pPrivacy is a hot topic. It wasn’t long ago that Facebook was being dragged through the papers as Zuckerberg and Co. scrambled to bring their policies up to scratch. Now it seems that Google are getting, surprisingly willingly, in on the act with a href=”http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704901104575423294099527212.html”Eric Schmidt’s prophetic comments last week/a, forewarning us all of the murky, digital identity dystopia to which we are undoubtedly, irrevocably, and in no small part thanks to his company, heading. It appears that this debate is in no way confined to sunny California, however. We dropped in on a href=”http://www.2121designsight.jp/index-e.html””21_21 Design Sight”/a museum in Tokyo this week to check out their current exhibition on this very theme./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/the_definition_of_self_exhibition_at_design_sight_tokyo_17190.asp”(more…)/a pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/FRxegj7IyLNsSrI8LrQCGhDkvlE/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/FRxegj7IyLNsSrI8LrQCGhDkvlE/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/ a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/FRxegj7IyLNsSrI8LrQCGhDkvlE/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/FRxegj7IyLNsSrI8LrQCGhDkvlE/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p
Reader Nancy submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:
My husband and I both serve as executors for the estates of family members. When we arranged to have [the deceaseds’] mail forwarded, we got on marketing lists and are getting tons of mail — even for a family member who died in 2001! How can we stop it? We must have gotten thousands of pieces of junk mail and we are just in the beginning with a new estate!
Nancy, I’m sorry to hear about your losses. You and your husband are so kind to take on the closing of estates during your times of grief.
One thing to keep in mind is that even after taking the steps I’m about to mention, you still might continue to receive junk mail for deceased family members. Some companies have predatory practices and don’t really care who lives at an address. Their goal is to get their marketing materials into a mailbox, and how they obtained an address is irrelevant to them.
Your first step in the process is to talk with your local post office about the mail being forwarded to your address for anyone whose estate is already closed. The USPS will provide you a form to complete and then stop forwarding all mail for this person to your address.
Second, the USPS recommends that you put the name of anyone who is deceased on the “Deceased Do Not Contact List.” From the USPS:
You may request to have the deceased’s name removed from commercial marketing lists. To assist in this process, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has created a Deceased Do Not Contact list. All DMA members are required to remove names on this list from their mailing lists and many non-DMA members comply, as well. Once a name is registered, commercial contacts from DMA members should begin to decrease within three months. There is a $1 fee for the service. To register a name or learn more, visit the DMA Web site.
Again, the USPS and the Deceased Do Not Contact List are not 100 percent. However, following these two steps should significantly cut down on the amount of mail you are receiving. Additionally, if you receive any mail that isn’t junk mail (like a note from an uninformed friend), a phone call explaining the delicate situation is likely your best and most considerate option. Since the name and address of the person appear on the envelope, consult a phone book or your directory information (411) to obtain the person’s phone number.
Thank you, Nancy, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column.
Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.
pThe 12 winners of the a href=”http://www.sukkahcity.com/”Sukkah City/a design competition have been announced, with their designs to be built at the Gowanus Studio Space in Brooklyn and then moved to Union Square in Manhattan for public display on Sunday, September 19 and Monday, September 20. /p
blockquote”We asked some of the most creative people in the world to re-imagine and renew the sukkah, and the results are truly dazzling and inspiring,” said Roger Bennett and Joshua Foer of the cultural organization Reboot, which organized the competition in collaboration with the American Institute of Architects, Architizer, Dwell, the Union Square Partnership, and the City’s Department of Parks Recreation. “This humble structure will come to life in twelve new forms that are bold, beautiful and quintessentially New York.”/blockquote
pCheck out the press release a href=”http://www.sukkahcity.com/press-release.html”here/a, but below are the winners. Core77 is proud to be a partner of a href=”http://www.sukkahcity.com/”Sukkah City/a. Congrats architects and designers!/p
pSukkah City 2010 Winners/p
pDale Suttle, So Sugita, and Ginna Nguyen – New York, NYbr / Gathering (image: www.sukkahcity.com/gathering.jpg)/p
