Hotel at Home

I love hotels.  I truly do - I love the miniature toiletries and I love a well designed hotel.  I especially love the trend as of late where the more "design conscious" hotels have been offering their wares for sale.  Rather than filling this post with lots of words, I'll just post a lot of links and visual candy.

Some of my favorite "hotel at home" offerings...

The Standard
Hotel Website: http://www.standardhotels.com/new-york-city/
Shop Webite: http://standardhotels.myshopify.com/

On The Standard's website, you can purchase anything from bedding to CD's specifically designed for their hotel to a bicycle!

W Hotels

Hotel Website: http://www.starwoodhotels.com/whotels/index.html

Shop Website: http://www.whotelsthestore.com/

W Hotels, which are owned by Starwood Properties, bring contemporary designed hotels to more locations than your typical chicly designed boutique hotels.  On their shop site you can find anything from clothing and candles to their signature bedding collections and soundtrack CDs as well as other CDs that they suggest.

The Mirage Las Vegas

Hotel Website: http://www.mirage.com

Shop Website: http://www.mirage.com/offers/2009/10_leisure_sales/brochure/index.html

The Mirage has recently been renovated and their new design is contemporary with a lot of graphical elements - the result is fun, funky and well designed.  On their shop site, you can purchase bedding, mattresses, bath products, and spa products.  

Hilton Hotels

Hotel Website: http://www.hilton.com

Shop Website: http://www.hiltontohome.com/

Even Hilton Hotels have jumped on the bandwagon.  They're selling everything they use in the hotels - including pet products.  Like their upholstery cleaner?  It's available on the website.

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

Living in New York, you see a lot of bridges... Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Tappan-Zee Bridge, George Washington Bridge... you get the idea. My favorite of all of the bridges is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to Staten Island. I've come to visit this bridge quite a lot with taking road trips down to Virginia to visit my parents and I'm always in awe of it. No, its not as historically significant as the Brooklyn or Manhattan bridge and no, its not a direct link to Manhattan, but in terms of design, I think this bridge is the most aesthetically pleasing.

A little history on the bridge, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge that connects the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City at the Narrows, the reach connecting the relatively protected upper bay with the larger lower bay.


The bridge is named for Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first known European navigator to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River, while crossing The Narrows. It has a center span of 4,260 feet (1,298 m) and was the largest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its completion in 1964, until it was surpassed by theHumber Bridge in the United Kingdom in 1981. It now has the eighth longest center span in the world, and is the largest suspension bridge in the United States. Its massive towers can be seen throughout a good part of the New York metropolitan area, including from spots in all five boroughs of New York City.


The bridge furnishes a critical link in the local and regional highway system. It is the starting point of the New York City Marathon. The bridge marks the gateway to New York Harbor; all cruise ships and most container ships arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey must pass underneath the bridge and thus must be built to accommodate the clearance under the bridge. This is most notable in the case of the ocean liner RMS Queen Mary 2.

The bridge is in great condition and its got a really beautiful, clean lined design - very Mid-Century Modern. The color blends beautifully with the surrounding water and you can see amazing views of it from Shore Road in Brooklyn and the Belt Parkway.

Click here for an interesting site with more information on the bridge.
Also check out the Bridge and Tunnel Club website for more information and photos.

All photos courtesy of the Bridge and Tunnel Club website.

The Standard NYC

I found this hotel today and was blown away with the simple but gorgeous design.  Also, the view isn't too shabby either.

The Standard Hotel NYC

Jonathan Adler's Pottery

I'm not much of a "names" kinda gal... if it looks cool, I really don't care who designed it.  Occasionally though, a name sticks with me if I have trouble finding anything I DON'T think is amazing by the designer.

One of my favorite home-goods designers is Jonathan Adler.  His simple clean lines and retro infusion thrill me to no end.  I love his furniture and textiles, but his pottery really drives me wild.  His subject matter and execution are just such a fantastic blend of curiosity shoppe-esque and simple lines and I just can't get  enough of it.

This is one of my favorite recent pieces, the Garden of Eden / Temptation collection.  I especially love the Salt and Pepper shakers, which are pictured below.  You can purchase them here.

20 Fresh Creative Packaging Designs

Well, as I've stated before, I have a love for packaging design.  Hell, call it a weakness.  Whatever it is, yesterday Creative Magz posted a fantastic collection of 20 Fresh Creative Packaging Designs.  Read the full article here.

Here are a few of my favorites that were featured:

Anti Smoke
By R.J. Reynolds

Coca Cola Classic
By Ryan Harc

I’m Not Battery
By Mehmet Gozetlik

Two of my favorite things: fonts and baking

My dream has come true - typography + baking = HEAVEN.

