Christiaan Postma Clock

by Brian Fichtner

The sprawling Spazio Rossana Orlandi was almost a fair unto itself, featuring the annual Design Academy Eindhoven student show and work by Piet Hein Eek, Front, Jaime Hayon, Studio Libertiny and many others. One of the most intriguing pieces on view was a clock by the Stockholm based, Dutch designer Christiaan Postma.

For some reason, one of the perennial engagements in design is the nature of time. Like the side chair, which is one of those iconic objects every designer must face, the clock has received particular attention over the years. Just last year, Established & Sons released Sebastian Wrong's sensational Font Clock, a piece that viewed the passage of time through an ever-shifting array of fonts. I think Christiaan has trumped Wrong on the conceptual level with this clock.

Composed of more than 150 individual clocks mounted to a 140 cm x 140 cm panel, hour and minute dials are clustered in a seemingly haphazard pattern. In actuality, the groupings have been meticulously arranged and the times coordinated so that when the time is say, twelve o' clock, a cluster of individual clocks at the top of the panel spell the word twelve. These groupings have been laid out to recreate the twelve hours of an analog clock. What happens when it's 3:30? Well, as three begins to pass into four, the former starts to disintegrate into illegible lines, while the latter starts to take the shape of an actual word, in this case, four. It's an engaging representation of the ephemeral quality of time, and a slow reminder of its inevitable passage.

Turn Nocturnal T-Shirts

by Mike Giles

Western Massachussetts-basedTurn Nocturnal design studio is the brainchild of designer Matt McInerney and his good friend Jack Strong. Busting onto the scene a few months ago with their best selling font driven "Huge Type Looks Sweet" t-shirt ( still a favorite of mine) they've since followed up with a few others, their latest is "Turn The City and is available, along with Huge Type screened on American Apparel blanks for only $17.

E&Y: Greenland

by Brian Fichtner

Just steps from the infamous 10 Corso Como, the Japanese brand E&Y mounted a modest show at Galleria Antonia Jannone under the name "Greenland." The title was supposed to reference both global warming and the changing nature of the namesake country. I didn't quite get the connection between their products and sustainability, especially considering the wanton (albeit well-designed) use of paper and cardboard in the press kit.

In any case, the new products were connected by a sense of humility and serenity lacking in many releases this year. E&Y has brought several products by Scandinavian designers to the market this year, notably Mårten Claesson, Cecile Manz, and Mika Tolvanen. Tolvanen designed Riuku (which means lath in Finnish), a bench made from nyatoh wood that resembles a sawhorse—it's about as minimal as a design could be. At a time when reusable shopping bags are becoming the rage the world over, Cecile Manz has riffed on it accordingly, creating a bag that looks as though it could fold neatly for storage. It's actually made from thin veneered wood, bound together with colored tape.

A couple more highlights from E&Y's show were the Oblique vase by Gen Sizuki, a poly stone vessel with a skewed distortion, and the 4FB coathanger by Koichi Futatsumata, a perfectly simple assembly of four flat bars, powder coated in black, white, or brown.

Banana Splits Beanie

by Letizia Rossi

The Banana Splits Beanie from London design team You Must Create is a 100% cotton hat with two eyeholes in the brim to perfectly execute your springtime Dumb Donald look. The hat is available in both camel and a darker mushroom color for £35.

Update: Thanks to Brian, a reader, for pointing out that it was actually Dumb Donald of Fat Albert fame who wore a similar hat. As for the Banana Splits reference, that's a question for the folks at YMC.

via The Kill Joy Papers.

Also on Cool Hunting: You Must Create, Spring/Summer 06

The Kiss Off

by Doug Black

Though they formed last year in Brooklyn, The Kiss Off could easily pass as Manchester natives from the early '80s. The band was founded by guitarist Adam De Rosa and bassist Nathan Lithgow, who lay distorted melodies over catchy drumming and synth drones. Sam Tyndall's vocals complete the band, which sounds something like a better-produced Joy Division or a more brooding Franz Ferdinand. The band just finished recording their debut six-song EP, Brace, available streaming on MySpace. If you enjoy Eno-era Bowie or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, you might just want to pick it up.

The group will perform at Galapagos in Brooklyn on 29 April 2008. Keep up with future shows and listen to tracks from Brace on their Myspace page.

Bananagrams

by Evan Orensten

Bananagrams is a multiplayer anagram word game that uses tiles with letters. Each player constructs their own freeform group of words at the same time, drawing or exchanging tiles as needed until someone has used all of their tiles. That person wins the round, which can take as little as five minutes to play.

The Nathanson family loves word games, and came up with this fun game during a summer holiday when they were looking for something that was easy, quick and addictive to play. The tiles come in a yellow banana pouch. There is no board or point counting, making it really easy to travel with or throw in your bag.

Bananagrams is available direct, from retailers listed on their site, and at Amazon.com.

Thanks to Robin R who introduced us to Banagrams.