Mercedes Aesthetics No. 2

Mercedes Benz has just showcased their latest design experiment at the Detroit Auto Show. Known as "Aesthetics No. 2", the designers drew inspiration from organic forms and made use of an extensive sculptural process in order to arrive at the final design.

It's a creative way for a luxury brand to showcase not only their premium nature, but also provides a more human connection for the everyday person and certainly does a great job at building the brand.

Via - YouTube

Kanye West – Louis Vuitton Collaboration.

In a first for French luxury fashion giant Louis Vuitton, the brand has collaborated with American based Hip Hop artist Kanye West to create limited edition designer Louis Vuitton sneakers.

Marc Jacobs, Creative Director for the Louis Vuitton, approached Kanye West after the success of his collaboration with Nike. Kanye West and Nike collaborated to create the Nike Air Yeezy in 2003. Louis Vuitton is launching ten Marc Jacob designs of the Don sneaker.

West commented on the collaboration by saying “I’ve always stressed my passion for design and Louis Vuitton is at the forefront of groundbreaking design”. The sneakers launched in the U.S on the 6^th of July at $ 650 (R5 200) per pair.

Via:headhoncho.com

Bentley's Job-Saving Innovation

Having highly specialised and skilled workers is beneficial to companies for so many reasons. In the midst of the current economic downturn, luxury car company Bentley has found a new, meaningful and profitable way to keep their staff busy.


The company's factory in Crewe employs a team of skilled woodworkers to make the gleaming walnut Bentley dashboard and wood trim. Now Bentley are redeploying 140 members to use off-cuts from walnut wood to make cabinets, tables and other furniture to make unique and bespoke furniture for the factory's reception area.

The UK Daily Telegraph claims that the company also plans to use the furniture in Bentley showrooms and could even come out with a line for the public if there is enough demand - but will probably cost more than most people's houses.

Via: Daily Telegraph

Apple's Continuous Innovations

Apple has introduced a whole lot of additions for their fourth generation iPod Nano, as well as improvements to the second generation iPod Touch and some new features incorporated across the new iPod range as well as iTunes.

The new Nano will be the Apple's thinnest iPod to date and features a sleek new design with a curved aluminium and glass enclosure, available in nine colours. Along with a refined interface and high resolution display, the device also has a built-in detector, which automatically flips the image on screen to fit the way the device is held, and automatically goes into Shuffle mode when lightly shaken -- dubbed "Shake to Shuffle". Also included is the Apple's "Genius" technology, which automatically creates playlists from songs in your music library that go together, as well as automatically going into 'Cover Flow' with just a turn of the wrist.

iTunes version 8 includes the Genius feature and for the first time offers television programmes in high definition for sale on the iTunes Store.

BMW's Transparent Speed

BMW’s latest Art Car exhibition, called Transparent Speed, is currently on show in Tokyo.

The artwork, designed by Japanese artist Jun Aoki features his interpretation on the visualization of speed.


Aoki wanted visitors to not only visualise movement, but physically feel movement, while at the same time seeing the artistic displays.

To accomplish this, the artist hung 10,000 clear plastic pipes of varying lengths from the ceiling providing a tangible presence for the air in the room. The end result bears a strong resemblance to the images produced by aerodynamicists while studying airflow.

Have a look at the Wallpaper for more information and some amazing visuals.

Land Rover Sculpture

To mark the 60th anniversary of the Land Rover brand, the car manufacturer has unveiled a very big sculpture at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The Festival of Speed is regarded as the world’s biggest and most diverse celebration of the history of motor sport and car culture. It’s held each year at the Goodwood estate 60 miles outside of London. The festival is known for it’s yearly hillclimb event that pits cars from all eras against the clock on the 1.16 mile course that winds through the grounds.

Designer Gerry Judah, who has been designing and producing large scale sculptures for the event for over ten years was commissioned by Land Rover for the giant sculpture.

The structure weighs 120 tonnes and is held together by nearly 5000 bolts. Anchored to the structure is a selection of 5 current and classic Land Rover models.

Must have been quite an impressive sight and shows off the brands heritage rather well, in my opinion.

