One thousand editions of literary journal The Paris Review cover the ceiling of skincare brand Aesop‘s new store in Chelsea, New York (+ slideshow).
The Aesop Chelsea store is located a few streets away from the journal’s New York headquarters. “I first discovered The Paris Review in a vintage Melbourne bookstore many years ago,” said Aesop founder Dennis Paphitis. “I have since that time tried diligently to read every issue in a sober state.”
The walls are lined with monochrome extracts of 60 years of The Paris Review, including photographs and letters, while the issues on the ceiling are in full colour.
One side of the store features a cast-iron sink with tube lights fitted into the wall above. The opposite wall displays Aesop products on five freestanding black lacquered shelves.
A small black wooden table in the centre of the store displays more issues of The Paris Review, while a 1950s-style wooden cabinet acts as the counter at the rear of the shop. The floor is covered with black slate tiles.
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The two friends of mine who were raised by germ-freak, super-clean parents are the two who get sick the most often. My theory is that their immune systems were hobbled by them not being allowed to play in filthy sandboxes as kids. And while I’m not one of those anti-vaccination nuts, I’m fine with encountering a certain amount of dirt; hell, I’d better be, as I live in New York City.
Where do you draw the line with personal cleanliness? A company called PhoneSoap claims that your phone is filthy, filthy, filthy, and suggests you buy their $50 ultraviolet phone cleaner/charger to regularly disinfect it. Their website claims, in alarmist tones, that your phone is dirtier than your toilet seat; I’ve got news for you, I bet most things in most peoples’ houses are dirtier than their toilet seats, because we clean toilets with harsh chemicals on a regular basis.
The hyperbole is laid on pretty thick, with the company citing Fox News to point out that “A cell phone has 18 times more bacteria than a public restroom” and claiming that “The way we use our phones makes us… sick” and then dropping this gem:
Not only are the extra bacteria on our phones bombarding our immune systems, they can also cause some serious facial effects. Some types of acne come directly from talking on the phone! Pressing your cheek and chin against your phone can exacerbate acne by allowing bacteria to get into those pores, causing chaos.
This movie shows shoppers walking under and sitting beneath the Christmas lights installed above public crossings and squares in central Berlin by German studio Brut Deluxe.
Brut Deluxe created a series of three festive light installations to hang along the shopping avenue of Kurfürstendamm.
“Rather than typical decorations that represent Christmas through objects or symbols contemplated from the outside, we wanted to create a space that can be entered and experienced,” said the design studio.
One of the installations features five illuminated cubes hanging at different angles in the middle of a traffic crossing.
A patterned dome comprising segments of wavy lights and spanning 7.5 metres appears to hover over Joachimstaler Platz.
At the traffic crossing at Knesebeckstrasse, a dense collection of 50 wavy light strings are suspended vertically above pedestrians.
The installations will be in place until 6 January. Photography and movie are by Miguel de Guzmán.
Here is some information from the designer:
Weihnachtsbeleuchtung Kurfürstendamm, Berlin 2013 christmas lights, Berlin 2013
Three light installations were realised on Kurfürstendamm: the first, a huge light dome with a diameter of 7.5m, at Joachimstaler Platz, the second consisting of five big three-dimensional light cubes at the crossing with Uhlandstrasse, and the third, an artificial landscape build of 50 light shrubs, at the crossing with Knesebeckstrasse.
What all three installations have in common is that we want to achieve an atmospheric effect with them. Rather than typical decorations that represent Christmas through objects or symbols that are contemplated from the outside, we want to create a space that can be entered and experienced.
We imagine this artificial space in the city as a place of retreat, similar to an imaginary clearance in a forest.
The atmosphere surrounding the spectator is produced only with light that alters its density and intensity constantly through the visitor’s movement and changing perspective.
The realised landscapes of light are inspired by images and situations recalled from our memory that we associate with Christmas and abstractly convert to light.
When I was in university in Canada in the late 1980s, I had a hard time keeping my money organized. I had tried a number of different wallets and coin purses but I always seemed to have a heavy pile of $1 coins that I kept forgetting to use.
