Archive for the 'Traveling' Category
The difference between a U and an S
Monday, May 14th, 2007
I’m sitting in Berlin in a great café with a bear on the logo, on my way to Paris, not ready at all for my talk tomorrow, but have been terribly impressed by what I saw at the Designmai event. More on that later I promise.
I was also part of a panel, invited by my friend Goerg Bertsch, and lead by Mel Byars about “what do people hate about the world of design” with fellow panelists Sophie Lovell, German editor of Wallpaper* and V. Ragunath, architect and photographer.
Strange to find myself surrounded by people from my former life in industrial design as we found ourselves talking about design, designer/client relationships, how can the internet help designers, and the lack of theory in design to make for good critiques (in a more evolved way than “i publish what i like”) but not at all about what we hated about design and what can be improved. Too bad, that conversation needs to happen and be seriously directed and orchestrated.
Strange also because i now find myself talking in between 2 roles, too advanced in my understanding of the web and it’s dynamics for most product designers, not enough for most geeks. At least I understand them both and in Paris tomorrow I’ll try to talk to the geeks about why they should be talking to industrial designers. Maybe one day i’ll be invited to talk to designers about why they should care about what the hackers do with their soldering irons in their kitchens.
I’m sitting in Berlin in a great café with a bear on the logo, on my way to Paris, not ready at all for my talk tomorrow, but have been terribly impressed by what I saw at the Designmai event. More on that later I promise.
I was also part of a panel, invited by my friend Goerg Bertsch, and lead by Mel Byars about “what do people hate about the world of design” with fellow panelists Sophie Lovell, German editor of Wallpaper* and V. Ragunath, architect and photographer.
Strange to find myself surrounded by people from my former life in industrial design as we found ourselves talking about design, designer/client relationships, how can the internet help designers, and the lack of theory in design to make for good critiques (in a more evolved way than “i publish what i like”) but not at all about what we hated about design and what can be improved. Too bad, that conversation needs to happen and be seriously directed and orchestrated.
Strange also because i now find myself talking in between 2 roles, too advanced in my understanding of the web and it’s dynamics for most product designers, not enough for most geeks. At least I understand them both and in Paris tomorrow I’ll try to talk to the geeks about why they should be talking to industrial designers. Maybe one day i’ll be invited to talk to designers about why they should care about what the hackers do with their soldering irons in their kitchens.
Quote of the day
Monday, May 14th, 2007
A Stuttgart-based painter asks me over a typical meat-based breakfast:
“But isn’t design supposed to be easy on the eyes?”
I didn’t know what to answer. Maybe she’s right.
A Stuttgart-based painter asks me over a typical meat-based breakfast:
“But isn’t design supposed to be easy on the eyes?”
I didn’t know what to answer. Maybe she’s right.
Quote of the day
Friday, May 11th, 2007
“If you really want your life to pass by in front of you like a movie, just travel, you can forget your life”
- Andy Warhol
“If you really want your life to pass by in front of you like a movie, just travel, you can forget your life”
- Andy Warhol
Ich bin ein Berliner
Wednesday, May 9th, 2007
I will be, for just 24 hours unfortunately, dropping by Designmai, a yearly design event in Berlin, to be part of a panel named“What they hate about the world of design”. As the organiser of the panel Mell Byars describes the conversation as follows:
” I wrote to a number of journalists, museum curators, manufacturers, designers, teachers, and others. I asked them: “What do you hate about today’s world of design?”
I offered them anonymity. If I had not, they would not have replied. I received a torrent of angry (in some cases), annoyed (in other cases), and generally disappointed (in others). Still others made intelligent suggestions. ”
This should be, in anycase, a very interesting conversation and hopefully engages the public as well.
I will be, for just 24 hours unfortunately, dropping by Designmai, a yearly design event in Berlin, to be part of a panel named“What they hate about the world of design”. As the organiser of the panel Mell Byars describes the conversation as follows:
” I wrote to a number of journalists, museum curators, manufacturers, designers, teachers, and others. I asked them: “What do you hate about today’s world of design?”
