Kiosk: Finland

by Ami Kealoha

Our friends at Kiosk have just introduced their fifth and latest collection, this time sourced from the far reaches of Finland. Like always, the Kiosk team traveled abroad to find the best everyday classics. The collection features a lot of bold retro designs and items worth it just for packaging that references both '60s graphics and Finnish folk patterns, like a simple carton of pink chalk.

We picked a few more standouts that will also expand your Finnish horizons beyond Saarinen, Aalto and Nokia.

The bold graphic design combining green and white to a striking effect makes this dart board into the best kind of decor—the kind that's a competitive pastime as well. The set (it includes red darts) is $48 from Kiosk.

Awarded to best friends as an annual tradition held in Finnish schools for over 50 years, this plaster "Boy 'Smiling' Head" is absurdly charming. According to Kiosk, winners are chosen for not just being a good friend but for being balanced as well. You can carry on the tradition yourself for $40.

We love any idea that makes a simple task that much simpler and these Red Stripe Staples are up to the task. Rather than picking at staples with your nails or trying to dig out a staple remover, the red stripe is a breaking point making for much easier removal. A pack of 2000 is $6 from Kiosk.

Also on Cool Hunting: Salvor Kiosk: Mexico, Salvor Kiosk

WANT Les Essentiels de la Vie iPod Case

by Ami Kealoha

by Pamela Liou

WANT Les Essentiels de la Vie plays with expectations in their luxury accessories line that acknowledges the unique needs of the modern jetsetter. According to brothers-and-designers Dexter and Byron Peart, their small collection is "inspired by timeless, functional design classics." The Narita iPod case, named after Tokyo's burgeoning airport, recalls Bauhaus aesthetics without seeming stodgy and steam-punk sensibilities minus the gimmicks. The gleaming metal components are the perfect yet unexpected makeweight to balance the simplistic exterior. WANT's aim is to dispel the misconception that traditional craftsmanship cannot be reconciled with the idiosyncratic demands of modern living—to "achieve unity through contrast."

Read more…

Leigh Davis: Ensemble

by Mike Giles

Photographer Leigh Davis, dividing her time between New York and Montréal, editorial work (for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Tokion and Res) and clients such as American Eagle Outfitters, Bruce Mau Design, and Carnegie Mellon University, is a very busy woman. Lucky for us she's managed to find time to finish up one of her current projects titled "Ensemble." It's a stylized performance of the American pop score, "Man in the Mirror."

Through gesture and voice, grouped or isolated into view, the choir sends out a message, inviting the viewer to contribute new content by seeing, reading, and thus experiencing and re-signifying how this score relates to contemporary life today, and more importantly to themselves. It's both mesmerizing and memorable—I guarantee the song will get stuck in your head for a few hours! For more information about Leigh and her work you can visit her website.

Or, for those of us lucky enough to be in/near Montreal, Leigh will be showing the piece at La Centrale in a couple of weeks. See more info below.

Ensemble
Opening Reception: 13 October 2007, 7-9pm
13-14 October 2007, 7pm-4am
La Centrale
4296 Boulevard St-Laurent
Montreal, Canada map
tel. +1 514 871 0268

CreateAskate

by Phuong-Cac Nguyen

"Five million in five years." That's CreateAskate founder Paul Schmitt's goal for his DIY skateboard building program aimed at students.

The skateboard industry veteran, who built a rep from his '80s board company Schmitt Stix, launched the offshoot non-profit CreateASkate program few years ago, educating students in principles of math, art and—perhaps the most important of them all—hard work. Aspiring young skateboarders benefit from hands-on construction, starting either rough from a square, angled board or from an already pre-cut board.

In addition to building skills, students gain other lessons as well, first convincing classmates to petition teachers to sign up for the 10-hour program and promising to raise the $20 cost per participant. (Fifteen goes for the board and curriculum and the rest goes towards shipping, sandpaper, art materials and sustainable efforts, like planting trees to offset the wood used in the boards.)

With the full support of Fuel TV, which is giving him his own booth on the current AST Dew Tour to demo his program and a current push to find sponsors (namely corporations that could help out with the supplies used to make the boards, like Home Depot or Turtle Wax), Schmitt seems well on his way to reaching his numbers.

To see video of CreateAskate in the classroom, head to the website.

Rack Magazine

by Lost At E Minor

With their clever title and seductive photography, we're excited about the new street culture quarterly, Rack, a Chinese-English bilingual magazine. Content-wise, it's heavy on pan-Asian youth culture, but it also looks around the world at graffiti, skateboarders, design, other creatives and "general mayhem."

Flip through parts of the current issue and subscribe at Rack.