Posted: May 1st, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design | Tags: decorating, design, home, humor, innovative design
Priceless … design with a sense of humor. It’s not everyone who is able to design products or spaces which are both beautiful and playful, make you smile but can also be taken seriously for their aesthetic. When done well, I’m in love. So check these out.
1. The Bird Poop Chandelier by Wyatt Little. As the mother of a five year old boy, if I never heard anyone say the word poop again it would be too soon. But I love this light fixture. I am also partial to all fixtures and accessories that feature birds (yup, that would make thedesign fetishes deer, owls, birds and mushrooms and I’m sure I’m forgetting something – I am generous when it comes to my obsessions). This particular fixture rocks.
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Posted: April 26th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design, stuff to buy | Tags: design, innovative design, shopping, style, trends
So today I finally had to break down and buy a new phone. I had an iPhone 3S. I have no idea when I got it. Years ago. But lately it has decided that it’s not terribly interested in connecting anymore. Anything that doesn’t require an internet connection — great! Making calls — no so great. Texting — good luck. Since the new phone, a 4S, is a different shape from my old phone, buying a new phone meant suddenly needing to buy a new case as well. (In fact, buying a new phone seems to cost at least $100 in hidden fees in top of the $199 it claims it’s going to cost you if you renew your contract, but that’s another conversation altogether.) And buying a new case got me to thinking about how significant a choice that has become. The phone, after all, spends an enormous amount of time hanging out next to your face, so selection of a case represents an important opportunity to make an aesthetic statement about your identity.
We have AT&T — which may have great service in other parts of the country but is really an inexplicably stupid choice in this corner of the northeast since the coverage and service on Verizon are infinitely better, and yet, it’s what we have — so my experience of looking at cases while purchasing the phone itself is specific to the AT&T store. I have no idea what they do or don’t offer, for example, in the Verizon store. But in the AT&T store, any sales person doing the job right will try to sell you a case when you’re buying the phone. The thought of walking out of the AT&T store and dropping that brand new iPhone without a case onto the ground and shattering it before getting around to purchasing Apple Care gives me an anxiety attack. The offerings in the store, however, seem to be very pretty but simple cases in various colors that start at $35, a clear plastic protective sticker for the front and back of the phone for $30 (yeah, $30), or a screen protector for $20. Which, in this day and age, is all just silliness.
There are a lot of truly great covers out there if you want your phone to have some personality, but if you’re less choosy, it really only needs to cost a few dollars on Amazon.com.
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Posted: April 23rd, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: art, fashion | Tags: designers, fabric, fashion, humor, innovative design
Confirming the notion that the most interesting and creative ideas often come from the most unexpected places (yeah, I don’t know if that’s particularly a notion people have, but it sounds like a good truism), Romania is currently home to some of the more intriguing emerging designers on the fashion scene. The end of years of repression, and a capitalist economy in its early stages of growth, provide the perfect breeding ground for a flourishing fashion avant-garde.
Lana Dumitru is one of the more exciting members of this front. “Fashion in Romania is fresh and I can compare it with a newborn — we are starting to discover things and grow,” Dumitru says. “But I can compare it with an old man as well — everything is going really slow.” Marie Claire magazine offers an eloquent profile of the designer:
However, Lana’s success as an innovative designer is anything but sluggish. Even though she’s still a student at the Design Institute of Italy, she has already become internationally recognized for her collections that fuse camouflage, technology, and old-world traditions together. Her graduation collection at the Bucharest Institute of Art tracked the evolution of women, much through the animalistic and technological interpretations of the female body. In many of the pieces, Lana did not settle for the gimmicks of fancy screen-printing: She altered the proportions of the fabric to give a three-dimensional form to the image portrayed.
Read more: Lana Dumitru Interview – Romanian Fashion Designer Lana Dumitru – Marie Claire
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Posted: April 17th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: other stuff, stuff to buy | Tags: humor, innovative design, popular culture, trends
Some hopeful signs out there seem to be suggesting that plastic surgery – at least the highly invasive kind – might be falling out of favor. I know, that may be a fabrication on my part, but I’m going to cling to the fantasy for a bit and see if it sticks, so please don’t burst my bubble just yet. People’s desire to perfect their physical appearances is not remotely waning. My evidence to support the general trend away from plastic surgery, therefore, is the development of new and significantly less invasive techniques for improving your appearance.