I offered them anonymity. If I had not, they would not have replied. I received a torrent of angry (in some cases), annoyed (in other cases), and generally disappointed (in others). Still others made intelligent suggestions. ”
This should be, in anycase, a very interesting conversation and hopefully engages the public as well.
Overheard
Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
On the train to Schipol, an elderly American couple from Virginia speak with a young Swedish man who asks:
“How do you like Europe?”
“Oh it’s fine, we’ve been here before, it’s just like the US now anyway. There’s McDonalds and Pizza Hut.”
Most people in the compartment rolled their eyes.
On the train to Schipol, an elderly American couple from Virginia speak with a young Swedish man who asks:
“How do you like Europe?”
“Oh it’s fine, we’ve been here before, it’s just like the US now anyway. There’s McDonalds and Pizza Hut.”
Most people in the compartment rolled their eyes.
Overheard
Sunday, April 29th, 2007
A young 9 year old french girl seeing her mom take a ton of pictures in Vondelpark today:
“Mom, life’s not about taking pictures!”
or
“Y’a pas que les photos dans la vie!”
A young 9 year old french girl seeing her mom take a ton of pictures in Vondelpark today:
“Mom, life’s not about taking pictures!”
or
“Y’a pas que les photos dans la vie!”
Rough guide to Salone
Saturday, April 28th, 2007
When asked what he thought of this year’s Milan Furniture Fair a friend of mine said:
“hmm, i think that the european furniture market is doing well, it’s def on the up-and-up. very shameless stuff. after a few years of crisis it seems that it’s doing better… big things. marcel wanders, hayon, studio job, moss, bisazza, established & sons. big expensive pieces. people are investing more because they have more money. i also think there’s a trend to replace art with design objects. this year reflected that trend. i don’t think it was about innovation, there was more of a statement, rather than real advancements or clever stuff”
This of course, proved to be a general sentiment shared by the NYT as well as Monocle. However I’m finding it very difficult, as a designer to keep being interested in kitchen counters and bedspreads after a few hours. Having spent a week there I’d like to use this opportunity (and since now I have a bunch of free time) to give a different view and a few guiding principles about going to the great yearly adventure of the Milan Furniture Fair.
0. Book a hotel WELL in advance: Some hotels get booked a year in advance, so if you don’t have generous friends like mine with a spare bed or mattress, consider yourself warned. Staying on the outskirts of town won’t do, the traffic in Milan is monstrous and renting a car is simply out of the question as parking is next to impossible to find. If you really like last minute decisions, then more recently, a network of spare beds and sofaswas organised for that week, but it remains a pricey option.
1. Get your hands on an INTERNI guide asap: Reading this and deciding what you want to see, especially if you’re with friends, will take a few hours. So it’s worth taking the time at the very beginning of your trip, unlike me who finally had time to sit down and look at it on the friday afternoon, 2 days before the end and didn’t end up seeing very much.
2. Assume nothing happens on the last day: Don’t plan to see anything on the last day as most designers are already sick and tired of visitors, hungover and already packing for the most part. The busiest days for them are the weekend but the most important days are the first few ones where the press and the important heads of companies hover around, going to lake Como on the weekend.
3. (Advice for women) Bring 2 pairs of shoes with you during the day: one for endless daytime walking in the heat, the other for fancy last minute aperitivos where you suddenly have to look your best and shmooze. You also wont waste time in transport going back to your hotel to change. Getting anywhere in Milan is a hassle so you dont want to waste 2 hours just taking trams to change shoes.
4. (More advice for women) Bring a satchel type bag: you’ll be collecting catalogues like no tomorrow, the last thing you want to do is carry them in your arms and try to balance a glass of “prosecco” at the same time as trying to answer your phone.
