Monthly Archives: May 2010

The PANTONE hotel

Posted on May 27, 2010 | 2 Comments

PANTONE has long been on a quest to take over the world of design. Starting as a simple colour guide, it has since spawned bags, chairs, stationery, an iPhone app and of course the famous mugs. We’ve always been fans, but their latest step on the path to world domination really knocks us out.

The PANTONE hotel is a new luxury boutique hotel in the centre of Brussels – somewhere we’ve never considered going, and now really want to. Each room is designed to its own carefully chosen PANTONE colour set, giving rooms suitable for couples, business trips and families.

Upon arrival, you are given an appropriate room depending on the purpose of your stay, and even your mood.

Also on-site is the PANTONE lounge bar, serving (among other things) cocktails such as Pink Champagne (PANTONE 12-1107), Lemon Drop (PANTONE 12-0736) or Daiquiri Green (PANTONE 12-0435). This might be a silly sales gimmick, but excellent all the same. Add all this to the entire hotel being littered with PANTONE’s other iconic products, and you’ve got any designer’s heaven.

(source: If It’s Hip, It’s Here)

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Posted in baby creative, creative

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Edible crayons

Posted on May 26, 2010 | 1 Comment

We reckon these things could be every child’s dream… and every parent’s nightmare.

These crayons from Luxirare may look fairly normal, but they are in fact completely edible.

More to the point, they actually look pretty tasty, being made out of fruits, chocolate and nuts, and crucially being held together with marshmallow. And you can of course draw with them, should you be so inclined.

We can see children loving the ability to draw for a bit and then just start eating whenever it gets boring. We can see parents hating the fact that they have to buy a new pack of crayons every five minutes.

(via Notcot)

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Posted in art, baby creative, creative, food

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Paper digital trash can

Posted on May 25, 2010 | Leave a comment

Design really does seem to have taken a slightly geeky twist recently, but we love it. This paper model of the original computer trash can is just brilliant.

Now admittedly it is completely pointless, but there’s just something interesting about seeing apparently pixelated real-life products.

And you can even download your own and print it off at A4 to sit on your desk… we’re really quite tempted.

(source: Design Fetish)

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Posted in baby creative, creative, design

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Fibet will be tree

Posted on May 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

We can’t help but be impressed with this poster from aspiring graphic designer Tenzing Gaychey, entitled “Avoiding Chinese Censors”.

Just in case you didn’t get there, what it of course should read is “Tibet will be free”. And sitting just behind the tree branches is an outline map of Tibet, cunningly obscured by the branches…

(source: boingboing)

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Posted in advertising, art, creative, design, Plants

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Who wants to live in a straw house?

Posted on May 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

A straw house sounds like a stupid idea in any modern, wet and windy country like the UK. However, a housing company in Leeds disagrees.

This construction is called the Balehaus, and it has been designed and constructed by the University of Bath’s Centre for Innovative Construction Materials. We have to admit it looks pretty awesome.

More to the point however, it’s actually remarkably sturdy. It’s been tested in winds of 120mph and doesn’t move, has survived flooding (although some of the lower bales did have to be replaced at very low cost) and even set on fire at temperatures of up to 1000°C – for 2 hours. Its designers reckon it’s easily got a 100-year lifespan. Now we reckon that’s pretty impressive for something which is essentially constructed out of straw bales and a bit of hemp and wood pannelling.

However that’s not all. Of course the house is extremely energy efficient to construct, since all the materials are completely renewable. Construction costs are also very low as transport and heavy lifting are significantly reduced. And energy bills are reduced by around 80%, with the walls being excellent insulators. And you can get all this for between £60,000 (for a flat) and £160,000 (for a 4-bedroomed house), which is ridiculously cheap – even for Leeds. We’re pretty much sold…

(source: Treehugger)

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Posted in design, environment, green, home

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Where do cursors come from?

Posted on May 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

Now admittedly you’ve probably never asked that question. In fact, nor has anybody above the age of five. However, artist Nathan W. Pyle has given us an answer.

So there you go, there are whole forests of these things out there somewhere, with little men to chop them all down…

(source via Notcot)

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Posted in art, baby creative

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Snoutcups

Posted on May 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

How about this for a silly piece of design?

Snoutcups play on that thing we all do (yes, even you) with plastic cups when we’re drinking from them. And as silly as this might be, the results are excellent – we especially love the dog nose.

And okay this might all be a bit inane, but the really excellent bit is yet to come. On the maker’s site, it says the following:

As we care about animals we donate an amount from every pig snout cup sold to Pigs in Need, a Dutch organisation who cares about the health of pigs.

This has to be one of the most bizarre methods of charity giving we’ve ever seen. And can you think of a more worthy cause?! We’re pretty sure we can…

(via Notcot)

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Posted in advertising, charity, design, drink

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Fritz Kola ads

Posted on May 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

This has to be just about the geekiest bit of advertising we’ve ever seen.

These ads for Fritz Kola feature a character based on a caffeine molecule… who is concentrating. So firstly you’ve got the caffeine molecule turned into a character – and been scientifically accurate. Then you’ve got the bad pun on the word concentrated. Just terrible.

That said, we secretly think they’re brilliant.

(for video versions of these ads (possibly even better) go to artverrtising)

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Posted in advertising, baby creative, creative, drink

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Lollipop Logos

Posted on May 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

Sugar is just sugar, right? We’ve never understood the plethora of chocolate bars, sweets, cakes and stuff – it all looks and tastes roughly the same, after all. But we love these things.

These creations are the work of Massimo Gammacurta , who made them for a photography still-life project, and has now published a book of the work called inventively called lolli-pop.

The thing is, much as these things are pretty cool (especially the MTV one, which must have taken serious work), we really don’t want to eat them – they just look wrong.

(source: If it’s Hip, it’s here)

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Posted in advertising, creative, food

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Dream & Fly

Posted on May 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

Sitting around at airports when you have a long wait is never fun – it seems like one of those things that you just have to put up with. However, once again, it is proved that good design can solve most problems.

Dream & Fly is a set of pods which are to be installed in airports, stations and other similar places. They will be rentable by the hour for people to sleep, rest or work in between flights and they even come in family size.

The pods are apparently inspired by the womb, and are meant to make the occupant feel sheltered from the bustle outside. Each basically contains a bed and a desk. There is also power supply for all your technological needs, as well as a full en suite bathroom.

Okay so these things are far from huge, but we reckon they are pretty clever. Airport hotels are always pretty terrifying and these are a great alternative, especially since their size allows them to be placed actually within terminals. And if this ash thing continues any longer, they’ll need to get these things in place soon…

(source: If it’s hip, it’s here)

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Posted in design, transport

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