by Joanna Prisco For the last six months, New Yorkers have been hotly anticipating The Great GoogaMooga, a free food and music festival to take place in Brooklyn's Prospect Park this weekend, 19-20 May. Created by Superfly Presents—founders of Bonnaroo and Outside Lands—the GoogaMooga has sparked much dialogue among summer...

by Katharina Galla The portrait photographer Christian Witkin is best known for his advertising and editorial work for major publications like New York Times Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, Vogue and many more. Entering what he calls "the second half of this life", he is now shifting his professional career to return...

by Adam Štěch Exploring the formation of the jewel as a natural process and celebrating it as a performance, the latest collection of distinct jewelry from the conceptual Prague-based designers Daniel Pošta and Zdeněk Vacek of Zorya fuses dynamic drama with simple beauty. The Virus collection, the most experimental project...

by Adam Štěch American artists like J. B. Blunk, Wendell Castle and Jack Rogers Hopkins are established heavyweights in the world of design and certainly represent the "haute couture" style of woodworking, but Czech master craftsman and turner Antonín Hepnar continues to work in relative anonymity behind the former Iron...

by Francesca Giuliani The nylon air-cleansing concept that won MoMa PS1's 2012 Young Architects Program, Wendy is now set to grace the Long Island City museum's courtyard during the forthcoming summer months. Designed by New York-based architecture firm HWKN, the project aims to test the potential of architecture for ecological...

by Matt Domino BOFFO was founded in 2008 as a means of fostering artist collaboration and inspiration in the design world during a time of financial and, for many young architects and designers, spiritual crisis. Nearly four years later, Faris Al-Shathir and Gregory Sparks, BOFFO 's founders, asked designer Andrew...

by Liz Cebron On a recent visit to the made in America brand collaborative Shelter Half, we discovered Stormy Monday Goods—thoughtfully repurposed and redesigned skate and cutting boards, branded with a simple thundercloud and given a second shot at life. These one-of-a-kind creations are the labor of love of Neil...

by L.S. Winkler In 2005, Swedish designers Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin began work on a joint masters thesis in response to new laws requiring cyclists under the age of 15 to wear a helmet while operating a bicycle. The new law left many Swedish cyclists wondering if helmet laws...

by Naheed Simjee A resurrected rapper by way of a hologram wasn't the only technological breakthrough that had people talking last week. Returnees from Coachella Part I flocked downtown on Thursday night for the opening of Transmission LA: AV Club sponsored by Mercedes-Benz and The Avant/Garde Diaries at the Geffen...

by Hunter Hess Based in Oregon's cycling epicenter, Portland's Black Star Bags has been producing bike-specific backpacks and bags for five years, gaining a strong following throughout the Northwest. Starting with a belt-driven sewing machine his friends found in an alley, owner Dave Stoops has built his company from the...

by Hunter Hess Seattle-based design firm Electric Coffin will be taking their annual show Boxes of Death on the road this year for the third time. What began with 20 artists exhibiting in the cramped basement of a hotel has quickly grown into a touring collection featuring more than 50...

by Alex Vitlin Following an 18-month, $53 million redevelopment project, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia relaunched in late March. The addition of "Australia" at the end of its title is appropriate: the MCA is no longer merely great art sequestered in a hokey building in Sydney, it's a modern...

by Blair Pfander If designer Bryce Bell has anything to do with it, business cards won't be regarded for their paper weight or raised ink, but by their ability to fling random objects through space. His latest invention, the "Trebucard", does exactly that, using the weight of 16 pennies to...

By: Davey Barrett At the close of a recent show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Jocelyn Mackenzie of Brooklyn-based band Pearl and the Beard held a screen-printed poster before a stupefied, packed house. Foregoing the disposable medium of CDs or LPs, the band employs the poster as the only...

by Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi When one thinks of Atlantis, a phantasm of decadence and splendor floods the senses, harkening a city at the height of its glory. For the "Atlantish: quite like Atlantis" collection, design collective Greece Is For Lovers (GIFL) turned to the present to communicate the allegorical allure of...

by Matt Domino Since 2007, Juliet Totten has embraced society's current entrepreneurial spirit as the co-owner and founder of the wedding decoration company Poppies and Posies. Building on the success of that venture, Totten decided to broaden her business scope by starting Cabin Cove Oysters, an oyster garden in South...

