batikk's design blog

communication specialist & design lover. passionate about chairs, germany, social media, espresso, italo disco and 1930s architecture, to name but a few.

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80s design galore

On the web, it's quite hard to find information about 80s design. That's weird, because since the last decennium the 80s were - and are - kind of all over the place. A very good guide to 80s fashion and culture is Excess. This book is filled with images of music, clubs, advertising and fashion in the 80s, and the influence on more recent cultural phenomenons like electroclash. Especially in the depiction of masculinity and femininity the 80s were quite revolutionary (think Grace Jones and Annie Lennox).  Interior design literature on the 80s seems to be harder to find. That's a pity. Actually, 80s interiors weren't all that bad. Especially early 80s interiors had a sense of lightness and openness that is very agreable. Towards the end of the 80s however the influence of Memphis set in and everything became a coloured, kitschy nonfunctional mess :-). Anyhow, take a look at some cool pics, taken from old B&O catalogues. 

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the personal annual report

Every year, graphic designer Nicholas Felton makes his own personal annual report. It contains statistics about the past year in his life: how many beers he drank, how many times he ate at a pizzeria and sometimes even ... the number of teeth lost. This year, he crowdsourced his annual report. You can order it from the Feltron shop.

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the Vitra Haus by Herzog & De Meuron

Last summer, I visited the Vitra campus in Weil-am-Rhein (Germany). On the campus you can find buildings by Zaha Hadid, Jean Prouvé, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Alvaro Siza and Richard Buckminster Fuller. It's a who's who of late 20th century and contemporary architecture in a nutshell. The latest addition is the Vitra Haus by Herzog & De Meuron. I like it a lot. It's modern and fragmented, solid yet light and it puts a twist on classical archetypes, but it doesn't look forced or sterile. I'm curious to see what it looks like inside ... (pics from this website - thanks @tinekefoblets for the link)

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music improves your health

Music_facts

Making music improves your health. Evidence from around the globe has proved that playing a musical instrument can:

# Help asthma sufferers reduce their symptoms

# Relieve stress and increase well-being

# Build muscle strength and aid recovery

# Enhance the function of the immune system

(I read it here first - pic by Ananda Serné)

brand sites vs social media

Striking graphs showing that brand sites attract less and less customers, in favour of social media sites like Facebook. Conclusion: make your content as distributable as possible. Source: http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/loosing-to-the-social-web-visualized/

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how the bouroullecs work

Established & Sons make a magazine that contains some interesting interviews with designers. In the latest issue is a great interview with Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. The brothers talk about their creative process and how the Quilt sofa came about.

It's an interesting read if you're in design yourself. The brothers should design themselves a bit better though, they look a bit ill and tired from the picture :-).

Download it here.

 

ceci est un ventilateur

I recently came accross the Dyson fan. It's a fan without blades, based on the same technology and design as their Airblade hand dryer. Doesn't it look supercool? 
 

sylvain's torch.

Sylvain Willenz is a talented young Belgian designer. His Torch Light is a great product, referring to an archetypical lighting device but incorporating new materials. The casing (in one piece) is made of textured moulded plastic that looks almost like felt and feels soft. The lens is made of diamond-textured polycarbonate that diffuses the light very well. It works with a small eco bulb. 

I think the Torch Light is very well adapted to a flexible lifestyle: you can place it almost anywhere you want, you can transport it very easily, it's sturdy ... and it looks great.

(It's produced by Established and Sons and you can buy it online at Yoox. More info on Sylvain here.)

 

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