[bew] » design

Tobias Wong (1974-2010)

tiana — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:03:27 +0000

Design provocateur Tobias Wong, only 35, sadly passed away early Sunday morning. I simply don’t want to believe it and looking at the responses on Core77, I am not alone. In the press release Aric Chen states, “Wong was a keen observer, an original mind, a brilliant prankster, and an unerring friend.” I have to admit I have a small ounce of hope this is another prank.

I didn’t personally know Tobias, but in 2007 he was a guest critic for our annual design charrette at the University of the Arts. He said that large groups scared him, but thankfully Rama Chorpash had convinced him to come. I’m so thankful that I had this opportunity.

Then in 2009 I sent Tobias this image of a laser cut pendant I made,
a nod to his Smoking Mittens.
He was so incredibly kind, and said he thought it was hilarious.
I was completely elated to have heard back from him.

On behalf of bew.cc and myself, we would like to extend condolences to friends and family of Tobias Wong.

Tobias Wong, Ju$t Another Rich Kid, & Charles Bukowski

Overdress by Johannes Laue and Johannes Schroth

tiana — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:45:11 +0000

The 4010-Overdress project by Johannes Laue and Johannes Schrother consists of customizable covers for Deutsche Telekom’s internet routers and TV-receivers. Cover materials include wood and metal.

*Also, would be lovely if they could revamp this rack too.

via dezeen

Train Hoops by dmdmetal

Concrete & Design

tiana — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 05:24:42 +0000

Stefan Zwicky’s concrete version of the Le Corbusier Chair.

According to The Skeptical Environmentalist, concrete is used more than any other construction material in the world. I imagine this is because it’s fairly cheap, and resources for making concrete are practically unlimited. The down side to this is that concrete contributes to global emissions (3%, again in reference to The Skeptical Environmentalist). However I find concrete can be aesthetically pleasing. Great examples include the Roman Coliseum and Ronchamp. So I’m glad it remains a material of considerable value in material science, art, and design applications.

Of the material science applications, some of my favorites include: LitraCon, Chronos Chromos Concrete, ‘Clean Air’ Concrete, and Soft Concrete.

LitraCon combines concrete with optical glass fibers, creating a harmony between material strength and translucency.

Chronos Chromos Concrete uses nickel chromium wires to send current beneath the concrete. The electric current causes the temperature to rise enabling numbers, patterns, text, and color to be displayed via thermochromic ink. Unfortunately their website, chromastone.com, is no longer available. Their video can still be found on youtube.

‘Clean Air’ Concrete contains titanium dioxide and absorbs sunlight to convert nitrogen oxides in the air into harmless nitrate.

Soft concrete contains polymers that increase the concrete’s elasticity and is used to produce the Drop tiles designed by Jenny Oldsjö and Ragnar Hultgren.

While art and design applications include:

Kathy Dalwood’s black concrete figurines

Fragrance by Alexa Lixfeld

Concrete rings by 22 design studio

and Recycled Concrete Sink by Gore Design

Train Hoops by dmdmetal

tiana — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 06:41:45 +0000

Full customizable hoop earrings from jeweler dmdmetal.
Other urban designs include “Graffilthy Ring” and “Tread Ring.”

Overdress by Johannes Laue and Johannes Schroth

Ilan Dei Studio – Urban logs

tiana — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:12:54 +0000

Ilan Dei Studio’s Urban Logs Collection breeds new life into wood that would otherwise become waste.
via notcot

Studio Libertiny Vases

Dieter Rams on Gestalten.tv

tiana — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:51:05 +0000

Beautiful Dieter Rams interview, Less and More, @ Gestalten.

Stefan Sagmeister, “The Power of time off”

tiana — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:08:59 +0000

Every now and then Sagmeister takes a whole year off to dedicate to experiments.

Tobias Wong, Ju$t Another Rich Kid, & Charles Bukowski

tiana — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:31:35 +0000

Since graduating my desire to read has been stronger than ever.
While reading Bukowski’s “Women,” I was reminded of Coke
Spoon 2 by Tobias Wong and Ju$t Another Rich Kid.

Tobias Wong (1974-2010)

Tim Brown on “Design Thinking”

tiana — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:27:13 +0000

Droog site relaunched

tiana — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:30:09 +0000

Similar style,
new layout,
and appears to have more products available…
http://www.droog.com/

Shut up, and Stop Talking

todd — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:03:13 +0000

Occasionally we feel the need to inform another party that they should stop speaking now. Two items that efficiently fill this need are:

Atypyk’s Shut-Up Tape

and Allison Riley’s Stop Talking business cards

Viktor & Rolf for Shu Uemura Eyelashes

tiana — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:07:40 +0000

Shu Uemura’s eyelashes first caught my eye when they appeared on PingMag.
I was happy to find that dutch fashion designers, Viktor & Rolf, have designed lashes for Shu Uemura. They can be purchased at Colette (beware of flash and musical roll-overs).