5. Just wear black: don’t think about it, just do it. This is Milan, not Milwaukee, avoid trainers or flipflops, try elegant slight sandals if you really want to, but Italians hardly ever reveal their feet in public. Wear jeans if you want, but that’s a kid thing. If you’re over 30, think elegance, long dresses, great shoes and scarves (never mind its 30 degrees outside, the milanese are elegant like it’s -30 at any temperature), sunglasses, uber-glossy lipstick and of course the look of someone who does this every bloody year.
6.Get a taxi company phone number: they’ll pick you up at any place in the city. You can’t hail them so you’ll be stuck with the other bozos at 3 in the morning in a huge cue at a taxi point.
7. Go see school work: they actually produce the most interesting work, the rest is chairs, tables, tiles, lighting. In a nutshell.
8. Be careful about italian time: Lunch is from 1 - 3 sometimes 4 which means that some shops might be closed during those hours. Sundays mean everything is closed. Shops close around 6ish-7ish in the evening. Malls are rare so you have to obey these timings. Dinnertime is late in general and breakfast is before 11. If you ask for a “cappucino” after 11 they’ll think you’re crazy, a tourist or hungover. So order a “latte macchiato” instead, nearly the same thing and wont get you as many annoyed stares.
9. Plan for breaks: If you don’t want to be blasé after a few hours, start the day late, as most events are opened quite late. It will allow you to spend some time in the morning digesting the information from the day before and getting over your hangover.
10.Have an aperitivo: Drinking on an empty stomach 5 days in a row will kill you so either go to aperitivos where they’ll serve food or make sure you book a table somewhere to have a short break before you go back to selling your skills and talent to the design sharks. The last thing you want to do is start hitting on Karim Rashid while drunk at Barbasol.
And finally: just have a “gelato” and watch as the world of design gazes at it’s own navel, worships it’s superstars and it’s trivial and over-advertised innovations, ignoring it’s own eventual demise and the bigger problems that it faces. You’ll think about sustainability tomorrow.
Salute!
When asked what he thought of this year’s Milan Furniture Fair a friend of mine said:
“hmm, i think that the european furniture market is doing well, it’s def on the up-and-up. very shameless stuff. after a few years of crisis it seems that it’s doing better… big things. marcel wanders, hayon, studio job, moss, bisazza, established & sons. big expensive pieces. people are investing more because they have more money. i also think there’s a trend to replace art with design objects. this year reflected that trend. i don’t think it was about innovation, there was more of a statement, rather than real advancements or clever stuff”
This of course, proved to be a general sentiment shared by the NYT as well as Monocle. However I’m finding it very difficult, as a designer to keep being interested in kitchen counters and bedspreads after a few hours. Having spent a week there I’d like to use this opportunity (and since now I have a bunch of free time) to give a different view and a few guiding principles about going to the great yearly adventure of the Milan Furniture Fair.
0. Book a hotel WELL in advance: Some hotels get booked a year in advance, so if you don’t have generous friends like mine with a spare bed or mattress, consider yourself warned. Staying on the outskirts of town won’t do, the traffic in Milan is monstrous and renting a car is simply out of the question as parking is next to impossible to find. If you really like last minute decisions, then more recently, a network of spare beds and sofaswas organised for that week, but it remains a pricey option.
1. Get your hands on an INTERNI guide asap: Reading this and deciding what you want to see, especially if you’re with friends, will take a few hours. So it’s worth taking the time at the very beginning of your trip, unlike me who finally had time to sit down and look at it on the friday afternoon, 2 days before the end and didn’t end up seeing very much.
2. Assume nothing happens on the last day: Don’t plan to see anything on the last day as most designers are already sick and tired of visitors, hungover and already packing for the most part. The busiest days for them are the weekend but the most important days are the first few ones where the press and the important heads of companies hover around, going to lake Como on the weekend.
