It’s a sad day, one of the worlds greatest photographers has died. Ever since I discovered him at an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art I have been an avid fan.
Rest in peace fine sir
(Photos, left to right: Patrick McMullan Company and UnBeige)
David Stark has long been the go-to event designer for the Cooper-Hewitt’s annual National Design Awards gala. In recent years, he and his team have transformed everyday objects—from cushions to cocktail napkins—into colorful tableaux that popped against the walls of the white tent pitched in the museum’s courtyard. This year, with the museum in the throes of a massive renovation, the gala was moved to Cipriani 42nd Street, a York & Sawyer-designed bank turned cavernous, landmarked event space. Even with a 65-foot ceiling to contend with, Stark rose to the challenge, creating bold and graphic decor inspired by the awards program’s tenth anniversary.
To make the designers the stars of the evening, Stark designed a series of graphic patterns from the names of past National Design Award winners. Set in white all-caps Futura on the NDA’s signature cyan, the text patterns made for a striking contrast with Cipriani’s Corinthian columns, inlaid floors, and soaring, Wedgewood-domed ceiling. “The important thing is always to create elements of scale that relate to the room you’re in,” Stark told us. “Much like we’ve done at the tented venue, we played with scale by creating entry and ceiling decor elements like the fourteen-foot ’10’ at the entrance and eight-foot drumshades suspended from the ceiling. On each, the pattern was exploded to various scales so the typography can be admired for its shape as well as its message, and provide interplay with the elaborate background of the space.”
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Using photography as his medium, artist Frank Hülsbömer documents his love affair with objects. The upshot, beautifully-composed, abstract images of various items like colored paper and wire, star in his forthcoming book, The Fiction of Science, along with a detailed explanation of the Berlin-based photographer’s both scientific and artistic approach to capturing each article.
A former contributor to Wallpaper Magazine, Hülsbömer made a name for himself photographing exteriors. Applying his studious method to interiors, the lyrical images in his book show how the shift brings an intense concentration on pure form to his work.
Described by curator Matthias Harder as “still lifes,” Hülsbömer compositions exclude all signals of a human touch and any reference to landscapes, with minimal acknowledgment of the photographic element. His undoctored, multi-faceted photos make for, as he puts it, “a neutralisation of the senses.”
The Fiction of Science is available now throughout Europe and Asia, comes out stateside 1 January 2010 and sells from Gestalten.
 | It’s no secret that everything the Olsen twins touch turns to gold, whether it’s a trend or a business endeavor (and they’ve proven themselves to be more than successful in the latter- just look to The Row and Elizabeth & James, plus their shoe and jewelry lines). Their latest move? They’ve signed a deal with JCPenney to design a juniors brand called Olsenboye. Clearly aimed at the younger crowd, the line will contain denim, tees, and other casual looks including shoes and bags, all priced between $20 and $50. It’ll be available in 50 JCPenney stores and online starting November 6th! If you can’t wait until then and are in the NYC area today, stop by Washington Square park and catch the Olsenboye Treat Truck where you can preview the collection. Catch a teaser video on Nitrolicious and click over to jcp.com/teen for more info! Photo credit: PR Photos |
Marlon Darbeau’s “Verb,” made from teak and plywood, is an interesting piece of multi-functional furniture:
As an exploration of movement through space and time, ‘Verb’ allows its user to manipulate the shape of the object like a set or a prop – to choreograph space and in so doing change the way light inhabits and illuminates space.
As the ‘verb’ transitions in form it transforms in functionality – from stable, balanced objects like a table, a lamp, chair, sculpture Or bookcase, to dynamic locomotive forms that perambulate, rock or spin.
Darbeau is a graphic designer based in Trinidad and Tobago. See more of his stuff here.
(Photos: Oakley)
We’re skeptical when clothing and accessories that aren’t designed for use in say, combat, come tucked inside large padded cases with glossy pamphlets and instructional CD-ROMs, but buying a pair of Oakley’s newest sunglasses will get you all that and more. The price tag? $4,000. But think of it as $2,000 per eye.
Crafted from pure carbon fiber, the C Six (named in a shout-out to carbon’s atomic number!) is “the most technically innovative sunglass ever created.” Oakley explains:
Specialists in building F1 racecars, the experts at Crosby Composites of London have been producing C Six frames with meticulous craftsmanship. To make just one, five-axis Computer Numeric Controlled machines spin diamond-tipped milling heads at 10,000 rpm, shaping a 40-layer billet of carbon fiber composite for more than 24 hours.
To deal with the rigid nature of finished components, Oakley engineered spinal structures of Beta Titanium memory metal to achieve precise zones of tuned flexibility. Radial cams augment the stem mechanics, and the lenses are a showcase of the best optical technologies ever invented.
Don’t even get them started on the hexalobular bolts! And if the sunglasses look familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen them on Lance Armstrong (who sported one of the first pairs in July while competing in the Tour de France) or an armadillo. “We took examples from segmented creatures in the animal kingdom, said Peter Yee, senior design director at Oakley. “We looked at animals like the armadillo and studied how parts move and slide. It’s the same idea with armored suits—you have flexibility and function that remains protective.”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Flying a Camera on an R/C Helicopter Over an Under-Construction Apple Store.
Many readers have emailed us today to complain about the content of some political banner ads running on this site over the last few days. Most of the banner ads and all of the RSS ads for this site are served by Google Adsense without any direct overview by us.
We found many of these ads to be offensive enough that we have set our Adsense preferences to now block all political ads from running on this site. We haven’t made a permanent decision, but, at the very least, we are doing this until the end of this election season in the United States.
I would also like to take this opportunity to remind those of you with a service or product that might be of interest to our readership that we sell banner ads on our site directly at a significant savings over the cost of purchasing them through Adsense.
by Paolo Ferrarini of Future Concept Lab
Jordanian designer Lama Hourani beautifully fuses together materials and gems, past icons and present styles, Middle Eastern tradition and European taste for an elegantly ornate collection of rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings.
Lama has been designing and producing jewelry since 2000, opening her first store—which doubles as an art gallery and a jewelry store—in 2004, in Amman, Jordan. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, two diplomas in jewelry design and gemology from GIA (the Gemological Institute of America) in addition to a Master’s degree in Product Design from Istituto Marangoni. “I have an artist’s heart and a designer’s eye. I try to combine them by making art to wear. It’s a fun process,” Lama explains to CH, regarding her role as both a designer and a fine artist.
Her jewels are mostly inspired by the nature and cultural landscape of Jordan, each collection deeply imbued with signs and symbols from civilizations past. Every piece turns to be a sort of modern amulet, celebrating both global shared heritage and contemporary diversity. Most details and decorations are inspired from archeological relics, old primitive etchings and drawings adorning walls and caves throughout Jordan’s desert regions. She combines precious and semi-precious stones with gold, silver, brass and copper creating both contrast and harmony.
The symbolic inscriptions on her creations feel familiar though they are inexplicable, a universal mysterious language that Lama’s intends “to convey free self-expression, peace and unity without any ethnic, cultural or religious barriers.”
More images after the jump
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