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Sendomatic is having a Design Contest! Create an image (700x400 pixels) that can be used in our design library. Image may be for the upcoming holiday season - New Years, Hanukkah, Christmas and or Kwanzaa. Prizes include fabulous product from 2Modern.com and Sendomatic.com gift certificates. It's easy to win!
To enter upload your artwork here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sendomatic
Enjoy!
Sendomatic & 2Modern
KONZUK is now on 2Modern! Beautifully modern and fine-crafted jewelry for men and women alike. Stunning pieces like the Powdercoated Earrings 147, Concrete Pendant 185, Diamond Ring 120, and Stainless Steel Cufflinks 109 are sure to get looks everywhere!
Will Coles isn't a household name just yet but many Sydney-siders are already familiar with his work, whether they realise it or not. Will has been sneaking around in the dead of night, placing his ubiquitous concrete television sets and remote controls around the streets of Sydney for the best part of the last decade, so I must admit I barely flinched when I noticed a new addition in my very own 'hood.
Will is somewhat of an infamous figure in Sydney art circles, and is possibly most renowned for his unofficial additions to the prestigious Sculptures by the Sea exhibition back in 2005. After his official exhibition pitch was knocked back, Will decided to make lemonade from the proverbial lemons. He cast a new series of concrete televisions inscribed with the word 'reject'd', and covertly installed four throughout the exhibition.
Will's efforts were foiled by clued in security guards and lasted little more than 24 hours, but headlines soon followed.
His 'silence' series has gone on to be widely published, with the sneaky little television sets popping up everywhere from train stations to the steps of the Sydney Opera House.
Not one to shy away from controversy, Will went on to ruffle a few feathers when he openly declared that his art was unashamedly taking the...err..mickey... out of the Australian art crowd, who he thinks runs the risk of becoming little more than a humourless, back-patting exercise in champagne consumption.
And what better way to get the point across than a concrete television set that begs the question "But...is it art?"
Will's subject matter is fairly straightforward but thought provoking nonetheless. In his own words, he's exploring "the death of art, culture and pure creative pursuit", and while this all sounds a bit dramatic, his original pitch to the Sculptures by the Sea included a telling, insightful proposal - a television engraved with the words "seeing more but feeling less". He may be on to something.
Despite the heavy-hitting social commentary, Will maintains that his distinctive brand of readily accessible sculpture is largely just his way of telling the art crowd to lighten up, and he's taking the message to the streets. More concrete remote controls, televisions (including new flatscreen models) and cell phones continue to appear around Sydney, many of them concentrated in the inner western Sydney suburb of Newtown, but it seems that Will is keen to spread the word far and wide, with my very own steps now adorned with an 'Isolation' remote control. And I'm in on the joke.
More at Will Coles.
Protest posters are a sucker punch to the unwary pedestrian who glances at the image with detached attention, expecting to see another ironic advertisement for something we don't need or can't afford. Instead we are confronted by something genuine: a raw emotional outburst, a furious call to arms, or a desperate cry for help. The protest poster subverts our expectations, by delivering emotionally powerful and controversial content in a form normally reserved for sellling things.
A political painting hanging inside the pristine white walls of the museum can afford to be understated and 'quiet' because the viewer approaches the work with quiet contemplation. Walled off from the real world, we give art our undivided attention. But the protest poster doesn't have the luxury to be subtle, complex or idiosyncratic.
Because they live in the public realm, the protest poster has to shout loudly and clearly in order to be 'heard' above the din of competing media. In order to accomplish its mission, the protest poster must distill a complex social and political issue into a single powerful image/statement. Like a visual haiku, the protest poster is an exercises in ruthless efficiency. There is no room for exposition or explanation. The protest poster plays on the visual literacy of popular culture to grab as wide an audience as possible. The protest poster seeks to grab us and shake us out of of our complancency.
Cheap to produce and print, protest posters have an immediacy that other forms of visual art often lack. More importantly the protest poster differs from other forms of visual art, in the way in whcih it can transforms the passive viewer into an active participant. The act of sticking up the poster in the public realm, known as 'Guerrilla Posting', is as much a form of social action as the creation of the poster itself.
It is the urge for artists and designers to connect and collaborate with citizen protesters that drives the web site, powertotheposter.org
The site provides free, black and white, protest posters in PDF format to be downloaded and printed on your home computer. The only thing that the artists ask in exchange is that the poster be posted. The protest poster depends on the person who prints it out to post it in a public place in order to fulfill its mission. The protest poster is not just an object, it is an action: the act of collaboration between the artist and a socially conscious individual wielding a bucket of wheat paste or an industrial stapler.
