The Dias

Introducing the Dias, a nice little floating storage unit from FurnID out of Denmark.

According to the site, the Dias opens up sideways like a matchbox, dictating the positioning of other furnitures by claiming a central space on the wall. The drawer is covered with pyramids with the exception of a small flat tray-like surface. This has partly been in order to create strong contrasts caused by the highlights and shadows from the surface structure, but also to limit the tendency to place all sorts of knick-knack on the horizontal surface.

Very nice, I'll take mine in black por favor.

That's Right,

HMK

How to Do 'Riskier' Work

Or: Who Cares If Your Ideas Are Brilliant If You Can't Sell Them?

Back in April Sally Hogshead gave six speeches in five days in four cities. They varied from a half-day brand workshop in Milwaukee to a tech conference in Northern California, with audiences ranging from venture capitalists to marketing executives.

Yet no matter what the industry, the topic or the geography, she was asked the very same question: "How do I sell riskier ideas?"

The question's wording varied, but the point was the same: The client/boss/board of directors kills new thinking that's deemed "risky." Now, these audience members aren't scheming to sell wacky, perilous, ill-conceived ideas for the sake of being creative, but rather smarter, fresher, more relevant ways of finding and connecting with consumers.

Problem is, in business, risk doesn't work like that.

Business isn't a coin with "risk" on one side and "security" on the other; it's a two-headed coin and that head is risk. Not taking a risk is risky. And if you take a risk, well, that's risky too. The landscape is changing so quickly that we must literally invent as we go. There are no off-the-rack solutions anymore. Today, the opposite of risk isn't security. The opposite of risk is getting run over by a truck filled with a shipment of status quo while you dawdle in the middle of the road.

So, what have you got to lose? Read the whole thing over at Ad Week: How to Do 'Riskier' Work.

That's Right,

HMK

Covered in Color

The smart folks over at Color Lovers have a nice section over at their site focusing on the color palettes used on current magazine covers.

These simple visual clues of color make a significant impact on folks browsing the magazine rack, illustrating and accentuating the contents of each issue while providing a nice pulse on what's happening in the ever changing world of color trends.

It's a pretty nice reference tool - check it out: Magazine Cover Colors.



And while we're on the subject of nice time saving color reference tools, I'm digging the Color Pallette Generator, Kuler from Adobe and Color Hunter. Both sites enable you to enter the tag, hex code, or image URL of an image to get a color palette that matches the image.

That's Right,

HMK

Rock Posters That Don't Totally Rock

Not sure who compiled Billboard’s list of the 25 Best Rock Posters of All Time - is it just me or are some of these just ok? I mean dude, we're talking of the Best of All Time!

Judge for yourself: 25 Best Rock Posters of All Time.

Really digging the above 1967 Johnny Cash poster from Hatch Show by artist Dennis Loren.

Thanks to AdFreak.

That's Right,

HMK

Feast Your Eyes

If you're like me and you appreciate the time, effort and talent involved in creating the perfect restaurant space you're going to love Interiors.

Mermaid Inn, Upper West Side

Allen and Delancy, Lower East Side.

Mercat Negro, East Village.

Interiors is an awesome and ever-growing photoblog documenting some of photographer Noah Kalina's favorite shots while on assignment for numerous dining and entertainment related websites in New York City.

Go Noah!

That's Right,

HMK

Now That's Fresh

Nice stuff from McCann Erickson, London.

That's Right,

HMK

Color & Mood Play

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was a key figure in Pop Art, an art movement that emerged in America and elsewhere in the 1950s to become prominent over the next two decades.

The Fauves used non-representational color and representational form to convey different sensations. Apply the same idea to the portrait of Marilyn Monroe below, using the controls to adjust the colors.

Click on Marilyn and experiment with how the color affects the mood:

how bauhaus was shaped into greatness

Bauhaus building, Dessau, photographed in 1926 by Lucia Moholy. (Lucia Moholy/Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin)

It was, as the young Philip Johnson wrote excitedly to his mother, "the most beautiful building we have ever seen" with "great strength of design. . . majesty and simplicity."

The building in question was the Bauhaus, the German art and design school designed in the mid-1920s by the architect Walter Gropius in the industrial city of Dessau. On his visit in 1929, Johnson, who grew up to become a famous architect, was equally entranced by the work of the students: so much so that he adopted Bauhaus habits, like typing solely in lower case letters. One of the teachers, the graphic designer Herbert Bayer, had banned capitals on the grounds that there wasn't enough time for them in the frenzy of modern life.

Read it all: bauhaus.

That's Right,

HMK

Holiday Style

Well, it's officially December 1st, 2007 - the Holiday Season!

