10 years running, Coroflot launches its annual Designer Salary Survey today featuring real-time results. Take the survey and compare your earnings against others in the industry. Has a slowly growing economy shown improvements in the creative design fields? Find out now, and don’t forget to share this with your colleagues too!
It’s a sad day for the design world. New York design emporium Moss has been shuttered—we hope temporarily. After a tipster sent us word that the doors of the legendary Greene Street store were papered in government notices, we contacted the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance and confirmed that the property was seized late yesterday. According to Department spokesman Brad Maione, there are four tax warrants against Moss for unpaid sales and withholding taxes. Dating from May of this year for periods reaching back to September 2009, the warrants total $149,002. Moss will have a period of time in which to resolve the situation before further action is taken by the Department. The shuttering follows the recent announcement of the Soho’s store’s abridged hours and the September closing of the Moss outpost at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills.
In an e-mail sent today to friends and colleagues of Moss, owners Murray Moss and Franklin Getchell attribute the store closure to “our failure to file a document (one of literally hundreds!) with the Department [of Taxation and Finance]” and emphasize that they consider the shuttering temporary. “Our tax advisors, lawyers, and accountant have been great, working throughout the evening and morning to satisfy this State bureaucratic situation,” they explained. “We believe we can get them all the documents they need within today, and re-open, if not tomorrow, then hopefully by Monday.” Moss and Getchell say that they are focused on negotiating “mutually acceptable financial arrangements which make sense and allow for a stable, doable plan going forward.” They also note that they have put
financing in place, adjusted store overhead, and re-evaluated projections in anticipation of “a fabulous Holiday offering.” Here’s hoping that we’ll be back at Moss for the seasonal hoarding of Fornasetti plates that we call Christmas shopping.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
The Economist has a great piece up looking at the product development story of the Glif, a simple kickstand that attaches to an iPhone and doubles as a tripod mount. What didn’t seem simple was getting the thing made: Tooling the mold would require $10,000.
So last month New-York-based Glif designers Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost, the latter of whom works for frogdesign, turned to online funding platform Kickstarter to raise the cash. “We thought it would take weeks [to raise the cash], and a lot of effort,” said Gerhardt. But in three days they had $70,000.
The Glif project, needless to say, is well under way, with the assistance of short-run injection molding firm Protomold. Read the full story here.
How green are your jeans? The sustainability-minded denim fiends at Levi’s are rolling out a new line of jeans that are made using significantly less water. While the average pair of jeans guzzles 11 gallons of water in the finishing process (wash. dry. repeat.), Levi’s new WaterLess collection reduces the water consumption by an average of 28%, with some new products cutting the H2O toll by as much as 96%. “We challenged ourselves to operate at the intersection of style and sustainability,” said Erik Joule, senior vice president of merchandising and design for Levi’s. “We’re excited about the results we’ve achieved so far, and we know we can make an even bigger impact by applying this innovative thinking to other aspects of our production process.”
So how they’d do it? A combination of obvious (washing the jeans less) and not so obvious (add ozone processing into the garment washing, figure out a way to stone wash without water) strategies. “Sometimes, the way to achieve a more sustainable design is to rethink a traditional process and find a way to do it better,” explains Carl Chiara, director of brand concepts and special projects at Levi’s. The first WaterLess products will hit stores in January and will include over a dozen classics (your 501s, 511s, 514s). Meanwhile, the spring 2011 product lines will contain more than 1.5 million pairs of jeans with the WaterLess method, saving more than 4 million gallons of water. As for those who favor Levi’s traditional rigid finish jeans, well, you’re the eco-friendliest of all: those use virtually no water in their production.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
While this writer has yet to see a 3D film in the theaters yet to learn what all the fuss is about, that certainly hasn’t stopped him from endlessly bothering his few remaining friends by talking to about if its all just one big, soon-to-fall-apart fad or if 3D is here to stay (he’ll also tell you how much he’s disliked 3D television demos too, if you haven’t excused yourself by that point). Regardless of these opinions, it appears as though at least two companies outside the film industry feel confident enough in the new/updated filmmaking format, as both Oakley and Gucci have announced that they will be releasing their own models of 3D glasses for the more fashionable and discriminating movie-goer. Both to be released in December (Oakley’s will tie into the Tron sequel), they look better than the stock form one usually sees at the theater, particularly Gucci’s which almost look like just a pair of normal sunglasses. Unless suddenly every form of screen entertainment suddenly requires 3D glasses, we haven’t a clue how there’s a market for this outside of a very, very small subset of people who want to make sure they look like the pinnacle of fashion even when it’s dark and the nature of the wearing demands that everyone’s attention isn’t even remotely concerned with whatever isn’t on the screen, someone at both companies must have some concept of what they’re doing here. Either that or the “oh no, it’s near the holidays and we forgot to come up with an idea” has struck twice.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
All the tech world has been abuzz this week with the news announced at a conference in Dublin late last week that Chad Hurley, one of the co-founders of YouTube and its current CEO, has announced that he will be stepping down. While he will remain with the company in an advisory role, the AP reports that he intends to now spend his time working on his latest love, the California-based men’s clothing line, Hlaska, which he sounded with Anthony Mazzeri and had apparently been designing pieces for since its inception. Oddly enough, just as the story of his leaving YouTube was breaking, Forbes happened to interview Hurley about his fashion company and the big, big plans he has for it, including having “stores in every major city in two years.”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
We’re thrilled to welcome the Interaction Design Association (www.ixda.org) as the newest addition to our Job Board Partner Network. The IxDA supports a thriving community and is the premier destination for interaction design professionals worldwide. We’ve been big supporters of the IxDA for many years, and we’re looking forward to growing our relationship into the future.