pHenry Grosman and Babak Bryan – Long Island City, NYbr / Fractured Bubble/p
pRonald Rael, Virginia San Fratello – Oakland, CAbr / Sukkah of the Signs/p
pKyle May and Scott Abrahams – New York, NYbr / LOG/p
Remember last year when everyone knew that Frank Gehrywas going to get kicked off the Atlantic Yards project (including Gehry) but it was drawn out for months and months until it finally happened and surprised not a soul? If we were to award a prize for this sort of story, maybe the UnBeige Medal for Delaying the Probably-Inevitable, of course it would have gone to Gehry and Co. This year’s medal recipient is another easy decision: Eli Broad‘s new museum in California. Starting back in 2008 with an announcement by the billionaire art collector that he wanted to build himself a new museum, there was some actual momentum over the next two years. Between Los Angeles and two of its suburbs trying to encourage Broad to build in their town to architect shortlists, it was mildly fun to watch. But since April, almost everyone has been positive that Los Angeles is going to get the museum, at the rebooted Grand Avenue site. And with recent news that votes have gone through for the plans, the lack of an official word that, yes, LA it is to be, has gotten frustrating. Even government officials have gotten in trouble, thinking the whole project is now a sure thing, like this week when Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavskysaid on his website that it was a done deal, quoting Broad as saying “Absolutely it’s coming to this site.” The post was later updated, after being contacted by Broad’s staff who claimed no decision had yet been made (Yaroslavsky’s site is standing by its notes taken during a meeting with Broad and has left the post as is). So why continue to belabor it, pretending that Santa Monica still has a shot a landing the museum (you’ll remember Beverly Hills pulled out from the bid five months ago)? We’re not sure and wish it would all just finally come to an end. Though, then again, Eli Broad probably didn’t become a billionaire by acting too quickly and doing things just to appease we needy public.
Art and vintage clothes in a new Portland store inspired by a mom
The concept of multi-use retail spaces may not be new, but Portland’s recently-opened Golden Rule may be the first to introduce a mom homage. Owner Wynde Dyer started her “social experiment in creativity and commerce” after her mother—a compulsive shopper—passed away and left her with a 17-foot-long U-Haul full of clothes. Instead of calling Goodwill, Dyer decided to peddle the extensive collection of goods in a rotating art space.
Photos of Dyer’s mother, Morena Therese Faust, pay tribute to her golden hair and sunny California aura (despite the many tragedies that dogged her life). Shoppers browsing racks of silk dresses and skirts made by Faust herself will find mini-memorials tucked between the racks. With the massive collection spanning the mid-1800s to the mid-’90s, each month the inventory changes depending on the artwork gracing the walls. “I’m trying to stay positive, make lemons out of lemonade, and turn the dark to light,” she explains.
With a cache large enough to stock the space for two to three years, Dyer continues to not only update the fashions but also features the work of a different artist every month. September sees mixed-media artist Delphine Bedient take the stage with works channeling her Midwestern roots. “We’ll be choosing clothes that speak to these same things: Lace, browns, a lot of Gunne Sax dresses,” says Dyer. “What we do is lead with art, and let the fashion and furniture follow.”
Currently on view is Howard Gillam‘s psychedelic works, and with that theme the Golden Rule gang created a colorful credenza to place in the front window.
You can browse the Golden Rule shop on Etsy, which includes wares from previous months’ installations.
The latest installments in Fallon’s quirky French Connection campaign dials up the engaging idiosyncrasies of The Man. And The Woman? Well, she’s still very pretty…
When this campaign first broke earlier this year, I wrote (here) that “the new campaign feels like an attempt to scrub away the lingering whiff of Bacardi Breezer about the brand and distance it from its punning past.” Trevor Beattie’s FCUK work had cemented his reputation and shifted a lot of gear for his client but, once the joke wore thin, so did customer’s appetite for the brand.
The company doesn’t announce its half-yearly results until next month so it is too early to tell what effect the campaign has had on sales but it may already have shifted perceptions.
The latest tranche of work (which before anyone leaps in and moans that it’s been seen already, has been rolling out over the past couple of weeks) continues the off-beat tone of voice of the originals. Its combination of the high-brow (references to Jørgen Leth’s 1967 short film The Perfect Human) and the plain daft betray the influence of Tomato’s Dirk van Dooren, who worked on the original concept with Fallon’s ECD Richard Flintham.
