Somewhere between found art, Picasso, and industrial design is where Object Factory’s newest US based installation takes place.

Object Factory: The Art of Industrial Ceramics is the first major U.S. museum exhibition to survey contemporary innovation in industrial ceramic production and the renaissance of ceramics in art and design today. The exhibition explores how artists and designers are reviving interest in ceramics through collaborations with industry that enhance and sometimes subvert the industrial process. Object Factory presents works created for leading manufacturers as well as artworks by independent artists and designers. Both non-functional and functional works are highlighted, as are important technological advances in ceramic material that allow for its use in electronic appliances, cutting implements, and other surprising products.

Object Factory has more than some 200 works by over fifty artists, designers, and industry manufacturers. This large collection features work by some of the greatest American, European, and Russian designers. The exhibit runs from May 6 to September 13th and it can be found at the Museum of Arts and Design

By train: A, B, C, D or No. 1 to Columbus Circle at 59th Street; N, R, Q or W to 57th Street and 7th Avenue F to 57th Street and 6th Avenue By bus: M5, M7, M10, M20, M30 and M104 to Columbus Circle at 59th Street or 57th Street and 8th Avenue

Museum Hours Tue. – Sun. 11:00 am to 6:00 pm Thurs. 11:00 am to 9:00 pm Closed Mon. and Major Holidays

SUMMER HOURS: Due to popular demand, the Museum will be open on Tuesdays from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm throughout the summer.

I’m not usually a fan of high priced, designer furniture, but come on. Giant foam balls with stretch fabric that you can mold into any position imaginable? It’s worth any price tag. Furniture that’s fun is something hard to create, but Animi Causa has shown that’s its possible to invent such a comfortable and enjoyable piece of furniture. Check out their online store if you want to purchase it, and make sure to check out their homepage for more information about their design studio.

A fun new exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, that opened last week, offers a look at the versatility and creative opportunities that come with working with felt. The exhibition, “Fashioning Felt”, includes the work of over 20 designers spanning products, furniture, fashion, and even architecture.

If you were wondering how to bring more felt into your life, this is without a doubt the exhibition for you!

But in all seriousness, the exhibition offers the opportunity to see how felt-making techniques are transformed into surprising results. Like the exquisite felt necklace with coral beads by Brigit Daamen, a necklace that shows both the durability and fragility of felt… or the very surprising Felt Rocks by Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen that will give your pet rock some competition.

The exhibition can be found at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, in New York City:

2 East 91st Street
New York, NY 10128

More information is offered on the Cooper-Hewitt’s website for the exhibition: http://exhibitions.cooperhewitt.org/Fashioning-Felt/

[Images from http://exhibitions.cooperhewitt.org/Fashioning-Felt/]

Chanukah Menorah!

Chanukah is the Jewish Festival of Lights which takes place every December and lasts for 8 days and nights. Chanukah celebrates the recapture and rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem by Judas Maccabaeus in 164 BC.

According to the Book of Maccabae once the Temple had been reclaimed a lamp was lit; this lamp according to Jewish law had to be kept lit and never put out! The only problem was that there was only enough oil to keep the lamp lit for one day. This of course is where the miracle comes in; the oil in the lamp lasted eight days, just enough time to aquire more oil.

To commemorate this miracle a lamp is lit during every night of Chanukah and placed in an eight-branched candlestick called a menorah. Here are some menorah examples:

Now this is an interesting Menorah, it is seems to be made out of nails!

Although this next one may not be religious none the less it is fairly interesting….especially if you are a cat lover like Fred is…

This one is very nice, I especially like the flame effects,

This one is also quite interesting,

And here I will leave you with what a typical Menorah may look like all lit up on Chanukah!

I hope you have all enjoyed this little menorah show. Hopefully you may have learned a little something about this Festive and fun holiday!

Happy Chanukah!

Gabi Lungu at Henkel Design Awards 2007

Ladies and gentlemen it’s time for your favorite portion of the Creative Fluff magazine blog (insert drumroll please) I am pleased to bring you the lucky Designer of the Week: OkapiStudio.  We were lucky to get in contact with a young design studio such as Okapi and after a few back and forth emails we were given the chance to review one of their best design pieces: The Shelf Concept Project.  

Before we go into detail about one of their best design projects, lets talk about a little of their history.  Okapi studio is an Art Direction and Design Consultant agency based California and Romania with over five years of experience in international markets “offering a fine mixture of traditional and new media creative services”.  OkapiStudio is run by three individuals: Gabi Lungu the Creative Director, Andrei Ostacie the Marketing Director, and Sam Purtill who is their managing partner.  

I’m sure I’m not giving their studio any justice when it comes to describing what it is exactly that they do so below is a short description from their website:

“OkapiStudio is a multidisciplinary creative shop, encompassing talents that excel in full advertising services, brand strategy, graphic, web and motion design. We help companies in the research and development process and we fine tune their brand and positioning by carefully planing each move.”

