design

Design a watch for The One watch contest



I don’t like to blog about competitions because there are just so many and once you do one, you open the floodgates. But I’m making an exception for this one because it’s a bit unusual. The One watch contest is a design competition open to anyone who thinks they can create an eyecatching timepiece. I love a statementy watch (am currently eyeing this Jeremy Scott for Swatch fellow on Vestiare Collective) and the examples The One sent me show the brand is not afraid of bold innovation when it comes to design.

So the gist is, you submit your design, all the entries can be viewed on a website (hmmm, maybe an open invitation for copyists though?), the public chooses the top ten finalists and the winner gets €1000 and the watch put into production. Deadline is May 15th.



Noma Bar illustrated covers for Wallpaper*



Noma Bar Wallpaper Magazine

Lovely 3-D murals by illustrator Noma Bar for Wallpaper magazine. As you know, I’m a huge illustration fan and it’s so rare for illustration to be used on a mainstream magazine cover. How clever for Wallpaper*/Bar to come up with a concept that marries 2-D and 3-D with such great graphic impact for the Global Design issue of the mag (8 different cover designs in total)… (more…)



Louis Vuitton’s design legacy



Like Cartier, Louis Vuitton has produced a ‘fashion film’ that celebrates the brand’s heritage. Unlike Cartier’s lavish epic of special effects, Louis Vuitton has chosen to tell its story through animation. It’s pretty cool…

Christian Borstlap: Louis Vuitton I on Nowness.com.

The film celebrates the launch of the ‘Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs‘ exhibition that opens in Paris on Friday. Included in the Marc Jacobs part of the exhibition are a feast of multi media displays including a giant Tumblr page that will show some of the images and objects that makes up Jacobs’ style aesthetic. The Louis Vuitton part highlights the innovation of Louis Vuitton the man, who worked with the newest materials of the time and used design to answer a traveller’s needs (hence a trunk that turns into a bed – sheer genius). While Marc Jacobs has undoubtedly done some great things for Vuitton (hello Sprouse graffiti print), his style of design doesn’t really answer problems in the way that the original Vuitton designer did. I would love to see a guest project where industrial designers create LV fashion items that really have a useful function other than in addition to making us look pretty.