Studio Mama's Pallet Stool Download

Check out another great Studio Mama project out of the ultimate potentially free resource, wooden pallets. Download the Pallet Stool by clicking here!

Ain't Studio Mama great! Thanks Studio Mama! Buy some of her stuff!

Farmin' and Paper Dolls

Ok, so the title is used lightly. Pretty much referring to a couple of things I'm into lately. The thing is, I haven't posted for some time. Sorry 'bout that. I noticed as I look through other Bloggers' posts, they always apologize when they haven't posted for some time. I suppose they feel that whatever audience they have built up, needs to be entertained so they'll keep coming back for more. Well, I'm pretty sure I don't have a regular audience, so, why am I apologizing? Huh?...

We recently picked up our household and plopped it down on an acreage basically in the middle of nowhere. Its been really fun, we've got room to play, and about 40 acres of pasture, but, I have to admit, we miss Target, Wal-Mart and Home Depot being within a 5 minute drive of home. If I forget a bolt during a project, I'm stopped. Its been an adjustment. Needless to say, we are growing and learning... The neighbors keep asking me what I'm going to do with the pasture, I'm a city boy, so, I ask them if they know of any type of animal that doesn't eat or poop, and that is what I'm going to raise in the pasture. They laugh politely and walk away thinking I'm a big idiot. Oh well.

On to the paper dolls. Its something else I've been thinking about lately for some reason. Farmin' vs paper dolls? Not sure what they have to do with one another. Anyway, I was checking out Instructables.com the other day and came across a great post by a paper doll enthusiast named TangMu. This Instructable is loaded full of directions for making your own paper dolls and links to other great paper doll sites. Take a look. Enjoy. Make your own Farmin' Paper Doll.

My Plastic Heart

Check out My Plastic Heart.com to buy all kinds of fantastic wanna be pop culture items. Make a wall of shelves and buy a bunch of figures. Relive your childhood, only in a less wholesome way. Go there... you know you wanna.

Studiomama's Pallet Chair Download

11 July 08 update: The link to download this chair is no longer active. But, check out Ms. Tolstrup's very cool other designs here!)

Nina Tolstrup, also known as Studiomama, is a Danish designer living in the UK. Recently profiled in Dwell magazine, she has that European design aesthetic that is so popular. I love it. I hate it. Its too good for its own good. Its brilliant. In the end, I usually end up loving it... who am I kidding, those Europeans are just too cool.

She designed a chair in 2006 for an exhibition called Ten, 10, X, which the premise was to design something that could be had for 10 pounds (I don't know how to or want to take the time to figure out how to make the "pound" sign, sorry.) Anyway, she came up with designs for furniture that could be assembled out of pallets. Pretty smart. The instructions for a really cool chair could (can) be downloaded from her web site and built by the "Downloader" from locally sourced materials... wood pallets. Its interesting on a few levels, but mainly because pallets start out spare and utilitarian, but she managed to make them into this beautiful lounge chair, which is spare, and utilitarian, but beautiful on a whole different level than a pallet. You look at the chair and say, "that is vaguely familiar", then it hits you... a pallet! Cool.

I like this idea of being able to have high design, or a piece of art available for anyone smart enough to find it and motivated enough to recreate it. Check out Studiomama's Pallet Chair.













Check out Studiomama
Download the chair design here (11 july 08. Sorry, no longer an active link)
Check out Dwell magazine

Pallet and chair photos copyright of their respective photographers.

Dekor? Grudgingly Interested

As a rule, I have an automatic elevated annoyance level for anyone, or company, or product that replaces a letter in a normal word with a different but similar sounding letter in an attempt at being KOOL... (see what I did with "cool" there?), so, when I decided to visit the site of designer, painter, illustrator "Dekor", I was skeptical that I would be interested at all. It just seems that things that are hip, are sometimes too hip, and as a result not hip at all. Know what I mean? Ignorant hip in spite of itself, is way better than "hip because I know how to be hip".

I admit it might be a French cultural thing I'm missing here in his spelling of Dekor, but I doubt it. Poor guy. Regardless, my point is, I ended up liking his work. Shame on me for having preconceived ideas about this designer based on the nickname they decide to go by. (Queue background music for the lesson), "So Michelle, you should never judge a book by its cover."

Anyway, back to Dekor and his work. Good stuff. My gripe with his choice of nickname aside. Gary Baseman-esque with a little dirty Chris Ware mixed in. He's reminiscent of someone else too, but I can't place it at the moment. Regardless, I enjoyed looking at the stuff on this site. Check out Nicolas Tual... otherwise known as "Dekor", [do finger quotes as you say it!] French designer to French stars [who?] and soon... the world! Mu-ah-ha-ha-ha.

Nice Bunny Paper Dolls Updated!

A quick note: Nice Bunny has updated their site and added an obvious link to their very awesome Paper Dolls Artist's Series. Its art for the rest of us. Collect them all! Buy other stuff from these amazing artists!

Image credit to Matt Hawkins and Nice Bunny.

Dutch Playgrounds Cage Kids!

Those crazy Dutch designers are at it again... good design is so common in the land of wooden shoes that they need to lock their kids into it to appreciate it! The photo is of playground equipment designed by Carve, a Dutch firm that is rethinking the playground.

One might have a niche if they moved in on the Dutch designers and started designing bad stuff, or just churned out completely "un"designed designs. Carve turns out crazy looking playground furniture, while our "non-designer" could design a pole... stuck in the ground... for kids to run around. BRILLIANT! Bad design becomes good because it is not!

