Hasta La Ideas

While calls for budget cuts and voluntary resignations might still be all the talk around the Smithsonian, the organization can rest easy in the knowledge that they’ve finally put at least one pressing issue to bed this week. Although overshadowed by the National Portrait Gallery/David Wojnarowicz debacle, you might recall back to this past March when Capitol Hill demanded that the Smithsonian start selling more American-made products in their gift shops…or else (feel free to imagine a representative of the government shaking their fist right here). There was even a bill called the “Buy American at the Smithsonian Act,” which was introduced by West Virginia Representative Nick Rahall. The mighty power of the government was apparently felt and now all seems right at the Smithsonian again, as the Washington Post reports that Virginia Representative Bernard Sanders toured the National Museum of American History‘s gift shop and found he liked what he saw: lots of American-made products. They report that the fella even bought himself a new t-shirt. Here’s a bit:

Escorting Sanders was Brent D. Glass, the director of the museum, who had promised to work on the store’s items. “Now 100 percent of the products in this store — the books, the puzzles, the throw rugs are all made in America,” Glass said.

The museum reported that the business unit that oversees the stores has added 90 vendors since March 1, with 19 of those furnishing U.S.-made merchandise. More than 12,000 items are sold throughout all the museum stores, according to the Smithsonian, one-third of them U.S.-made.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

After the great Home Depot hoax debacle from earlier this year, wherein we’re still removing the egg from our face and our cheeks are still slightly red, we’ve decided to approach this post very carefully. ZDNet‘s blog SEO Whistleblower blog has claimed that they’ve received a copy of the internal guide Apple passes out to its designers to promote healthy living. Included is everything from how to properly sit while working at your desk, how to exercise efficiently, and so on. All these instructions come packaged together in a very Apple-looking box designed by Carl Jeffers (you can see much more of it on his personal site as well). Being as we’re already models of health, we haven’t read through all of the many scanned pages the site has posted, but even if it is just a scam or simply a design mock-up to help show off in a portfolio, it’s nice to look at and seems to have some useful advice. And hey, fake or not, we’ve seen our fair share of designers who could do worse than heeding some of the advice therein.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

For disseminating products, Ginkgo Studio selling their Greenwall plans on Etsy is one way to go; you sell PDFs of the plans electronically and outsource production to handy consumers. It seems like a good way to use Etsy, electricity, and local lumber sources, and if the popularity of the Greenwall takes off, you can have many of them made all around the world without having to ship a lot of boxes and emit a lot of carbon.

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In this corner, the ebullient and widely loved designer, author, and television personality Todd Oldham. And in this corner, the San Francisco-based retail giant Gap, Inc., which yesterday reported yet another month of sagging global sales. The two parties shook hands back in September 2007, when they inked an agreement to make Oldham creative director of the Old Navy brand. A couple of years later, they came out fighting after Oldham sued the company for flaking on its deal, which included a licensing agreement for a Todd Oldham-branded line of clothing to be sold exclusively in Old Navy stores. Gap immediately terminated its agreement with Oldham, and the lawyers took over.

It looked like a victory for the corporate heavyweight when, back in January, a New York District Court dismissed Oldham’s complaint (on all five counts) and later denied his motion to replead the case. The plucky New Yorker didn’t give up, and thanks to Wednesday’s ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the case will proceed. Oldham’s complaint, originally filed in February 2009, has been reinstated on two counts: “Old Navy’s failure to negotiate in good faith an alleged agreement to develop and launch” the Oldham-branded line to be sold at its stores and the company’s wrongful termination of the agreement for Oldham’s services as design director. That last one is rather complicated, as Gap says it had no choice but to fire Oldham after he sued. However, the designer was careful to file the suit under seal. The upshot? Stay tuned. “The ruling is a great vindication in this long ordeal,” said Oldham yesterday. “We are grateful that the court unanimously ruled in our favor and now allows the depositions of Gap CEO Glen Murphy and Old Navy President Tom Wyatt.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Utrecht-based Youmeet is different from those other office-rental spaces in that it’s aimed squarely at creatives, and comes with the quirky touches we’ve come to expect from Dutch design. Rather than offer the traditional triad of desk-space/meeting room/lounge area, Youmeet is broken into five types of spaces that roughly correlate to the sequential steps in a project.

Speak is where you’re meant to kick projects off. The auditorium-like space comes with two projection screens and a sound system for presentations, and has been strategically designed so that small groups “do not feel lost” and large groups (up to 60 people) don’t feel confined. Orange was chosen for the seat colors, says the company, to promote enthusiasm.

Create is the expansive brainstorming space, with large windows affording views of the outside world and a multifunctional swiveling wall that can be projected on, pasted on, or even written on directly. Shelves buit into another wall hold removeable multicolored stool/tables, allowing you to arrange the room in a configuration of your choosing.

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