NYC TAXI logo design debacle update.

David Dunlap's engaging and controversial series about the NYC Taxicab Logo design debacle has come to an end. Final reader's submissions were posted on the 23rd. For those who didn't get to see them, they can be seen here.

See What's Been Stirring At WOK

New versions of WOKmedia's ‘Made in China’ series of furniture.

The work, featuring traditional Chinese furniture embedded with hand-carved wooden toys and finished in white lacquer, is a result of their extended stay in China as part of a collaboration with Contrasts Gallery of Shanghai.

This series of work debuted at Design Miami last December.


They describe it as "Seemingly innocent children toys act as a kind of space invaders emerging from a world hidden inside our childhood memories. Specifically invading antique Chinese furniture, starting to threaten their traditional past."


and as "Revealing a surreal and terrifying landscape of derailed trains, drowning babies, crashing planes and wild dinosaurs."
 


The most recent additions to the above installation are the following :


Limited edition series of WOKmedia's ‘Made in China’ collection.
Each piece is unique, featuring traditional Chinese furniture embedded with hand-carved wooden toys and finished in white lacquer.

 above: ‘GRR’


above: ‘BOW-WOW’


above: ‘BOO-HOO’


above: ‘CLANK’

Who is WOKmedia?

Julie Mathias and Wolfgang Kaeppner established WOKmedia in 2004.
They are based in London with a production studio in Shanghai.

Wokmedia’s work is primarily concerned with the emotional dimension, an archetypal memory or a physical sensation. Often they survey a state of in between where chaos is showing structure and confusion is beginning to make sense. Where out of devastation and destruction emerges a new world. A world embedded in their childhood memories when emotions were not expected to be filtered, when make-believe was not equated with lunacy.

Julie Mathias
julie@wokmedia.com

Wolfgang Kaeppner
wok@wokmedia.com

London Studio
WOKmedia
2 Leswin Place, Unit HQ
London N16 7NJ

Shanghai Production
WOKmedia
Rujin Road 500 (South)
Shanghai

Eurochocolate Festival Souvenirs: (yes, of course they are chocolate)

If you missed this year's Eurochocolate festival which just ran in Italy from Oct 13th- Oct. 21st, you can still get your chocolate fix thanks to some of the fun products from the festival, now available online here.

Check em out:


Above: Chocprin (chocolate aspirin)



Above: Chocopower (chocolate batteries)


Above: Cazzuola (comes in many flavors)


Above: Tavoletta's Chocolate Cellphones (many different flavors)


A little bit about the festival:

The Eurochocolate festival of Perugia 2007 has its core center in the historic center of the city, from Rocca Paolina up to the squares and the internal areas: Carducci Gardens, Piazza Italia, Piazza della Repubblica, Corso Vannucci, Via Mazzini, Via Fani, The Terrace of the Covered Market, and Piazza November IVth.

The kermis Eurochocolate Perugia 2007 has earned in a couple of years the sympathy of the people asserting itself as the most popular festival of the chocolate and the most followed by Italians, making of Perugia the European capital of the chocolate. For nine days the Umbrian chief town transforms itself for the occasion in a huge open-air pastry-shop for the delight of all the greedy persons and the slaves of cacao.

At Eurochocolate Perugia festival will be organized dozens of big events concentrated on the "food of the gods" with exhibitions, laboratories, internships, cooking classes, tasting, expositions, banquets, celebrations and the final prices: Eurochocolate Awards.
Each year new themes and entertainment are developed like for example "the prisoners of the chocolate" of the 2001 edition, and the activities of the section "Ciok si Gira!" dedicated to the cinema of the 2002 edition.
For all the tourists the occasion is without any doubt a good one to discover the most remote corners of this antique medieval center and to enjoy the famous Umbrian hospitality.

Buy the above chocolate goodies (and more) from eurochocolate here.

6 Ways To Wood Floors (Without the Wood)

Wood floors or carpet?
Why choose one when you can have a carpet that looks like a wood floor?

Here are 6 different examples by six different designers.

From the new plynyl floor mats by Chilewich to the tromp de l'oeil look of Yvette Laduck's Woody Wood rug, you can have the look of wood made of anything but wood.

In vinyl. Or silk. Or leather. Or hand-tufted wool.

Click on the above rug for more information and a link to purchase.

prices vary wildly.

See more of my Fancy Friggen Flooring & Radical Rugs list at ThisNext.