Beverly Hsu has created Helvetica Cookie Cutters!  How incredibly adorable!  If I could get my hands on these, I'd be such a happy gal.  Too bad they aren't for sale - YET!

For more info, click here.

Inspirational

This is a beautiful stop motion animation by Carlos Lascano.

I'm a little bit in love with it.


A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

If I Ever Have the Expendable Cash Flow...

My husband married me knowing that aside from necessities and whatnot, if I ever had the expendable cash flow, the two pieces that I desire to own in my lifetime are...

The first piece is an Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman ($3,000 to $5000 from DWR)

Here is the design story courtesy of www.hermanmiller.com:

The first Eames lounge chair and ottoman was made as a gift for Billy Wilder, the director of "Some Like It Hot," "Irma La Douce," and "Sunset Blvd." The heritage of the chair goes back to the molded plywood chairs pioneered by the Eameses in the 1940s. Charles Eames said his goal for the chair was that it be "a special refuge from the strains of modern living."

The first lounge chair and ottoman produced by Herman Miller, in 1956, made its public debut on Arlene Francis's Home show, a predecessor of the Today show. Commenting on the unique design, Charles Eames told Francis, "We've never designed for a fashion, and the Herman Miller furniture company has never, ever requested that we do pieces for a market." During the interview, a short film was shown in which a man--Charles described him as "a typical Herman Miller employee"--assembled and disassembled the lounge chair, showing how simple the design was.

Francis ended the segment by quoting something she said she had read about Charles and Ray: "The Eameses' desire to move freely in a world of enormous and unlimited possibilities is combined with a very accurate sense of discrimination and taste. It's an ability to select among the unlimited possibilities and return considerable richness to the world."

The second piece is an Isamu Noguchi Table ($1350 from DWR).



Again, here is the design story courtesy of www.hermanmiller.com:

Anyone can make a three-legged table. That challenge, thrown down to Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi by a designer he believed had "borrowed" an idea of his, was what led to the design of his classic table.

Noguchi tells the story in his autobiography. "My first industrial design was, I suppose, some Italian sugar cake molds that I did when I was 20. Then there was 'Measured Time', a clock, and in 1937 the 'Radio Nurse.'"


Manufactured by Zenith in 1937, the Radio Nurse was a wireless intercom introduced as a baby monitor in response to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. During World War II, and after the kidnapping furor had died down, most of these pieces were thrown away—because of the Japanese name inscribed on them. A rare surviving example of this beautiful piece was featured on The Antiques Roadshow.

"I went to Hawaii in 1939 to do an advertisement (with Georgia O'Keefe). As a result of this, I had met (T.H.) Robsjohn-Gibbings, the furniture designer, who had asked me to do a coffee table for him," Noguchi remembered. "I designed a small model in plastic and heard no further before I went west."

By "went west" Noguchi was referring to his internment, as a Japanese-American, in the Poston, Arizona, concentration camp during World War II. During his time there, Noguchi said he was surprised to see a variation of the small plastic model table he had done for Robsjohn-Gibbings published as an advertisement for the English designer.

"When, on my return, I remonstrated, he said anybody could make a three-legged table," said Noguchi. "In revenge, I made my own variant of my own table."

The "variant" that Noguchi designed was used to illustrate an article, written by Herman Miller designer George Nelson, called "How to Make a Table." The table in the illustration became his famous "coffee table," and it's as appealing today as it was then.

The table reflects Noguchi's belief that "everything is sculpture. Any material, any idea without hindrance born into space I consider sculpture."

Noguchi believed the sculptor's task was to shape space, to give it order and meaning, and that art should "disappear," or be as one with its surroundings. Unwilling and unable to be pigeonholed, he created works that could be as abstract as Henri Moore's and as realistic as Leonardo's. He used any medium he could get his hands on: stone, metal, wood, clay, bone, paper, or a mixture of any or all—carving, casting, cutting, pounding, chiseling, or dynamiting away as each form took shape.

"To limit yourself to a particular style may make you an expert of that particular viewpoint or school, but I do not wish to belong to any school," he said. "I am always learning, always discovering."



There they are, together, in all of their glory.

These are two pieces that I WILL own one day. I've been coveting them since I started self-learning what good interior design was back when I was 13. Ahhh desire. Anyone want to buy them for me? I'd love you forever...

Mid-Century Modern Stamps

Beautiful mid-century modern stamps.


View original article here.

Retro Style Applied to Modern Designs

Here's a very cool article with lots of drool worthy photos of retro styling applied to modern design.





Check it out here.