a blog by Alpha

Atheism 2.0: Alain de Botton

2012-01-19T04:01:00.000-06:00

Finally, a man who really questions religion vs atheism more insightfully and acknowledges the importance of religion which offers community, support and morality. For me, religion as an institution needs to be updated and atheism as a 'standing' needs to be more flexible and understanding. Alain says it all perfectly, watch it for yourself.

The only way is UP!

2012-01-17T05:20:00.001-06:00

Royal College of Art graduate, Victoria Spruce presented the following sculptural and sky-high shoes at the graduate show. The architectural shapes are formed with plastic and feature a soft leather insole and lining, that creates a smooth support for the foot within the hard curves. The higher the shoe the more beautiful the curves...ohhh Im in love! Tasty colours, often monochrome, her designs are gorgeous.

Check my 'shoes' tag for more posts on shoe brands and designers.

Colour my wall

2012-01-17T02:19:00.000-06:00

A great DIY project, if you have too many pencils than you know what to do with, but also if you want to be able to find them without opening too many pencil cases and drawers and boxes....Social Designer created this Coloured Pencil Wall display using 500 pencils and mounted plastic casings. Neat and tidy!

Spagnola & Associates's pencil wall

2012-01-17T01:31:00.003-06:00

In 2011, NYC based Spagnola & Associates faced the challenge of designing their new office space. They created a 20' wide dimensional wall to stimulate ideas and complete the office. 2804 pencils were hammered into pre-drilled holes in the panels. The completed wall reads, in custom designed letters, good design lasts. The entire process is documented in a stop motion video.

2804 from Spagnola & Associates on Vimeo.

Level Green

2012-01-04T09:18:00.006-06:00

Back in 2009, Berlin architects J. Mayer H. designed a permanent exhibition on sustainability for Volks Wagon's Autostadt visitor attraction at their Wolfsburg factory. Below you can see the inspiration is the green recycle symbol which grew and evolved into this overwhelming, futuristic looking exhibition space, keeping the colour pallette green and black.

The group's portfolio features flowing, futuristic shapes from urban and commercial projects to objects and installations. See their site here.
Via Dezeen

Happy Last New Year

2012-01-04T07:33:00.001-06:00

Russia's StudioIN designed a 'last' New Year corporate gift in the form of an apocalypse wine bottle. The tongue-in-cheek label includes 14 possible apocalypse scenarios, including natural disasters such as a pole shift or tsunami and terrorist attack, computer virus (well...the world as we know it would end) UFO attack and a rat invasion.

Via Lovely Package

Happy 2012

2012-01-04T04:22:00.000-06:00

Happy 2012 all...and if the Mayans were right about anything, this was your very last NYE so hope you made it count!

The wallpaper pictured here is courtesy of freelance animator / illustrator Willem Pirquin from Amsterdam. The mustache was his Christmas postcard for 2011. See his blog at the link.

Laundry in Milano

2011-12-01T06:53:00.000-06:00

The Laundry is a concept store in Milan, via Vigevano 20, which has a few different type of collections namely:

Main collection - Reused fabrics from selected tailors, textile merchants, etc.
Selected By collection: vintage clothes which changes month to month.
T-shirt Lab: Limited edition printed shirts by local graphic designers.
Reused: Recycled fabrics

The store also hosts music events with local DJs and also offer the space to various artists as an exhibition space. Clean, washed and NEAT!!

21 Suggestions for success by H.Jackson Brown Jr

2011-12-01T06:26:00.000-06:00

33 ways to stay creative

2011-12-01T06:25:00.004-06:00

Can't find the author of the list, but I thought I'd share:
Click for larger image.

Alex at ASO

2011-11-01T00:22:00.001-05:00

Bringing you some classical music bright and early, here is my not-so-little brother Alexandros Geralis conducting Beethoven's Overture Coriolan Op.62. More to come, so watch this space, enjoy!

Less is more @ TED talks

2011-10-28T04:13:00.001-05:00

TreeHugger Founder Graham Hill stopped by the TED Conference recently to outline his LifeEdited project. FANTASTIC, but I may need a stranger to come and do my ruthless editing! Nice render with the moving wall. Also see my old post with the 24-in-1 transforming apartment in HK.

Art or Vandalism?

2011-10-18T23:48:00.000-05:00

'A giant monument built in 1944 in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Soviet ‘liberation’, received an unusual and colorful makeover by an anonymous artist who calls himself ‘Banksy of Bulgaria’.

The Red Army soldiers were all painted into American superheroes and popular culture characters like Superman, the Joker, Captain America, Santa Claus and even Ronald McDonald.

Below the monument was also sprayed “Moving with the times” in Bulgarian.

Considering the original monument doesn’t represent the values and ideology of the Bulgarian society anymore, I wonder: art or vandalism?'

Post via Matador Pulse.

Adam Rix

2011-10-13T01:11:00.000-05:00

Adam Rix's playing cards-come-business cards have made their rounds on various blogs, and not by coincidence. The Manchester designer collected various playing cards from Ebay, car boot fairs and junk shops. They include glamour cards, birds, horses, and other such randoms and separated them all into four piles each foil blocked with a different colour with his logo and details. Ever so collectable and quirky! Love the randomized backdrop on his website.

HOWEVER, as lovely as Adam's cards are, a browse through the designers portfolio makes you realise there's more ideas where these came from!! He tends to use witty copy (as in the case of Adam Marketing Recruitment and Nando's crisp packets) and has dome some lovely book designs and layouts. Click the images for a larger view or see Adam Rix's site here.