I like it – it’s original and different and, as one of the commenters pointed out in reference to my original post, injects an element of bizarre humour not seen in fashion promotion since Brian Baderman’s gloriously bizarre Diesel catalogues of the late 90s.
But I have one gripe with it. The Man is engaging, funny and on his way to being a three-dimensional character. The Woman just stands around looking nice, waiting to be admired. Perhaps this reflects research into the differences between men and women when it comes to buying clothes – men generally feeling uncomfortable about the whole thing and needing to make light of it. But it would be nice to think that there is something going on behind that pout.
UPDATE: Apparently, some of the print layouts featured here earlier were not client approved ads. We have replaced them with ads which will run.
Rotterdam architects OMA have announced their proposed masterplan for a new cultural district in Hong Kong.
The 40 hectare site would comprise three ‘urban villages’ situated within a park connected to the existing Kowloon Park, forming the largest public green space in Hong Kong.
One of three contenders for the site, the scheme consists of a museum and exhibition space, performance venues, a market and an open-air amphitheatre seating 15,000.
OMA reveals plans for new cultural district in Hong Kong
Hong Kong, 20 August 2010 – The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority unveiled today OMA’s conceptual masterplan for a major new arts district in Hong Kong. Under OMA’s plan – one of three competing proposals – the 40 hectare waterfront site facing Victoria Harbour would become an authentic environment of three urban villages embedded in a new public park, Hong Kong’s largest.
Click above for larger image
OMA founding partner Rem Koolhaas commented: “Using the village – a typology every citizen of Hong Kong is familiar with – as the model for our plan allows us to absorb the massive scale of WKCD’s ambition into manageable portions and forge deep connections with Kowloon, whose vital urban energy will be the lifeblood of WKCD.”
In 2009, OMA established a new office in Hong Kong to study local conditions and consult with a wide range of stakeholders and experts in the fields of culture and finance. Out of this research, we generated a cultural masterplan, working in tandem with architecture, for establishing a creative milieu that can fully ‘inhabit’ WKCD’s plethora of new arts facilities and make the neighbourhood come alive.
OMA’s three villages each have a strong emphasis on vibrant street life and cultural production where all aspects of the creative process – from education to rehearsal to production to performance – are nurtured and made visible.
Art in the east
One of the key elements of OMA’s proposal for WKCD is M+, an experimental new museum interpreted as a barcode of overlapping bands featuring visual art, film, design and popular culture. Embedded in M+ is an Art Factory, where education, artist studios, a hotel and shops intersect and interact with the museum itself. Beneath M+, the Exhibition Centre is a venue for auctions and conventions, a further intermingling of culture and commerce. M+ links to Kowloon Park and to the surrounding neighbourhood with pedestrian bridges – one of them an
extension of the park, one an extension of the museum itself – into Jordan and to Temple Street, and across Canton Road to an outpost of the museum in Victoria Towers.
Market in the middle
The Middle Village is conceived as a continuation of Kowloon’s street markets, with small-scale entertainment, local shops, restaurants, street markets, artist studios, production spaces, and galleries. The Middle Village is flanked by a Xiqu Theatre (and a Xiqu School) for Cantonese performance and, to the east, a premiere movie theatre celebrating Hong Kong’s film industry.
Performance in the west
With views over the water and Victoria Harbour, the focal point of Theatre Village is the Uni- versal Theatre, a network of four interconnected performance spaces: chamber music theatre, street theatre, grand theatre and a concert hall. Each venue is embedded in a single, continu- ous outdoor lobby stretching the length of the village. Below the lobby, the public can tour the shared rehearsal, production and technical spaces for all four theatres.
The Mega Performance Venue
Located in parkland between the West and Middle Villages, the Mega Performance Venue is an open-air amphitheatre based on the ancient Greek and Roman model. It seats 15,000 people for large scale entertainment ranging from pop concerts to New Year’s celebrations with views over Hong Kong Island as its natural backdrop.
Park of the New Horizon
All three villages are embedded in a single park, which connects with Kowloon Park via a planted green bridge to form the largest public green space in Hong Kong. WKCD’s Park of the New Horizon offers a space liberated from the commercial, and also from the wealth of interdic- tions familiar in most of Hong Kong’s open space. We draw from tropical agriculture and the fishponds of the Mai Po wetlands not only as a repertoire of species and cultivation methods, but as a mechanism for organizing communal action. Forest gardens, orchards, ponds, mead- ows, and even communal urban farming are all connected by paths for pedestrians and cyclists.
