Cool Hunting
| 27 April 2006view entries from: this week | this month | view previous day | view next day |
Refinery29: Earth Science
by Ami Kealoha
Christine J. Brandt's shapely oversized rings and necklace pendants put her right in line with current cutting-edge jewelry designers, but her use of nature, both for raw materials and inspiration, sets her apart beautifully. Creating her pieces from a log cabin in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, Brandt fashions her jewelry from exotic woods, raw crystals, and stones, each piece hand-carved and finished with natural oils (she never uses stains or varnishes). The result is larger-than-life architectural and sculptural designs that manage to sustain an accessible, organic feel, calling to mind volcanic eruptions and driftwood. Nature, for Brandt, always dominates design. As she says herself, "I let the piece have its way."
Jake Phipps Furniture
by Evan Orensten
Jake Phipps is an English furniture designer who has been making furniture since graduating design school in 1999. His studio gained a reputation as a resource for custom work, but he has recently added a few objects for the retail market.
His work is clever; tables stretch or adapt to grow, all while maintaining the integrity of the design and the material, as seen in the Sentosa table in rippled sycamore, pictured above.
Gnarls Barkley: "Crazy" Video
by Ami Kealoha
After two years in the making, the collaboration between Grammy-nominated artists Cee-Lo and Dangermouse (aka Gnarls Barkley), St. Elsewhere debuted this week in the UK and comes out 9 May 2006 stateside. Already breaking records, Dangermouse blends diverse genres including soul, gospel, funk, and post-punk, with Cee-Lo's impressive vocals that hint at seminal crooners like Stevie Wonder. The upshot falls somewhere in between Sly and the Family Stone and Outkast.
Like Dangermouse's long list of other projects (including The Grey Album, Gorillaz, and DangerDOOM), the loosely conceptual album also boasts some compelling visual counterparts, such as the video for the lauded single "Crazy" pictured above. Based on Rorschach inkblot tests, the Robert Hale-directed video, fluidly morphs (mostly black and white) illustrations that incorporate images of Cee-Lo's bald dome, Dangermouse, flames, spiders, trees, and other imagery.
Check it out here and pre-order the album ($12) from Amazon.
Dino Sofa
by Ami Kealoha
Rome-based Central Unit Design, a four-person architect-design collective, introduced their sectional Dino Sofa at Milan's Salone Satellite earlier this month. Designed for indoor and outdoor use in public places like museums, airports, and parks, the animalized seating is made of Waterlily and Framefoam, both eco-friendly materials. Though not yet in production, each vertebrae-like section is intended for two people and makes the transition outdoors with a new method called "oven painting." Check out another image showing the Dino's whimsical possibilities after the jump and a close up on Mocoloco.