Everything changed when I visited Switzerland in 1990. Switzerland had 1, 2, and 5 Franc coins. The wallets in Switzerland were designed with a larger section for coins. In Canada, I only had access to purchasing American made wallets that were designed for American currency: $1 banknotes, not coins. Canada had introduced the $1 coin and had not redesigned wallets to adapt to more coins and fewer bills. I purchased a Swiss wallet and my organizational dilemma was solved!
If you’re the kind of person who likes to pay in cash, and the currency in the country in which you live has more banknotes (bills) than coins, choose a wallet with a smaller coin pocket and larger bill pocket. Consider keeping coins in a separate coin purse.
If the currency has more coins than banknotes, a wallet with a large coin pocket might be beneficial. However, if you’re likely to pay for lower priced items in cash, then a separate coin pouch will allow you to quickly find the coins you need without opening your entire wallet.
In many places debit/credit card payments are very popular, so popular that some people never carry cash. This also means that we need more places in our wallets to carry credit and debit cards as well as cards for all of those loyalty programs. For those who prefer electronic payments, choose a wallet with enough card slots to suit your needs. You may wish to consider a second wallet for your loyalty cards.
Tips for International Travelers
Transfer the currency from your regular wallet to a separate coin pouch or even a zipper-seal bag and place currency of the new country in your wallet. This is ideal if you wish to carry many of the loyalty cards and ID cards with you when you’re doing business or sightseeing within the country you’re visiting. This system works well if the banknotes and coins of the two countries are similar.
An alternative is to have a different wallet for each country. Transfer only relevant ID and credit cards between the two wallets. This option is preferable if the currencies between the two countries have differently sized banknotes and coins that will not fit well in your “home” wallet. Also, you may not need many of your loyalty cards or perhaps even your driver’s licence in the country you are visiting so it may be better to keep those cards in your “home” wallet and lock it in your hotel room safe. By purchasing a wallet in country or from an online site of that country, you’ll be able to get a wallet suited for that country’s currency. Many people must keep records of all of their purchases so a wallet with a separate section for receipts is helpful.
Tip for Handling Coins and Banknotes
For greater efficiency and speed in checkout lines, pass the cashier the coins first then banknotes. It makes it much easier for cashiers to put the money in the cash register and it makes it easier for customers to put money in their wallets.
Comme chaque année, voici les résultats du célèbre magazine National Geographic qui a annoncé les gagnants de leur 2013 Photo Contest. Des prix sélectionnés dans les catégories respectives « Places Winner », « Honorable Mention » ou encore « People Winner ». Plus d’images et de détails dans la suite.
‘Honorable Mention’. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (by Stephen De Lisle)
Looking back on 2013, from boundary-pushing ideas from both established and up-and-coming artists and designers to new series like Off Piste and Scene, By All, it’s been a big year. What’s remained consistent, however, is our loyal audience that spans all over the world—and they do know…
Après Limm Digital Art, le duo allemand Deskriptiv revient avec « Schichten » : un projet digital impressionnant. Jouant sur les itérations et la symétrie, ces visuels d’une grande qualité propose des formes étranges et presque organiques, dont une série d’images est à découvrir en détails dans la suite de l’article.
Panoramic views of the dramatic Icelandic landscape are offered from this holiday home near Reykjavik by local studio PK Arkitektar (+ slideshow).
PK Arkitektar designed Árborg House for a mossy hill high above the glacial valley of the Hvita river, a two-hour drive from the Icelandic capital.
The single-storey house is clad in concrete, which is textured with vertical lines and contains gravel from the river below as an aggregate.
Moss that was removed to make way for the structure has been reinstalled on the roof.
The house is entered through a long corridor that leads from the back, past the garage.
Guest bedrooms are accessed along another corridor that runs adjacent to the entrance passage.
A linear volume positioned perpendicular to these rooms is glazed entirely across the longest facade, facing the valley and mountains to the west.
Kitchen, dining and living spaces as well as the master suite are arranged along this section, connected along the glass wall so the view is uninterrupted.
