Category Archives: Stuff We Like

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Vivian Chiu: Inception Chair and more

Vivian Chiu Inception Chair Furniture DesignI’d have to say that, for me, some of the most creative and interesting work at this year’s ICFF and its satellite shows came from design students. One of these is Vivian Chiu, a furniture design student at RISD. What first caught my eye was her Inception Chair at the Noho Design District show, then later I noticed her Fu Lei Zhi bench at ICFF as well, and have since visited her website to see a slew of interesting work.

Chiu seems fascinated by repetition and intricate pieces fitting together perfectly in a puzzle-like fashion. Together the pieces create a whole, yet separately, they function (to some degree) as well. In addition to the originality of the work, her craftsmanship is remarkable.

To see more of Vivian Chiu’s work visit her site.

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The Heads of State: Book Covers

Rosenfeld Book Covers: Heads of StateA very enjoyable way to procrastinate and not get work done is to visit The Heads of State’s site. It’s incredible how much time I can spend looking at their posters. What I wasn’t aware of is that they design book covers as well. These covers for Rosenfeld Media, a publisher of user-experience design material, are just great. So simple, to the point, and graphically pleasing. They have a late 50s, early 60s aesthetic evocative of Paul Rand which I love, while feeling very much of the 21st Century as well.

Have some extra time? Check out their posters here.

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Liu Bolin: The Invisible Man

Liu Bolin The Invisible ManLook closely. Very, very closely. In fact, you might want to click on the image to enlarge it and get a good look at these photos. In each one there’s an invisible man, usually the artist Liu Bolin himself. No, these are not digitally modified photographs. No, this is not Photoshop mastery. Liu Bolin, from Shandong, China, camouflages himself in all kinds of surroundings, no matter how complex they may be. He carries this out by painting himself to blend in perfectly with whatever is behind him. Liu will work up to 10 hours at a time on a single photo to achieve the right effect.

The artist says his art is a protest against the actions of the Government who shut down his art studio in the past and persecute artists in general. It’s about not fitting into modern society.

More of these amazing photos here.

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Teapot: Erik Magnussen

This lovely teapot was originally produced in ceramic in the 1960s, but has now been redesigned by Erik Magnussen, in Denmark, and produced in bone china. It’s a testament to the original design that this teapot still holds up as a modern and timeless piece. The built-in handle in the back is a very cool feature that makes the hand seemingly disappear into the teapot when serving.

Available here.

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Impressive Parsons Seating Prototypes

Parsons Seating Prototypes_Parsons Festival 2011Having a possible future industrial designer in the family makes us especially interested in furniture design, and even more interested and impressed by student furniture design work. Strolling by Parsons yesterday, Dan and I noticed these beautiful chairs through the windows and went in to see, what turned out to be, part of the Parsons Festival 2011. These spectacular chairs are designed by Sophomores. Second year, undergrad design students. Unbelievable! “Parsons product design students present full-scale study models of bent plywood chairs that are the result of a six-week project in which students learned the basics of ergonomics, sound construction principles, and finishes.”

Parsons Festival runs through May 23rd in the lobby of the 2 West 13th St. building. The rest of the show, which includes interaction design, looks equally impressive.

Working prototype design credits, clockwise from top right: Megan Enright; Reading Chair by Siramol (Muan) On-Sri; Credit to come for this chair; Bone Lounge Chair by Soonyong Yoon; Reading Chair 01 by Irina Williams.
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More Marlon de Azambuja

Marlon de AzambujaYes. I am officially a fan. In addition to his wonderful Operaciones series (see previous post), Marlon de Azambuja has large-scale projects as well, some of which would fall under the category of Street Art. Two of these series are: Potencial Escultórico (Sculptural Potential) in which he wraps street furniture/objects in colored duct tape; and Metaesquema (Meta Diagram) where he uses permanent marker to draw out diagrams encompassing the street manhole covers and grates. Both of these series of works appeared in the streets of Madrid.

“…For the last three years, Marlon de Azambuja has marked out urban spaces with adhesive tape, interventions that have the finality of highlighting or, even better, allowing the discovery of aspects that have always existed but that we have never imagined. Marlon de Azambuja is part of a constructive culture’s memory that finds its forebears in Brazilian Concretism….”

Very cool.

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Marlon de Azambuja: Operaciones

Operaciones_Marlon de AzambujaI love this series by Brazilian-born, Madrid-residing artist Marlon de Azambuja called Operaciones! Really? It’s almost ridiculous how much I’m loving these. The description reads (translated from Spanish): “Displaced stickers on original slips of paper.” So simple and yet so clever and appealing. Makes me want to run out to the stationery store and buy a whole bunch of sticker sheets to make my own series and place all over the apartment.

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Slap Watches

Slap WatchIt may have become apparent by now that the three of us have a weakness for watches…or maybe time pieces in general. It’s not that we own that many of them, but we just tend to notice and appreciate them possibly more than most. Recently, Daniela spotted one of these Slap watches on someone’s wrist and was immediately smitten.

The Slap watch is a silicone watch that implements the mechanism of the spring coil bracelet popular in the 90s. It comes in nine, mostly bright, colors with interchangeable faces, creating 81 possible color combinations. Plus, at under $20, it seems very reasonably priced.

You can learn more about them and visit their online shop, here.

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FKDL

FKDL Street ArtTwo summers ago, on a trip to Barcelona and Paris, we noticed several of these collages around the streets of both cities. Being a lover of collage, these FKDL (aka Franck Duval, a Parisian street artist) postings immediately appealed to me. Following up now on his work, I notice that he’s been adding more color to his paper cut-outs (à la Matisse) and QR codes as well. His work also reminds me a bit of Al Hansen’s Hershey collages.

You can see more FKDL images here and his blog here.

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Concrete

Concrete Trend ObjectsThere seem to be an awful lot of things cropping up made of concrete, lately. I’ve always found the seemingly cold material rather warm. Maybe it’s the urbanite in me.

Clockwise from top left corner:
Kix-Berlin Concrete USB stick
Concrete Corbu Chair by Stefan Swicky
Corner Rings and Seven Rings by 22design studio
Loose Tea Container on Etsy
Pendant lamp Trabant 1 + Trabant 2 by Joachim Manz
Spice Rub Set on Etsy
Lavazza Coffee Machine by Shmuel Linski
Concrete Necklace by Bergnerschmidt