Cool Hunting
| 24 February 2005view entries from: this week | this month | view previous day | view next day |
New York Observer: [ ]
by Josh Rubin
Josh Rubin, the Soho-based designer behind the Web site Josh Rubin: Cool Hunting, said that Pattern Recognition didn’t so much change his behavior or buying habits as it provided a "label" for his madness. Mr. Rubin said he experiences a "gut response" to logos.
"I’ll be razor-blading off a label and think, ‘That’s so Cayce Pollard,’" he said. "Like the other day, I cut out the embroidery of a logo off my snowboarding bag. It was just this small company’s name in cursive with a little swooshy thing, and it looked so bad, it just offended me."
Mr. Rubin’s personal nemesis is the revived logo Von Dutch, recently popularized by the likes of Paris Hilton and Justin Timberlake. "I’m not sure I’ve gotten physically ill or wanted to vomit … but I don’t understand it," he said. "It doesn’t resonate or make sense to me in any way. I definitely have the recoiling thing with Von Dutch."
...
Really the only way out of the brandosphere, said Mr. Rubin the coolhunter, is "buying your own goat. Or moving to Amish country."
by Maureen Tkacik
Ludwika Ogorzelec
by Josh Rubin
Ludwika Ogorzelec's latest installation of the "Space Crystallization" cycle is up for a few more days at the Nancy Margolis Gallery in New York. This lattice of stretchy plastic is meticulously woven inside and outside the gallery to create a beautiful bio-technical form. Jutting out from the side of the building, it's impossible to miss when walking by or driving down the street. You're confronted with the piece even more aggressively when you enter the gallery-- it hangs down to about 5 feet above the floor, requiring a crouch and shuffle just to get in the gallery.
More pictures after the jump.
Lacoste Goes Retro
by Evan Orensten
I've worn the Lacoste polos for as long as I can remember and have been wondering why they haven't brought back the classic 3 button, slimmer fit, long tail style that I've always preferred. The wait is over-- the more mod style comes back for Spring in more than a dozen colors (navy, white, pink and black are the best). The shirts are noticeably different from their same size boxier full cut cousins (both of the above are a size 3), and would be even more perfect if the tails were as long as they used to be.
Call for Entry: Living Spaces
by Josh Rubin
In May the International Contemporary Furniture Fair will come to New York. While the show is focused on pieces for mass production, Living Spaces promises to be the show's most cutting edge off-site event. Set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this year’s show will be curated by Dave Alhadeff, owner and founder of The Future Perfect, and designer Jason Miller.
Do you have something you want in the show? Here's the submission form.
Blackberry 7100t: First Impressions
by Josh Spear
I'm that guy that has a new cell phone every couple months-- constantly trying to find one that I love from top to bottom, and I'm hard to please. I just swapped from a Treo600 to a Blackberry 7100t after an enticing set of deals.
My first impressions-- I'm so used to a touch screen from the Treo that I find myself tapping the screen wondering why nothing is happening! Setup was easy, synching was easy, so far so good. I bought PocketMac to synch with OS X, a small price to pay for the ease of proper compatibility. I wanted a device that could handle emails, address book, and calendar without the bulk of a Treo. My heart is with the Treo but its biggest downside was how bulky it was. The 7100t boasts some great features-- a brilliant color display, Bluetooth, Blackberry's web based client for address book and email setup and predictive text input with a QWERTY keyboard. I was concerned about how well the predictive text would work, having never really liked it on previous phones, but they definitely did a good job this time around. It's not quite like a Treo keypad, but typing is easy after you get the hang of it. I'll settle down with this for a few more weeks before I undoubtedly get enticed by a new mobile phone I just have to check out.
Circular Life
by Josh Spear
I don't know much about the project entitled Their Circular Life, other than that it's an exploration of human behavior with the help of a beautiful flash interface, deep sounds and interesting images. They used some technology to film a full day and nights action at a few locations-- and then built an interface where the user can view and observe the day, navigating it as a circle. It gives us a perspective on everyday rush, the calmness of night and everything in between that is a part of circular life.