Right now, I have to say that it looks like Japan has cornered the market. One popular item is the Hana Twin Nose. Check it out. Absolutely no surgery, and you only have to wear this thing for 20 minutes a day in order for it to work. Slip the clip into your nostrils so that the supports on either side can push up the bones resulting in a straighter, less round nose.
Hana Tsun Nose Straightener
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Posted: April 14th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: art | Tags: architecture, art, artists, humor, innovative design, photography
Now here’s a guy who knows how to put photoshop to good use.
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Posted: April 12th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design, stuff to buy | Tags: design, humor, innovative design, shopping
Generally I find the aesthetics of a product almost more important than the product itself. So you’ve got to appreciate a clever and visually engaging concept regardless of whether the product is a hit or a miss. The Seoul, Korea, based beauty label Too Cool For School is one of the cutest concepts I’ve seen in a while.
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Posted: March 30th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: food, other stuff | Tags: innovative design, popular culture, shopping
Burger King Netherlands ad
Posted: February 28th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: art, design | Tags: art, design, home, innovative design, performance art, popular culture
Not feeling terribly philosophical today — just a few images to share:
The Giselle Lounge Table by Anna Neklesa for Kerozen Design
Neklesa is a 23 year old designer from Saint Petersburg, Russia. The design is inspired by ballet. Personally I absolutely love the magazine holders.
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Posted: February 23rd, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: art, design | Tags: architecture, art, humor, innovative design, public spaces, street art
Every once in a while an idea comes along which is so clever that it seems absolutely obvious — even though it is being expressed for the first time.
I love graffiti — or more broadly, street art (actually, it is both more broadly and more narrowly, since the word art contains the idea that the art maker intends to engage with a viewer through his work, and therefore wants it to be good, or pretty, or expressive, or whatever it may be, but does not include someone randomly scrawling a mess in black paint in the side of a building to no end except destruction). But admittedly, there are a number of issues raised by street art which make it a contentious and problematic medium. If a building (wall, bridge, train track) is nondescript, run-down, urban squalor, or in some way in need of energy and beauty, graffiti may look like a positive addition to the structure. If the building is, instead, a recently completed structure, constructed to the tune of vast amounts of money by a talented architect who invested a lot of time and thought into its appearance, the same graffiti may be seen as destructive defacement. However, such a distinction suggests that one can objectively distinguish which structures belong in each of the two categories. That little problem aside, if we accept that, at its best, graffiti breaths new life and energy to derelict structures and spaces, Russian artist Nikita Nomerz’s work can be seen as its literal realization — concept made form in entirely literal terms. It is surprising that no one has done this before. After all, the urge to anthropomorphize seems like an almost irresistible human imperative. But, as far as I know, Nomerz is the first. Check out these photos of some of the work … it’s absolute trip.
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Posted: February 20th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design | Tags: decorating, design, home, innovative design, shopping, trends
Do you remember when wallpaper became “out”? I can’t put my finger on the precise moment, but I know when my husband and I bought our first apartment I was horrified by the fact that there was wallpaper in almost every room and could barely see past it. First thing, long before we even moved in, we had to rip off a century’s worth of wallpaper — countless layers — replaster and paint. And suddenly the apartment looked like home. The difference was night and day.
But over the last several years, wallpaper has been staging a comeback, and there are some pretty incredible choices out there. I am confident there are people with a flair for design who could pull off wallpapering an entire living room in some completely over the top print and have it look unbelievable. I tend towards the more cautious. My feeling is that small spaces offer the perfect opportunity to try outrageous things. Don’t be a wuss. It’s just a matter of finding the perfect wallpaper and just the right little corner to play in. The possibilities are endless (literally, since there are even design your own wallpaper options out there at this point).
If you’re looking for over the top, Flavor Paper (even the name is great, no?) is the place to go. I am loving the blurred photographic print wallpaper. I can’t quite imagine how it would read when actually hung on the wall — hence the small room, you can always change it if you’re not happy as long as you haven’t broken the bank with your initial investment.
Aspen Grove designed by Boone Speed at Flavor Paper
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