By Mark Buche Drop City is the artist community formed by clothing company COMUNE to attract like-minded artists to come together and collaborate on special projects. With an impressive group of new and returning artists Drop City launched their second group exhibition "Ce n'est pas la fin du Monde" or...

by Frank Galland Founded by Aaron Broudo, Brooklyn Night Bazaar brings the inspirational energy and madness of Southeast Asian night markets to a 40,000 square foot former carpet warehouse on the Williamsburg waterfront 15-17 December 2011. Broudo partnered with Ken Farmer, creative director of Nuit Blanche New York, to bring...

By Miranda Ward Annett Bourquin and Kerstin Greve founded the Lisbon-based label ANVE as a small but carefully curated collection of accessories, bags and home goods. According to the pair, the goal is simple: "We aim to make objects that stay with their owners and become more beautiful with life."...

1. Printstagr.amLeave a record of your Instagram addiction with these miniature printouts from Prinstagr.am, an online service that assembles posters, prints, minibooks, tinybooks and stickers of your favorite phone-cam stills. With some seriously affordable prices, this is a definite win for documenting your mobile adventures. 2. Puncture-Proof Tires Bridgestone...

by Miranda Ward 
 Launched last month, Fail+Canoe jewelry brings together two Austin-based designers, Christine Fail of Fail Jewelry and Natalie Davis of Canoe. Fail earned a BFA in studio art and starting creating her own handmade jewelry after spending more than five years with two major designers, while Davis—who...

by Maj Hartov Graphic design heavyweight Paula Scher's new book Maps covers her cartographic artwork since the late 1990s. She calls her large-scale paintings "distortions of reality," as they comment on our world of information overload in a deeply personal way. When she was a child, Scher's father—who wrote an...

By Miranda Ward Recently-launched brand Stolen Sunday makes youthful scarfs for men and women inspired by the enchantment of California dreams, proclaiming their desire to "remind you that life is pretty damn magical sometimes" in their cheery manifesto. Their handcrafted headpieces are cut in Los Angeles and sewn in San...

by Miranda Ward Founded by Zach Frechette, Cofounder and Editor of Good magazine, Quarterly Co. is a new subscription service delivering a batch of gifts handpicked by a cast of creative contributors. Like the four-year-old "object based publication" The Thing Quarterly, the upstart means to delight in an era of...

by Matt Spangler You know the feeling of finding the perfect suit? Any outfit that makes you more confident in everything you do—your steps a little crisper, your handshake a little firmer—is the kind of "feels good, looks good and you know it" experience I had riding the Moto Guzzi...

by Miranda Ward Stocking designer tea towels like Australia's Third Drawer Down and Unity Peg labels, the couple behind the U.K. purveyor To Dry For bring a little bit of art to everyday objects. Noticing a number of designers creating bright, unconventional tea towels as part of a range of...

by Bryn Chernoff Starting at Tokyo's Mori Art Museum in 2006, Cameroon-born artist Bili Bidjocka and Lausanne-born curator Simon Njami have been traversing the world inviting creatives of varied professional backgrounds to write on the blank pages of eight enormous books “as if it were their the last opportunity to...

by Adele Chan Presented in Asia two years ago, the first-ever Saporiti Design Award Exhibition showcased the works of nine promising Singaporean designers who were tasked with creatively conceiving luxury towers that would hold, store or display opulent objects. The Italian furniture brand awarded the prestigious trophy to Ministry Of...

by Adele Chan Where most go for increasingly hi-def effects, experimental Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga took a deliberately different direction with his label Anrealage, designing the Fall/Winter 2011 line around the concept of low-resolution graphics. Titled "Low" in reference to the throwback patterns, the collection includes skirt suits, coats, dresses,...

by Shawn Thomson Known for its unfiltered take on contemporary art in recent years, Germany's capital city has increasingly become an international stomping ground for artists, dealers, collectors and enthusiasts alike, all there to relish in an atmosphere without the financial constraints of art hubs like New York and London....

1. 14th FINA World Championships After shooting an aquatic competition in Shanghai from various angles, photographer Ezra Shaw found inspiration in the bizarre faces made by divers—no two alike and all extremely entertaining—as they plummet into the water. 2. Sungevity Sungevity, a home solar energy service based in Oakland,...

When the weather complies, a picnic represents near ultimate sensory satisfaction. Snacking and sipping, mingling with the beauty of the great outdoors, and basking in the warm seasonal glow—the tradition has all the romance of camping without forgoing a shower. For an update to wicker hampers or all-in-one sets (both...

1. Genital Instruments Panties get strummed and nipples are turntables in this NSFW animated short and accompanying website from the French organization AIDES, putting a comically risqué spin on what in most other cultures would be a typically-sober public service announcement. 2. Spectacles Dazed & Confused editor John-Paul Pryor...