Enough background lets get into the awesomeness that is Okapi studio.   The picture above is from their exclusive Shelf Concept Project which at a glance looks like a normal, minimalist, and modern shelving unit that could be sold as an item through CB2 or another contemporary furniture store.  But as you can see below, there’s more than meets the eye when OkapiStudio is involved:

The shelves are modular, a concept that is being readily adopted by all industrial design groups recently (within the past two years).  Modular design is a good base for any furniture/storage project because it gives consumers/users the abiltity to not only adjust how their furniture looks within a space, but it gives those with smaller homes the ability to save on space while owning an exceptionaly designed storage system.

Below is a small clip from their website concerning the Shelf Project: 

“When we play in-house with our talent sometimes we come up with amazing things. This is a classic example of research for functionality while trying to use a cost effective solution for spacing issues. Be it used for home or office purposes, the modular office storage equipment is a flexible and smartly designed solution that adapts to space requirements. Built from plastic polymers, it comes in lightweight customizable modules that can be used accordingly to everyone’s needs. The shelf concept provides a fresh and modern approach to similar common wood based products on the market, with it’s perfect shapes that mold around the objects and the possibility for redesign on the fly to match any setting you might have in mind.”

If you haven’t googled them already, you should Check out the Okapi Design Studio here:

More and more designers have been emailing use their work as of late and I never thought I would see the day where I had to swim through design projects, designers, and exhibitions on a daily basis.   I’m obligated of course to take care of these in the order they arrive and this week Creative Fluff Design Blog is proud to have chosen DelineoDesign, a young Italian Student Designer who has an affinity for the modern, chic, and trendy.  His goals, in his own words are to “discover, experiment, reflect, and observe” and though his words might be out of order to me personally as a designer (which is my translation from Italian to English).  Delineo has skills across a series of mediums and I have had the pleasure to go through his work and choose what I found to be his most influential work.

I think it’s best if I start with his most ecletic work.  Aside from the modern furniture designs you will find on his personal website and later in this review, Delineo has a knack for functional footwear.  These soccer cleats (my favorite sport) are egonomically designed to conform to that natural shape of the human foot.  Much a trend in Delineo’s work, we find his taste of modernism.

One of his more interesting pieces, this lounge chair easily comes off as something you would find in an alien’s apartment, or perhaps your own living room ten years down the road.  Conceptually ahead of its time, this chair manages to retain what looks to be both comfort, and Delineo’s aesthetic tastes.

This last piece, and perhaps one of the most important ones in his collection is the Korebo racing mountain bike design specifically for the human body and comfort.  I would love to own one of these and can’t wait for them to wind up in the production stage.   If you want to see more of this young Italian student designer’s work, make sure to check him out at: http://www.delineodesign.it/

“Born in Durham, England in 1968, Jolyon studied Industrial Design at Sheffield Hallam University and then Automotive Styling at the Royal College of Art, London. After a spell at Opel in Frankfurt, working on the development team of the World’s first wholly ‘virtual’ car design, Jolyon was invited to Style Porsche in Stuttgart. In this capacity he worked on major internal and external projects. In a freelance role, Jolyon went on to work with Stefan Stark, Seymour Powell and The Product Group. Returning to New Zealand in 1998, Jolyon taught Design at Massey University in Wellington before taking up a role at Bakewell-White Yacht Design in 2000 Jolyon now participates in various international transport and design projects: his specialties include conceptualisation, development, rapid prototyping, visualization, print and web”

Our Designer Katherine describes the chairs as “very contemporary while maintaining their organic shape to them; most contemporary furniture is characterized by hard edges and simplistic forms without taking the human into account.” The chairs also remain “artistic” and it is “enjoyable to see that the furniture “is available in the original wood grain which would make the environment that it’s in more comfortable than it would be if it were made with cheap acrylic.  They also remain comfortable in appearance though the wooden grain might suggest otherwise.”

Overall, we were very impressed with Yates work and suggest taking a look at his website for more information on other products and updates with their design studio.

Amazing I thought to myself, what a great idea to turn something from junk to Design Motif. Although their website and their ordering information may be a little hard to use and somewhat inconvienent, for any lover of Modern Art and/or Bikes be it motorcycle or bicycle, these pieces are a must have. The look turns out to be so modern and edgy.

A really great aspect of this business is the fact that they recycle the materials instead of throwing them on the scrap heap. It is a great way to really rethink and reuse our everyday items. It definitely makes me wonder about other material goods I may throw away and what other uses I could just have for them.

So in conclusion, if you want to turn your bike into a rocking chair, check out Bikefurniture.com.

Here is their website if you’d like to look at more of their work: http://www.heatherwick.com/

• they support the UN declaration of human rights
• they support the declaration of fundamental principles and rights at work
• they support the UN global compact
• their production cycle “support[s] people, local craft traditions and the environment”

Mater takes their “interest” in designing ethically further than most companies I’ve seen, creating a responsible production cycle.

http://www.materdesign.com/