Alex Katz’s 2012 painting Katherine and Elizabeth (Photo courtesy Gavin Brown’s Enterprise)
Worried that the spindly and shape-shifting “W” of the Whitney Museum’s fledgling graphic identity will be insufficient to guide visitors to the door of its new downtown home? Alex Katz to the rescue. The artist (and erstwhile J. Crew model)’s 2012 canvas, Katherine and Elizabeth, will welcome the museum to the Meatpacking District in the form of a 17-by-29-foot billboard on the facade of 95 Horatio Street, located directly across Gansevoort Street from the southern end of the High Line and the Renzo Piano-designed Whitney. Announced today, the public art installation will be the first in a planned five-year series organized in collaboration with real estate developer TF Cornerstone and High Line Art.
Basé à Tokyo, le photographe Martin Bailey nous rappelle la beauté de la nature avec d’incroyables clichés d’icebergs en Antarctique, montrant ainsi des glaciers millénaires de ce continent désert. Des images pour le moins rafraichissantes à découvrir dans la suite.
When’s the last time you heard Alex Trebek call out categories such as SERIFS, TWENTIETH-CENTURY LOGOTYPES, or SAGMEISTER CLASS? We bet our cache of potent potables that it’s never. Enter Kevin Finn. The Australian, who we last encountered in his capacities as editor and publisher of Open Manifesto, has created DESIGNerd 100*, a design trivia app that tests your knowledge of typography, publishing, advertising, branding, contemporary design studios, packaging, motion graphics and more. And in building out the first volumes, Finn went straight to the experts, tapping Stefan Sagmeister, Steven Heller, and Lita Talarico to contribute their personal questions (100 each).
“I’m a self-confessed design nerd, passionate about all forms of design,” says Finn. “I simply wanted to share design knowledge with other design enthusiasts, but in a fun and engaging way.” Among the well-designed twists of the app, available through the iTunes App Store (an Android version is in progress), are the bonus facts studded throughout the game. (Did you know that Jonathan Barnbrook’s Mason typeface, was originally called Manson—after the serial killer Charles Manson and in a nod to the extreme opposites the typeface was intended to express? Emigre Fonts dropped the “n” after the complaints started to pour in.) “New volumes to add to the series are underway,” promises Finn, “as are plans to launch the trivia game as a standalone app that will house all volumes in the series.”
Le groupe de pop anglais Bombay Bicycle Club ont confié à Love Commercial Production la création d’une pub pour promouvoir leur dernier album. Le résultat, réalisé par James Henry, nous offre un superbe rendu avec un vinyl aux couleurs et motifs de la pochette dévoilant lors de la lecture de superbes animations. A découvrir.
All Unitasker Wednesday posts are jokes — we don’t want you to buy these items, we want you to laugh at their ridiculousness. Enjoy!
A long time ago, I went to high school. (True story. This awkward phase actually happened.)
Like most everyone who ever went to high school, I was issued a locker. It was a brown, metal, industrial, rectangle with a door that had been embedded in the wall of the school since before my grandmother had gone to school there. It was utilitarian and stuffed with books and notebooks and supplies and my coat and purse and about a thousand pony tail holders. It was not glamorous because it was a locker, not a night club, and I wasn’t an extra in a teen movie.
High school kids today, however, must either have enormous walk-in lockers or not need books or notebooks or supplies or a coat or purse or ponytail holders because the other day in The Container Store I saw this: A Locker Rocker.
Why?
Why would any student have need for a chandelier in his or her locker?
Are lockers really so large today that students require task lighting in these spaces?
Well, if a chandelier isn’t enough proof that lockers today must be the size of small cars, check out the locker rugs and locker wallpaper you can get to go with your chandelier. (I’m not making this up. Really, I’m not. Chandeliers and rugs and wallpaper.)
Kids must bring their contractors and interior designers with them on the first day of school.
Launched during Milan design week in April this year, the 2013 Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s showroom features frosted glass walls on three sides and floor-to-ceiling wooden doors on the fourth.
Ito explains that he chose materials he believed would complement the delicate nature of many of Kinnasand‘s fabrics.
“A lot of Kinnasand’s textiles are very delicate, transparent, semi-transparent and light,” he says. “It’s like the are floating in the air. I didn’t want to interior of the space to overwhelm the fabrics.”
