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All posts for the month February, 2011

TED2011: The Rediscovery of Wonder

Posted by _tango! on February 26, 2011
Posted in: art, brand, conference, design, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, materials, me, style, TED. Leave a Comment

I’m off to the TED2011 conference, which will be my 10th TED conference. I’ll be stopping by LA this weekend to meet up with some TEDsters, then in Palm Springs all of Sunday to meet with TEDx organizers, then Long Beach for a backstage peek, then back to Palm Springs the rest of the week. Let me know if your going, in LA, or follow me on twitter for updates. And yes, that is me on the back of a shared bike last year cruising around the resort during one of the session breaks with my friend Ash from Australia. Also follow the Facebook Fanpage for occasional quick updates.

Natsumi Hayashi: Levitating Self-Portraits

Posted by _tango! on February 20, 2011
Posted in: art, entertainment, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, style, thoughts, wacky. 11 comments

Photographer Natsumi Hayashi has an inspiring diary of self-portraits capturing her levitating(in the moment that is). It’s  addictive to go through all the photos which renders her like a magical character in a video game floating everywhere. This would be an incredible coffee table book. Awesome work Natsumi. I’d love to levitate with you sometime on Tokyo =)

Look at some  many of my favorites after the jump.

via neatorama
yowayowacamera.com

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Heather Russell

Posted by _tango! on February 19, 2011
Posted in: entertainment, inspiration, music, thoughts. 1 comment


I don’t usually post on young Youtube singing sensations but this one had my eyes open for some time. Young singer, writer, and musician Heather Russell has been writing and singing since she was 8 years old (now 10) with the help of her parents who are also musicians. 2 years later her Youtube video finds itself in front of famed American Idol Judge Simon Cowell, who decides to sign here a contract with the help of Rob Fusan who was Lady Gaga’s former producer. Watch all of her videos on Youtube as it’s quite impressive, and her written songs stick in your head.

via gather

Up and Over It: Hand dance

Posted by _tango! on February 19, 2011
Posted in: art, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, wacky. Leave a Comment


Up and Over It, an Irish Dance crew, has a entertaining video in them “Hand Dancing”. Just watch it and you’ll understand. You might have also seen them in a recent McDonalds commercial doing their thing.

Performed and choreographed by Suzanne Cleary & Peter Harding
Film by Jonny Reed
Music: Yolanda Be Cool & D Cup ft. Cleary & Harding

User-Led Innovation Can’t Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea

Posted by _tango! on February 19, 2011
Posted in: art, brand, design, entertainment, experience, ideas, information, inspiration, me, thoughts. 1 comment

Great article  from Fast Company about Innovative designs not being consumer-led. I’ve always believed in this. Consumers know what they love and hate now, but they never know what they want tomorrow. Users often don’t know what they actually want even though they might say otherwise.  Focus groups are sometimes useful, but in most cases they an excuse to do when creativity is lacking or something to ease the mind in management. To innovate is to lead, not to follow, or as the article concludes with ” It’s time for brands to step up and trust themselves again”

Anyhow, read the article mirrored below after the jump.

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Pete Oyler: Rip + Tatter

Posted by _tango! on February 9, 2011
Posted in: art, design, experience, fun, green, ideas, information, inspiration, materials, style. Leave a Comment

Pete Oyler (RISD ’09) has a great project called Rip+Tatter which hammers down large corrugated honeycomb cardboard pieces to make for some great little chairs. I’m not sure how long they will last, but for $55 it’s pretty awesome. I wonder if there is an adult version?

Some pics from Petes site after the jump.

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Inner City Bikes

Posted by _tango! on February 6, 2011
Posted in: art, design, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, inspiration, materials, style, tech. Leave a Comment

Pretty slick looking are these Inner City Bikes, which seem to essentially take 2 unicycles and stick them together for a fast looking 1:1 ratio bike. I’m not sure how they feel, but they do look pretty futuristic and the build quality looks nice. I’m questioning structure a bit but hey, it looks good. No pricing has been set. Watch the youtube video of this bike in action after the jump or here.

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Negative Space Billboard

Posted by _tango! on February 5, 2011
Posted in: art, design, entertainment, experience, fun, green, ideas, information, inspiration, materials, style, tech, wacky. 4 comments

What appears at first to be a flock of smart starling birds doing their thing around an invisible box between the US and Canadian border near Vancouver is actually a billboard sculpture by Lead Pencil Studio built from thousands of metal rods swarming a shape as if a billboard to draw attention to the living landscape behind.

“Borrowing the effectiveness of billboards to redirect attention away from the landscape… this permanently open aperture between nations works to frame nothing more than a clear view of the changing atmospheric conditions beyond.”

This project reminds me a bit of the CityScape project though using several wooden 2×4’s with a mix of the ad free billboard law in Sao Paulo.

Multiple images by Ian Gill courtesy of Lead Pencil Studio, via fastcodesign, after the jump.

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