The traditional grid calendar is a domestic device. It works well enough for scheduling weekly errands because Thursdays always fall in the same place. Time, on a hectic family scale, is less about long-term goals than short-term events. We love this Linear Calendar by Marke Johnson of The Made Shop which staggers each month to line up with the proper days of the week.
Dutch airline KLM has launched its Meet & Seat program, allowing you to select seatmates well before takeoff based upon LinkedIn or Facebook accounts. The initiative is, ostensibly, a prime schmoozing opportunity, and KLM is “the first airline to integrate social networking in its regular flight process,” senior press officer Ellen van Ginkel.
“Passengers can only see other Meet & Seat participants after linking their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles to their flight,” van Ginkel explains. “As a carrier we offer our passengers the possibility to join the service, but it’s up to the customer if he or she wants to use it.” Since launching in early February, more than 1,100 profiles have been shared so far (though no word on resulting high-powered handshake deals or wedding bells).
We’ve been working on some great commercial interior spaces this past year, however we simply couldn’t help but admire this amazing Romania apartment, ‘kitted out’ by SquareOne. The apartment has been transformed top to bottom to have a modern look and bespoke features throughout. The square design stays consistent all the way through the apartment, even down to the bathroom.
Italian designer Emanuele Magini created this fun chair design that lets you get some exercise while sitting down. ‘Lazy Football’ has a simple metal frame with widened front legs and a goal net attached so you can have a relaxed game of soccer with a friend.
Identity trends come and go, but this rebrand from Barcelona based Hey Studio for the Film Commission Chile goes beyond a simple brand, creating business cards, stationary, envelopes, and really nice posters that explain what FCC is all about.
A great comical series of IKEA manuals created by College Humour that pokes fun at how IKEA illustrations show you how to assemble everything. In the four-part ‘Sci-Fi IKEA Manuals’ series, the manuals emulate the style of IKEA jokingly instructing you on ‘creating’ things from sci-fi movies Back To The Future, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and Dr Who.
Why not bring your love for PANTONE to the bathroom as well? Canada-based Drake General Store now stocks PANTONE toothbrushes, for “a bit of hygiene color”, according to them.
There’s nothing exciting about the standard-issue college dorm. Peek inside freshman Derek Low’s room at the University of California at Berkeley, for example, and you’ll find the usual mix of harsh overhead lighting and furniture so bland it’d make you beg for IKEA. But Low, a self-proclaimed “computer fanatic” and tinkerer, has turned his room into a laboratory for automated living, replete with motion sensors, remote light switches, and mobile and tablet apps to control his room’s settings.
“During my freshman year at UC Berkeley, I set out to create the most ridiculously automated dorm room in the school ever. Three months and several hundred dollars later, BRAD (Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm) has been completed!”
Artist Erika Iris Simmons gives us a glimpse of what it might look like if music notes looked more like they sounded. The rows of notes, seemingly so uniform and orderly, form complex and lively aural atmospheres that burst off the page.
Facebook’s founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerburghas been in the headlines this week defending his $1 billion investment to purchase Instagram, a photo-sharing app with no revenues. However, Instagram itself has skyrocketed with user popularity and mock-adverts are popping up all over the web playing on the App’s ability to simply stylise digital photography. Well, add the latest spoof released this week to the pile, the Instagram Socialmatic.
The Instagram Socialmatic is a concept design of what a realistic real-world version of the Instagram App would look like. What the creators (ADR Studio) have come up with is a flat, touchscreen camera with a built in printer, social networking capabilities and 16GB of internal storage. The idea is that you could take your photos, alter/share them digitally, and then print out physical sticky-notes style versions complete with QR codes.
