Secret Still

Closing out design week (I’m off tomorrow) is what might be one of the finest pieces of design thinking I’ve ever witnessed. This time we dip into the world of Industrial Design with power designers Mike and Maaike who are behind some of the best designed products you use, including The Girl’s G1 Android phone. Core77 has a wonderful post detailing M&M’s process and ideas behind their Autonomobile project, which literally and completely redesigns not only the task of driving, but the idea. It’s not often that we get to see this kind of innovation so thoughtfully explained, and in a manner that is wholly feasible within the next 5 years. If I were a billionaire you can bet your sweet ass this would be what I would sink my billions into. As it stands, I’m poor, and I don’t think I would even qualify for an internship with Mike and Maaike. I’m gonna let them do the talking about this project, as they understand and explain it better than I ever could. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna cross the Bay and sit outside the M&M offices with a sad puppy look on my face and hope they let me just hang out with their ideas for a while.

Core77: The End of Driving

Mike and Maaike

There is an amazing article up on Design Observer about how underground movements are co-opted by mainstream marketing. That is some damn insightful writing, right there. I always appreciate Heller’s writing, but this piece just had more oomph behind it, like a 3am frenzy essay, written hunched over and wild-eyed. Me likey.

Underground Mainstream

Exactitudes is a nice project from a Rotterdam duo chronicling the standard fashions that sub-cultures wear to separate themselves from other groups. I remember seeing some of the earlier images from this project four or so years ago, but it’s gotten much bigger since. I’m really just partial to the aesthetic of the site and the photo groupings. I’ve also realized that there are too many clothes in the world. Let 2008 be the year of the nude!

Exactitudes rememberd via Josh Spear

On April 26th Kid Robot released a series of toys in collabo with the design collective DOMA. The toys, called Acid Sweeties are the most original and colorful toys that I’ve seen so far from the ever expanding vinyl figure market that populates a part of modern street culture. I like toys that I can play with so I’ve never even considered spending $100 on a limited edition artist designed vinyl whatever, but these little guys are $8 per and I can definitely come up with some great scenarios in which they fight my toy motorcycles in the bathtub. Seriously I do that. And just to make things more interesting there is a massive scavenger hunt to go along with the toy release. You can win $1000 shopping spree at Kid Robot and the full set of Acid Sweeties and some other shit. Of course finding all the stuff and then shipping it will probably cost you about $1000 so you might just want to buy the toys and leave it at that.

Kid Robot
DOMA

In recent years there have been a plethora of films about graffiti released to slake the street art thirst of the burgeoning culture of cool surrounding the hypeworld. Of course everything started way back when with Style Wars, and most of the more recent films have fallen short of that high water mark. Enter Bomb It!, a film that explores the greater ideas involved in the street art movement, ideas like free space and personal expression and community. But even more than high-minded concepts like those the film just wants to explain why street art speaks to so many people. I’m looking forward to the release, and since I live nowhere near NYC I’ll be missing the premiere along with most of the country. I’ll cop it on DVD when it drops. You’d be wise to do the same.