OMA’s conceptual plan will be discussed in a series of public forums in the coming three months, in which OMA is represented by Rem Koolhaas, David Gianotten and Betty Ng. The project is also on display in roving exhibitions across Hong Kong from 20 August until 20 November and at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice from 29 August until 21 November.
DezeenTV:
Click on the symbol in the bottom right of the video player above to view the movie in full-screen HD. Can’t see the movie? Click here.
We may be languishing in the dog days of summer, but we’ve still had some great work sent into CR Towers of late – here’s a round-up of our favourites. First up is this bizarre music video for Yeasayer track Madder Red, from director Andreas Nilsson, which tells a tale of love between a young girl and her one-eyed pet creature…
Sticking with music videos, here is Monsterism artist Pete Fowler‘s promo for I’m Aware by Clinic.
This promo, directed by L’Oeuf Sacré (who, according to PromoNews, are two ad creatives, Alex Mavor and Ed Kaye, moonlighting from VCCP), shows the perils of sunbathing in all too graphic detail. The band is Band of Skulls and the track is Fires (You Are Here).
Over to advertising now, and a new Cadbury’s ad from Saatchi & Saatchi Johannesburg. The spot takes Fallon’s Cadbury’s Gorilla ad as its cue, but this time it is an ambitious ostrich that is centre stage.
Meanwhile, UK audiences can currently see this ad for Cadbury’s on their TV screens. The spot is directed by Nick Gordon, and introduces the Cadbury’s Spots vs Stripes competition.
Ponce Buenos Aires is behind this set of ads for Axe deoderant which amusingly highlight the perils of nervous sweating for men (and how Axe can save them, natch). The ads are directed by Nico y Martin.
Also from Argentina is this witty spot for Gatorade, part of a campaign which emphasises the gap between the nicknames given to local football team players and the reality of their skills. The agency is BBDO Argentina, and the ad was directed by Luciano Podcaminsky.
Wieden + Kennedy London has created this new spot for Nike and Foot Locker, for the launch of the new Air Max 90 shoe. The directors are AlexandLiane.
Dentsu Canada and interactive production company Lollipop have created this online treasure hunt for Sapporo Beer. Visit legendarybiru.com to take part in the competition, where you hunt for hidden scrolls to be entered in a competition to win a trip to Japan.
Finally, we end with the first campaign in a series for General Electric from the Barbarian Group in New York. Titled The GE Show, the campaign consists of a series of episodes that look at the way that General Electric helps with various crucial areas of life. The first instalment in Healthy Hospitals, which includes short documentaries giving info about the problems faced by hospital emergency departments in the US. On the more fun side, there is also a rather addictive game (still shown above) which challenges players to manage patients and staff in a hospital. All you need to while away a quiet Friday afternoon… find the game (and the rest of the campaign) at ge.com/thegeshow.
Bucket vase collection is an tribute tot he ordinary, simple yet nice shape of the bucket. it’s shape did not change for last 40 years or so. The desi..
pema href=”http://www.dcontinuum.com/content/”Continuum/a continues their series Open for Branding, where they are sharing, from start to finish, their latest branding project for the new, nomadic a href=”http://designmuseumboston.org/”Design Museum Boston/a. They’re asking for your input, so don’t hesitate to leave your feedback in the comments below./em/p
pNow, we’re in the concept phase. Here’s when things begin to take shape–and our weeks of research, discussion, and brainstorming start to come together. The concept phase channels all of this work into sketches, and we create actual designs. /p
pIn other words, the work up to this point has allowed us to create rules and parameters for designing so that when we start to develop the brand identity, we’ll create meaningful, on-point concepts deeply aligned with the mission and vision of Design Museum Boston./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/open_for_branding_week_4_the_calm_before_the_storm_17195.asp”(more…)/a pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/6zsDdAgAzieQuKXWMxcTXXjJaAk/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/6zsDdAgAzieQuKXWMxcTXXjJaAk/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/ a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/6zsDdAgAzieQuKXWMxcTXXjJaAk/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/6zsDdAgAzieQuKXWMxcTXXjJaAk/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Reader Nancy submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:
