I am Pin

I love finding lovely work by local designers, and Phillipos Vassiliades is no exception. The freelancer has s steady hand as proven by one look at his illustrations, and he often incorporates these in his graphic work, with some lovely logos too. Love his colour sensibility, always opting for a minimal colour palette. Love, love, love!!! Keep up the good work Phillipos!

See his portfolio here.

Atheism 2.0: Alain de Botton

Finally, a man who really questions religion vs atheism more insightfully and acknowledges the importance  of religion which offers community, support and morality. For me, religion as an institution needs to be updated and atheism as a 'standing' needs to be more flexible and understanding. Alain says it all perfectly, watch it for yourself.

The only way is UP!

Royal College of Art graduate, Victoria Spruce presented the following sculptural and sky-high shoes at the graduate show. The architectural shapes are formed with plastic and feature a soft leather insole and lining, that creates a smooth support for the foot within the hard curves. The higher the shoe the more beautiful the curves...ohhh Im in love! Tasty colours, often monochrome, her designs are gorgeous.

Check my 'shoes' tag for more posts on shoe brands and designers.

Colour my wall

A great DIY project, if you have too many pencils than you know what to do with, but also if you want to be able to find them without opening too many pencil cases and drawers and boxes....Social Designer created this Coloured Pencil Wall display using 500 pencils and mounted plastic casings. Neat and tidy!

Spagnola & Associates's pencil wall

In 2011, NYC based Spagnola & Associates faced the challenge of designing their new office space. They created a 20' wide dimensional wall to stimulate ideas and complete the office. 2804 pencils were hammered into pre-drilled holes in the panels. The completed wall reads, in custom designed letters, good design lasts. The entire process is documented in a stop motion video.

2804 from Spagnola & Associates on Vimeo.

Level Green

Back in 2009, Berlin architects J. Mayer H. designed a permanent exhibition on sustainability for Volks Wagon's Autostadt visitor attraction at their Wolfsburg factory. Below you can see the inspiration is the green recycle symbol which grew and evolved into this overwhelming, futuristic looking exhibition space, keeping the colour pallette green and black.

The group's portfolio features flowing, futuristic shapes from urban and commercial projects to objects and installations. See their site here.
Via Dezeen

Happy Last New Year

Russia's StudioIN designed a 'last' New Year corporate gift in the form of an apocalypse wine bottle. The tongue-in-cheek label includes 14 possible apocalypse scenarios, including natural disasters such as a pole shift or tsunami and terrorist attack, computer virus (well...the world as we know it would end) UFO attack and a rat invasion.

Via Lovely Package

Happy 2012

Happy 2012 all...and if the Mayans were right about anything, this was your very last NYE so hope you made it count!

The wallpaper pictured here is courtesy of freelance animator / illustrator Willem Pirquin from Amsterdam. The mustache was his Christmas postcard for 2011. See his blog at the link.

Laundry in Milano

The Laundry is a concept store in Milan, via Vigevano 20, which has a few different type of collections namely:

Main collection - Reused fabrics from selected tailors, textile merchants, etc.
Selected By collection: vintage clothes which changes month to month.
T-shirt Lab: Limited edition printed shirts by local graphic designers.
Reused: Recycled fabrics

The store also hosts music events with local DJs and also offer the space to various artists as an exhibition space. Clean, washed and NEAT!!

21 Suggestions for success by H.Jackson Brown Jr

33 ways to stay creative

Can't find the author of the list, but I thought I'd share:
Click for larger image.

Alex at ASO

Bringing you some classical music bright and early, here is my not-so-little brother Alexandros Geralis conducting Beethoven's Overture Coriolan Op.62. More to come, so watch this space, enjoy!

Less is more @ TED talks

TreeHugger Founder Graham Hill stopped by the TED Conference recently to outline his LifeEdited project. FANTASTIC, but I may need a stranger to come and do my ruthless editing! Nice render with the moving wall. Also see my old post with the 24-in-1 transforming apartment in HK.

Art or Vandalism?

'A giant monument built in 1944 in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Soviet ‘liberation’, received an unusual and colorful makeover by an anonymous artist who calls himself ‘Banksy of Bulgaria’.

The Red Army soldiers were all painted into American superheroes and popular culture characters like Superman, the Joker, Captain America, Santa Claus and even Ronald McDonald.

Below the monument was also sprayed “Moving with the times” in Bulgarian.

Considering the original monument doesn’t represent the values and ideology of the Bulgarian society anymore, I wonder: art or vandalism?'

Post via Matador Pulse. 

Adam Rix

Adam Rix's playing cards-come-business cards have made their rounds on various blogs, and not by coincidence. The Manchester designer collected various playing cards from Ebay, car boot fairs and junk shops. They include glamour cards, birds, horses, and other such randoms and separated them all into four piles each foil blocked with a different colour with his logo and details. Ever so collectable and quirky! Love the randomized backdrop on his website.

HOWEVER, as lovely as Adam's cards are, a browse through the designers portfolio makes you realise there's more ideas where these came from!! He tends to use witty copy (as in the case of Adam Marketing Recruitment and Nando's crisp packets) and has dome some lovely book designs and layouts. Click the images for a larger view or see Adam Rix's site here.