Muji Award International Design Competition 01

by Evan Orensten

Sinking Muji's best-practice principles deeper into the global product design concious, the Japanese retailer is holding its first Muji International Design Competition. The thesis is "Sumi," (meaning to the side) and the challenge to studios and individuals is designing an object for the side of the room.

In a world where products are designed for meeting a price-point through volume, Muji thinks creatively about input material and manufacturing cost. Essentiallly and with elegance, form follows ability to fabricate.

Designers are allowed to submit any object, and submissions are being accepted from 15 May to 31 August 2006. Jasper Morrison will join Muji staff in selecting the winning entries, which will be announced in mid-November 2006 on the Muji website. The winning design earns a very nice US$20,000 prize (and a lot of press).

Sumo World Cup iPod Cases

by Jacob Resneck

Sumo, a San Francisco-based accessory designer, has hit on a novel idea with a set of high-quality leather iPod cases featuring the national colors of several of the most popular World Cup national soccer teams. Choose from: USA, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Argentina (pictured, a Cool Hunting premiere), England, Mexico, and non-specific black.

If you’ve been in a sportsbar with even a smattering of European, Latin American or African clientele recently you’ll know that World Cup fever is building fast. The international soccer, er football, er soccer championship games are hosted in Germany this June and already fans around the world are gearing up with creative ways to show their jingoistic allegiance to their national team.

These will be available, for a limited time, in some upmarket department stores but online may be the way to go. The $40 case starts shipping 1 May 2006, for a limited three month run.

Pink Expenses

by Josh Rubin

I just remembered this brilliant little project (circa 2003) from our friends over at The Royal Society for the Protection of Designers (aka Pink928). Pink Expenses is a receipt generator that would be handy to the corporate traveller if the content was a little more work-place friendly. To use it just select who serviced you and where, then choose your three slutty courses. The next screen will have a ready-to-print receipt that documents your sexcapades. There are no naughty pictures so unless your boss is looking over your shoulder right now, it's work safe. Filthy Mouth, the RSPD's earlier project isn't so work safe, so be sure to check it out and see what your Gran is really thinking.

Alternative Apparel

by Jacob Resneck

A good t-shirt is hard to find, but Alternative Apparel (a clever(?) play on garment giant American Apparel) offer superior quality in a variety of styles and colors. Our product testers report that the material is softer than American Apparel and of seemingly finer quality.

First of all, they’re pre-washed so there should be no shrinkage. And the manufacturer boasts that they’re stitched to be extra strong.

And there’s plenty of styles and colors. We counted 20 varieties of women’s—and that’s just the short-sleeved shirts.

The site requires registration before you can view the prices, but a high-end t-shirt for a woman is around $24—about what you’d pay at an urban department store.

Oh, and they sell caps too. Plastic-mesh trucker caps and military-style “Fidel” short brimmed cap, if the whole militia-chic look is your thing.

Graham Dolphin

by Josh Rubin

One of the standouts at last month's Scope New York, Graham Dolphin’s art, employing seemingly-compulsive writing as the centerpiece, simultaneously recalls Fluxus, Marcel Duchamp and the back of a notebook owned by a girl in junior high. With meticulous, miniature penmanship, Dolphin makes dense, obsessive, lovely formations of words using lyrics from pop songs as his mundane-born muse.

"White Lyrics" indents the complete lyrics of the Beatles’ White Album on the record’s cardboard sleeve. Others works ‘engrave’ lyrics right onto the vinyl in a circular, almost runic formation. Krafwerk’s The Model and the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds are just two of Dolphin’s canvases for this. In art paper, Velvet Underground Lyrics cascades the text into a violet spectrum, part Ed Ruscha, part Mark Rothko.

One could argue Dolphin’s work is entirely about economies—both personal and monetary—and the tools we use to negotiate between these realms. Lyrics have no gold weight worth, just an imbued personal value. Each record probably cost $7 when it was purchased. Sentiment scribed on top, these are the silver pieces of personalized currency. By using a garden-variety felt-tipped pin to make the marks, Dolphin’s work also discusses hierarchies of value in the art market.

Our world is one filled with fine print and it’s rarely used to express anything celebratory. Looking at 25 Neil Young Songs (pictured above), concentric circles of pharmaceutical-disclaimer-sized writing, one begins to realize fine print has become part of our subconscious visual vocabulary.

More images after the jump and at Dolphin's gallery, Seventeen.