Link About It: This Week’s Picks
Dieter Rams’ 620 chair comeback, Maharishi’s Striking Suit, DNA portraits and more in our weekly look at the web
1. Vitsoe Lucky Vitsoe
Known for distributing the universal shelving system designed by
legendary designer Dieter Rams, Vitsoe has recently been granted the
exclusive worldwide license to Rams modular 620 Chair. To celebrate the
ingenious design’s 50th anniversary, Vitsoe has reengineered the
classic seating element inside and out to make it as efficient and
elegant as possible, while also reducing the price.
2. Best Made White Street
After selling solely online for some years now, NYC’s Best Made Co.
opened the doors to a new brick and mortar retail space this
week in the Tribeca neighborhood. Michael Williams of A Continuous
Lean spent some time checking out the new shop and design
studio, finding it as welcoming and well-designed as their highly sought-after products.
3. Elmoto E-Bike
The new e-bike from Stuttgart-based Elmoto draws on the best aspects of German design. Sleek lines provide a modern profile while drawing on classical motorcycle styling, most clearly in the headlight design. A rechargeable lithium-ion battery provides for an emissions-free, quiet ride. Weighing in at just over 100 lbs, and with a top speed of 28 miles per hour, the e-bike can be enjoyed by any fan of operating on two wheels.
4. Cooper-Hewitt’s Best of Design
Announcing the 2013 winners for designers across categories, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum brings a mix of household names and new talents. Among the design award recipients are CH veterans Paula Scher and the Lytro Light Field Camera creators at NewDealDesign.
5. Pizza Compass
Hailed as an “exciting new life-affirming iPhone app that helps pizza get to
your mouth,” Pizza Compass created quite a stir this week with its
humorous—and slightly cringe-worthy—video introduction. Created by
Daniel Blackman and Oak Studios, the app delivers restaurant hours,
reviews, directions and travel distances to the nearest slice of ‘za.
So much for that beach bod.
6. Follow the Light
When an artist’s medium is simply light, their work will inspire a certain amount of curiosity, but James Turrell‘s work over the last several decades has gained an almost spiritual following. With his atmospheric installations known as “skyspaces,” he creates an environment where light perception and sensual engagement are at center stage. Fans are in luck. This summer he is showing at NYC’s Guggenheim as well as in LA, Las Vegas and Houston. Own a Turrell? You might be on your way to a special preview of his prolific “Roden Crater,” his life’s work in the Arizona desert that plays upon the movement of the stars.
7. DNA Portraits
Chewed gum, smoked cigarette butts and loose strands of hair all have one thing in common—they contain DNA. 3D artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg collects these everyday objects to create portraits of the people who discarded them. She has successfully analyzed around 50 traits that help determine a person’s appearance, which she then renders as a 3D model and sends to the printer to turn it into a sculpture.
8. Jörgits & the End of Winter
Written by Anders Sandell and created by Tank and Bear, Jörgits & the End of Winter is a beautifully illustrated and animated interactive novel for children. As well as the tale, it features a moody soundtrack, maps, character pages and a scavenger hunt—an old-fashioned adventure story told in an ultra modern way.
9. Street View Challenge
You may find yourself Googling where your time went after playing GeoGuessr, this addictive geography game. Street view shots are taken at random from around the world—from urban China to the desolate Swedish wilderness—for players to assess and then drop a pin on a Google map where they think the shot was taken. After five guesses, share your results with fellow map-geeks to compare your skills.
10. To Do: Kinky Sex
Want to play some Game of Moans? Then Love Spark is the app for you. Billed as a “productivity app for love,” Love Spark takes the form of a to-do list but is comprised entirely of sexual games and challenges. If sharing, achievements and geotagging seem too impersonal, then you aren’t a true gamer.
11. 5am Feast
Pairing playlists with delicious recipes, Hammarhead Industries’ creative director Matt Trigaux’s new food blog helps you set the table and the mood.
With mouth-watering imagery of heirloom recipes passed down from his
mother, Trigaux presents each approachable dish with a sense of
community in mind.
12. Superhuman Masks
Eidos, a prototype from students at London’s Royal College of Art, uses wearable tech to augment the senses. Omni-directional microphones help pinpoint sounds in crowded spaces and a camera feeds real-time video to users overlaid with preset effects—all cloaked in a futuristic geometric form.
13. Cycling Superhighway
The year is 1897, the city a booming and beautiful sunny Los Angeles, the plan: a bicycle superhighway. Anyone familiar with contemporary LA will attest that the automobile reigns supreme with little competition from bicycles. But more than a century ago, Horace Dobbins, a weathly businessman, planned to link Pasadena to downtown and even managed to build a segment before the dawn of cheap cars took the project off the map.
14. Lenticular-Printed Child-Abuse Hotline Ad
Spanish child-advocacy organization, The ANAR Foundation, had a difficult task when creating their recent advertisements. While wanting to spread awareness to victims of child abuse, they simultaneously wanted to keep their message from possible perpetrators. The result is a Lenticular-printed campaign that appears entirely differently, depending on your viewpoint.
15. Maharishi Striking Suit
Maharishi worked with their current artist in residence at their London HQ, War Boutique, to create The Striking Suit—a blend of fashion and politics. The paneled sweatsuit is designed to highlight, in a kind of hierarchy, areas of the human body that are caused trauma when struck. The cleverly designed suit is a show of support for victims of brutality as well as a disconcerting insight to riot police training.
16. TIME and Space
Time Magazine and Google have partnered in an editorial project that combines time lapses of satellite imagery from the past three decades with climate research to make a daunting case for the future of our planet. Thanks to images archived by NASA’s Landsat program, it’s now possible to watch glaciers disappear, oil sands proliferate and Dubai explode from an unassuming strip of sand.
