I don’t see many Minis out where I am, so was surprised when Jalopnik’s Jason Torchinsky highlighted this Tweet of one:
So as it turns out, Mini’s Countryman model has the Union Jack graphically integrated with the two rear taillights.
And when you activate the turn signals, you get this:
I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be cheeky, or funny, or if no one on the design team cares about cognitive dissonance. But I think it’s really, really dumb.
Torchinsky reached out to Mini for comment, and received an unrepentant response (“there should be no trouble at all for a driver to understand” and Mini “has in fact received positive feedback about the taillight design,” etc).
The St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava has been illuminated in New York as construction nears completion.
Currently under construction in Manhattan, the church is being built as part of the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was illuminated for the first time
The building will replace a 19th-century church of the same name that stood at 155 Cedar Street and was destroyed on 11 September 2001.
It was illuminated during a service that recently took place outside the church to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the attacks, which resulted in the collapse of the 110-storey World Trade Center towers.
It is under construction next to the 9/11 Memorial
The church is being built on top of the World Trade Center Vehicle Security Center alongside the 9/11 memorial that stands on the site of the former twin towers.
Its shape was informed by Byzantine architecture, in particular the Hagia Sofia and the medieval Greek Orthodox Chora Church – both in Istanbul.
A service was held outside the church to mark the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks
Set around 25 feet (seven metres) above street level, the church’s central feature is a drum-shaped structure topped by a dome.
Made from steel and concrete, this part of the church is clad in thin sheets of Pentelic marble so that it can be illuminated to appear like a beacon at night.
Although it was recently illuminated, construction of the church is still progressing and the facade is not yet complete.
The building is expected to open around halfway through 2022.
The form was informed by Byzantine churches
The St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church will join a number of buildings that have been built on the site over the past 20 years including the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, which was also designed by Calatrava.
Kinstler, an independent puzzle company, highlights emerging contemporary artists via jigsaws. Their 100% recycled, 1,000-piece “In The Summer We Started Drinking During The Hot Of The Day And By Night Time We Were Monsters” puzzle features a complex, iconographic artwork from Andrea Joyce Heimer that sees a group of people drinking and transforming throughout different levels of a home. The darkly funny puzzle comes with a written interview with Heimer on the painting, notes on her creation process and her recommendation on how to complete the puzzle. It also comes with other images she made during her 2020 Quarantine Drawing series. The box was printed, assembled and packed in America and designed in Brooklyn.
Christine and the Queens (aka singer-songwriter and producer Héloïse Adélaïde Letissier) released the two-track EP Joseph recently, which comprises covers of Michel Fugain’s 1972 song “Fais comme l’oiseau” and George Michael’s 1990 hit “Freedom.” The latter (an iconic ode to the liberation that comes from self-exploration) has been reimagined into a downtempo tune, abandoning the original’s jangly and funky bass line, but remaining mostly faithful to the original. Profits from the EP will be donated to Global Citizen.
South Korean ID firm BKID designed this telescoping Pocket Mouse for Samsung:
The optical mouse connects via Bluetooth, and it does appear that it went into production several years ago; however, Samsung has since bailed out of the mouse space. It’s too bad; I’d have liked to at least try using one of these.
12 Steps is a cushioned chair design that features a system of footrests in the style of hand and foot grips on a climbing rock wall.
It’s no secret that stools are usually more functional than they are comfortable. With a hard seat rest, stools aren’t built for long sitting periods, and depending on your height, your feet are either swinging midair or only just touching the floor below.
Built as a whimsical alternative to the traditional stool, 12 Steps is a new cushioned stool from HaYoung Yoo that comes with built-in footrests designed like rock wall climbing steps so that people of varying heights will have a place where they can prop their feet.
HaYoung Yoo’s 12 Steps stool is built on a six-sided wooden pillar that’s punctuated with climbing holds more commonly found on rock walls. The climbing holds that fill up the stool’s wooden pillar are placed so that users can use them as footrests.
The stools also feature a rotating seat designed similarly to traditional bar stools so that the positioning of the footrests can meet users where their legs fall. The footrests can also function as hand grips for when you might want to move 12 Steps around the room. Ideal for a kid’s classroom or whimsical art studio, 12 Steps was built for comfort, functionality, and playfulness.
Designing innovative chair designs is a tough ask–they’ve been around for as long as any of us can remember. Innovation in new chairs might come through with their multifunctionality, adaptability, or simple comfort. 12 Steps reaches for all three, with an adaptable footrest system, rotating seat rest, and cushioned top.
If you’re a design entrepreneur that wants to design your own product, there’s a few different routes you can take. You can come up with the concept, then farm the development out to somebody else. Or you can do both of those things and let someone take care of the manufacturing. Yet another approach is to DIY the entire process, start to finish.
For those of you attracted to the latter approach, we’ve contracted DIY master Jimmy DiResta, who’s launched his fair share of products since first starting a toy company 20 years ago, to share his self-driven “mockup to market” approach with us. We’re presenting it in a series of free webinar videos and the first one, covering “Inspiration & Brainstorming,” airs tomorrow. To watch it, all you need to do is sign up at the link below.
