The New 2008 Olympic Logo: Eeeuuuwww!

My apologies to the designer, but.. yuck.

Lowbrow Art Lunchboxes By Baseman, Coop, Shag, Vissell and More

In the fall of 2005 La-La Land Gallery in Los Angeles held a custom lunch box exhibit featuring over 30 artists including those shown below created by Gary Baseman, Shag, Joe Ledbetter, Greg Simkins, Coop, Amanda Vissell and more.

Visitors to the gallery's website, lalalandgallery.com, voted on their favorite design from the exhibit. Dark Horse is proud to offer the top designs from the Hot Lunch exhibit as the newest additions to their current lunch box line.

And they are only $14.99. So, despite my mentioning in an earlier post that lowbrow art may not be the smartest investment, surely $15 bucks is!

Just look at some below :

Service for 6 only $111,600.00: Diamond Studded Flatware

Talk about a formal place setting!
At Christofle, sterling silver takes on a whole new allure. Knives, forks and spoons, with handles trimmed with diamonds of exceptional quality. Front and back, they embellish silver in a way as never before.


The diamonds are hand set, and the creative process requires six months of hand work. Malmaison Castle near Paris, was a favorite place of Napoleon Bonaparte and Empress Josephine.

Sterling silver and diamonds. Knife has a stainless steel blade.

Diamonds are set by hand in France.
Set includes one of each: dinner fork, dinner knife, soup spoon, salad fork, and teaspoon.
Price? A measly $18,600.00 per place setting

You can order yours here.

The Bouroullec Bros' Floating House

The Floating House designed by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.
Conceived together with Jean-Marie Finot and Denis Daversin, architects

Achieved mid october 2006, the Floating House is a studio for resident artists in the CNEAI (Centre National de l'estampe et de l'art imprimé) located in Chatou, France.

floating house : by night ­ 2006



Floating House interiors:



Length : 23m
Total surface: 110m2
CNEAI - Centre National de l'estampe et de l'art imprimé

all images courtesy of the Bouroullec brothers

More underwater and floating residences for you!:

•The Underwater Poseidon Resort & H2Ome

•Floating Hotels and Offices

•The Silverfish Floating Home

•Houseboats of The Future

My New Favorite Photographer: Eugenio Recuenco

As an advertising art director for many years (how many would give away my age), I've had the good fortune to personally view some of the finest photographer's books. But I recently came upon one photographer in particular whose range of talent simply awed me.

CA Boom 4: West Coast Independent Design Show

Exhibitor Reservations for CA Boom 4 Now Being Reviewed

CA Boom 4: March 30 to April 1, 2007 at a new and larger location, Barker Hangar, Santa Monica Airport. One hundred plus participating exhibitors will showcase what's next in how we live and how we work. Specific areas in the show include: prefab, fine furnishings, indoor/outdoor living, surfaces and finishes, and modern parenting.

2/8/07 CA Boom 4: THE WEST COAST INDEPENDENT DESIGN SHOW registration and tickets now on sale.


What else is new this year?
Dozens of national and international manufacturers are joining CA Boom’s core lineup of boutique design exhibitors. CA Boom 4 majors and mini-majors include Herman Miller, ducduc, Fleetwood Windows & Doors, Neo Metro and Nana Wall Systems, Inc.

This year, our show floor is divided into distinct zones including Prefab, Fine Furnishings, Materials, Surfaces & Finishes, Modern Parenting, Giftware & Accessories, Indoor/Outdoor Living and First-Timers.


Special Prices on Santa Monica Hotels, Airfare & Airport Shuttles. Travel & Housing

For the first time, Friday will be a “trade day” from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., open to qualified design & building trade members.

The famous CA Boom Opening Night party moves to Friday Night, 7:30 - 10:30 p.m., with an open bar, DJ's and full access to the show floor ($45).

Don't miss the debut of the “Modern Parenting” zone, spotlighting sophisticated furniture and accessories for children of design-conscious parents. Participants include Scandinavian Child, Inc., ducduc, Elevate Home and Nurseryworks.


Returning this year is the overwhelmingly successful PREFAB ZONE, the only place on the planet where prospective buyers of Modernist Prefab can actually comparison shop prefab manufacturers who are ready and able to deliver product. Participants include Living Homes, Clever Homes, Marmol Radziner Prefab, Sander Architects, kitHAUS, and Alchemy's weeHouse.

Don't miss our Design + Architecture Tours, where architects actually give tours of 15 cutting edge projects, 5 per day ($75 per day, includes Expo Hall admission).

Santa Monica: Friday March 30th • Venice: Saturday March 31st • Mar Vista/West LA: Sunday April 1st.

CA Boom exhibitors are invited to participate because of their innovation, design sensibility and category leadership. Each year, we also invite a select group of noteworthy up-and-comers. Many of our exhibitors are showcasing World and North American debuts at the show.

CA Boom 4 still has space to accommodate a few additional exhibitors who are a good fit. Interested? Go here.

