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Vitamin's Urban Creatures Give Birth To More



If you are familiar with any of the products created by the inventive folks at Vitamin in London, it's probably their 'urban gnomes' since those are carried at several hip online and design stores worldwide. The Urban Creatures range has since spawned several offshoots and variations based on the original screen printed, 21 cm tall white creatures.


Above: One of their classic original Urban Gnomes that started it all.

Above: the 'glowing' version (only available in the UK and Europe)

Above: one of their several hip limited edition 'street gnomes'


Above: their Urban Creatures Salt and Pepper shakers called "hoodies" (also available in black)

Now, they've added a new line of products based upon their 'Urban Creatures' that includes kitchen timers, bottle openers and coin banks.



As of right now, the Urban Creatures line of bottle openers, kitchen timers, and money boxes are available for pre-order and each comes in one of four styles; Floral, Blossom, Bones and Hex.

Urban Creatures Money Boxes (Coin Banks):





Urban Creatures Kitchen Timers:





Urban Creatures Bottle Openers:





pre-order them here.



In addition to their Urban Creatures line, they carry other fun items like plant pots, tableware, and more, be sure to see them all.




How they describe themselves:
With a product range which spans from ceramics, furniture, and now sports accessories, Vitamin is ready to put it's own fresh spin on any product. Whether it's free-standing lamps that double as carpet sweepers, vases with integrated ashtrays or table lights which keep your cup of tea warm, Vitamin produces extra-ordinary products that hopefully make their owners' lives a little less ordinary.

Since its launch in Sept 2005 Vitamin has designed products for Hasbro, Virgin Atlantic, Bliss and Philips to name a few. Whether it is ideas generation, design development or production design Vitamin can help you add that something extra ordinary to make your company and its products stand out from the crowd.

Vitamin

Location:
The Old Truman Brewery
91 Brick Lane
London E1 6QL
Tel +44 (0)20 7092 9191
Fax +44 (0)87 0762 0129

Erwin Olaf: Elevating Retail Photography To Art Worth Collecting.



Above: The Egg vase by Moooi, shot by Erwin olaf

As an advertising art director, one mentally creates lists of 'blue sky' directors and photographers with whom they wish to work. Erwin Olaf is one of the photographers whose work I've admired for a long time and, along with Eugenio Recuenco, tops my list as the most lust-worthy photographers.

Just shy of 50 years old, Olaf was born in the Netherlands, lives and works in Amsterdam and has received several awards and has had many exhibitions of his works all over the world.

He's an incredibly versatile talent and can shoot everything from fashion, product, people, and more, all imbued with an artful eerieness and uniquely composed. Some of his work is overtly sexual, some incredibly macabre, and some almost heart-breaking. But all of it is beautiful.

He's shot for everything from Diesel to Nicorette, fashion editorials for Elle and the NY Times, lifestyle shots for Campbell's and Kohler, retail for Microsoft and Moooi and so much more.

I first discovered him when I came across his incredible product photography for Moooi, which he has done for the past 3 years. Often shooting such products as lights, vases and chairs results in a predictable shot. Not with Olaf. Here are just a few examples of that work:








In addition to his commissioned work for ad agencies and clients, he has many personal series and collections (often shown in galleries worldwide) from which I've pulled a few pieces to share with you.

Blacks:


Grief:


Royal Blood:


Some shots from his latest work; Laboral Escena, Gijon, Spain:


I also wanted to show you, in detail, his digitally manipulated photography for a fashion photo editorial of couture clothing for the NY Times in 2006. In the shots shown below, you can see how the models 'meld' with their surroundings. Despite this unconventional way of shooting fashion, the unusual poses do not detract from the clothing and yet the photography now stands out from other fashion shots as original and memorable.

Chanel:

detail:

Valentino:

detail:

Dior:

detail:

Gaultier:

detail:

Versace:

detail:

Lacroix:

detail:

Armani:


There's lots more to see, so check it out.
Erwin Olaf's website.

IJSELSTRAAT 26-28
1078 CJ
AMSTERDAM
TEL.: +31 20 692 34 38
FAX: +31 20 694 12 91
INFO@ERWINOLAF.COM

My other fave? Check out Eugenio Recuenco's work here.

