows you just this opportunity. Started as a free forum for creative people to strut [...]
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U.S. Accused of Green Imperialism
Many American and European firms are quick to outsource cheap product development and manufacturing to Asia, but they’re also quick to blame much of the world’s pollution on them.
China has come under increasing pressure from the west to take more forceful measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The country relies on coal - among the [...]
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Video Games Outselling Music. Globally.
Video game sales are gaining and will globally exceed music sales by the end of 2007 reports PricewaterhouseCoopers. The growth can be contributed to the fact that more and more devices like mobile phones, PDAs and laptops support broadband services, being able to download games.
The information not only reflects the gaming industry’s strong trajectory but [...]
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90 Million Manchester United Fans
An article in the Guardian suggests that the number of global fans of the Manchester Utd football club in the UK has reached 90 million fueled by the increased penetration of the Premier League on TV around the globe especially in Africa.
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Modern Insane Aesthetics
We stumbled upon singer MIA’s crazy looking site. The colors are crazy, bright, flashing, crunche, hyper and it gives you a headache - a perfect example of the style and color-palette emerging in youth culture today.
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Middle Class Crookery
A report in Britain suggests that an “unrestrained pursuit of self-interest and profit” had swept through society. Moral standards within the middle classes had been eroded by those who have adopted a dog-eat-dog mentality and that the middle classes justify their behaviour by treating the odd bit of crime as a “revolt” against some apparent injustice.
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