Studioclues

In my area in Baltimore I have found a few architetural salvage places around town. They resell architectural pieces, antiques and artifacts from houses and businesses from the past. Some really interesting stuff.

http://www.housewerksalvage.com/

I love scouring through the thrift shops of Baltimore looking for a rare find. I have picked up a few mid century chairs, a fan or two and some old photographs. About a year ago I saw this little kitchen timer exactly like the one shown below. I picked it up for $.99. I thought it was clean and beautiful. Today I googled it and found it sold on Ebay at some point for $35.26. It is in the MOMA collection online too.  Wow what a find.

I have been using Virtual DJ for a bit and love the simplicity and functionality. Basically you drag tunes from your Itunes and have the ability to fade, slow down, and mix them together. There is just enough functionality to not overwhelm you and all of the features are noteworthy. You can scratch, fade, and sync the beats per minute for better continuity between songs.

WordPress has completely changed the way I manage websites. It really has. And it has simplified the action of uploading content to the web exponentially. I use wordpress exclusively and will continue until something better comes out. It’s one of the most efficient and useful things I have ever seen next to the bicycle. you will be hearing more about them ASAP.

I stumbled onto the IDEO labs website somehow today. It appears they have this little blog where they post info on tools and prototypes that they use. I really dig their entire philosophy. This is an extension of their brand. To show information that they don’t directly profit from is key. They actually take the time out to contribute to the community this information.

IDEO Labs

I just stumbled onto Republic Bikes and was thoroughly impressed. What a great business. They build fixed gear bikes to order. you can customize all the colors. For $399. that’s it, no more. Fixed gear bikes have been growing in popularity basically because they are so simple. And oh yeah, by the way, people like that if you haven’t noticed. Take a look at the bikes in the image below. Beautiful. Anyway the website is so simple and to the point. And the brand message is solid. I love straight forward design like this. Just the fact that the site is tasteful, professional, and well thought out actually might make me trust them more and I really want one now.

Check it out. Republic Bikes simplicty adn honestly will always win.

So i got an invite to google voice the other day. I don’t know how but i did. So I really don’t have a need for the service. Maybe some people do. Basically you pick from available numbers  and then you can give that number out to people. When they call that new number google will then forward it on to your other phones. It also translates you voicemail to text and stores your sms. the only thing I don’t understand is that when I call someone frmo my cell phone google voice is completly out of the picture. So that would mean I would have to make someone call me on my google voice number and then I would all them on my cell number. Seems confusing to me.

Well there are some other great features, you can call someone through the web based interface show below and then google will call you phone and connect you for free. Anywhere in the US. Pretty awesome. It also has great rates for international calling. this is great if you want to set up business phone line and don’t want to get another number.

To sum up, it has some great potential and since google created it I would give it a try no matter how skeptical I was.

I went and saw the new Industrial Design documentary “Objectified” by Gary Hustwit last night. It was the First ID film I have ever seen, and it may bring some press to our field. It was nice to see some of the icons from our field speak in candid manner. Dieter Arms was interviewed and he gave a rather entertaining talk about simplicity in design. His work at Braun earlier in the century is still revered as some of the great product design to date. He is admired throughout the design community and Apple has has even been accused in the past of copying his style. Jonathan Ive, Vice President of design at Apple was also interviewed. One of the points he brought up was that was new to me, was that Apple actually spends just as much time designing the manufacturing methods they use as the actual products. Noone their fit and finsh is so flawless. 
Gary Hustwit, the director, was actually at the screening and gave a nice Q&A at the end. He also has done a documentary on graphic design called Helvetica.

http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/