Tattoos & Design

tiana — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:15:31 +0000

Back in 2007, Design Miami featured a three day tattoo parlor furnished by DWR. Organized by Tobias Wong, Josée Lepage, and Aric Chen, “As Long As It Lasts,” featured tattoos designed by Hella Jongerius, 5.5 Designers, Yves Behar, Tord Boontje, Vito Acconci, KAWS, Juergen Meyer H, Andrew Allenson, and Lawrence Weiner.
Some photos on sallyTV’s flickr.

Tord Boontje’s work translates beautifully:

revengeofthe

Boontje’s Cut Here temporary tattoos

OOF also makes a series of fun temporary tattoos.

Then there are concept tattoos, like in Fredrickson Stallard’s “Pantone.”

Tattoo furniture

Minima Tattoo Chair

Reddish’s Yakuza table

Polka Tattoo Furniture/Notcot

Tattoos of furniture

By Nick Baxter

Beck Linneman’s Eames Wire Chair tattoo

And to sum it all up, beautiful tattoos of work by Audrey Kawasaki:

photo from Assburrito!’s flickr

sleepboy’s flickr

and Kiki Smith via Eyeteeth

Lucy McRae and Bart Hess

tiana — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:55:16 +0000

Bubblle Dress
Lucy McRae is often described as a “body architect.” Her interests lie in fashion, technology, and the human body. In a collaborative piece with Rachel Wingfield, she developed a body suit called Frisson for Philips Design Probe. The garment has LEDs that light up as biometric sensors respond to being blown on. Another garment, called Bubelle the “blush dress”, has biometric sensors that respond to the wearer’s emotions. Its sensitive enough that it’s response is unique to the individual wearing it. These emotions are then displayed onto the outer layer of the garment.

Bart Hess graduated from the from the Man and Identity department at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, Netherlands. This department focuses on forecasting trends and finding new materials. For his material collection, “A Hunt for Hightech,” Hess was inspired by archetypes of animals, human instinct, robotic forms, prosthetic technology and fetishism.

Bart Hess and Lucy McRae collaborated on a number of projects. One of their projects was for the Philips Design team, called Electronic Tattoo. The tattoo creates a new way for people to communicate, as it reacts to touch, gesture, and emotion. The idea is that the ink is electronic, and unlike other tattoos, can morph and change.

WMMNA Interview with Bart Hess

Studio Libertiny Vases

tiana — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:50:43 +0000

The Honeycomb Vase by Studio Libertiny is made by 40,000 bees.
Referred to as “slow prototyping,” it takes a week for the bees to complete just one vase.

For Paper Vases, 700 prints were glued, compressed, and then shaped on a lathe. The results are quite beautiful…

Ilan Dei Studio – Urban logs

Salón Internacional de la Moda Flamenca 2008, the 14th International Flamenco Fashion Show

tiana — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:03:27 +0000

Salón Internacional de la Moda Flamenca (SIMOF) 2008 is an annual fashion show dedicated to the fashions of flamenco. Held in Seville, Spain, new collections from 40 designers were presented in 32 shows from January 31st to February 3rd. Tight, asymmetric dresses were presented on the catwalk in a variety of different textiles, colors, and patterns. The main textiles included poplin, organdie, satin, silk, muslin, linen, lycra, taffeta, and twilled cotton.

Kiki Smith @ UPenn

Objects in pink

tiana — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:03:39 +0000

Inspired by postings of Betsy Johnson’s home,

Great design objects in pink:

Hella Jongerius, Soft Urn 1995

Karim Rashid, Butterfly chair 2003

Ipod Nano

Tord Boontje, Blossom chandelier 2002

Campana brothers, Anemone chair 2001

MOT-Space For Your Future

tiana — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:42:10 +0000

Space For Your Future is the current exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. The exhibition features multidisciplinary work categorized into four groups: Body-Inner Space, Metaphor, Body Sensation, and Memory/Data. Together they propose how we will live and communicate in the future.

My favorite spaces are Body-Inner and Memory/Data:
Body-Inner Space features Cosmic Wonder’s Magic Village 2004, Hussein Chalayan’s LED dress from his Readings collection 2007,

and Ernesto Neto’s Humanoids 2001.

