art

Wow, check out this space in japan.. makes me want to be at peace with nature,  relax, an live a very simple life… though it needs a small pool or Onsen somewhere.

“The Minimalist House in Itoman-shi, Okinawa, Japan, was designed by Shinichi Ogawa & Associates / Urbanist Architect. Just have a look a the floor plan and you’ll understand why it’s called the minimalist house.”

More images mirrored via todayandtomorrow after the jump.
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I started Designverb on January 18th, 2006 as a quick experiment to jot down the many things I found to share with my friends and anyone else curious. Today, August 1st, 2010,  marks my 1000th post, and this one being the 1001’st.

I’ll admit the the opportunities, friendship, community, and insights I’ve received throughout the years has been amazing and it has surely kept me busy after a long day of work and on weekends.  There are times where I’m flooded with work and have very little time to post, but I started a Facebook Fan page where I post quick  fun links and have recently found some extra contributors to help find more great things to post about.

The Above picture is of sushi at O Ya here in Boston. I tend to eat sushi to celebrate  so maybe I’ll go there this week again.

Anyhow, I had no plans to really celebrate, but I thought I’d share some of the most popular posts since starting Designverb.
1. Tunnel House
2. Stuck At Heathrow Airport
3. Paint Chip Card Holder
4. Red Bull Headquarters
5. Mark Khaisman Brown Tape Art
6. Stefans Stormtroopers a Day
7. Heineken World Bottle: Beer to Bricks
8. Creepy Snow Globes
9. Color Changing Mini-Cooper
10. Burj Al Arab: Tennis Court in the Sky!
11. Non-Metric Countries
12. Shoes That Make Everyone the Same Height
13. How 315 Billion Dollars Looks
14. GadgetOff 2007 and 2009 Recaps.
15. TerraCycle Inc

And one of my fun little trips came from GM here.

Back in March 2007, soon after starting Designverb, I was selected as 1 in 100 artist worldwide to create a design for the Converse JoinRed initiative to bring AIDS awareness and to raise money for the cause. Above is the one of the final designs I submitted which was stitched by hand and went through quite a design process even though I later submitted a re-worked design because of trademarks issues in my first design.  Though I am not a shoe designer, I approached this project as any of my other projects diving into research, discovery, meaning, definition, creation, and refinement.

If your interested, read after the jump to see the design process, thinking, and some other design concepts I thought up but did not continue with in this short 2 week project.

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The NYtimes has a great post on “Strange Cargo at Kennedy Airport” by Taryn Simon. Everything from the bizarre, the obvious,  questionable, and extremely curious  objects.

These images are from a set of 1,075 photographs — shot over five days last year for the book and exhibition, ‘‘Contraband’’ — of items detained or seized from passengers or express mail entering the United States from abroad at the New York airport. The miscellany of prohibited objects — from the everyday to the illegal to the just plain odd — attests to a growing worldwide traffic in counterfeit goods and natural exotica and offers a snapshot of the United States as seen through its illicit material needs and desires.

See the project here, read more about it, or  see many of the picture mirrored after the jump.
Buy the book with all 1,075 images on Steidl.

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What a great installation in Tokyo! Wish I were there to experience it…as if I were inside a big snow globe!

“‘sensing nature‘, an exhibition which rethinks the japanese perception of nature, has just opened at the mori art museum, tokyo with interpretations of the subject made by takashi kuribayashitaro shinoda and tokujin yoshioka. the three japanese artists / designers give abstract or symbolic expression to immaterial or amorphous concepts as well as natural phenomenon such as snow, water, wind, light, stars, mountains, waterfalls and forests. their ideas of nature suggest that it is not something that is to be contrasted with the human world, but that it is something that incorporates all life-forms, including human beings. the exhibition consists of newly commissioned works by each of the three artists, each attempting to stimulate our sense of nature through large-scale installations.

designboom gave a preview of some of the works that would be on show in the exhibition, now here’s a look at the final installation of tokujin yoshioka’s ‘snow’ that is on show.”

more images after jump mirrored from designboom

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I’ve seen my share in infographics and just stumbled upon some awesome work by Chad Hagen. His posters take infographics back to their pure elements of  print and a flare of dimensionality without any need for gradients or eccentrics extras. The aged paper definitely helps a bit to give it a rustic throw back vibe. I’m actually not sure what info I’m getting from these posters but these would make great wall pieces!

via craftzine

Melbourne based graphic artist Benjamin Hammond offers some fun, original, fast 1 minute portraits on his new website OneMinutePortraits ! Yup, 1 quick minute! You submit a picture, he post a picture of what he did in 1 minute, and you decided if you want to buy it for $20 which includes shipping!
I have to admit that sometimes the quick drawings have more personality  and jazz than the longer ones… It’s somewhat like an elevator pitch.. where you just get to the point and do the obvious., or the twitter of portrait making…your self-portrait in less than 60 seconds!

This does take me back to the RISD days a bit when one of the lasses was to draw 200 self-portraits in a few days… what a rush!

Check out OneMinutPortraits.. and of course see more of Benjamin’s work here…and let me know if you try this out!
via coolhunting

I love it when nature inspires objects such as this mezmerizingly beautiful glass vase by French/Japanese design pair A + A Cooren. (lots of other great project on there site as well) The static glimpse of a tornado coupling a fragile flower stem draws a contrast between  destruction and life. Too bad there are only 21 made which means the price is not made for all. Anyhow, if I could get my hands on this… please let me know! =)

via coolhunting