Just kidding. Obviously those Dutch have a culture of looking at solving design problems differently than a lot of the rest of the world.

Anyway, check out Carve, they sincerely have revolutionized the playground. Can't wait for the U.S. playground equipment manufacturers to catch on and start copying these ideas in old growth redwood!

A nod to the Cool Hunter for doing the hard work and bringing this to our attention. Thanks Cool Hunter! You are so cool... cool!

Photo credit to Carve or the Cool Hunter.

Cool Wooden Toys From the Future

"Yosegi-Mokuzougan, or joined wooden block construction, is a craft skill where combinations of original and unique colors and textures of different kinds of wood are utilized to express artistic patterns."

Takeji (Take-G) Nakagawa has taken this traditional technique and expanded on it, made it 3-D, and made it his own. Drawing from tradition and incorporating what can only be asian pop culture into his toys and sculptures. Check out the take-g toys site. This guy is amazing! Warm and futuristic, two words that normally oppose one another exist simultaneously in his work.

Difficult to purchase if you are not in Japan, hopefully, that will soon be remedied. Most of the site is in Japanese, but the work pretty much speaks for itself.

A Painter and a Sculptor

Jason Ruhl is an artist who paints and works in mixed media. His stuff is minimalist with a history. There is often social commentary mixed in, along with the fantastically clever pop culture reference. He uses pink, which is an arbitrary comment by me, but I love pink. Seriously. His mixed media work includes compositions, of amongst other things, vintage ads and comics and medical drawings. I also think his Polaroids are reviving the media, and this new series of buttons has got some serious potential. Who doesn't love a good button.

Jason belongs to an informal artist's collective called No Fun. I don't believe I know any of this group personally, but they all seem to do great, interesting, valid work. Check out a collabrative effort including some of these artists at this blog spot.

Tracey Scheich is primarily a sculptor who's work is plain and simply elegant. The latest stuff I've seen called "Creatures" is elegant, but fun at the same time. I look at these creatures as little action figures in ceramic. And, that is a good thing in my opinion. These characters have a soul, and a back story, and a running narrative, and a future adventure with other ceramic friends. Love this stuff.

Visit their web sites. Get in touch with them. Buy lots of their work.

Images shown belong to their respective artist. Please visit their web sites for more.

The Cool Hunter

I like to think I am cool enough to "give a shout out" to the following site, but now that I think about it, I put quotes around "give a shout out" in addition to using the slang "give a shout out" which is really dated and not cool at all. Oh well. I accept my uncoolness.

Check out the following site if you want to be cool. The people who update this site are WAY cooler than I am:
The Cool Hunter

Picture above credit to The Cool Hunter.net. "Props" to The Cool Hunters, and the designer of the room shown. There I go again with those quote marks.

Hella-of-a Designer

Surfing the internet the other day looking for great designers, and the name Hella Jongerius keeps coming up. Rightfully so. One of a crop of great Dutch designers, formerly with the famous Droog Design, now producing work under Jongeriuslab. A substantial list of collections and design accolades to her credit. This is apparently an important designer for our time. I just like the stuff she designs. Insert description of work here... her work is nice to look at, but have you ever noticed that people who write reviews of things use the same language over and over again? Makes it feel unoriginal. I hate that.

Check out her site. I'm curious to hear what you might think we'll remember Jongeriuslab for in 30 years. What is the icon? Is there one piece? Will the style just get grouped into a big group of Dutch designers with "this style". Write a post. I'm curious about your opinions.

My Favorite Designers... Today

I'm going to compile a list of my favorite designers... as of today that is. I reserve the right to drop or add a designer as I so desire. Why is it important that I rank my favorites? Because I can. Why should it mean anything to anyone else? Because they might like these designers too.

Designer for me includes graphics, animation, engineering, furniture... basically anything and anyone that makes something that is visually pleasing to me.

In no particular order:
-Takashi Murakami - I talked about him in a previous post.
-Chris Ware - phenomenal illustrator of Jimmy Corrigan, Quimby the Mouse and other kitschy characters and their comics. Totally retro style, and correct me if I'm wrong, all hand illustrated! Amazing!
-Imaginary Forces - They do all kinds of animation and motion graphics. I like the saying they have on their home page, "At one point in time, everything had not been done."
-Johannes Gutenberg - Arguably the most important figure in communication before Al Gore invented the internet? Known for the Gutenberg Bible, but really, movable type... I realize it is a stretch to call him a "designer," but so much that he did is so important to design. And what design minded person doesn't love the look of moveable type.
-Chank Diesel and his Chank Co. - He's a new breed in type designers. I realize this might be a bit of a stretch, but I like that he doesn't take himself too seriously, and just keeps cranking out fonts.
-Marek Reichman and the Aston Martin Design Team - Responsible for the Aston Martin... a very, hot, production car.
-Frank Gehry - I realize he's become cliche, but you have to appreciate his crazy, computer driven designs for museums all over the world. The firm should disband however, and become architect martyrs...leave us wanting more.
-Antoni Gaudi - The original Frank Gehry

Print/Pattern Vacation

Take a little vacation from your day at my fellow blogger's site print & pattern. A site devoted to the "world of surface pattern & design." Great designs... err, patterns. Very simply enjoyable. Worth a visit.