The Things We Keep

Another interesting meditation on the significance of objects Danish filmmaker Christian Svanes Kolding created this wonderful short film featuring objects he had accumulated during his move from Denmark to the west coast of the US and then to New York. The film is one continuous tracking shot across seemingly random objects. As objects pass by, […]

The Blu Dot Real Good Experiment

Design products store Blu Dot conducted an experiment that used a combination of video, technology, mapping, social media and the average person’s desire to find something really great for free. On the sidewalk. Putting together a “Mission Impossible” style team to wire a bunch of designer chairs, place them in locations around Manhattan, set up […]

Bike + Nike + Chalkbot = Inspiration

A brilliant exercise in combining a elements together to create something powerful. Nike and the Lance Armstrong Foundation paired with technology, the Tour de France and thousands of individuals wishing to honor loved ones touched by cancer. The team put together a machine that chalked messages onto the road-surface along the tour’s route. The messages […]

American Vice: Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins

These great infographics from Wired’s September 09 issue were created by a team at Kansas State. The set of maps represent US per-capita statistics that you could associate with the Seven Deadly Sins. I don’t want to venture into what story is being told in different regions of the country but it is quite interesting. […]

Fighting back with Art and Flowers

Pete Dungey, a graphic design student at the University of Brighton created a public art installation Pothole Gardens to highlight the deteriorating condition of roads around him. At once a brighting of the landscape it also communicates the collective problem by drawing your attention back to something we are all trained to just drive around. […]

1 picture telling 1 story

These ads by Lowe Pirella Fronzoni of Milano grab your attention and communicate the story in a nearly visceral way. The most compelling image is so graphic yet is comprised of a puppy and simple off-the-shelf cosmetics found in nearly any purse. We find this an excellent example of walking the fine line between shocking […]

The Story of Stuff

Since we posted the “Where Does It All Go” article the other day, we thought we should also post environmental activist Annie Leonard’s The Story Of Stuff to fill in the where does it come from part of the eco-equation. This twenty-minute piece does a great job of explaining the many steps that our products […]

Where does it all go?

A person once told me that he was sure much of our ecological crisis could be avoided if we asked “when you buy something, imagine where does it go when you’re done with it?” When we imagine the energy, materials and conditions that make our products we make decisions that are better for the environment […]

The Significant Objects project

In a fascinating and successful series of experiments the Significant Object Project has explored the power of connecting a story with an everyday item. In the first experiment 95 writers (including Nicholson Baker and Jonathan lethem) each made up stories about thrift-store objects. The objects were then posted on EBay to see what their value […]