Via: PSFK

Conventional Wine With Non-Conventional Packaging

Designed by a Spanish communications agency called Baud, the packaging for the Lazarus wine bottles incorporates Braille inscriptions along with some warm colours for those who still have the gift of sight - resulting in an attractive and eye-catching packaging.

Via: TrendsNow

UnBeerlievable Designs!

Nastro Azzurro in Italy has released the finalists for a design competition, curiously named "UnBeerlievable".



Participants were invited to make use of the Nastro Azzurro bottle as their source of inspiration in their designs and the results are quite astounding. 33 finalists have now been chosen, with their work showcased in a traveling exhibition called Unbeerlievable Collection 2008.

Click here to view some of the work.

Via: Designerblog

Nike & The Art of Football

Nike launched a new social networking-type program called 1/1 earlier this month in an attempt to build a community of artists around the Nike brand and the theme of soccer.

The site invites users to join the 1/1 community and submit a football-themed piece of artwork which is then displayed in the online gallery from which 11 winners will be shown at a real-world exhibition in Basel, alongside the work of 11 professional creatives. Ultimately, one artwork will be used on a limited edition pair of shoes.

There're still a couple of days left for you to submit your inspired design as entries close on the 18th May 2008!

Art From "Design and the Elastic Mind"

We've blogged about Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition before, and while the concept of organising traditional research data into aesthetically pleasing works of art sounds like a great idea, it's hard to understand fully how amazing some of the art works can be.

Below is a clip called "I want you to want me", which examines and organises data from online dating sites and reveals some deep insights into who we are and what we are looking for.

"I Want You To Want Me", by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, for their "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition.

Chanel Merges Art, Architecture & Design

Chanel exploits the growing trend of architecture and art as luxury brand communication as its UFO pavilion began its two year global tour in Hong Kong earlier this year.

Chanel Mobile Art is a groundbreaking travelling art exhibition, all housed in a mobile, 2,300-square-foot UFO-shaped structure. It weighs 180 tons and was shipped to Asia in 700 pieces, each no bigger than an inch or so thick and about seven feet wide, then assembled in Hong Kong over the course of a month. Organisers predict that it will take two weeks to disassemble and about three weeks to ship to the next stop in Tokyo. From there it will continue on a six-city tour that runs until early 2010, traveling to New York, London, Moscow, and, finally, Paris.

Agro-Housing

According to a UN report, in 2010 about 50% of the Chinese population will reside in cities. This huge migration from rural regions to new urban settings will create a dramatic cultural and social crisis, a loss of existing traditions and considerable unemployment.

Some of the inevitable results of this mass urbanisation are the depletion of natural resources, the exhaustion of urban infrastructures and natural resources, as well as the disproportionate increase in air and soil pollution.


The winner of the 2nd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing, Knafo Kilmor Architects, presented a concept which addressed all of these concerns. The Agro-Housing program is one that combines a high-rise apartment complex with a vertical greenhouse within the same building.

The idea behind Agro-Housing is to create a close to home space where families can produce their own food supply according to their abilities and choices. This will allow the citizens more independence, freedom, and additional income.

Click here to view and learn more about Knafo Kilmor and their winning concept.

Pop-Up Boutique Hotel

Prefabricated apartments and housing were post Second World War inventions aimed at providing a source of affordable housing for returning soldiers. Many of these structures still stand today in various cities around the world and many of them, I’m sure many would agree, are aesthetically challenged.

Enter architect Tim Pyne. He has plans to open Britain’s first up-market prefab hotel in East London by the end of the year, called the “M-Hotel”. Allegedly, the building can be moved or taken apart and used as separate units for sheltered or temporary housing elsewhere, if needed. The structure can also be made bigger if there’s a demand for more hotel space, by just adding more modules.

Pyne has previously built container-style apartment units which slot together to make a block, which was developed in 2001.

Design Police

The design-minded now have a means to voice their aesthetic-savvy opinions. An organization calling themselves the Design Police have introduced a downloadable “Visual Enforcement Kit” which gives the offended consumer the opportunity to protest using a series of offense-marking stickers to gleefully place on bad kerning and other so-called ‘layout tragedies’. Statements vary from 'Do not use clip art!' to 'turn off the CAPS LOCK.'

http://www.design-police.org/