Check out the nicely designed new web site of T, the New York Times Style Magazine as it makes its debut with a Holiday issue. T Style Magazine.

That's Right,

HMK

Yakety Yak

I really don't think I need to go into any great detail as to the where and why regarding the content of this post...

And speaking of travel - the above airsickness bag is from a wonderfully tasteful collection known as: Johnny's Barf Bags. Very nice and well worth the visit.

And if you're digging Johnny's stash, I've got a gut feeling you're gonna love THIS!

Special thanks to Wallace and Grommit.

That's Right,

HMK

So, What Makes a Product Cool?

You might want to read this before you head out for your next round of Christmas shopping. Especially if you're buying anything for yourself.

We may try to hide our lust for goods but our brain can't. Steven Quartz, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology, is part of a new generation of researchers exploring neuromarketing -- a new field that uses brain science to understand consumer behavior. Quartz and his colleagues roll subjects into MRI machines (which measure oxygenated blood flow) to see what parts of the brain light up while viewing images of iPods, Aeron chairs, Capresso coffee machines, and Oakley sunglasses. Their findings are challenging some basic assumptions about marketing and economics.

What exactly is neuromarketing?

A lot of people think neuromarketing is just using brain imaging technology to understand the decisions that underlie consumer behavior. Although technology is a really important part, brain science over the last decade has advanced at a tremendous pace. Neuromarketing is the application of this huge amount of information that's available in the literature in terms of how people make decisions.

Check out this The Fast Interview by Kermit Pattison: Steve Quartz on Neuromarketing – and why iPods are like heroin.

That's Right,

HMK

The above social commentary is an illustration I did back in 1996.

Very Well Done!

Croatian creative agency Bruketa & Zinić have designed an annual report for food company Podravka that has to be baked in an oven before it can be read.

Entitled Well Done, the report features blank pages printed with thermo-reactive ink that, after being wrapped in foil and cooked for 25 minutes, reveal text and images.

Now that's just genius!

That's Right,

HMK

Having A Lovely Day

Having a nice quiet Sunday afternoon after a long walk with the dogs and enjoying a few of the beers leftover from Friday night's little Tiki bash.. Just finished listening to a cool segment on NPR about paring wine with music.

Here's a little excerpt:

The Doors may seem like an unusual musical choice for a wine bar. If Cabernet dominates the tasting list, however, the sommelier would do well to play some of the group's angriest songs — at least according to a theory espoused by vintner Clark Smith.

Smith, co-founder of the R.H. Phillips Vineyard and senior enologist at Vinovation, a wine consultation firm, proposes that a wine's taste is dramatically impacted by the music that accompanies it.

Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, is best when paired with "music of darkness" — thanks to the ability of rage-filled songs to smooth out similarly aggressive tannins, Smith's theory holds. An idyllic Mozart composition, on the other hand, works in reverse, potentially ruining a good Cab.

Check out the rest and listen to the piece over here: National Public Radio.

Sounds interesting and I can't wait to test the theory. As for right now, I know for sure that this song goes great with just about any ice cold beer...

That's Right,

HMK

Cheesiest Classic Creatures

This is pretty sweet. Wired Magazine is featuring 10 of the Cheesiest Classic Creatures to celebrate Tuesday's release of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series in an HD DVD/DVD combo pack. The list comes complete with some nice screen grabs along with each creatures powers and weaknesses.

My favorite is this white gorilla with a horn and spines from the episode: "A Private Little War".

Powers: Poison, brute strength, surprising stealth.

Weaknesses: Women in bright-orange fun fur, blatant flouting of the Prime Directive.

Thanks to the magic of high def, and a painstaking digital remastering effort, we can now see these monsters in more detail than ever before - not that that's really always a good thing...

Take me to the Cheesy Monsters.

That's Right,

HMK

Movable Type

The New York Times Company Debuts "Moveable Type"

Movable Type is the awesome new permanent art installation in the lobby of the newspaper's new Renzo Piano-designed headquarters building on Eighth Avenue and 41st Street.

Artist Ben Rubin and UCLA professor/statistician Mark Hansen have created a multi-media installation of 560 small screens, mounted on two walls, which display information culled from the newspaper's archives and live feeds. Information is parsed and displayed by algorithms created by the artists.

That's Right,

HMK

Who's Blogging And Why?

Good question. Find some answers, lots of facts, theories and mucho mas over at Alex Iskold's wicked smaaht Technology Blog.

As for why I started blogging, I covered that in one of my very first That's Right posts back on my soon to be wife's birthday, July 23, 2004.

Have a great week and Happy Thanksgiving!

