Hasta La Ideas

Our dizzying new bathroom by NYC’s premiere specialty painters

When Annemarie Flynn and Andrea Patterson of Evolving Image stopped in on a friend’s recommendation to show us their portfolio of detailed murals and wall treatments, they saw the dismal white walls
of the small bathroom in the Cool Hunting office and got inspired. After presenting us with a few ideas, we gave some feedback and the duo tapped the third in their partnership, artist and colleague Jeremy Stanger, to implement the geometric pattern of his design.

The aqua-and-gray pattern now lines our entire bathroom, creating one cohesive, slightly psychedelic experience from floor to ceiling and elongating the narrow room. Along with a the revamped space, we can now count ourselves in the same company as other Evolving Image clients like the Metropolitan Opera House, Versace and The Plaza Hotel.

From big to small, the custom painters tailor every design (commercial or residential) to each space, drawing on their consummate skills with color, proportion, graphics and interiors to create gorgeous, inventive spaces. Styles range from wallpaper-like patterning to fanciful trompe l’oeils and subtle textures, but all add character to a room and, like in our case, can solve size or other structural issues. After we suggested the service to our friends at the food-focused boutique PR firm YC Media, Evolving Image painted a massive artichoke over a striped pattern (created with a squeegee) on their office wall.

In addition to eco-friendly paints, a variety of finishes including glazes, faux fabrics and plaster are available. The trio’s impeccable execution combined with seemingly endless capability turns any room into an open canvas for impressive decor.

Chocolate designer Valerie Gordon weighs in on her new collaboration

Inspired by Byzantine tiles, Commune Design and Valerie Confections collaborated on a new collection of handmade chocolates. The cardboard box comes printed with an image of the tile design inside, which itself is comprised of 49 pieces of 72% bittersweet chocolate embellished with chocolate transfers made from colored, tempered cocoa butter.

We asked Valerie Gordon of Valerie Confections to share some of the collaborative process with Cool Hunting.

What aspects of the Commune aesthetic are similar to creating chocolates?

Commune’s approach to materials is like our approach to ingredients. Everything is built around honoring the natural aesthetic of the materials, or in our case the flavors of the ingredients. We each also have a very clean, uncluttered look to our work. There’s a great quote, alternately attributed to Mies van der Rohe and R.M. Schindler: “An interesting plainness is the most difficult and most precious thing to achieve.” I think, conciously or unconciously, that’s what we’re each trying to achieve.

How did this collaboration come about?

We did their holiday gifts one year, and have been friends for a while. Then Roman and I were chatting at a party, talking about our various collaborations and we both just realized that we should do something together.

Where did the idea of the tile come from?

It originally came from Steven, one of the principals at Commune. The tile is his design, and we all started talking about how to translate it into chocolate. Then I figured out the proportion of it, and that it should go in a box that looks like you’d get tile in it. Originally, we were going to seal the box with a really wide rubber band, but that evolved into the graphic sticker that they designed. Completely organic, and very easy.

How much does that fact that both companies are located in L.A. have an impact on the final design?

Hugely. Especially with something like this collaboration, where you have to see, and touch, and taste to really understand how it’s all coming together. And the city and your surroundings continually impact your aesthetic. The same forces and inspirations play on us, which would be different if we were both in New York or Chicago.

Commune Chocolates by Valerie Confection is available at the Valerie Confections shop near downtown Los Angeles and online at Valerie Confections and at the Commune Design Community Shop.

Written by Tony Meredith, Remy Lebesque, Cormac Eubanks, Howard Nuk, and Michael DiTullo.

Working out at home may be convenient and cost effective, but why do the machines for home use echo gym units so closely? Can a home machine be appropriate for and respond to the home environment it is meant to live within? Can we make it a source of pride so it does not become layered with laundry or relegated to the garage? The frog design team asked these types of questions when we partnered with Nautilus to take a fresh look at their Treadclimber products. Together, we tore down the existing product and built it back up to become the Mobia, more reflective of its intended environment and users and more efficient in its manufacturing process. We designed it to be visually iconic, with reduced parts and cost, and passed those benefits to a larger audience by producing it at a lower price point than its predecessor.

We spent an initial block of time in a primary and secondary research immersion by diving into competitive products, learning about the retail environment they are sold in and identifying and observing a group of home exercise users in their domestic settings. We found that the majority of existing home workout machines had finishes that tended towards dark paint and metal accents, having more in common with an assault rifle than the living room. While this look and feel might be appropriate to a high tech commercial gym where everything is focused on working out, it feels alien co-existing with a family in their personal space.

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A new store in Milan for lazy design afficianados

The newest design store in Milan, Pigr, literally translates as lazy. The name reflects the founders’ desire to sell easily understandable design objects—simple, fun and with a clear function.

Pigr selects original items from around the world, for sale at reasonable prices. Some objects are famous but difficult to find, while some others are authentic discoveries. The shop is in the old premises of an early twentieth century building in the district of Porta Romana, designed and restored by Studio C Milano, it respects the original structure and the previous uses of the space.

Pigr is also choosing and developing small and large projects, to be supported, produced, advertised and marketed through their online store as well.

Something I was struck by on my recent Ikea trip was the serious price cuts: A formerly $699 sofa was going for $499, a bed that used to be $299 was $100 cheaper, and they had smaller Expedit units for under $40.

A recent AP interview with Ikea CEO Mikael Ohlsson (who studied ID, by the way) sheds some light on why: Ohlsson’s responding to the crap economy, as well as taking note of new trends the recession has started, and responding with appropriate furniture solutions. An example of that latter point: As there are now more people living together under one roof to save cash, Ikea now sells “more double sinks for bathrooms and more sofa beds with storage underneath.”

Multigenerational living is becoming bigger. In the factory down in Danville [Virginia], we are producing a sofa bed with large storage. It’s $599. It’s a huge success in the U.S. This is probably not what you normally put in the living room if you don’t live in Manhattan. But this is what people are putting in their living rooms.

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