Timeless design

2011-10-10T09:38:00.000-05:00

A table lamp that looks like it may have inspired CW&T's Circle hook lamp (previous post), this is the TC-6 by Dutch designer Aldo van der Nieuwelaar designed back in 1968 (via Vintage Home).

CW&T Studio

2011-10-10T00:56:00.000-05:00

CW&T is a Brooklyn based multi-disciplinary studio designing everything from lighting, to iPhone apps and jewelry. Some of their projects seem experimental and still in prototype stage, but none the less, great thinkers. Here are three of their projects I like:

Circle hook light

An elegant design, the Circle Hook Light is designed for a standard fluorescent FC16T9 bulb. Instead of using a switch to turn the light on and off, the bulb is hooked in and unhooked and rotated to turn off. The solid brass polished hook looks more like a coat hanger on it's own, but with the revealed circular bulb forms part of a sculptural wall piece. The only thing that comes to my mind is how one would turn the light off if it's been on for a while, because they can get pretty hot! Are gloves supplied?

Circle Hook Light OFF from Taylor Levy on Vimeo.

OBK

One Brass Knuckle, or OBK, is a nuckle duster ring which comes in stainless steel, gunmetal black or gold finish. Despite just being an interesting piece of jewelry, functional too according to their promo clip of a girl beating a steak. Nice shape!

Meat Tenderizer from cw&t on Vimeo.

Oblik

Oblik is a 6-floor residential,1-floor commercial block in Yokohama, Japan. The Facade consists of 13 degree cuts cast in fair faced concrete.

USA's 50 most influential designers

2011-09-16T00:19:00.001-05:00

'Co.Design's influence matrix tracks designers from the virtual (websites and information) to the physical (cars and even spaceships). Thinkers wield influence through writing and leadership, while makers exert it through their work.'

Great interactive infographic by Kristina Dimatteo that allows you to click on the name to see what each designer is best known for. See it here.

Chris Wharton's book covers

2011-09-12T01:32:00.000-05:00

Some lovely book cover proposals by my pen pal, London based illustrator Chris Wharton. The authentic 'penguin book' style is unmistakable an I like that the back cover is part of the image, allowing for a larger landscape canvas as opposed to being restricted to a small portrait. My favourite ones are Death in the afternoon and The old man and the sea. Have a browse through Chris's portfolio on Behance for more work.

Dimco RGB Remote

2011-09-07T04:51:00.002-05:00

This is the unveiling y'all! As some of you may (or may not know), I've left Pandora Ogilvy & Mather, and now work at Dimco Lighting as an in-house designer. This is the first of many packaging redesigns to come, which arrived at our office last week. This remote (along with the separately sold receiver) allows you to change the colour of LED lights. I opted for something simple and clean on matt laminated card with a rainbow ribbon which wraps around the whole pack. I found gloss lamination made the colours really pop, but the pack looked cheaper. Another more expensive option would have been spot UV on the ribbon and remote. Let me know your thoughts.

Monologue magazine

2011-09-02T01:10:00.005-05:00

Monologue magazine is a new large format magazine (42 x 59,4cm) dedicated to showcasing the beautiful male form, shot by well known fashion and art photographers. Composed of 50 pages, the exclusive portfolio focuses on a single male model every time. Only 1000 copies of the quarterly publication are printed each time, available at all major cities' good bookstores and newsagents, making it ultra desirable. The special binding allows the male-form-lover to take out pages to frame. Already a favourite on Queer me up. This is art...emm...yeah! Flip through the lusted after pages below.

Open publication - Free publishing

If logos told the truth

2011-09-01T08:37:00.000-05:00

Swedish designer Viktor Hertz designs these tongue-in-cheek honest logo of popular brands, including Apple as Appearance Costs, Facebook as Procrastination, Budweiser as Bellyexpander and Porche as Penis Extender (pahahaha). See them all on his Behance page here.

Artists Grocery List

2011-08-25T02:26:00.000-05:00

Probably the most beautiful grocery list you'll ever see. (via Q80)

Project 365

2011-08-25T01:11:00.000-05:00

Asja Boros's 2009 year long project of one photo per day has some interesting and playful shots of everyday objects as well as a combination of her illustrations and imagination. Have a browse on her Flickr album.

Cerebos salt

2011-08-24T01:07:00.000-05:00

Cerebos is an English brand of salt which is sold in Europe, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. The brand has history, and has stuck by it's 'See how it runs' slogan, describing how fine the salt is. But there's an old nursery rhyme by Simple Simon saying 'if you're close enough to put salt on the tail of a bird then you're close enough to catch it,' hence the mascot of the little boy chasing a chick. I remember the simple white table salt pack being in our kitchen from a very young age in South Africa, and I'd recognize the name and mascot anywhere simply because it's so random, but now that I've done the research...not so random and actually quite clever. Some of the vintage tin cans and ads make a nice addition to a collection.

The C word

2011-08-22T10:20:00.000-05:00

Crisps, crisps, crisps....distinctly British crisps that is! Enter Tyrrell's new look by Big Fish. It's a tweaked version of the original design, but what a difference!. The new site also invites fans to upload their own photos and suggest new flavours which could be the next pack. I love the quirky photographs used and the elegant understated typography on spot colours. Crunch!