A colorful page from Nylon magazine, with added commentary from a co-worker (given to me because I wear a lot of bright colors, and would probably “wear all of this at once.”)
The front page of a 2001 Rolling Stone article about author and Merry Prankster Ken Kesey. I love the frame, typography, and brackets (and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one of my favorite books).
Mini-postcard from Danish artist Bo Bendixen. (My mom was born in Denmark, so I have a special place in my heart for the bold primary colors and simple lines of Scandinavian design.)
Large bumper-sized sticker from a Harry Potter sticker book (“beware of the DARK ARTS”).
Another graduation card, this one from KOCO New York. I especially love the quote: “There are only four colors, ten digits and seven notes; it’s what you do with them that’s important” (Ruth Ross).
A quote I wrote down while reading Oscar Wilde’s A Portrait of Dorian Gray: “It’s the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution” (Oscar Widle).
A little comic I drew in indesign about cubical and shared-office life.
The 2008 Shoe Mini-Calendar from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009 calendar shown above).
In the end, the walls of your office might define you more than the walls of your home. After all, these are random bits collected, taken down, put up again, transported from job to job or office to office. These little pieces mark who you are when you aren’t carefully matching frames with prints with the walls of your home. They just might be a sneaky way to understand the things that move you, and somehow help you get through each day.
[tags] time out new york, letterpress, typography, cubicle, decorate, postcards, graphics, calendar, card, graduation, Bo Bendixen, harry potter, sticker [/tags]
Today I offer you a tour of the walls of my office cubicle. A cubicle is always an interesting amalgamation of quotes, articles, and postcards — usually little reminders of what life really means, of things you might enjoy if you weren’t at work, or your own personal version of motivational posters or cynicism.
A beautiful letterpress graduation card from Hello Lucky. (Love the typography!)
A Frida Kahlo card featuring the image above, from the Frida Kahlo ArtBox.
An Edward Gorey postcard (“Donald imagined things.”)
A 2008 Frida Kahlo wall calendar.
A postcard featuring the 2006 National Poetry Month poster design. Love the poetry & graphic design combo!
The “you’re-loved self-esteemizer” availible for download as high quality pdf from Time Out New York. (Another example of great design, and very funny!)
New York Time’s Home & Garden section always has awesome slideshows sneaking peaks at unique and funky homes. The picture above is from “Secrets of an Offhand Decorator,” which shows off the East Village home of Pamela Bell, one of the original partners in Kate Spade.
Her children are a large part of her decorating, the couch shown here was colored by her daughter and her classmates.
On my last trip to Washington DC I visited The International Spy Museum, another DC “edutainment” museum, like the Newseum, that costs a $18 entrance fee, but is well worth it due to its sleek, new design and fun atmosphere. (I love well designed museums.)
The museum includes a mix of fact and fiction, including true-life spy stories and some prominent television spy history as well. Exhibits like “The Secret History of History” explain early code making and historical spy missions. Most exhibits include interactive features that help to keep older children (and child-like adults) entertained.
If you are in for a little Carmen Sandiego-like adventure, I encourage you to get a $25 ticket that includes the Operation Spy adventure. This adventure isn’t really very educational, and could be written off as a silly gimmick, but I found that it’s fun for adults and older children. You have to break into a room and a safe, follow someone on a security camera, and more.
If you choose not to do the Spy adventure, the museum provides you with a mini-adventure of its own, asking to you choose and memorize a “spy identity” throughout your museum trip.
As you may know, I spent approximately the last week in Washington DC. This time around I enjoyed a day at the Newseum. Unfortunately, it’s one of the DC museums that actually costs money, but for that money you get interactive, clean, sleek design (unlike some of the less-updated museums, such as the Air & Space Museum).
The Newseum is one among a brand of new “edutainment” museums popping up in DC (the New York Times recently reviewed some of these museums here).
My favorite exhibit, “Today’s Front Pages”, was on the top floor.
“More than 500 newspapers transmit their front pages electronically to the Newseum every day. Up to 80 are enlarged and printed for display in this gallery — among them one from every state and the District of Columbia as well as a sampling of international newspapers. Additional front pages are displayed outside the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue” (newseum.org).
I also enjoyed the special exhibit on G-Men & Journalists, where I got to see the actual cabin that the Unabomber lived in (yes, this is exciting to me). My cousins (and my aunts, actually) really enjoyed making their own newscast, which was later availible for download online.
If you’d like, take a 3D tour of the museum here, but I recommend an in-person visit!
[tags] Newseum, museum, edutainment, education, entertainment, Washington DC, travel, review, children, news [/tags]
These colorful houses in Japan have been posted on Cool Hunter, UO’s blog, Tree Hugger, and the NYTimes, but since I’m away on vacay, I thought a little re-posting couldn’t hurt, especially since they are such bright colors!
Part of the point of these homes is that they have wavy floors (and whatnot) and thus they are a little hard to navigate. Yet they are made for adults & the elderly, not kids! Supposedly, keeping you on your toes keeps you young (if you don’t break a hip trying to get to the kitchen).
I recommend checking out the NY Times article (especially this slideshow) for more information about these homes & a few others like them!
Cherryflava recently posted about Ikea’s “out of the box” advertising methods. How cool is this?
This “box” was placed in Brookyln and filled with furniture (elegently placed, of course, despite the small space… most of us NYC-ites like to say we “live in a box”) for Ikea’s grand opening.
Cherryflava also shows off another Ikea stunt where balconies were made to look like boxes for storage.
“The architectural designer Eric Clough embedded clues into a Fifth Avenue apartment, leading the family who lived there on a scavenger hunt through the rooms of their home” (NY Times).
I couldn’t believe this article today in the NY Times. You can actually be an adult and a real person and have a house with hidden drawers and closets and clues! (This may be more thrilling to me than when I found a book about tree houses that real, actual, non-unibomber adults live their lives inside.)
The apartment apparently comes with its own book, soundtrack, and slews of hidden doors, drawers, codes, messages, games, and treasures. And the architect put the whole adventure in without the family even knowing, and it took a year before they even realized there was a mystery to be solved!
For more pictures of the mystery apartment click here and read the full article here.
When I moved into my new room in Queens, it was not lime green. What a difference a day makes. Amazingly, I transformed a boring-brown stucco room into a delightful lime green & turquoise nest in less than 24 hours.
The very sad before picture (scroll down quick! you don’t want to look at this one too long!):
Thanks to the stucco walls, the entire room was painted (twice over!) in a single evening. Although I managed to not-quite follow the drying instructions, I nonetheless got great results (mistakes were pleasantly lessened by the already bumpy walls).
The very cheerful after picture:
Don’t you love my turquoise nook? (It’s a big messier these days.)
Continue on to see more before and after pictures! (more…)
I know, the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) and the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art) are the places to go in NYC, but if you want the kind of out-of-city experience you can only find in Manhattan, I recommend The Frick (5th & 70th). Why?
“The Frick Collection is housed in the former residence of Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), the Pittsburgh coke-and-steel industrialist…. Mr. Frick bequeathed the residence and the works of art he had collected over a period of forty years to the Board of Trustees…” (frick.org; pictures also from the web-site).
If you are student (or someone who considers herself to be a life-long student and still happens to have a seemingly valid Student ID card…), everyday is your lucky day because the entrance fee is a mere $5. If you aren’t a student the fee is $15, though Sundays are “pay as you wish” from 11am-1pm. (Fairly or unfairly, those under 10 aren’t allowed in the museum at all and those under 16 need adult supervision.)
My favorite painting there is (more…)