79th Annual Academy Awards Promo Shot & Directed by Spike Lee

Directed by Academy Award®-nominated writer-director Spike Lee and shot throughout New York City, the 79th Academy Awards trailer features passers-by reciting famous movie lines from the past 70 years.

Go Ahead, Lick Penelope Cruz's Face. Celebrity and Oscar Cookies.

Elenis of New York makes cookies that are art you can eat. These are her special limited edition cookies for Sunday, Feb 25th, Oscar Night. Available to order online at www.elenis.com
It may be the closet you ever get to licking a star.


BEST ACTRESS COOKIES
The nominees for the the 79th Annual Academy Awards are: Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet.
• 16 hand-iced sugar cookies in a gift box -price: $58.50


BEST ACTOR COOKIES:
The nominees for Best Actor for the 79th Annual Academy Awards are: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ryan Gosling, Peter O'Toole, Will Smith and Forest Whitaker.
• 16 hand-iced sugar cookies in a gift box, price: $58.50


best picture
**THIS ITEM IS SOLD OUT FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON**
The nominees for Best Picture for the 79th Annual Academy Awards are: Babel, The Departed, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen.
• 19 hand-iced sugar cookies in a gift box


Famous Hollywood Quotes
Packaged in our New Medium Gift Box.
Test your movie expertise with these memorable quotes: "Show me the money", "I see dead people", "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn", "Life is like a box of chocolates"and "Supercalifrajalisticexpialidocious"
• 9 sugar cookies is a gift box
• Cookie Sizes: Quotes 2.5" x 2.5", Stars 1.5" x 1.5", Director's slate, 1.5" x 2"

It's All About Oscar. How The Statuette Is Made.

How An Oscar Statuette Is Made, Step By Step:










above: close up look at base


Oscar Fun Facts:

• The official name of the statuette is the Academy Award® of Merit

• Oscar is 13½ inches tall and weighs 8½ pounds

• The First Recipient was Emil Jannings, named Best Actor for his performances in “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh” in 1929

• Number of Awards Presented to date as of 2010: 2,701 statuettes

• It was designed by Cedric Gibbons, chief art director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and sculpted by Los Angeles artist George Stanley.

• The Oscar statuette depicts a knight holding a crusader's sword, standing on a reel of film. The film reel features five spokes, signifying the five original branches of the Academy (actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers.)

• How Oscar received his nickname is not exactly clear.
The most popular story is that Margaret Herrick, an Academy librarian and eventual executive director, remarked that the statuette resembled her Uncle Oscar, and the Academy staff began to refer to it as Oscar. Although the nickname was used with increasing frequency during the late 1930s, the Academy didn't officially use the name Oscar until 1939.

• The Oscar statuette hasn't been altered since his molten birth, except when the design of the pedestal was made taller in 1945.

And the Oscar winner for Best Poster is....

The Official Poster of the 79th Annual Academy Awards

This year's Oscar Poster is finally one someone might actually want. (I do wish they'd have kept the abc logo and showtime off of it, however). So, here's what is takes for you to get your very own Official Oscar Poster:

Poster Price -79th Academy Awards posters are US $25 each.
Online orders may be placed using VISA, MASTERCARD or AMERICAN EXPRESS. Orders placed in person may only be paid for with a check, money order or cash. All sales are final, no refunds.

Shipping and handling is included in the poster price for domestic orders. International orders will be charged US $15 for every five posters ordered.

For example, an order of 10 posters being shipped to the United Kingdom would total US $280. (An international shipping charge of $30 plus the $200 cost of 10 posters, at the rate of $25 per poster, for a total cost of US $280.)

Shipping will be handled by FedEx. You may contact customer service at 1-800-99-FILMS for any shipping and fulfillment information.

Please allow 7 business days for domestic delivery. International orders may take up to 14 business days or longer. No P.O. boxes are allowed. No rush or overnight shipment option is available.

How to Order a Poster (There are four ways to order posters):

* In person
Monday - Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Academy Gallery, 4th Floor
8949 Wilshire Boulevard
Beverly Hills, California 90211
* By Mail (send a check or money order payable to Academy Foundation)
Academy Awards Posters
8949 Wilshire Boulevard
Beverly Hills, California 90211
* Telephone 1-800-993-4567 (option 3)
Monday - Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (PST)
* Internet - www.oscars.org/publications

Could you live without your computer for a day?

It is obvious that people would find life extremely difficult without computers, maybe even impossible. If they disappeared for just one day, would we be able to cope?

Be a part of one of the biggest global experiments ever to take place on the internet. The idea behind the experiment is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day, and what will happen if we all participate!

Shutdown your computer on this day and find out! Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer?



See who can and who can't at www.shutdownday.org

Product Pick Of The Week: The Swiveling MediaCentre by Porada of Italy.

The Mediacentre designed by T. Colzani for Porada is a piece of furniture that does it all. The swiveling stand functions as a display for a flat screen TVs, storage and shelves. Attached to the floor and ceiling/wall by a singular pole or set on a swivel base, the modern piece does not take up much room yet provides a modern and functional addition to your living room or bedroom.

The piece is available in various colored finishes or woods.
Porada of Italy has many amazingly beautiful products. This is just one of them.