Hannes Broecker's Drinkable Art

Read more on The Cool Hunter website.

Carga Bags

Recycled goods and interesting use of construction materials characterise these simple felt bags.

Carga website

Kikoy

All-cotton kikoy wraps from Kenya, would make a good and environmental(!)gift. They also sell stylish tops, dresses, and other fun accessories.

Kikoy's (so-so) website

Doshi Levien: Mosaic Range

Doshi Levien design house in London created a beautiful range of cooking implements for Tefal a few years back. The pots, produced under the name Mosaic, are used to prepare various special cuisines from around the world. They're a bit tough to find now but look to be well worth the search.


Moroccan Tagine


one of the beautiful bases
Businessweek profile of Doshi Levien

Pete Goldlust

I just came across these fantastic carved crayons by sculptor and artist Pete Goldlust.



Here are a few more pieces





Check out more on his website.

Josh Keyes

Josh's website

The State of Things Store

Heiko makes good things.

Shop

No Music Day

Eek. I was so busy adding The KLF's The White Room to my playlist that I didn't get wind of No Music Day, organized by Bill Drummond of The KLF.



You can read more about it on their website and on this enlightening NY Times article. I guess I have a year to get ready...

Beard Cap

(via KitsuneNoir)



A really stylish and fun way to keep most of the face warm, by Iceland group Vik Prjónsdóttir. Everyone cool is trying to figure out how to get this. I haven't seen any purchase links yet...

Vintage Flight

Vintage US Navy manual illustrations

Xiaoqing Ding

Her Myspace

Afroart

Afroart is a Swedish group working with artisans from third world (i guess that word's not cool anymore but i prefer it to "developing") countries. They have a lot of beautiful stuff on their website and in their store (which I hope to visit one day!)



Their English language website appears to be under construction but you can gawk at the beautiful stuff on the Swedish one for now.

Color Caution

Apparently T-Mobile has laid claim to magenta here in Europe, and are challenging other companies that try to use the color.

The petition to reclaim magenta.

Read about which colors and color schemes "belong" to which companies.

Pecha Kucha

from wikipedia

Pecha Kucha (pronounced peh-chak-cha) was started in Tokyo, Japan in February 2003 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham as a designers' show and tell event to attract more people to SuperDeluxe, their multi-media experimental event space they had set up in Roppongi.

The idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have many presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one night. Therefore the 20x20 Pecha Kucha format was created: each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up. Each event usually has 14 presenters. Presenters (and much of the audience) are usually from the design, architecture, photography, art and creative fields, but recently it has also streched over to the business world.

Time magazine article on Pecha Kucha

Icon magazine article on Pecha Kucha

Icon article on Klein and Dytham

JUJU Design Party

(from the website)

The JUJU Design Party was established in 2005 as a platform for the work of seven young Finnish designers specialising in interior products. The individual members have a strong sense of self and know-how and this binds them together as a collective unit. Operating through trade fairs and exhibitions, JUJU seeks to make contact with manufacturers and retailers to undertake design projects and prove its design credentials.

We Do

We Do is a Ljubljana-based creative consulting/ design firm. I just met these kids yesterday. They are doing some interesting stuff with chocolate.



Not 100% sure what they are up to at the moment. I guess I'll be finding out more.

Hotel Fox, Denmark

Every room is decked out by a different artist.


Genevieve Gauckler room


Boris Hoppek room


Hotel Fox's website

Blake Hamster Collective

(from their website)

Blake Hamster is a collaborative effort by a loose network of designers, artists, marketeers, journalists, authors and musicians from all over the world. It is their aim to experiment with different products, production processes and distribution models while upholding a set of aesthetic and ethic ground rules.

A Blake Hamster release may take on many forms. This time it is a range of shirts, next time it could be anything from sweaters to a collection of household wares with a stylish twist, to a magazine or an art-show.

But each and every release will be unique in its design, limited in its circulation, of high quality and as ecologically and socially conscious as possible.

The Tough Alliance

I live for the one or twice monthly emails I get from Sincerely Yours/ The Tough Alliance. They are either videos, remixes, new songs, online art, or some amalgam of it all. They understand the power of free and are doing great things. This band/label/art collective is truly carrying the torch of KLF into the new millennium.

Matilda Dobro

the myspace

Kaikai Kiki Co.

(from the Kaikai Kiki Co. website)

Kaikai Kiki Co was founded by Takashi Murakami in 2001, and evolved from its predecessor, the Hiropon Factory, which was founded in 1996.
Its goals as an enterprise include the production and promotion of artwork, the management and support of select young artists, general management of events and projects, and the production and promotion of merchandise.

Kaikai Kiki employs roughly 50 people in its Tokyo headquarters and 20 people in its New York office and studio.

Besides Takashi Murakami, Kaikai Kiki represents selected young artists Chiho Aoshima, Mr., Aya Takano, Chinatsu Ban, Mahomi Kunikata, and Rei Sato.

By organizing world-class exhibitions and projects, handling public relations and artist's biographies, and offering Murakami’s personal feedback on work in progress, Kaikai Kiki is dedicated to the growth of these emerging artists.

Opposed to Pain

An image from the Antikamnia (Opposed to Pain)Chemical Company of St. Louis, Missouri calendar (more here) for 1900. The dates also match 2007.