There’s a terrific gallery of old images courtesy of LIFE that show off 30 Dumb Inventions.
My favorite is the Baby Cage 1937
A nanny supervising a baby suspended in a wire cage attached to the outside of a high tenement block window. The cages were distributed to members of the Chelsea Baby Club in London who have no gardens, or qualms about putting a child in a box dangling over a busy street.
Inaugurating a series of live online videos—redubbed design casts—hosted by I.D. Magazine, ” tomorrow Loosen Up: Injecting Play into the Design Process” continues the discussion started in their current issue about the role of play in the design process in a web browser near you starting at 4pm.
Rinat Aruh and Johan Liden of NYC–based design group Aruliden will moderate the live webcast, bringing their unconventional process they call “producting,” which allows design to remain the focus of a brand’s marketing strategy to the table.
Using their work for Puma (see the ping pong kit below), Microsoft and Kiki de Montparnasse as examples, the duo will examine the importance of play and the ways Aruliden incorporates the design concept into their producting process. A major point in thinking about the dynamic of play from comes comparing it to business practices—e.g. collective thinking over singular yields great results. The hour-long design cast will discuss how this translates when developing new products, as well as other effective nontraditional approaches.
Register for Loosen Up for $40 from How Bookstore and keep an eye out for I.D.’s next topic in the monthly series.
Une belle vidéo de présentation pour ce festival d’art numérique du 29 au 31 octobre au Centre Madeleine Rebérioux et Le Cube. Des performances visuelles, installations, et ateliers entièrement diffusées sur le web. Visionsonic est une initiative des Pixels Transversaux.
by Jeremy Brautman
FullyVisual makes heavy metal, but it’s not for listening. The brand started as a side project among friends and quickly evolved into a line of part toy, part art and all metal collectibles.
Today, FullyVisual drops its latest figure—an update on Huck Gee‘s Skullhead. Savvy toy collectors know that Huck Gee pieces tend to have an availability window of approximately six seconds. FullyVisual’s designer Jamie Mathis is quick to point out that as a medium, metal lasts longer than vinyl which may explain in part what makes these 100 figures so highly covetable.
Mathis combined his experience making metal belt buckles for the apparel industry with an interest in art, now boasting an enviable artist roster and releasing a new limited edition sculpture roughly every month. He makes the hand-crafted pieces in editions of 100 or less in silver, gold, copper and nickel. For Gary Baseman‘s Clown Cone #2, Jamie combined several metals into one fantastic figure. To achieve colors that exist outside the metal spectrum, he collaborated with Japan’s Gargamel crew and master of toy customization Paul Kaiju.
A relative newcomer to the designer toy community, which focuses chiefly on vinyl, metal adds a new aspect to the field. FullyVisual pieces carry a significant heft, sometimes tipping the scale at a pound of metal each.
To get a sense of what goes into each figure, we chatted with Jamie during a break in his busy schedule.
Can you describe the process of making metal figures?
The artists send drawings of the figures. From those turnarounds, the figure is sculpted, a mold is made and I cast the pieces. I pour lead-free pewter metals, then dip each piece. Some are plated or brushed to look shiny or older. Each artist picks the colorways.
What’s it like working with artists who are your friends?
Most of the artists I’ve worked with are close friends or close friends of friends. I try to faithfully reproduce their vision in metal. Gary Baseman’s figures are really specific to his pieces, so it’s interesting to have the paintings to refer to. Artists can be highly specific, but there are of course some limitations to the medium.
What’s coming up next for FullyVisual?
Amanda Visell and I are continuing the saga of her [sold out] mini wargroup figures in the next couple months. I’m also doing another piece with Huck Gee. This one will be as big as a baseball and limited to 100 pieces in four colorways. I’m pretty stoked about an upcoming project with Joe Ledbetter. There’s nothing like it that’s ever been done in vinyl, metal or wood. And I’m doing a project right now with Switcheroo that will change the way collectors look at things. It will take them to the next level. In a word: mechanical.
Speaking of mechanical, we heard you collect motorcycle parts. Tell us about your own collections.
Yeah that and also skate decks, kaiju, my friends’ vinyl toys and art…and one of every Circus Punk ever made.
The Object Design League is seeking submissions for Worth Your Salt, its first ever pop-up shop, produced in partnership with Chicago design boutique Pavilion. The shop will open in Pavilion’s Bucktown storefront on November 27th, the day after Thanksgiving, with a Black Friday reception, and maintain day and evening hours until December 11th.
This pop up shop aims to provide emerging American designers with a retail opportunity during the holiday shopping season, while also bringing a select cross-section of designed objects from emerging American Designers to Chicago in a half-exhibition, half-boutique format. The call for entries is open to all US designers, as long as the object is at the scale of the tabletop.
For more guidelines and information on how to submit, visit worthyoursalt.objectdesignleague.org.
Designer Jung Hwa Jin has created the Polaroid Flower Vase, a small planter that recalls the nostalgic form of polaroid, with the plant becoming the focus of the “picture.” The planter is suspended with a clothespin on the end of a cord, with a small embedded lamp illuminating its subject.
Creators of the facet-design Marks & Spencer cafe, London firm Kiwi & Pom recently teamed up with another British establishment, collaborating with London’s renowned karaoke bar Lucky Voice to create the Party Pod.
Tagged as the world’s most sophisticated and portable karaoke experience, they designed the aptly named “Party Pod” for paramount user experience. A toy-like unit houses the computer used to store the songs, as well as the audio equipment needed to connect to the microphone, speaker and TV. The Party Pod’s technical configurations synch monthly song updates directly from a computer into the machine’s system and an integrated touch-screen interface makes for a modern yet friendly song selection process.
For those who prefer not to own a karaoke machine, hiring the Lucky Voice Pop-Up Party experience delivers a bespoke Lucky Voice touchscreen unit containing thousands of songs, a plasma screen to display the lyrics and a sleek Bose sound system with two wireless mics to your door. The system is available for hire worldwide. For information and rates visit the Lucky Voice website.
On the continued topic of inspiring children to establish organized routines, the HGTV website has a helpful article on motivating and prompting kids to clean up their rooms.
From the article “Cleaning Children’s Rooms“:
Make a cleaning map for a child’s room, showing where everything is to be stored. Include items such as compact discs, shoes, books, stuffed animals and dirty laundry. Not only is this fun and educational, but the child also has no excuse about not knowing where to put away items.
How do you inspire your children to do chores? Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments.
(Thanks to Parenthacks for the link.)
Brown and RISD’s student-organized international conference on the power of design for social and environmental activism–A Better World by Design–has announced that they will also be joining forces with Project M this weekend (October 2-4) in Providence, RI. Project M is a national program created to inspire young designers, writers, and activists, and will kick off their nationwide (blank)LAB mobile design studio tour. With an experiment involving conference participants’ interaction and shared perspective, 100 conference attendees will be recruited to enter the (blank)LAB and agree to “Live their Life to the Fullest,” becoming part of a lasting “Better World” network inspired by designer Jenny Leonard.
The event is just one of the weekend, featuring 18 internationally acclaimed speakers, 17 intimate and pertinent panel discussion, 17 hands-on interactive workshops, two social events in Providence’s coolest venues, and of course the first ever LIVE Core77 One-Hour Design Challenge.
See you there!
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