We’re also looking forward to their annual conference, Interaction 2011, held in Boulder, CO in February. The list of speakers and events is now online, and we’ll be there in full force. Coroflot Connects is a one-night recruiting and networking event taking place during the conference, and is a great way to bring designers and hiring organizations together. Grab your skis and head out to Boulder and join us!
Such ignominy. A press release heralding the IDSA’s Catalyst Case Studies winners lists the IDSA’s full title, in the freaking headline, as the “International Design Society of America.”
Industrial Design, people.
In any case, the four chosen case studies are as follows:
– Toyota Prius’ design created a new car category by combining business opportunity, environmental impact and a social solution that changed attitudes about the potential of hybrids.
– Siemens e.cam is a nuclear camera with an open gantry that allows easy access to both detectors for imaging of patients on gurneys and wheelchairs or in a standing position. This patient-centered design is an example of business leadership aligning good design with business strategy.
– Kohler 9/11 Mobile Shower was created for the workers and volunteers at the World Trade Center located at Ground Zero. It was selected because it was a simple and appropriate shower solution as well as a great example of corporate citizenship.
– The MiniMed Infusion pump, a device that helps diabetic patients manage insulin without daily injections, was selected for demonstrating the power to deliver healthier living and corporate financial performance by realizing the important connection between medical product design and a patient’s daily needs.
The full case studies, each chosen for “[holding] a real connection to facilitating positive change and [helping to] capture design’s ability to deliver strategic value while inspiring the profession’s future,” will be on sale as PDFs and MP3s in early 2011.
If you missed your chance to buy from a big name for fewer greenbacks during those periods when Target teamed with designers like Zac Posen, Thakoon Panichguls, and Tracy Feith, well you might just be in luck (provided you’re happy to wait in long lines and fight off rabid crowds who want the same as you). To celebrate the fifth year of their “Go International” campaign of collaborating with top notch fashioneers, they’ve announced “Design Collective,” a 34-piece collection of new dresses by 17 of their previous guest designers, including the two mentioned above as well as Tara Jarmon, Jonathan Saunders, and Alice Temperley. Styleite has a good look at the collections that have proceeded this “all-stars” release, which should kick off in mid-March and last only a month, which really means a matter of minutes after heaving masses of humanity empty each and every outlet’s shelves. An hour or two after that, you can probably find it all on eBay at a slight mark up.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
It’s almost hard to believe that it’s been less than a year since writer Jeff Chu took a hard look at Design Within Reach for Fast Company, exposing more publicly the near-shambles it had found itself in after its first decade of existence. Since then, the company got itself a new CEO, patched things up with some of the designers it had wronged, closed stores, launched a series of higher-profile-than-usual promotions, and tried bumping up the value of their stock. Now they’ve made perhaps the second biggest shift in their year of change (hiring John Edelman as the new guy in charge certainly has to be the first), is the company’s announcement that they’re packing up, leaving San Francisco, and making Stamford, Connecticut their new headquarters. They’ll be moving into an existing building in an area called Harbor Point, a section the city is apparently making a big push to revitalize. No doubt the less expensive rent will also help a company still climbing out of some of the holes it dug for itself in the past. Here’s a bit from the official word about the move:
“We chose Stamford due to its proximity to New York City, vibrant available workforce, and the opportunity to be part of the exhilarating renewal taking place in Stamford’s South End,” said the company’s Chief Operating Officer John McPhee. “We look forward to having our corporate offices located directly above the newest Design Within Reach Studio, both of which will be in the former Yale and Towne lock factory at Harbor Point.”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
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