Memory/Data space features Sanaa’s Flower House 2007, French architectural firm R & Sie(n)’s Olzweg 2006,

and Demakervan’s Lace Fence 2005.
Space For Your Future closes January 20, 2008, for more information visit http://www.sfyf.jp/

Happy Bew Year!

your last minute wishlist

tiana — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:11:28 +0000

The official Bew holiday guide has arrived!
…ringing in consumerism and conformity for this season.

Periodic Table of Elements Shower Curtain
from ThinkGeek :: Stuff for Smart Masses

It Crowd Box Set IT comedy from the UK
Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Anatomy Atlas 726 color plates of medical illustration

FÄRM cheap but cute vases from IKEA

Apriori Series Superbeautiful, from White Forest Pottery- I purchased a mug from here last year and loved it

Fisherman’s Friend for friends with colds

Korres Party Survival Kit to help you through the holidays

Blackspot Shoe a sneaker favorite

Subscription to Monocle back issues are good too

Botanist’s Bell Jar for the botanist within, from Anthropologie

♥ Happy Holidays from Bew! ♥

Dutch Design Love: Kiki van Eijk

tiana — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 04:04:46 +0000

Kiki van Eijk is a dutch designer with a kick-ass portfolio of work. I first saw her work posted on core77 for dutch design week 2005. Upon visiting her website kikiworld.nl, I recognized Modern Dutch Tile Chair. I love how this design invokes dutch tradition with a twist by adding in some bombers. As the tiles come together they create chunky, rectangular forms that are really appealing as well.

Speaking of dutch design, I think I might have to wishlist EKWC’s brick book.

UARTS 2007 Charette

tiana — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 04:16:16 +0000

Today was the end of our 2007 Charette. This year our guest critic was Tobias Wong, so we were all pretty psyched. The theme was ReMake, with a number of subthemes. These included: Kustom/High Design/Commentary, RetroFuture/Steam Punk, Handmade/MacGuyver/Repurpose, Pimp My Ride/Tricked Out, Hacked Design/Design Optimization. My group, Berk Asal, Sebastian Brauer, Isabel Donaldson, Jin Hong, Jacklyn Starker and myself, focused on Hacked Design/Design Optimization.

We created three designs: Brabag, Fumbler, and Pantyline. Brabag is self explanatory, while the fumbler is bra with multiple bra hooks. Panyline is my personal favorite, a perforated underwear that allows the user to tear away at the granny panny and “get sexy.”

left: original, right: perforated and torn

The final pdf needs some finessing, but until then, here are the videos we presented:

brabag

pantylines

fumbler

from left: brabag, pantylines, fumbler

Marcel Wanders & Resin

fabian seibert for suelzkotlett

tiana — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 04:33:17 +0000

tie wrap necklace

hussein chalayan

tiana — Wed, 23 May 2007 21:40:34 +0000

I <3 Hussein Chalayan.
Chalayan is an experimental, forward thinking, fashion designer. Awhile back, Todd and I went to the AIA exhibition The Fashion of Architecture: Constructing the Architecture of Fashion. It was there that I learned of his work. We also took pictures!

His airmail dress is made from Tyvek envelopes, typically used for packaging.

Image source: Designboom

Most of all, I really love this sugar glass dress. I think the charm is in smashing it off.

Image source: El Mundo

material post:bioglass

tiana — Wed, 23 May 2007 20:14:49 +0000

material: bioglass, glass that contains silicon, calcium and sodium oxides.
I first heard of bioglass in an article about biojewelry bone rings.
Bioglass is a material typically used to replace bones. It replicates the structure, and can be sculpted to the relative site of repair. Artist Paddy Hartley and Dr Ian Thompson have been working on producing bioglass castings.
More Information/Pictures Project Facade, Biojewellery Project and Biocompatible Ceramics.

Nikki S. Lee, Subcultural Chameleon

Marcel Wanders & Resin

tiana — Wed, 23 May 2007 19:38:23 +0000

I’m a sucker for almost anything + resin (and dutch, haha). Two of my favorite examples are from the Marcel Wanders studio, Knotted Chair (1996) and Crochet Table (2001). Both designs use fibrous materials that have been impregnated with epoxy.
Wanders Studio

knitted vinyl tubing

tiana — Wed, 23 May 2007 10:41:47 +0000

Artist Laura Splan knits vinyl tubing together to create two works, Blood Scarf (2002) and Catheter Bag Cozy (2001). The tubing is clear, and when food coloring is pumped though, it changes the color of the knitted objects.
For more of her work: www.laurasplan.com

Marcel Wanders & Resin