Irving Harper has been a long time hero of ours. We were first introduced to this design legend in 2001 from an interview in Metropolis Magazine. It was our first realization that George Nelson was credited for many of the iconic designs that Harper had created. Designs that are still being manufactured today by Herman Miller, Vitra, and Maharam from the Marshmallow sofa to the popular desk and wall clocks. Slowly but surely Harper is being recognized, either for his design contributions or his paper sculptures, a hobby he took on after hours. Michael Maharam is helping to document these sculptures in a monograph to be published by the end of the year. New York Times visited Harper recently at his home in Rye, New York, capturing a portrait of the him in his studio. Interestingly enough, the photo was shot from the same angle as the 2001 photo of his studio in Metropolis Magazine – every bit of the space appears to be the same.
This is an amazing short film I found while searching Vimeo.
Take a few minutes and watch it, I don’t think you’ll regret it. As I watched this so many emotions came about. This story covers the seemingly mundane life of a janitor, William Turner. At first glance you’d think he was just a normal boring janitor, but as the film unfolds interesting events unfold.
Shot on the famous 5D MkII at 30 fps then converted to 24 fps.
Any architecture that is built with nature in mind, is made with concrete and has wooden interior elements, immediately gets an instant like from me. There’s just something about the combination of wood, concrete and trees that I love.
In this case the trees were included by law. Local construction codes of Mar Azul, Beunos Aires, Argentina actually restrict the removal of trees. Instead of relocating the house the architects, Martín Fernández de Lema and Nicolás F. Moreno Deutsch, decided to build the house around them. Leaving the end result a beautifully designed, wide open house that is seemingly the perfect spring or summertime residence.
A novel concept and beautiful exterior make Martin Skelly’s Playlist Player vinyl emulation system a certified object of desire. The device — which plays back digital files in an apparently Serrato-like manner — attempts to simulate the classic ritual of the vinyl LP.
“There are two parts to the design: the player, and the record box containing five different coloured covers. Once the playlists are chosen and synced to the player with a memory stick, the user customises the outside of the sleeve with artwork of their choice. It could be photos of a memorable night or person or typed and hand drawn tracklists. Once the record is placed on the player, the music begins and the outer ring of lights illuminates. As the playlists plays rings of light visible through the translucent record move towards the centre of the disc, like a needle tracking on a record. These lights represent time and not the number of tracks, meaning your music must be enjoyed from start to finish with no distractions like the temptation to skip tracks, fast forward or rewind.”
Seeing people designing experiences like this is always nice, but it does illuminate the rather unsettling fact that the album format is dying. People are consuming media in ever smaller chunks and the LP experience is no longer the norm. I think this is a huge loss and an unfortunate consequence of the on-demand nature of the internet.
Although I grew up listening to 8-track, vinyl, cassette tapes, and then CDs — all of which tended to be enjoyed in album format more often than not — I must admit that I jump around a lot when consuming MP3s. I have recently begun rebuilding my music collection in lossless FLAC though and this has encouraged me to listen to more music as whole albums. If Skelly’s Playlist Player supports FLAC or WAV it might make the experience that much more enjoyable.
