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Easily one of the most stylish movies of 2011, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has been in our sights for a while. It’s got nearly all of our favorite things—British tweeds, outlandish glasses, a few well-placed Steve McQueen references, just for starters. So we sat down with costume designer Jacqueline Durran to find out where she dug it all up. If you’ve ever wanted to dress like a 1970s intelligence man, start here.
In case you didn’t make it out to Old & New, here’s one of our favorite items: the decision coin. It comes courtesy of Fun Junk Online, who just flattened out an English penny and carved in the inscription. The result is useful for marriage proposals and suspicious foods alike. If you’re having trouble choosing whether or not to buy one, we can lend you ours for a few decisive flips.
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Bloggy watch tastes tend towards the rugged, but it’s not the only style in the world. And if you don’t plan on taking your next watch on a sailboat or a freeclimb any time soon, you may want to consider a more minimal option.
For instance, this one.
Braun just rereleased their 70s-era wristwatches, boasting the same pared-down design philosophy they’d bring to a toaster or a safety razor. We wouldn’t let it near a rumpled oxford—but if your wardrobe’s already full of clean lines, it’s a good way to add more.
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File this one under: handsome things to write on. Doane Paper notebooks just got a new design, courtesy of Brooklyn artist Jon Contino. Contino’s limited run swaps out Helvetica minimalism for something a bit more homespun, right down to the fraction-to-decimal table on the back page—useful for those few minutes each year when you don’t have access to a phone.
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Dieter Rams’ legendary ten rules for good design are getting a lot of love lately, and it got us thinking…they’re not such a bad guide to building a gentleman’s wardrobe.
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Count on a graphic designer to make things hard on himself. Christopher Doyle just layed out a list of five graphic design clichĂ©s he’s promising not to indulge in for the remainder of the year, including putting logos on tote bags, photographing the contents of his satchel and (perhaps most painfully), partaking in images of impeccably curated apartments. We give it six weeks.
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Woodgrains of the World Unite!: Giz drops an apt manifesto on the problem with gadget design today, and how to make the world handsomer. [Gizmodo]
Magazine of the Day: Letter to Jane sounds like the coolest new magazine in quite some time…if only we had an iPad. [PSFK]
Buyer Beware: Here’s a cautionary tale: If you buy an idyllic Honduran beach house, you may discover too late that it comes with an unlimited supply of free cocaine. So, you know, watch out for that. [World Hum]
Wise Up: Tommy Wiseau, auteur of The Room and modern day Ed Wood, blesses AskMen with 10 tips on shooting a sex scene. It doubles as ten ways to make your interviewer uncomfortable. [AskMen]
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The ampersand is getting a grassroots marketing push from Scott Marc Berry—complete with tote bags, buttons and typeface charts—and we’re ready to sign on in full. &’s time has come.
When weighing gift ideas, it’s hard to go wrong with a handsome, marginally useful trinket—which is why we find ourselves inexplicably drawn to this card holder.
No one actually needs a card holder—a rubber band in your pocket and a desk drawer in your office will do the job every bit as well—but they’re nice to have, and all the more memorably for being unnecessary. Throw in a clever film-slate design and you’ve got a placeholder for just about anyone on your list. That is, as long as you can’t think of anything better…
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The design crowd prides itself on being able to turn just about anything into an art object, so it was only a matter of time before they got around to toys.
These tops come from Herman Miller’s workshop, supposedly inspired by Charles Eames preoccupation with childhood playthings. Of course, because it’s a serious design house, the tops are all lathed and lacquered like the leg of a dinner table.
Watch your back, Hasbro.
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The British Design Council has been responsible for a surprising amount of the Really Cool Stuff in the world so far, so we’re glad to finally get a peek at some of it. As of today, they’re opening up their slide archive to give design-minded net-dwellers everywhere a chance to see what they’ve got in there. It includes a wealth of early 60s gems—somebody should really make a show set back then…—but also a few accomplishments we never would have guessed at. Who would have guessed that the same folks that were polishing up tea kettles in the 50s ended up designing power lathes and furnaces?
Now that we’re all carrying clocks in our pockets, the future of the watch is uncertain. Vintage models are still unimpeachably cool, but anything designed closer to the present is playing to a pretty tough crowd.
If you’re Nooka, apparently the answer is to ditch the old “knowing what time it is” paradigm entirely. There’s a number, there’s a gauge, and for some reason, there are even dots, but anyone glancing at their wrist on the way to a breakfast date is going to be in for some confusion. Hopefully they’ve got a cell phone handy…
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Usually, we’re against novelty in anything you might actually need to work—a list that includes first aid kits, condoms and coffee-makers—but it’s also true that just about everything is better with a picture of Muhammad Ali on it. Call it a reminder: There’s no shame in taking a few hits in the line of duty.
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We’ve gotten lucky with the latest batch of smart phones, but don’t be fooled: Good-looking tech is in extremely short supply. And while external hard drives are finding their way onto more and more desks, this is the only one we’ve seen that won’t throw off your modernist feng shui.