Tickets for the 2012 99% Conference (held in New York City 3-4 May 2012) go on sale today, 19 July 2011. The conference, organized by our friends at Behance, is inspired by the famous Thomas Edison quotation "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." Unique in the conference circuit,...

by Davey Barrett "Drink your shots, pick up your beer and come watch us perform," Django Stewart commanded the crowd at Mercury Lounge last week. "We're Nightmare and the Cat," punctuated his brother and fellow frontman Sam Stewart, kicking off the show to launch their debut EP. Eight songs later,...

1. Bike Fixtation If you've ever ended up stranded in the city with a flat tire, you'll find the new Bike Fixtation kiosks helpful. The self-service stations are open extended hours for bicyclists in the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan areas. 2. LockCircle LockCircle's solid aluminum cap keeps Canon...

1. Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983 to 1993 Through August 14th, the Asia Society Museum in NYC will be home to Ai Weiwei’s solo show “New York Photographs 1983 to 1993." On view for the first time outside China, the exhibition includes 227 photos of the 10,000 he...

1. Mass Modern Auction Nearly 500 modern designs from Alvar Aalto to Sori Yanagi will go up for sale at Wright's final spring auction in Chicago on 9 July 2011. With no set reserves, you might just get lucky. 2. Rainbow Flag Redesign The design team at Worldstudio recently...

1. Lytro Start-up camera company Lytro is about to make missing the perfect shot more impossible. Their new technology allows photographers to edit the focus of an image—after shooting—using special computer software. 2. The Fold Wallet This elegant leather billfold keeps bills organized without bulking up pockets. 3. Embroidered...

by Jack Shaw While the idea of elevating industrial materials to the level of high design isn't new, recent creative experiments with polyurethane foam have yielded work that feels undeniably fresh. Widely used in the furniture production process, polyurethane foam rarely constitutes a visible part of the final product....

1. Hedi Slimane: Anthology of a Decade A collection of photographs shot by designer Hedi Slimane, this new book (available 31 July 2011) includes images created "before, during and after his tenures at Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior.” 2. Visionaire Issue 60: Religion One of the first and...

1. Dedegumo Workshop Japanese watchmakers create beautiful custom watches , combining traditional and modern design, while onlookers observe the process in their newly-opened New York Lower East Side store. 2. The Original Kavatza Pouch The World's Best Ever recently found the leather Kavatza pouch for "discerning stoners." The case...

1. Silencio Named for the club in "Mulholland Drive," David Lynch's Paris nightclub Silencio launches in September (opening hours run 6pm-6am) and will include a movie theater, concert hall, art gallery, restaurant bar and custom furniture like an amazing skull-shaped speaker. 2. Full Magnum Schlieren Check out this awesome...

1. Stillspotting NYC In an attempt to introduce a little calm into the urban landscape, the Guggenheim is tasking architects, designers, artists, etc. with creating " stillspots" in the five boroughs of NYC. The first such happening "Sanatorium" consists of Mexican artist Pedro Reyes' experimental (and experiential) therapy sessions...

1. Inception Chair Designer Vivian Chiu created this fascinating chair within a chair within a chair. The conceptual seating is so enchanting I almost can't remember whose dream I'm in. 2. Female Foosball Showing up in NYC for ICFF, the first-ever female foosball player finally puts the ladies in...

by Alexandra Polier As ICFF kicks into high gear this week in NYC, so do a number of satellite design fairs showcasing the work of hundreds of talented international designers. Alternatives to the ICFF provide a venue for the many independents who find the big tradeshow prohibitively expensive, but not...

1. Finger Nose Stylus For those of you who always wanted a convenient way to navigate touch-screens without dorky traditional styluses, Dominic Wilcox crafted a solution. His stylus conveniently straps to your face, allowing for complete hands-free navigation. 2. Land Rover U.K. Land Rover's recent print ad for their...

by Matt Spangler A few weeks after Coachella some bands have loaded their gear into buses and are back on the road, while others head to studios to try and capture the energy of the festival for next year's hit songs. I myself have been replaying performances to packed audiences...

Like any media-obsessed normal person, we've been riveted to the coverage surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and especially interested in the descriptions of whereabouts that overnight went from "cave" to "McMansion." Curious about what exactly goes into sheltering an international terrorist for six years, we...

Even audiophiles will tell you that sourcing the ultimate headphones is a hunt for the Holiest of Grails. Rather than look for an all-purpose solution, we surveyed the latest models to come up with the following favorite pairs tailored for different uses. Matched with some recent tracks that have...