The panettone is a typical Italian bread, very popular in Christmas season. The graphic studio from UK, Purpose, made the association with the word Pantone, the popular standardized color reproduction system, and create the most colorful version of this sweet bread, The Panettone.
This is the last product that I know that was inspired in Pantone. I love the pantone mugs, and the pantone clock. Someday I will have the entire collection. Do you know other pantone products?
Via pan-dan.
The first World Architecture Festival awards were presented at the end of October at Barcelona, to their recipients, architects from all over the world, some already household names and some not. But the World Building of the Year Award went to the Luigi Bocconi University by the Irish practice Grafton Architects. The judges said that although not Milanese, the architects managed to distill the essence of the city into this one building.
Grafton Architects say that they saw this brief as an opportunity for the Luigi Bocconi University to make a space at the scale of the city. What they did is a building at the scale of the site,80m x160m. Inside, it is thought of as a large market hall or place of exchange. The building’s hall acts as a filter between the city and the university.
The northern edge of the site sits onto the busy artery of Viale Bligny, with the clatter of trams, the rush of busses, general traffic, pedestrians passing.Addressing the throbbing urban life of Milan, it weaves into the mesh of the city, opening the life of the campus to the life of the rest of Milan. This facade becomes the architectural opportunity to have a ‘window’ to Milan, a memorable image to confirm the important cultural contribution that the Bocconi University plays in the life of this city. For this reason, the public space of the Aula Magna occupies this frontage, asserting a symbolic presence and registering the prestigious status of the University.
The building is recessed at the Viale Bligny & Via Roentgen edges, thus forming a public space measuring 18m x 90m, inspired by the space forward of Hospital Maggiore. This space "probe" reaches out to the city and lures passers-by into the heart of the interior. It then continues into the building, bringing with it its stone surface, the actual floor of the city.
To make this grand place of exchange Grafton Architects thought about the research offices as beams of space, suspended to form a grand canopy, filtering light to all levels. Thus the offices form an inhabited roofscape. This floating canopy allows the space of the city to overlap with the life of the university; it allows the merging of internal and external public spaces. The beehive world of academical research is physically separate but always visually connected to the life of the lower levels.
The underground accommodation is treated as an erupting landscape, offering support to the inhabited light filters above. Spatially this underground world is solid, dense and sculpted. The architects tried in this way to establish a continuity between the ‘landscape’ of the city and the ‘made landscape’ of this undercroft.
The external wall to the sunken Aula Magna reaches the full height of the building with the upper level offices inhabiting it’s roofscape. The full bulk and scale of this great room, nicknamed by the architects ‘the embedded boulder’, sits directly on the street edge and is the anchor for the totality of the building.
Happy Holidays! Tis the season to decorate, so feast your eyes on these not so traditional holiday decororations. The following is from CB2, Kenneth Wingard, Wrapables.com and Blomus.
Alabama Chanin uses an old practice; hand sewing, in a new way. Elaborate embroideries and fabric embellishments take already well-designed and fitted garments to a new level in her Revolution collection.
Revolution Minis, $10,500
This coat, at a distance, looks exactly like a "salt & pepper" tweed while up close it is revealed to be individual hand sewn squares of fabric applied onto the main fabric.
Revolution Louise, $2,125
Amazing, intricate, and time-intensive.
Revolution Angie, $8,800
Revolution Boatneck Eyelet, $1,175 and Boatneck Square, $2,125 dresses
The prices are high, but these are artisan-made garments. As a home sewer, I can tell you that a simple task such as hand-hemming a circle skirt can take me two to three hours. Just imagine the labor involved from start to finish on one of these garments.
Hello readers! This is my first post contributing to the 2modern Design Talk blog. I believe that good design goes quite well with a side of humor, and so I've decided to start things off with the quirky Fried Egg Candle, which debuted at Designersblock London 2008 in September. The wonderfully simple design by Jaehyung Hong works just like a non-egg inspired candle, except when lit, its "yoke" runs, creating the effect of . . . a fried egg! Mmm, makes me hungry!
I found these new bathroom sinks and thought they`re beautiful, and can really make a difference in the bathroom. They have different shapes, sizes and materials. Some of them are not that cheap, but at least you can be inspired !
Brown ceramic, by Espaço 2
Solid wood, by Produza
Award winner sink, by Deca
Corian, by Bergan
China, by Incepa
China, by Roca
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