3. (Advice for women) Bring 2 pairs of shoes with you during the day: one for endless daytime walking in the heat, the other for fancy last minute aperitivos where you suddenly have to look your best and shmooze. You also wont waste time in transport going back to your hotel to change. Getting anywhere in Milan is a hassle so you dont want to waste 2 hours just taking trams to change shoes.
4. (More advice for women) Bring a satchel type bag: you’ll be collecting catalogues like no tomorrow, the last thing you want to do is carry them in your arms and try to balance a glass of “prosecco” at the same time as trying to answer your phone.
5. Just wear black: don’t think about it, just do it. This is Milan, not Milwaukee, avoid trainers or flipflops, try elegant slight sandals if you really want to, but Italians hardly ever reveal their feet in public. Wear jeans if you want, but that’s a kid thing. If you’re over 30, think elegance, long dresses, great shoes and scarves (never mind its 30 degrees outside, the milanese are elegant like it’s -30 at any temperature), sunglasses, uber-glossy lipstick and of course the look of someone who does this every bloody year.
6.Get a taxi company phone number: they’ll pick you up at any place in the city. You can’t hail them so you’ll be stuck with the other bozos at 3 in the morning in a huge cue at a taxi point.
7. Go see school work: they actually produce the most interesting work, the rest is chairs, tables, tiles, lighting. In a nutshell.
8. Be careful about italian time: Lunch is from 1 - 3 sometimes 4 which means that some shops might be closed during those hours. Sundays mean everything is closed. Shops close around 6ish-7ish in the evening. Malls are rare so you have to obey these timings. Dinnertime is late in general and breakfast is before 11. If you ask for a “cappucino” after 11 they’ll think you’re crazy, a tourist or hungover. So order a “latte macchiato” instead, nearly the same thing and wont get you as many annoyed stares.
9. Plan for breaks: If you don’t want to be blasé after a few hours, start the day late, as most events are opened quite late. It will allow you to spend some time in the morning digesting the information from the day before and getting over your hangover.
10.Have an aperitivo: Drinking on an empty stomach 5 days in a row will kill you so either go to aperitivos where they’ll serve food or make sure you book a table somewhere to have a short break before you go back to selling your skills and talent to the design sharks. The last thing you want to do is start hitting on Karim Rashid while drunk at Barbasol.
And finally: just have a “gelato” and watch as the world of design gazes at it’s own navel, worships it’s superstars and it’s trivial and over-advertised innovations, ignoring it’s own eventual demise and the bigger problems that it faces. You’ll think about sustainability tomorrow.
Salute!
Overheard
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
From a woman behind me as we wriggle our way through the really crowded Columbia Road Flower market (in London) on a Sunday:
“I just remembered why I hate this place”
From a woman behind me as we wriggle our way through the really crowded Columbia Road Flower market (in London) on a Sunday:
“I just remembered why I hate this place”
Quote of the day
Sunday, March 18th, 2007
“When I take a plane and look out the window now I think: “this is just like Google Earth but without the zooming options”
Matt who obviously travels a lot.
“When I take a plane and look out the window now I think: “this is just like Google Earth but without the zooming options”
Matt who obviously travels a lot.
Reporting on Doors of Perception 2/3: Juice as in transport
Friday, March 16th, 2007
It’s so easy to forget that your own behaviors are the result of your surroundings. India was a vivid reminder of that. Delhi is the home of 13 million people, or 9 000 people per square kilometer. That means nothing until you have to think about how those people will start going places and then it dawns on you that as a foreigner in this vivid city, you know nothing about traffic, that you know nothing of the subtle art of being able to fit 8 cars on a 3 lane highway, and that you’ve had it easy so far.
You see, in Delhi, going around could be an Olympic sport and being a tourist and needing to get around is actually a battlefield. It starts with trying to flag an auto rick-shaw, well enough of them if you happen to be a party of people. Each rick-shaw will only fit 3 people , no more, or you have a deathwish. Then you have to tell him where you want to go and he might just decline if it’s too dodgy, busy or not where he intended to go.
