2Modern Design Talk - Modern Furniture & Design Blog

I See Red

Genuine reds bring out sexual energy and stimulation. Reds like candy apple and cherry are used to create a sense of adolescence, liveliness and cheerfulness. Jeweled tones are considered more elegant while rose and cabernet tones are more dignified. No mater what shade, red is definitely an authoritative color.

The body has physiological responses to the color red. It causes an increase in blood pressure, it makes the heart rate rise faster and releases adrenaline into the blood stream. The taste buds become sensitive and the sense if smell improves.

In truth most people are a little nervous to paint an entire room red. It isn’t a color for the faint hearted. If painting red walls are a little too aggressive for your taste, try using red as an accents color.

Danielle Hirsch
Paint Contractor & Color Expert
Host/Co-host HGTV Color Splash

Equal Exchange

The packaging for Equal Exchange products is simple, effective and quite quirky... all that I look for in my organic, gourmet food products produced by democratically run farmer co-ops in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Brought to us by the folks at Good Creative.

--sdotg--

Artists, Parvez Taj & James Dewulf Collaborate For ICFF 08'.

Two creative minds have come together recently to produce a progressive, urban and eco friendly table set to debut at this Spring's ICFF in NY.
Using innovative printing technologies with UV light to cure eco-friendly inks, the cement table is manufactured locally, a method which reduces massive amounts of fuel consumption often used by large quarries producing natural stones.
Taj, a visual artist has teamed up with Dewulf a concrete master and functional artist to create an edgy, functional and earth friendly piece that is worth stopping by in person to check out if you are in NY for ICFF.
Taj and Dewulf can be found at booth #111

zeichenpress.

Nothing says "Wake up, you lazy bean" like a good, good mixed CD. Preferably packaged in this good, good mixed CD sleeve.

Preferably containing some good, good Bon Iver, but that's an entirely different post.
[Originally posted on Design for Mankind].

For a Perfect Summer's Day.

I know they are coming, those perfect summer days, lounging by the pool or on the deck.  They're not here yet, not where I live, it was in the high 40's and windy, like we were on the eve of a winter storm, so to put me in the mood, I decided to haul out the images of the Flexy Chair.  Yes, that'll do it.

The 6 1/2 ft. long Flexy lounger is supported by a stainless-steel frame, the seat and its built-in headrest are covered in woven polyester that's PVC-coated, making it quick-drying and UV-resistant.  You can choose from orange, turquoise, cappuccino, black, or white.  Visit Royal Botania for more.....you can get matching side chairs and a long teak table for dining, too.  Mmmmm, summer here I come.

Lumini

If you ask anybody about top lamp design in Brazil, you will sure hear about Lumini and designer Fernando Prado. Fernando has been creating amazing award winning lamps, with intelligent solutions and beautiful, clean and very modern designs.

Lumini recently completed 27 years in the market, and their show room at Gabriel Monteiro da Silva street (the very well known design address in São Paulo), exhibits the pieces in a way that bows light

Cai Guo-Qiang: I want to Believe

There are many exciting modern art shows in New York this Spring, Jeff Koons at the Metropolitan Museum, Olafur Eliasson at MoMA but none makes a more immediate first impression than Cai Guo-Qiang' s retrospective: I want to Believe.

Inspired by a car bomb, Inopportune Stage One occupies the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, New York and is the initial installation of Cai's work.  From the center of the floor nine cars tumble skywards while lasers of different colors shoot out of the vehicles, turning an image of destruction into one of beauty. Visitors can view the cars from all angles as they walk through the spiraling gallery, as if experiencing an explosion in slow-motion.

 

Further along the gallery a pack of wolves hurtles into a glass wall and a fishing boat pierced with 3,000 arrows is suspended from the ceiling. For such a large-scale exhibition the art is very accessible, even intimate. Visitors can walk among the exhibits, including the life-size clay figures in the Rent Collection Courtyard or paddle through a canal on an animal hide raft in An Arbitrary History: River.

The exhibition assaults the ears as well as the eyes. Apart from the giant installations there are video documentations of  Cai's work with gunpowder: controlled explosions along the Great Wall of China, canon shooting out clouds of smut that resemble ethereal but deadly butterflies, over Valencia and Edinburgh Castle. Large works of art created by exploding gunpowder on paper are hung on the upper floors of the gallery.
Most of the works were shown first at other galleries but there is something about the unique space of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum that is superbly suited to Cai's work. If you can't get to the show in person be sure to visit the website to see how some of the exhibits were installed.

The retrospective runs through May 28 2008.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 
1071 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10128-0173
212-423-3500

Get more attention than in a Porsche

The vehicle you're looking at  is not Lighting McQueen from the animated cartoon movie, Cars.  This remake of a Carbon Sparrow, released in 2000, was perfected into an efficient car by Myers Motors in Tallmadge, Ohio and called NMG which stands for "No More Gas." It is all electric and uses 13 12-volt batteries to drive about 50 miles at top speed, paying in total 2 cents a mile.  In principle it is the size and registered as a motorcycle, because it has a single driver seat.

According to founder Dana Myers, the average daily commute is 12 miles, so the 3-wheeler is more than capable of getting the job done.

Today's gas prices reaching a record high, make this tiny model very convenient, environmentally sound and unique.  It's sustainable factor also addresses four of the biggest problems in transportation today: "Global Warming, Oil Addiction, Congestion, and Energy Efficiency."

via MyersMotors 

Animal Attraction

Congo King and Dragon's Breath

T-Rex Skull

Jac Zagoory Designs sells a line of desk art and accessories. The coolest of the bunch are these pewter staple removers, made in the USA.

Perch!

Fun and fabulous new lighting from Perch! The sunny Zooey Chandelier will bring the sunshine inside, match with either a Hans Wall Sconce or a Frida Desk Lamp for a complete look! The alluring Perch Birdfeeder and Lunchbox Birdfeeder will have a full flock in your yard in no time! And the original and adorable Early Bird and Black Bird Pendant Lights fit in anywhere.