The Glamorous International

You don't know me.

Have just experienced the car crash that is NME.com. Who's in charge there? Why did they wrap the video player with an Intel ad? If memory serves correctly there was also a Blackberry banner at the top. Yep, there it is.

 I rarely notice online ads unless they break through my cognitive defences through sheer affront, and, well case in point. Either the readership of NME has sunk to the level of Intel and Blackberry lovers, which now that I spell it out, I guess could be the reason behind said affront. Or else they are missing the whole relevance &/or not-in-your-face thing for marketing.

The last time an ad caught my attention like this was when Google responded to my bathroom renovation with persistent ads for a squatting toilet. 

Considering the interaction design of the dual flush toilet

Having just survived a bathroom renovation, my mind remains focused on details that might ordinarily escape my attention.

Dual flush flush plates; I've long accepted them as a good thing, after all they enable people to consciously save water. But now that I look at them more closely, I wonder: are they not counter intuitive? 

In interaction design we create hierarchies of information, often emphasising the elements that we want people to notice, or the ones we think they are most likely to want. Contrarily the standard flush plates emphasise the big flush option, with the big button dominating the small flush option.

Super Coffee in Market Drayton

My fascination with Mkt Drayton now comes with coffee! Yet another treat in the Potteries, this town is just so gorgeous - full of charity shops, farm fresh produce (on market day), and relatively unspoilt glimpses of a small town English architecture of yore.

Jones's also sells homemade jams, chutneys and cordials made from the produce of their nearby farm. 

I can't talk up this town and fail to mention Sherwood Wholefoods and Gill's Puddings for groceries; the local swimming pool and Freshfields Equestrian Ctr for child friendly fun, and Fordhall Farm for both groceries and child friendly fun...

The Ecocide Mock Trial at the Supreme Court 

Polly Higgins is a barrister who is working to have 'Ecocide' become the 5th international crime against peace (joining genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes of agression, and war crimes).

September saw a 'mock trial' played out at the Supreme Court of the UK, with charges brought against corporate CEO's for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the oil extraction from the Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada. 

Above and beyond its role as a media event (streamed live on Sky News), the mock trial served as a learning activity, an event that tested the proposed law in as real a simulated setting as possible: with real barristers and a jury. 

As a designer this event caught my attention not only because of the righteous legal initiative, but because the mock trial is such a fatastic example of iterative design practice. 

Ray-Ban Raw Sounds with Johnny Marr, photographed by Pat Graham

A nice collaborative PR project from Ray-Ban

They asked Johnny Marr to contribute 5 inspirational elements, and select 5 bands to 'give' them to. The bands then used the elements as starting points to create a piece of music. Sweet.

The elements he chose? He wrote a poem for a girl to speak, he made a little headless video of himself playing a repeating guitar riff (called 'Strum and Drang'), and he gave a map of the Lower East Side of NYC (home to a rock 'n' roll era that he loves). 

The Bands? Mona, Best Coast, Au Revoir Simone, Tom Vek, Johnny Marr and the Healers

House Hunting? Try WowHaus

This blog is amazing: up to date listings of 'interesting' properties that are on the market right now (kind of anywhere, but lots in UK). Awesomeness upon awesomeness, it features many houses that should be/will be/are already architectural gems, and some that are just beautifully stuck in a previous era, and really should stay there.

Spectacular ceramic vessels cast in fabric molds. Alice by Rachel Boxnboim

Well, she's too cool for school. This is fantastic. Featured on DeZeen.

Do it yourself String Gardens

Get kids to pedal-power eco vehicles. After all it's their future

Arguably adults have driven our planet into oblivion. One adult perspective on solving this problem is to get children to pedal power cars and buses. I find this amusing.

The Eco Kettle

I have just replaced our broken kettle with 'The Eco Kettle'. Three days into service, I can place my hand on my heart and say I love it. 

The principle behind it's eco-ness is that while you fill it up as usual, you specify how much water you want to boil each time. Genius. 

As a designer, I truly appreciate products that tackle problems, and this does that beautifully.  While many people are aware of the energy savings that come from only boiling as much water as needed, I've noticed a resistance to continually having to refill the jug. There is also the irritation and inconvenience that comes from boiling too little water, and having to start all over again.

This product challenges those issues head on with a double water chamber: one for storing, one for boiling. You move water from storage to the boiling chamber simply by pressing a button. Meanwhile the boiling chamber has easy to read measures that means you boil the right amount of water each time.

String Gardens by Fedor van der Falk

Beautiful hanging system for indoor plants from Holland. 

Wow, the Art Zuid scuplture route. 

This exhibition was fantastic to see with my 68 year old mother and my 6 year old daughter on our recent trip to Amsterdam. We strolled through the leafy outdoor venue, a little awed at the scale of the art, but overall it felt eminently fun, accessible and friendly. Highlights for me were the Yayoi Kusama 'Flowers that bloom tomorrow' and Jean Tinguely's 'Heureka'.

The Waiting Room by Dominic Wilcox (or Paint it White) Dominic Wilcox created this installation in the St Philip Building in London, as it was about to be demolished. The philosophical proposition by Wilcox is that his installation reflects the transition from living to dead. A metaphysical waiting room, then. White objects are often, contrarily, on the verge of becoming something: eg biscuit ware or gessoed canvas. But, ok.

Somehow painting things white seems to draw artists/ viewers into a Platonic dialogue on the essence of said things. Do they become sculptural? Do they make us reconsider them as pure form? Wilcox's installation seems a small reverberation in the enormous footsteps of Rachel Whitereads' negative space 'sculptures' made by using buildings as moulds. And, Christo and Jean Claude's wrapping of large buildings and environmental spaces in canvas. Even the guerrilla artists who spray-paint abandoned cars in Hackney white. And of course it's hard, as a Canadian, not to also be reminded of Eric Cameron's 'Thick Paintings' series.

You Must Create: conscientious haberdashery

I'm starting to get a little miffed at a certain purveyor of white linen goods in this country (The White Company). Despite their emphasis on quality materials, their buttons are always falling off. This drives me mad, barmy. Our house is full of dislocated, clearly labeled, White Company buttons.

Is it that the Dutch understand more about the essence of things? Are they brighter? Or do they just act on their ideas, when the rest of us sit idly by?