Then you talk price, you have to bargain your way through India, even if it means a fraction of a fraction of what you would have thought to be cheap in London, Paris or New York… 100 rupees to go across town on what is basically a motorbike dressed up for Halloween, that’s 1 pound in my mind and it’s just mind blowing. But you do it, and you’re told by the locals to do it, bargain till the price drops so low you could buy 20 , and you do it because otherwise if you come and buy everything at what they’d like you to pay, then the prices go up for everyone, and the locals will have to pay more, and considering how much they earn you don’t want that to happen to them.
So you get on auto the rick shaw, the car, the bike rick-shaw, trying not to fall out of the vehicle , holding on to the frame for dear life, with a driver who will completely ignore where you’re trying to go or where you point on the map, and will take your somewhere else where his friend works, where he’ll argue and just stand there saying “this is better” on the off chance you’ll buy something from his friend/family out of frustration, so you fight it and you fight him and you argue and you get angry and then stoic, he might get back in the car and start over again.
And then of course there’s the honking, that in Delhi, is an indication of presence. Every auto rickshaw or bus is hand painted at the back with “horn please”, so make sure they know you’re there. I can’t imagine the sixth sense of presence you develop as a driver there. After 8 days in Delhi, I started to cancel the honking out slightly, it became part of the soundscape of the city. I can imagine that for a local person however, it must be like white noise.
There it is, the sights and sounds of Delhi. In the next report I’ll talk all about the tastes and smells.
It’s so easy to forget that your own behaviors are the result of your surroundings. India was a vivid reminder of that. Delhi is the home of 13 million people, or 9 000 people per square kilometer. That means nothing until you have to think about how those people will start going places and then it dawns on you that as a foreigner in this vivid city, you know nothing about traffic, that you know nothing of the subtle art of being able to fit 8 cars on a 3 lane highway, and that you’ve had it easy so far.
You see, in Delhi, going around could be an Olympic sport and being a tourist and needing to get around is actually a battlefield. It starts with trying to flag an auto rick-shaw, well enough of them if you happen to be a party of people. Each rick-shaw will only fit 3 people , no more, or you have a deathwish. Then you have to tell him where you want to go and he might just decline if it’s too dodgy, busy or not where he intended to go.
Then you talk price, you have to bargain your way through India, even if it means a fraction of a fraction of what you would have thought to be cheap in London, Paris or New York… 100 rupees to go across town on what is basically a motorbike dressed up for Halloween, that’s 1 pound in my mind and it’s just mind blowing. But you do it, and you’re told by the locals to do it, bargain till the price drops so low you could buy 20 , and you do it because otherwise if you come and buy everything at what they’d like you to pay, then the prices go up for everyone, and the locals will have to pay more, and considering how much they earn you don’t want that to happen to them.
So you get on auto the rick shaw, the car, the bike rick-shaw, trying not to fall out of the vehicle , holding on to the frame for dear life, with a driver who will completely ignore where you’re trying to go or where you point on the map, and will take your somewhere else where his friend works, where he’ll argue and just stand there saying “this is better” on the off chance you’ll buy something from his friend/family out of frustration, so you fight it and you fight him and you argue and you get angry and then stoic, he might get back in the car and start over again.
And then of course there’s the honking, that in Delhi, is an indication of presence. Every auto rickshaw or bus is hand painted at the back with “horn please”, so make sure they know you’re there. I can’t imagine the sixth sense of presence you develop as a driver there. After 8 days in Delhi, I started to cancel the honking out slightly, it became part of the soundscape of the city. I can imagine that for a local person however, it must be like white noise.
There it is, the sights and sounds of Delhi. In the next report I’ll talk all about the tastes and smells.
