Hasta La Ideas

Hole reinforcers and pencils from Costa Rica, and Hen Chung in Istanbul.

Around the world in 80 writing utensils? That’s one way to describe Rad and Hungry, which aims to take lovers of interesting office supplies on a “world tour of limited-edition goods with lo-fi style, pushing design through travel and travel through design.” Founded by former graphic designer Hen Chung in collaboration with fellow globetrotters Sam Alston and Laura Dedon Oxford, the online shop assembles an ever-changing selection of country-themed kits stocked with imported pens, pencils, stationery, and other exotic desk goodies, all beautifully packaged. A Rad and Hungry subscription is the perfect gift for the design lover who has everything—except thumbtacks from Lisbon.

“We really try to make each kit speak to our travels in that country–the people we met, food we ate, design we saw,” Chung tells us. “As each layer is unwrapped, people share in our low-down travel. The whole experience transforms the lo-fi, often overlooked daily-diet goods into something sacred. Our ultimate goal is to connect far-flung groups of people who love style, design, and travel as much as we do.” She made time between scouting trips to answer our questions about creating the company, her favorite finds, and what’s currently on her desk.

What led you to create Rad and Hungry?
I was a graphic designer for ten years and it became time for me to move on. I knew I wanted to combine the things I love most—travel and design. One day I was sitting in my library room thinking about what my next move would be. I was staring at a section of shelves that store journals that I collected from my travels. They were all untouched–they were inexpensive journals I picked up in places such as corner shops and pharmacies. Didn’t matter that none of the pages contained any words or images, they were all so sacred to me because they reminded me of each country. And then it hit me—create a company that allows me to travel and share daily-diet design through office supplies.

You travel the globe hunting for new stuff to include in Rad and Hungry kits. What are some of your favorite finds of all time?
Probably my favorite item to date is the Soviet-era notebooks in the Latvia Kit. I love the yellowing pages, the faded mint covers, and the simple rubber-stamped logo. Close seconds are the copper-colored paper clips from our first Germany Kit and the flower-scented pencils from the Portugal Kit. I love the paper clips because they’re so opposite of what people expect of German goods—they’re delicate and not uniform in shape. And the pencils from Portugal are amazing. Their smell is unreal. Super fragrant but not in the cheap perfume sort of way. They’re made by an old pencil factory that’s still in business after all these years. I’m always stoked to discover a company with a lot of history ‘cause I’m a firm believer that old school is best!

You’re packing for a desert island and can only bring one writing utensil. What is it?
Hands down a goldenrod pencil. I figure I’ll be able to create a tool to sharpen it and find something to write on. But I don’t know what I’d do if I need a fire, hurting for wood and have to make the ultimate decision between fighting off the cold or having a trusty number 2 pencil.
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From STEM to STEAM to…Psy? Worlds will collide on April 26, when NYU’s Stern School of Business plays host to a ceremony and luncheon for the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards. Presented annually by the Tribeca Film Festival in association with the Disruptor Foundation and Mr. Disruptive Innovation himself, Clay Christensen, the awards showcase applications of and advancements in disruptive innovation theory–how simpler, cheaper technologies, products, and services can decimate industry leaders–that have spread beyond the original technological and industrial sweetspots.

Joining past honorees such as Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, the Guggenheim’s YouTube Play, and Kickstarter are 2013 disrupters including RISD President John Maeda‘s STEM to STEAM initiative, which adds art and design into the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) quartet; fashion designer and wellness advocate Norma Kamali; K-Pop sensation Psy; and Twyla Tharp, who will receive the lifetime achievement award. Here’s hoping that those four hit and off and get to work on an even more disruptive collaborative project. The full list of honorees is below. Each will take home Disruptor Award statuettes known as “Maslow’s Silver Hammer,” in honor of psychologist Abe “Hierarchy of Needs” Maslow, who once said, “When your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail.”
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(Photo courtesy Grace Hawthorne)

It’s TED time, and among the attractions at TEDActive, the parallel event taking place this week in Palm Springs, is “Paper-Punk-a-thon” (pictured), a 25-foot-long installation by Paper Punk founder Grace Hawthorne. We asked the ReadyMade veteran–an entrepreneur, artist, author, and educator who heads up the Creative Gym course at Stanford’s d.school–to tell us more about the interactive project as it unfolds.

What is a “Paper-Punk-a-Thon”?
An all-you-can-fold buffet of Paper Punk shapes. Attendees feast on a limitless assortment of shapes, patterns, and colors, and fold to their heart’s content.

What did you create for the installation?
I made three large anchor panels out of hollow paper blocks to kick things off. Attendees are populating the other nine smaller provided panels with paper block creation that expresses an assigned word.

How have TEDActive attendees responded to your installation?
Enthusiastically! They get to make something with their hands and share it with each other by putting it up on this progressive/collaborative wall. Some of their creations have blown me away.
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Architecture for Humanity understands that for design lovers, a good greeting card (among other things) is hard to find. And so the nonprofit is kicking off its annual “I Love Architecture” campaign with a selection of e-cards that allow senders to simultaneously declare their love for the recipient and one of eight iconic structures, from the Taj Mahal and the Eiffel Tower to Herzog & de Meuron‘s Beijing Bird’s Nest and the Castelvecchio Museum, renovated by Carlo Scarpa. The buildings were selected because they are emblematic of architecture’s unique “merging together of learned skills and individual practice,” according to Architecture for Humanity co-founder Cameron Sinclair. Got a special someone who you love even more than Louis Kahn‘s National Parliament of Bangladesh? Click here to select a card that you can share online or download and e-mail with a custom message.

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“Big Waffles,” a 2010 painting by Mary Ellen Johnson

Lately Larry Gagosian has been the subject of even more media scrutiny than usual, fueled by assorted lawsuits (Ronald Perelman, Jan Cowles) and high-profile artist defections (Damien Hirst, Yayoi Kusama). New York magazine accompanied Eric Konigsberg‘s investigative profile with a photo-illustration (by hitandrun) that attempted to depict the uberdealer as Hirst’s famous diamond-studded skull, although it succeeded only in evoking Jambi the Genie. Well, meka leka hi meka hiney ho, haters, because Gagosian has something delicious up his well-tailored sleeve. Never underestimate a man who knows the power of waffles.

In March-ish (our best guess after peeking into the construction site earlier today), Gagosian will open a restaurant downstairs from his Upper East Side gallery. Designed by Annabelle Selldorf, the eatery will be managed by nearby Sant Ambroeus, so fingers crossed that they bring on Mucca to mastermind the menu design. There will be waffles–and wine, and chili, and fun!–as Gagosian revealed in an interview with Peter Brant that appeared in the December 2012/January 2013 issue of Interview:

It will be a neighborhood restaurant. Bill Acquavella already reserved a table. He was one of the first to say, “I want to have my own table.” So that’s good news. We’re going to try to have it be a destination for people who like wine and try to get wine companies to bring us special wines. We’re going to have international cuisine. We’re going to have waffles for breakfast because I love the waffles at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I put some things on the menu that you can’t get in every restaurant, things that I like. I love chili, so we’ll have a good chili. We’ll have a couple of Armenian dishes. But we’re going to have fun with it. I could have done a menu by consensus, but so many people were telling me what to do that I finally said, “Screw it. This is what I want.” I just want to be able to go down there and have a good time and be able to entertain my friends.

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