Hasta La Ideas

I love all the weird stuff you find in factories, like industrial jigs. That thing up above is described as “a straight edge gauge block that was used for precision measuring by Ford Motors in the 1980s,” and soon it’s going to be a piece of furniture as modified by Cleveland Art.

It’s been nearly three years since we wrote about Cleveland Art opening their Los Angeles showroom, and since then they’ve been busy, moving the company HQ from Ohio to California while continuing to crank out the goods.

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I had to laugh when I saw this package design. (With, not at.) Soy Mamelle’s container, designed by Russian creative agency Kian, is meant to drive home the point that the soy-based product is milk-like. In an era when most food packaging takes great pains to sensorially divorce the end-product from the smelly animal it (in this case ostensibly) came from, the Soy Mamelle bottle adopts the form of a squeezable latex cow udder.

Sure it’s false advertising on some levels, since soymilk doesn’t come from a cow and squeezing the nipples doesn’t cause milk to shoot out of them — it’s got a regular cap and threaded bottle opening up top — but you can’t beat it for shelf presence and triggering people’s “I must touch that” instinct.

The bottle also comes in a smaller glass version, but that’s just weird; the whole point, I think, is that the packaging is soft and udder-like.

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Having too much stuff is a peculiarly modern problem, one that our ancestors, who generally never had enough of anything, would scarcely recognize. Yet it afflicts many of us, as evidenced in the TV show “Hoarders” and the many books and websites filled with anti-cluttering tips.

One NYC couple tapped architecture firm Dash Marshall to render their apartment clutter-free by remodeling it and designing hideaway spaces for everything. Looking through the white space, there are no magazines laying about, no half-finished work projects, no mail waiting to be sorted, and no dirty socks rotating silently on the ceiling fan. (That latter one may just be a problem in my house.) It’s white, it’s shiny and it’s clean.

[The clients] wanted a home to charge up between missions; they wanted a place where every boot and book, every single little thing could be hidden away…. They had too much stuff and wanted to be able to live in serenity, without being reminded of their earthly possession on a daily basis.

One particularly neat feature is a sizeable closet that pivots on a hinge. Residing in a flexible-use area dubbed the “Black Hole,” it swivels to hide, reveal, or create more space. And even in the open position, a simple white curtain can be used to hide the garments within.

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Regular readers of this blog know I’m obsessed with the idea of one person’s garbage becoming another’s raw material, particularly when there’s a minimum of processing involved. One fascinating example of this phenomenon is designer Emiliano Godoy’s “Snowjob” chair, which is skinned in candy wrappers. (Not used ones, but misprints and obsolete ones.)

One point Godoy raises — which sheds some light on the name of the chair — is that these wrappers all have recycling symbols on them, yet he claims that the material…

…although technically recyclable, is never recycled, not even in its virgin, post-industrial state. One label on the back is folded in such a way that the recycling logo that appears on each candy wrapping is visible, speaking about the fact that the cover is made from recycled materials, but also about the misdirecting impression that this logo makes on the final consumer, who might think that candy wrappers are actually recycled when in fact none of them is.

I do wish Godoy would back this claim up with some links or evidence. This is not to cast doubt on his statements, but rather because I’d be very interested in reading up on why these things are not recycled, how they are able to get away with it, and what other materials claim recyclability but never see re-use.

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The latest product design debate to catch my attention over on the Core boards was started last year and has been reinvigorated as of this morning. It’s entitled “A Lovely Bit of Plagiarism,” started by user Holtag. First, check out this Alienware gaming PC:

Next, take a look at this power washer:

For shame!

Reading through the opinions shows that some readers are bothered; some aren’t bothered at all; some come out in defense of the power washer’s design; still others sound off with depressing tales that might be familiar to some of you, like ones about the “clients who take a Nokia phone out of their pockets and say, make my stud finder…look like this.”

What do you think, is this a design crime or a sign o’ the times?

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