Internal surfaces are covered throughout with smooth concrete and teak boards, which conceal cupboards and drawers in the kitchen.
The wood continues out onto the terrace, where it is intended to weather and blend in with the landscape.
“Doors and terraces are clad with teak boards that will gradually weather to a colour grade to match the seasonal moss and the broken concrete surface,” said the architects.
Projecting out from the terrace, an infinity pool containing a circular hot tub has pebbles from the riverbed covering its floor.
This vacation house is located on the banks of the Hvita river, a two-hour drive East of Reykjavik. The site is a moss-covered hill with a view over a quiet bend in the glacier-formed river. In the spring, the river carries the icebergs from the glacier towards the sea some 100km away.
The approach to the vacation house is from the top of the hill. The building is organised as a sequence of events: from the entrance porch through the closed courtyard into the living space and out onto the terrace at the end.
Living, dining, kitchen, and master bedroom are all arranged in one continuous room. This enables panoramic views of the river and the distant mountains to the west.
The exterior is a broken surface of light grey fair-faced concrete. The gravel from the riverbed is blended into the concrete, and is revealed in the broken surface. It harmonises the outside walls with the moss of the surrounding landscape.
Leftover moss from the footprint of the house covers the roof. It was kept aside and regularly nursed during the building process, before being reinstalled on the roof.
Site plan
Doors and terraces are clad with teak boards that will gradually weather to a colour grade to match the seasonal moss and the broken concrete surface. Fair-faced concrete walls through out the entire interior are matched with untreated teak boards on floors and ceilings.
Floor plan
Selected pebbles from the nearby riverbed cover the bottom of the infinity pool. The pool projects out in front of the terrace, and serves as a railing which otherwise would have interrupted the view of the river.
Poster designed for the Ministry of Housing and Local Government’s ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ campaign, 1963, published by the Central Office of Information
An exhibition of Tom Eckersley’s poster work is to be staged the London College of Communication in January, marking the centenary of the British designer’s birth…
Eckersley (1914-1997) set up the school of graphic design at the London School of Printing (now LCC) and his recognisable style was used in campaigns by copanies and organisations as wide-ranging as Guinness, London Transport, the General Post Office, the United Nations, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the Worldwide Wildlife Fund and the LCP itself.
An RAF cartographer during the Second World War, Eckersley was awarded an OBE in 1948 for his service to poster design and became one of the first British members of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. He remained at the LCP for over 20 years and was head of graphic design until 1977.
The LCC houses the Eckersley archive and the show will include 40 posters, made from the 1940s to the 1980s, and selected from the UAL’s collection. The show will also include a selection of preparatory artworks and materials created for the LSP.
“Nowhere is Tom Eckersley’s legacy more keenly felt than at LCC, where graphic design teaching and research are rooted in the college’s first undergraduate degree course he established in 1954,” says professor Lawrence Zeegen, the LCC’s dean of the school of design.
“As 21st century communication design and media races ever onwards, finding a moment to pause and reflect upon the discipline’s past, amidst the barrage of multi-disciplinary, multi-platform, multi-layered visual messages, is increasingly relevant. It is crucial in our understanding and appreciation of communication design’s past, present and future.”
Seven of the posters which will be exhibited in January are shown here. For more of his work, see the London Transport Museum collection and the VADS archive.
Tom Eckersley: Master of the Poster, January 11-29 2014, 10am – 5pm (closed Sunday). London College of Communication, Elephant & Castle, SE1 6SB.
100 Years of Printing Education poster promoting a historical lecture at London College of Printing, c1985
Graphic Design Works poster promoting an exhibition of work from the London art schools at the Whitechapel Gallery, 1975 (Inner London Education Authority)
‘Urgent please return that library book’ poster, 1975 (University of the Arts London)
Greetings poster celebrating the New Year, 1983
Equus: Visual Interpretations poster promoting an exhibition of student work at the National Theatre, interpreting the play Equus, 1981
Long Hair is Dangerous health and safety poster for London College of Printing, 1976
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