Hasta La Ideas

Rarely, to our minds, does one piece of merchandise present such a serious challenge to typographers, product designers, and novelty merchants at all one time than this. We’re of course talking about eyeglasses shaped in the form of “2011″ for New Year’s Eve. After a while decade of being spoiled by two zeroes right where the eyes needed to be, novelty suppliers suddenly found themselves in a tough spot they likely hadn’t been in since the 1971 (though clumsy, at least the 80s had that 8 and the 90s had the 9). The Wall Street Journal‘s Nando DiFino files this great report on the difficulties designers have had on coming up with where to put the eyeholes, from simply putting one of the 1s into outline with a knock-out center to alternatives with thrown-in holes right in the middle to just dropping the product line entirely. It’s apparently been a serious issue within this very specific market and makes for a great read about the importance of design, even with something decidedly unimportant.

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The complete antithesis to the tragic events in Colorado last month when Enrique Chagoya‘s artwork was damaged by an angry crowbar wielder comes to us from another western state, New Mexico, and wow do we love it. As KOAT news tells it, local Albuquerque artist, Shane Shane, had his sculpture “The Last Pedophile” removed from the property of an arts fest there by the New Mexico State Police. We’ll let you take a breather after that last sentence. The story continues that Shane Shane is claiming this is an act of malicious free-speech encroachment by local officials who can’t handle his art. The police, on the other hand, say it’s just because the artist left the sculpture on the back of trailer that wasn’t parked in the right place and so they towed it. To get the whole, amazing picture of all of this, we highly recommend taking it all in on the news station’s site, from their image of the wonderfully bizarre sculpture, to their online survey “Is It Inappropriate to Call a Statue ‘The Last Pedophile’?” (to verdict to which is currently locked in a dead heat), to seeing Shane Shane’s sly grin about all of this, and the tears of laughter you’ll shed watching the video of the story, seeing the reporter repeatedly forcing himself to say “Shane Shane” again and again and again. We know we still have a little over a month left of 2010 and anything can happen, but as of right now, this is this writer’s story of the year.

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Quanti di voi sogneranno di addormentarsi davanti alla TV in questa poltrona? Tutti i dettagli li trovate qui.
[Via]

So you’ve hired an architect, spent months planning, followed by contractor hires and them bringing in their crews to start the labored process of getting a new building built. Despite all the stress, everything is going along just fine, but then the worst possible thing happens, the thing you’d hoped to avoid during this whole difficult endeavor that’s sure to delay everything: Bill Murray shows up and starts reading poetry to the construction workers. Found by way of A Daily Dose, this video shows Murray during the building of the Poets House‘s new home in Battery Park, where the actor had apparently popped in for a tour (one assumes he’s a donor) and decided to share a little verse:

The building was finished late last summer, but the video was just recently put up, so either the edit took a while or they just forgot they had a very funny clip of Murray. Either way, enjoy.

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Some might say the date might have something to do with this announcement, but we think Architecture for Humanity and its founder, Cameron Sinclair, are nothing if not constantly serious (the man has been interviewed byCameron Diaz after all, and she’s America’s top journalist). So you must take it as absolute truth that the charitable organization has adopted a 1200 pound manatee, named it Hugh Manatee, and are preparing take it/him on a goodwill tour across the world for the next few months. The whole tour kicks off on April 6th, Architecture for Humanity’s eleventh anniversary, and we can’t think of a better way to celebrate and spread the word. Here’s a short video about the announcement and here’s some additional info:

Thanks to the support of an anonymous Japanese donor, the tour launches in Tokyo at a special Pecha Kucha event hosted by Super Deluxe on May 8, 2010. Hugh will then visit Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and India before a long journey through Africa. Then, during the 2010 World Cup, Hugh travels through South Africa before visiting construction projects Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.

“Hugh has defied the logic that all mascots should be just focus on being cute,” Co-founder Cameron Sinclair stated “Instead of languishing in an aquarium, he’s highlighting all our great projects while educating everyone that the manatee is the most charitable animal in the animal kingdom. We’re honored to be associated with such a noble creature.”

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