That's Right,

HMK

(thanks to swiss miss)

Nowhereland

There is no shortage of logos in the world, no dearth of brands striving for consumer allegiance and no chance that the creation of new brands and logos will cease.

In fact there’s an interesting subset of brands and logos that don’t bother with what seems like a crucial component: an actual product, service or company.

Consider the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. It’s part of the fictional universe depicted in the 1979 film “Alien” and its sequels; Nostromo, the spaceship freighter in the first movie, is a Weyland-Yutani vessel.

The company doesn’t do much in the way of branding in, you know, reality. But as it turns out, it’s possible to buy yourself a Weyland-Yutani T-shirt, or even a Nostromo T. It also turns out many people have.

Read the whole thing over at: The New York Times or go straight to the shirts: Last Exit To Nowhere.



Reminds of the custom Belushi COLLEGE sweatshirts I used to make for myself during my art school days at MassArt.

That's Right,

HMK

Cool Illustration by Peter Arkle

Left Brain or Right Brain?

Wow, this is kind of trippy and interesting.
Do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

According to Australian Herald Sun, if the woman is spinning clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Once again, more proof that I am in fact a right brainer. I can see it both ways (when I focus on her waist or her foot) but she's always spinning clockwise upon first glance.

Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

That's Right,

HMK

Include a Joker in Every Brainstorming Session

The link between humor and innovation, why authoritarian bosses fear humor, and the funniest CEO in America. The Fast Company Interview: John Morreall.

Humor makes us think more flexibly. People who think funny do better on creativity studies. To put it really simply, humor loosens up your brain to think of more possibilities and be more open to the wild and wacky ones.

There is a guy at the State University of New York at Buffalo named Roger Firestien who has a center for the study of creativity. When he teaches brainstorming, he says you should put a joker in the group -- somebody who will come up with preposterous ideas. Very often that will stimulate people to come up with ideas that will work.

Let me give you an example. A bunch of paint engineers were moaning and bitching about how hard it is to get paint off a house. One guy says, "Why don't we just put gunpowder in the paint and blow it off the house?" That led people to think, "What could we do that would be the equivalent of gunpowder?" They came up with a chemical they added to the paint and when you wanted to remove the paint you did a light wash with a second chemical over the first one. That didn't blow it off the house, but it allowed it to drop off.

It's funny how the use of humor as a mechanism for problem solving is alot like life. Some people just "get it' and other people just don't.

Remember these words to live by: He who laughs, lasts.

Read the rest: John Morreall FC Interview.

That's Right,

HMK

Holy Bat Lights!

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi Auckland, Australia.

This is a nice gorilla campaign for the launch of Batman Begins on TV2 in Australia.

Stickers were placed on footpath lights around central Auckland. At night when the lights were on, beams of light shone.

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to the smart folks at: Ad Goodness.

Become a Better Designer: 50 Tips

Check out the: 50 Ways to Become a Better Designer.

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to Tim Riley 澳大利亚 for the cool shot of Gate 50 at Adelaide Airport.

The Presence of Absinthe

1896 Absinthe J. Edouard Pernot by Cappiello.

Dear reader! Should this column impress you as being more than usually lyrical, recalling perhaps the imagery and elegance of poetry by Baudelaire or Verlaine; should it seem a bit decadent, redolent of Oscar Wilde’s withering hauteur; should it have a touch of madness or perversity, combining, say, the tastes of Toulouse-Lautrec with the passions of van Gogh; should it simply sound direct and forceful and knowing like one of Ernest Hemingway’s characters; should it do any or all of that, let me credit something that each of these figures fervently paid tribute to: the green fairy, the green goddess, the green muse, the glaucous witch, the queen of poisons.

Absinthe.

Continue reading this awesome article from Edward Rothstein over at the New York Times: Absinthe.

That's Right,

HMK

Tiki Must Be Stopped!

Tiki Must Be Stopped!

WHY?

That's Right,

HMK

Retro Futurism

Artist: Meere und Schiffahrt, 1964

Dig it: Retro Futurism.

That's Right,

HMK

The Charlybox

Sweet! Our good pups Ringo and Dazy (and of course Charlie up the street) are gonna love the Charlybox.

This cool and simple compact carrier is perfect for food and water when you're on the go with your favorite pooches.

Made of two halves, the Charlybox includes a two-liter canteen for fresh water, and two bowls for water and kibble. Snap the two halves together and you and your pups are good to go.

As usual with stuff from Design Within Reach, it's more times than not out of our reach, but we might just have to break down and snag one of these.

You can get your very own over at: Design Within Reach

That's Right,

HMK