He continues: “Considering these factors, I chose to use reflective glass. However, I didn’t want the reflection in the glass to be too strong, so I chose a material that would create a softer and deeper reflection. I wanted to create a soft feel in the space.”
The only product displays in the showroom consist of two curved metal poles suspended from the ceiling, over which fabrics can be draped so that they “float in the light.”
Ito says it was the delicacy of Kinnasand’s fabrics that convinced him to design the showroom. “I had a visit from Kinnasand,” he recalls. “They arrived with suitcases full of textiles. They were opening a showroom and asked if I would be interested in designing the interior.”
“Most of my work is architectural and I don’t usually work solely in interior design. But I saw the textiles Kinnasand brought and I thought they were brilliant. So I decided I wanted to design this space.”
Mikimoto building in Ginza, Tokyo by Toyo Ito & Associates and Taisei Design Pae
Some of the fabrics on display in the showroom bear a resemblance to the patterns and structures Ito has used in his own architecture, he says.
“I think the fabric behind me really suits my style of architecture,” he explains. “Like my Mikimoto building in Ginza, it has got a very simple surface with several differently-sized holes. I would like to use a similar fabric in my own architecture.”
Horsehair tails and a candle holder are among the accessories integrated into this range of blown-glass “high-fashion sex toys” by editor Michael Reynolds and artist Jeff Zimmerman.
Unicorn I from Adult Tool Kit for Wallpaper Handmade, photographed by Anthony Cotsifas
The Adult Tool Kit was created by design magazine Wallpaper‘s US editor Michael Reynolds and New York glass artist Jeff Zimmerman for this year’s Wallpaper Handmade collection, photographed by Anthony Cotsifas.
Reynolds came up with the idea for a range of sculptural sex toys after seeing a set of erotic-looking glassware samples in Zimmerman’s studio.
“I had wanted to do something with Jeff Zimmerman for a long time,” Reynolds told Dezeen. “In his glass studio in Williamsburg I spied, on one of the shelves, these pieces that were incredibly phallic and suggestive, but very abstract.”
Adult Tool Kit for Wallpaper Handmade, photographed by Anthony Cotsifas
Zimmerman hand-blew the full range of items in black glass, which includes dildos, gags, and plugs for vaginal or anal use. “You can stick them wherever the f*** you want,” said Reynolds.
Accessories specialist TM1985 was brought in to make the leather straps and brass fittings for the objects, including a gag ball with an adjustable leather strap named Suck It.
A similar design with a ribbed phallus growing out of the side from the sphere is called F*** Face. “I’m sure the possibilities are endless,” said Reynolds.
Hair stylist Peter Matteliano was asked to create horsehair tails for two dildos called Unicorn I and II. “I wanted two of the pieces to be butt plugs with hair growing out of the back,” Reynolds explained. “We thought it would be fun to shove a butt plug up somebody’s ass and for them to have a horse tail hanging out.”
Adult Tool Kit for Wallpaper Handmade, photographed by Anthony Cotsifas
Another two plugs, both named Deflower, are decorated with petal shapes on the tops of stopper-shaped bases. “The reason for doing that was that when you start studying glass blowing in art school, one of the first things they teach you very often is to make flower heads,” Reynolds explained.
Blow Torch has a ribbed insert at one end and an opening to fix a candle into at the other. “You can be a human candleholder,” Reynolds said.
A curved double-ended wand featuring a series of connected bubbles can be used by two people at once, and is hence named Double Occupancy.
Other designs include Nightstick, based on a policeman’s baton, and Big Ben comprising two connected balls.
Reynolds’ references for the collection included work by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, fashion designers Rick Owens, Karl Lagerfeld and Helmut Lang, and 1969 movie The Damned, which all have “a very black, sleek, high-fashion look”.
Adult Tool Kit for Wallpaper Handmade, photographed by Anthony Cotsifas Clockwise from top left: F*** Face, Double Occupancy, Deflower I, Suck It, Stick Shift, Nightstick, Deflower II, Blow Torch, Big Ben
Although each piece is shaped for different stimulations, Reynolds pointed out that they are designed to be looked at rather than played with.
“I don’t suggest that anyone shove glass up their ass or their c***, down their throat or in their ear, but whatever somebody does with them is their own business,” said Reynolds. “They were made to be more artful, sculptural and conceptual objects.”
Wallpaper Handmade is an annual showcase of collaborations between different designers, artists and manufacturers.
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