The Crunchies; 2008 Tech Award Winners, Links and info



The 2008 Crunchies is TechCrunch's second annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year.



The Awards Ceremony took place at 7:30 pm, Friday, January 9 at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.

The Crunchies is co-hosted by GigaOm, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, and TechCrunch. Best of all, the internet community is invited to choose who wins.

This year’s nominees, runners up and winners (I've turned the 'winners' into links and added screen grabs for those of you unfamiliar with those products or services):

Best Application Or Service: Google Reader

Above: screen grab of the winner; Google Reader

Get Satisfaction
Google Reader (winner)
Minted
Meebo
MySpace Music (runner-up)
Yelp

Best Technology Innovation/Achievement: Windows Live Mesh

Above: screen grab of the winner; Windows Live Mesh

Facebook Connect (runner-up)
Google Friend Connect
Google Chrome
Windows Live Mesh (winner)
Swype
Yahoo BOSS

Best Design: Cooliris


Above: screen grab of the winner; Cooliris

Animoto (runner-up)
Cooliris (winner)
Friendfeed
Infectious
Lala
Sliderocket

Best Bootstrapped Startup: GitHub

Above: screen grab of the winner; GitHub

BackType
GitHub (winner)
Socialcast
StatSheet
12seconds.tv (runner-up)

Most Likely To Make The World A Better Place: GoodGuide

Above: screen grab of the winner; GoodGuide

Akoha
Causes
CO2Stats
GoodGuide (winner)
Kiva (runner-up)
Better Place

Best Enterprise Startup: Amazon Web Services

Above: screen grab of the winner; Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (winner)
Force.com
Google App Engine (runner-up)
Yammer
Zoho

Best International Startup: eBuddy

Above: screen grab of the winner; eBuddy

eBuddy (winner)
Fotonauts
OpenX
Vente-privee
Wuala (runner-up)

Best Clean Tech Startup: Project Frog

Above: screen grab of the winner; Project Frog

Better Place (runner-up)
Boston Power
ElectraDrive
Laurus Energy
Project Frog (winner)

Best New Gadget/Device: iPhone 3G

Above: screen grab of the winner; iPhone 3G

Android G1 (runner-up)
Ausus EEE 1000 Series
Flip MinoHD
iPhone 3G (winner)
SlingCatcher

Best Time Sink Site/Application: Tap Tap Range

Above: screen grab of the winner; Tap Tap Range

Mob Wars
iBowl
Tap Tap Range (winner)
Zivity
Texas Hold Em (runner-up)

Best Mobile Startup: Evernote

Above: screen grab of the winner; Evernote

ChaCha (runner-up)
Evernote (winner)
Posterous
Qik Skyfire
Truphone

Best Mobile Application: Imeem Mobile

Above: screen grab of the winner; Imeem Mobile

Google Mobile Application (runner-up)
imeem mobile (winner)
Pandora Radio
rolando
ShopSavvy
Ocarina

Best Startup Founders: Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey & Biz Stone of Twitter

Above: screen grab of the winners; Twitter's Founders

Linda Avery and Anne Wojcicki (23andMe)
Michael Birch and Xochi Birch (Bebo)
Robert Kalin (Etsy)
Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone (Twitter ) (winner)
Paul Buchheit, Jim Norris, Sanjeev Singh, Bret Taylor (FriendFeed ) (runner-up)

Best Startup CEO: Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook

Above: screen grab of the winner; Mark Zuckerberg

Tony Hsieh (Zappos)
Jason Kilar (Hulu) (runner-up)
Elon Musk (SpaceX)
Andy Rubin (Android)
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) (winner)

Best New Startup Of 2008: FriendFeed

Above: screen grab of the winner; FriendFeed
Dropbox (runner-up)
FriendFeed (winner)
GoodGuide
Tapulous
Topsin Media
Yammer

Best Overall Startup In 2008: Facebook

Above: screen grab of the winner; my own facebook profile

Amazon Web Services
Facebook (winner)
Android
hulu
Twitter (runner-up)




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