Hasta La Ideas

Colloquially it’s called a pigskin, but the modern American football is in fact made of cow. Which you’ll see in the video below, shot at the Wilson Sporting Goods factory in Ohio.

As Kottke has pointed out, it is fascinating that just a handful–less than ten people–have produced every NFL footbal in the past few decades. I also found it interesting that seven of them are women, and wonder if the players of this all-male game realize that.

Out of all of ’em, I think Glen’s got the toughest job–check out the color of his hands.

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To us creatives, the stereotype (and now, myth) of the SoHo artist’s loft is perhaps the most romanticized and alluring example of repurposed space we can think of. A massive industrial space with cast-iron Roman columns holding up the soaring ceilings that accommodate our brilliant, huge paintings, which are in turn illuminated by windows the size of Volkswagens; or a gritty brick-lined cavern, with self-built elevated living rooms and plenty of space for our experimental sculptures, lit by industrial lamps whose bulbs can only be changed with the assistance of mountaineering gear.

Those days are long gone of course, as the gentrifying shock-troop artists have been bought out by guys with MBAs and children named Porter. Those lofts are now more likely to look like this:

Repurposed architecture still exists of course, just in far more boring forms–“This fried chicken place used to be a bookstore,” et cetera. But we did recently stumble across one interesting art project dedicated to repurposed space: Texas-based Paho Mann’s “Re-inhabited Circle Ks,” which bears some explaining.

Circle K convenience stores, which still exist, were the Starbucks of decades past. They started going up in the 1950s and by the ’80s, as Mann explains, “there was a location on nearly every block in cities like Phoenix, Arizona.” Bankruptcy wiped many of them out in the ’90s, but the architecturally-distinct structures stayed in place and were inhabited by other businesses.

Mann has mapped their Phoenix locations and documented their transformation into everything from tattoo parlors to Mexican restaurants to tuxedo rental shops, all of which you can see at the link above.

I recognize it’s a massive undertaking, but I do wish he had more photographs. I’m hoping another artist will take the baton from Mann and begin documenting another phenomenon in this vein and common to rural America: The repurposed Pizza Hut.

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The thing I love about local papers as opposed to the nationals is that the former will take the time to look at “small-time” designers, not just the superstars. I put “small-time” in quotes because it’s still possible to not have your name known and still make a bundle of cash with your own industrial design firm. Says industrial designer Scott Collins, who runs his own firm out of Brown Deer, Wisconsin, “I’m not a multimillionaire, but it’s a very good living and I’ll have a good retirement.”

For every Starck, Rashid and Grcic there are probably thousands of guys like Collins. An article in Milwaukee’s Journal-Sentinel looks at Collins and his unsung firm, and after hunting down his portfolio I was surprised to see I use two of his designs (this bathroom fan light and this paint edger) despite never having heard of him. His firm has clients that you have heard of but whose names don’t immediately spring to mind when asked to run down the giants of U.S. industry: Kimberly-Clark, Johnson Controls, Sherwin-Williams.

The jewel in his portfolio’s crown is probably this person-friendly and humanitarian mousetrap Collins designed back in 2002. And it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s famous (it isn’t) in design journals: The thing is sold by Wal-Mart. Collins, it seems, actually has built a better mousetrap.

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Looks like our industry’s finally getting a little postal love. In July of this year, the United States Postal Service will release a limited-edition set of stamps commemorating some of industrial design’s pioneers, including Raymond Loewy, Donald Deskey, Henry Dreyfuss, Walter Dorwin Teague, et cetera.

The collection focuses on the 1930s to 1950s era, so we won’t be seeing any Philippe Starck juicers, Bill Stumpf chairs or Jony Ive iMacs; presumably we’ll have to wait another 60-80 years.

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Since discovering the multifunctional delights of the Cuts+More scissors last month, our love for all things Fiskars has been heartily renewed.

Perhaps the only thing more impressive than the Fiskars ID team’s attention for detail, is the remarkably coherent design strategy and brand language that is carried religiously through their ever-expanding product range. Only with such clear ideals could an ancient knife manufacturer redesign the humble watering-can—and do it in such style.

The “Easy-Pour” is a seriously heavy duty watering-can—so serious you might well be reconsidering your stance on tulip-growing as we speak. Ever the champion of ergonomics, Fiskars have introduced a second, rotating handle into their new design that gives greater control, which in turn allows for greater capacity and less walking back and forth to the kitchen tap.

But the innovations to the world of watering-cans don’t stop there; the head of the can rotates too, to give 2 levels of flow—gentle shower or (I quote) “flower soaking”— and—for one last design detail—the filling-hole, rather than being stuck inconveniently under the handle, is placed neatly to the side for easy access. Clever Fiskars.

This watering-can of watering-cans is available from the Fiskars e-store for a very reasonable $19.99.

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