Hasta La Ideas

Photos courtesy of Gallery All unless otherwise noted.

A mover-and-shaker in the Chinese creative scene for a decade now, Naihan Li got her start working for Ai Weiwei upon returning to Beijing after completing her studies at London’s Bartlett School of Architecture. After subsequently working with various art and design organizations, she founded her own studio in 2010 and is perhaps best known for her CRATES series. This year sees the debut of the I AM A MONUMENT collection at Gallery ALL in the 751 D.Park, as well as a move from the Red Bricks studio/gallery compound (where she hosted an exhibition in her live/work space last year), around the corner to a converted factory. (Rest assured she’s still based in Caochangdi, although she handed off her BJDW curatorial duties to Ben Hughes, who gave us a brief tour of the place last week.)

Some two years in the making, the pieces in I AM A MONUMENT take the form of scale models of various landmarks from the Western world: the UN building, Pentagon, New York Stock Exchange and Edinburgh Palm House, which have been re-imagined as a bookcase, bed, shrine and terrarium, respectively. The four new pieces are exhibited alongside the “Armillary Whisky Bar,” which was commissioned by Melbourne’s Broached Gallery in 2013. Li’s artist statement invokes a critical examination of the relationship between art, architecture and design:

I AM A MONUMENT originated from Naihan’s recognition of the Chinese desire for giant art installations in their homes. People want to own things that are monumental. This desire traces back to Chinese traditional paintings, which play with the idea of scale from a subjective point of view and minimize the universe. Chinese artists attempt to zoom in to a large part of the world on a small scale. The I AM A MONUMENT collection shrinks a landmark building 100 times and turns it into a utilitarian furniture piece, allowing collectors to contain something that is extremely large inside a room of their house.

The Edinburgh Palm House at the Royal Botanic Gardens

(more…)

Cream is an annual competition open to advertising graduates, designed to highlight exciting new talent entering the industry. Here are our favourite projects from this year’s winners…

Organised by The Talent Business, Cream is now in its 15th year. This year’s competition was held in partnership with BBH in London, who held an event for the winners to meet creative directors in September. The winning teams were chosen by an illustrious list of judges from agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Grey, Ogilvy, 4Creative, BBH, Lucky Generals and many more. Here are CR’s favourite projects from this year’s crop of budding creatives:

Google Gesture is an idea by August Östberg, a graduate of the Interactive Communication course at Berghs School of Communication. His project proposes a piece of wearable tech that will translate sign language into written words. augustostberg.com

Oli Frost and Josie Shedden, both graduates of the Watford advertising course, came up with this nifty idea to link the Virgin Active gym brand to Virgin Atlantic and offer the chance to win flights by working out at the gym. oliandjosie.com

This product idea for Nikon cameras was entered by Eszter Kazinczy, a graduate of the Miami Ad School Europe. It proposes an app that allows users to capture short bursts of sound when taking a photo, with the image and sound then linked together in one file. eszterkazinczy.com

To emphasise how Coke brings people together, Miami Ad School Europe grads Moritz Conzen and Madina Paulig came up with this cute drinking straw idea, which requires you to share your Coke to be able to drink it. moritzconzen.com, madinapaulig.com

Adam Newby and Will Wells, grads of the School of Communication Arts 2.0, have come up with an app idea for Snapchat, which allows users to ask difficult questions and receive answers that are deleted on reading, ensuring privacy. The duo suggest that it is used by Russians to educate themselves about homosexuality and ask questions that may be banned in the country, but it seems like an idea that could be useful for many topics. pleasecrit.us

To promote a partnership between Chivas Regal and Savile Row, and reach a new audience online, Kingston graduates Tasha Thomas and Cara Dawson created a series of charming ‘how-to’ Vines. tashandcara.com

Our final pick is a silly yet brilliant idea from DMJX grads Philip Bock and Morten Schmidt, which is a speedy snapchat-based selfie game. bockschmidt.com

The Original Muck Boot Company has been making durable, weather-proof boots since 1999, supplying farmers, gardeners and hunters with an effective footing outdoors. It only makes sense then that they would partner with CH favorite <a…

Continue Reading…

Designed by the creative team at In Case Of. Each kit includes several different weapons and..(Read…)

This ultra-utilitarian system of paper and tape furniture, called TapeFlips, brings a whole new meaning to affordable DIY furnishing! The design’s rigid pre-sized paper panels can be reconfigured and combined to make a variety of functional pieces including chairs, tables, shelving and storage. After putting together, users can also customize their pieces with paint or markers for a truly one-of-a-kind aesthetic, something you wouldn’t think of with higher priced furnishings.

Designer: Petar Zaharinov

–
Yanko Design
Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world!
Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design!
(Move Over Ikea! was originally posted on Yanko Design)

Related posts:

1. This Ain’t No Ikea
2. Ikea MediaCubes by Mattias Andersson
3. Agreed, IKEA Is Totally Inspiring