Reporting on Doors of Perception 1/3: New Friends
Saturday, March 10th, 2007
If anything this trip has reminded me of how much I hate long haul flights. In the space of a day, I woke up at 4 in Delhi, took off on a plane at 8 30, landed in Bahrain 5 hours later to take a plane exactly 30 minutes later and sit there watching crap american movies for another 7 hours, to land at Heathrow, take a 2h30 bus to Stansted and jump on another 1 hour flight to Amsterdam to finally put the keys in the door at 11 at night…. ugh.
What made it worth it? Well among the many reasons, Doors was great for the people who attended and I think I can safely say that I made new friends. Friends who just happen to not live in Amsterdam of course, but in this modern world, that hardly matters. So a list of the people whose work I liked, or who became great travel companions:
John Thackara, UK
JJ, NL
Caitlin Hood, UK
Garrick Jones, UK
Robert O’Dowd, UK
Francesca Sarti, IT
Maja kuzmanovic, BE
Margie Morris, Senior researcher for the Digital Health Group at Intel, US
Ron Paul, Consulting Director for the Portland Public Market, US
Keity Anjoure, Choreographer, FR
Mia Lindmark and Malin Lindmark Vrijman, Sweden
Debra Solomon, NL
Konstantinos Chalaris, UK
Kristine Malden, FR
If anything this trip has reminded me of how much I hate long haul flights. In the space of a day, I woke up at 4 in Delhi, took off on a plane at 8 30, landed in Bahrain 5 hours later to take a plane exactly 30 minutes later and sit there watching crap american movies for another 7 hours, to land at Heathrow, take a 2h30 bus to Stansted and jump on another 1 hour flight to Amsterdam to finally put the keys in the door at 11 at night…. ugh.
What made it worth it? Well among the many reasons, Doors was great for the people who attended and I think I can safely say that I made new friends. Friends who just happen to not live in Amsterdam of course, but in this modern world, that hardly matters. So a list of the people whose work I liked, or who became great travel companions:
John Thackara, UK
JJ, NL
Caitlin Hood, UK
Garrick Jones, UK
Robert O’Dowd, UK
Francesca Sarti, IT
Maja kuzmanovic, BE
Margie Morris, Senior researcher for the Digital Health Group at Intel, US
Ron Paul, Consulting Director for the Portland Public Market, US
Keity Anjoure, Choreographer, FR
Mia Lindmark and Malin Lindmark Vrijman, Sweden
Debra Solomon, NL
Konstantinos Chalaris, UK
Kristine Malden, FR
Images of Delhi
Sunday, March 4th, 2007
1.
(Phone rings)
Matt: “Hey you”
Me: ” Hey! Let me just move away from this street, a monkey just threw an energy-saving light-bulb in our direction”
2.
12 people squeezed in a car, all dressed in white, singing a capella Honeysuckle Rose while the car tries to avoid cows and horses in the streets.
Happy Holi party!
1.
(Phone rings)
Matt: “Hey you”
Me: ” Hey! Let me just move away from this street, a monkey just threw an energy-saving light-bulb in our direction”
2.
12 people squeezed in a car, all dressed in white, singing a capella Honeysuckle Rose while the car tries to avoid cows and horses in the streets.
Happy Holi party!
Blogging at Doors
Friday, March 2nd, 2007
Will be live blogging from the Doors official conference (much much more thoughts on the week I just spent in the next few days of course) on Tastythinking. Follow me there!
Will be live blogging from the Doors official conference (much much more thoughts on the week I just spent in the next few days of course) on Tastythinking. Follow me there!
News from sunny/rainy India
Thursday, March 1st, 2007
Just letting you know I’m deep in workshops, eating street food, walking around the most desolate areas of Delhi and generally taking about a million pictures of Doors 9: Juice on my flickr stream. Enjoy!
Back to the usual rants on the 8th of March.
Just letting you know I’m deep in workshops, eating street food, walking around the most desolate areas of Delhi and generally taking about a million pictures of Doors 9: Juice on my flickr stream. Enjoy!
Back to the usual rants on the 8th of March.
