If It's Hip, It's Here (Archives)

Freehands; Gloves For Mobile Device Users. Keep Those Hands Warm While Texting

Josh Rubin (of Cool Hunting) and his father, Stanley, have designed gloves with a patent-pending design which enables everyone with a mobile device to keep in touch, literally. A quick flick exposes your thumb and forefinger without removing your glove. Small magnets keep the tips from getting in your way.

The gloves are available in three materials and five sizes: XS, S, M, L and XL. Fleece retails for $20; Stretch for $30; and Leather for $40.

Leather, $40.00 a pair:

Stretch, $30.00 a pair:

Fleece, $20.00 a pair:

In case you're wondering.. which apparently some people are... Josh says that "the magnets are just strong enough to hold the finger tips back, but not so strong that they’ll interfere with watches or gadgets"

Buy them here.

Eatable Of Many Orders: Clothes & Bags That Focus on The 'Ingredients'

What do they mean by Eatable?

The phrase “Eatable of Many Orders” comes from Kenji Miyazawa’s “Restaurant of Many Orders”. It is a story about a wild cat restaurant which gives orders to customers rather than taking orders from them. Like the story, Eatable of Many Orders would like to provide customers an eatable menu for complete understanding of their products.

On their site they say they "..would like to present their products like food and its ingredients with an aesthetic sense and sensibility." Not sure they've really achieved that yet. However, the materials they choose (not all of which are appealing.. like say, natural horse leather) have very interesting visual stories of their process.

They have a collection of natural shoes, bags and clothes made with tamo wood, vegetable tannin cow leather, rope, twine and sometimes twigs. Below are images of some of their products (admittedly, I've not shown many of the clothes here, they're a bit like a natural organic asian bag lady) as well as some of the visual processes.

Learn more about Eatable of Many Orders here.

Nobody's Sweetheart, Dyna Moe, Captures TV's Mad Men In Illustrations Befitting The Genre

AMC's Mad Men is the hot tv show du jour. With multiple Emmy nominations (two wins, including one for Best Drama) and a rapidly growing cult following, it's been the subject of many a water cooler conversation.

Graphic designer/illustrator Dyna Moe (hopefully a psuedonym) has done an honor to this show by capturing it in her many whimsical retro styled illustrations that can be downloaded as wallpaper for your computer from flickr or available for purchase here.

So, how did she get into this? She's clearly a talented illustrator and graphic designer and was asked to create a Christmas card for Rich Sommers, who plays character Harry Crane on the show, to give to his office mates. Seems that a passion was born because that was just the beginning.

Above: the Christmas Card she created for Rich Sommers (Harry Crane)

She then began drawing a commemorative image as desktop wallpaper from each episode (sometimes more than one) and has created downloadable icons, iPhone wallpapers, placemats and more. Customizable prints of her most popular illustrations are for sale through zazzle.com.

On flickr, she describes herself as follows:

"I'm a freelance illustrator and designer in New York City, who also does comedy on occasion. Sometimes at the same time.

The bulk of my work is for the alt comedy scene -- flyers, posters, logos, etc. I have been the unofficial official house designer for the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in NY since 1999. I also have done a ton of CDs and 7" designs for local indie pop/punk labels."

Well, she's certainly busy. And funny. I enjoyed reading her commentary on both her blog and flickr as much as I enjoyed her illustrations.

Her blog, "I let My Fists Do The Talkin'" can be viewed here.

Below is a series of downloadable icons, the perfect 'must have' for any Mad Men lover.

She's been so prolific that I can hardly share all her work with you, for that you'll have to visit her set of Mad Men illustrations on flickr or her website.

Here are just a few of her renderings from seasons 1 and 2 of Mad Men:

Buy her prints here.
See her entire portfolio here.

above: Get your iphone wallpapers here

A generous soul, she writes "Feel free to download and use any of them as wallpapers or write in your blog or website about them. I give everyone blanket permission to do so... you don't even need to ask. Just stop with the incredulous eye-rolls about my name. "

I like her already and don't even know her.

Update: Months later, everyone on social networks and the web are "Mad-Mening" themselves, a fun AMC sponsored Avatar generator. So, who's the artist behind it? You guessed it, Dyna Moe!