In tomorrow’s webinar, Jimmy will discuss the merits of the DIY approach—namely, minimizing risk—and the possibilities of selling your stuff using social media, as opposed to the country-fair options you’d have been stuck with 20 years ago. “Instagram never gets rained out,” Jimmy says. “There’s always people looking, and you can always sell [your stuff] in the middle of the night.”
While there will be practical advice for the whole product development process sprinkled throughout tomorrow’s talk, the main focus will be Jimmy sharing his brainstorming and ideation tips. How do you generate ideas, capture them, and develop them? Is your idea both different and better? What’s the best way to assess your idea versus what’s already out there? Most importantly, can you manufacture it?
The first episode airs Wednesday, September 29th at 11AM EST. If you tune in live, you’ll see the presentation (30-45 minutes) and will have the chance to participate in the live Q&A with Jimmy afterwards. (If you can’t make the live airing, you can also watch the video later if you’re signed up.)
The Le Monde de Charlotte Perriand dinner set contains blue and white plates, hand-decorated with motifs adapted from photographs taken by the influential designer in the late 1930s.
The Le Monde de Charlotte Perriand patterns are based on Perriand’s photography of the late 1930s
In this period, photography took on a key role in Perriand’s wide-ranging creative practice, which encompassed architecture, urban planning, interiors and furniture design.
The Le Monde de Charlotte Perriand collection borrows three abstracted natural motifs from these photographs, that are unrecognisable at first glance: a fishbone, the circular bands of a tree trunk and the contours of a patch of snow on a stone floor.
The abstracted motifs include a fishbone
The collection includes a service plate, dinner plate, bowl and dessert plate, all presented in sets of two. The three core patterns are available across all items and the different sets can be mixed and matched.
Each piece is marked with the logos of Cassina and Ginori 1735 to guarantee authenticity.
About Dezeen Showroom: Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
Dezeen promotion: Italian brand Pedrali has added new designs to Blume, a collection of seats and tables designed by German designer Sebastian Herkner with rounded cushions and slender frames.
The Blume armchair and lounge armchair were among several new products that Pedrali unveiled during the Supersalone furniture fair in Milan earlier this month.
The Blume armchair and lounge armchair launched at Supersalone
Like the other chairs in the collection, these armchairs are characterised by a cushioned seat and backrest with pebble-like shapes, while the legs have a subtle flower profile.
The armrests feature the same seven-petal profile, produced from extruded aluminium. They have been carefully shaped to follow the curvature of the other elements to create a continuation of the existing form.
The armrests feature the same extruded aluminium profile as the legs
“With its enveloping softness, the Blume collection offers refined chairs designed both for relaxing living areas and for convivial restaurant and lounge settings, allowing the user’s wellbeing to take centre stage,” said Pedrali.
Herkner designed the first Blume chair in 2020. One of the key features of the design is its clean form, which conceals all screws from view.
The armchair is stackable, for versatile use
The new additions follow suit – there are no visible fixings connecting the armrests to the rest of the chair.
Everything is held in place by a steel structural element under the seat, which is removable to allow the components to be disassembled and recycled when no longer required.
The Blume armchair is also designed to be stackable, for versatile use.
The Blume lounge armchair features a similar form, but with more relaxed proportions
The seats are available in a range of fabrics, with grey, black, brass or bronze finishes for the anodised aluminium elements.
For the Supersalone, this year’s special edition of the Salone del Mobile, the Blume collection was part of a terracotta-toned exhibition designed by Milanese studio Calvi Brambilla, titled #Pedralitimeless.
Intended as a cabinet of curiosities, the installation brought together images, objects and products charting the brand’s 58-year-history.
Pedrali presented the chairs in an exhibition titled #Pedralitimeless
Other new products on show for the exhibition included Caementum, a cast concrete outdoor table designed by Marco Merendi and Diego Vencato, and a new version of the Patrick Jouin-designed Ila armchair with a four-leg frame.
The Marble Lab collection now extends to 12 colours including new additions Dark Marquina, named after the black Spanish marble with its fine white veining, and Atlantic Grey, which features a soft interplay of grey and cream.
Dark Marquina (top image) and Atlantic Grey (above) are among the new colours in the collection
They join the likes of Arabescato Orobico, which Fiandre describes as “the pride of the collection” with its sinuous pattern of contrasting white, grey, brown and ochre.
The Marble Lab collection is available in three traditional and large-format sizes, with either a polished or semi-polished finish.
Classic colours in the range include Arabescato Orobico
Three colours in its range – Calacatta Statuario, Pietra Grey and Premium White – are alternatively available with a matt anti-slip finish, which Fiandre recommends for bathrooms and showers as well as covered outdoor areas such as terraces and sun decks.
With a thickness of just eight millimetres, the Marble Lab tiles take less energy to manufacture than traditional tiles and take up less room during transport.
About Dezeen Showroom: Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
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