LaCie has named it the Little Disk, but the design comes courtesy of British industrial designer Sam Hecht, moonlighting from his day job at Muji—which might explain the Japanese simplicity at work. Somewhere, Steve Jobs is drooling.
| ALL Gadgetry |
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Apparently oddball design stunts aren’t just for internet folk. Literary quirk merchant Miranda July is trying her hand at pillowcases. She’s currently working through a limited edition of a 1000 cases, available through the New Museum.
Of course, she’s a writer not an artist, so her contribution comes in quote form. The pillows are inscribed with two corresponding inscriptions, “Here you will dream of endless kissing” and “Here you will dream of people you admire exposing your fraudulence,” either of which should provide for an eventful night’s sleep. Naturally, we recommend a healthy rotation…
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Academy Fight Song: W Mag finds Lara Stone a headmistress gig. [Fashion Copious]
Don’t Get Shirty: Esquire drops a few work-appropriate shirts, including the increasingly beloved rounded club collar. Just don’t call it “Peter Pan.” [Esquire]
It’s Always Design Week Somewhere: Copenhagen Design Week sees the world’s first human car wash. [The Moment]
Just a Minute: A new site lets you spend a minute in almost any city in the world. [PSFK]
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The nautical trend has been around for a while, but this is the first time we’ve seen it branch into the world of home dĂ©cor.
This Royal Master Sealight is an exact replica of an old marine lamp, which means you’ll be able to adjust the shutters if you want things a little dimmer. It might be a bit too industrial for some places, but if you don’t mind a chrome stand in the corner, it could be just the kind of rough, functional gear that’s in vogue around now. If you’re feeling particularly handy, you could even use it to send Morse Code to the apartment across the street.
You can usually count on Apple to be at least one gadget ahead of everyone else. So now that iPhones are rendering the average iPod obsolete, it’s a pretty safe bet they’ve got a third item up their sleeve ready to change the game yet again.
It’s all still guesses, but the smart money is on a tablet computer dropping just in time for Christmas, codenamed Cocktail and resembling either an enormous iPod touch or a hyper-intelligent dinner tray. (The above pic is an unofficial rendering, naturally.) It’s a gadget type that’s been seen at press events for years now, most notably from Microsoft, but they’ve never quite made it into stores. More importantly, it’s the ideal tool for the artsy endeavors Apple specializes in—graphic design, software editing, digital collage, and so on—provided they can convince their users to get rid of that keyboard.
We’re not usually much for packaging, but this tequila bottle looks too good to leave unblogged. It’s from the newcomers at Milagro Tequila, and the main feature is a spiky agave-shaped bubble in the middle of the bottle—instead of the worm, we suppose.
Of course, what really matters is what’s inside the bottle…but our curiosity is definitely piqued.
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The coffee cup is as close to a design standard as you’ll find, but there’s always room for improvement.
A group of Tel Aviv design students took a crack at it, and the results are intriguing. This model, called the cubis, is designed for easy stacking—the corners fit together, naturally—and a thick layer of ceramic insulation to provide a cool place to grip. We don’t expect to see it in diners any time soon…but maybe there are a few boutique hotels in need of a restock?
Clocks have been stuck in the same design rut for a while now, so we’re glad to see someone try out the “towel bar” look. This acrylic creation may not give you the instant recognition of a two-handed version, but it should be worth it for the oddball factor alone.
People throw around the phrase “design revolution” so often, it’s easy to forget what it actually means: Every object you own, no matter how uninspiring, is going to be recast into a more round and brightly colored form. Get ready, because it’s happening.
These fire extinguishers (via NotCot) come from France’s Fire Design studio, which churns out 99 EU models in checkerboard silver, Holstein spots and pixilated pink and purple, among others. They’re all tested and certified for use…but we hate to think what the Fire Department will make of them.
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It’s amazing what a bit of whimsy can do…
Paul Smith will unveil this public garbage bin at the London Design Museum next week, and it would appear his animal fixation is entirely intact.
It’s not all leporine whimsy, though; there’s some real function here too. As designed, the rabbit ears will light up every time someone tosses something in, which is as effective a litter deterrent as we can think of.
But anyone passing through the park at night without a full knowledge of the latest design developments will be in for quite a shock.
The office chair has been around roughly as long as the office and, give or take an Aeron, surprisingly little has changed. Of course, that’s just what designers are for…
New York’s Design Week just staggered to a close—the curious can check out Core77’s coverage—and this low-riding chair called the Luxos from Okamura caught our eye. All the cushions are right where you remember them, but the whole thing is about a foot lower to the ground, giving you a more reclined approach to the workday.
There’s a matching desk to keep everything in perspective, but so far it’s not quite clear whether it’ll inspire more productivity or just more naptime. Maybe both?
Apparently the shop behind the meme-ified “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters have a few other posters…including this simple brown poster. Not bad, if you’ve got an empty space above your desk.
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