Thanks, Veuve Clicquot, our Milano Design Week sponsor! We adore their new origami inspired ice bucket, Clicq’up.

Spotted in Milan, the mesmerizing Flylight, by Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta (Studio DRIFT) in collaboration with engineers Klaas van der Molen and Luuk van Laake. It is a beautiful light installation composed of 160 glass tubes. The tubes light up and respond to the viewer and was inspired by the movements of a flock of birds. Each light is programmed with digital DNA and responds individually to the presence of viewers. Ultrasonic sensors detect the distance between viewers and installation, causing the ‘flock’ to react differently as visitors come closer or approach the installation in different configurations. To make sense of it fully you have to check out the video and pics on the next page!

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Crazy week at NOTCOT.org with a number of changes and lots of gorgeous posts. We’ve seen a llama font, billboards illuminated by oranges, and much much more. To find out more about each post, click on its individual image.

From the Royal College of Art, The Devil’s Pet candle by Thorunn Arnadottir… melt the adorable pink polygon cat to reveal its rather more sinister skeleton beneath… it’s eerie, a bit creepy, and i couldn’t stop staring. Close ups on the next page!

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Rapid 3d printing in the real world! Love this video that Justine found… i’ll let her fill you in on the rest!

Souvenirs are way more fun when you make them yourself. I loved pressing pennies as a kid, but never dreamed I might be able to make a 3D print of myself! Love this project called Be Your Own Souvenir from Barcelona based blablabLab.

The project uses custom software developed using openKinect and openFrameworks. To create an army figurine style souvenir, visitors use 3 kinect sensors to create a 360-degree scan which creates input pointclouds. Meshlab then uses these combined pointclouds to create a Poisson reconstruction, which is cleaned up via Blender and Skeinforge before being fed into a cnc machine (Rapman 3.1), which prints out the souvenir. Voila! Now, seriously, check out the pics and video of it in action on the next page!

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What a roundup from NOTCOT.org. This week we’ve seen rattan cars, gyrocopters, xylophones in the forest, LEGO in the museum and more. To find out more about each post, click on its individual image.

The Design Museum, London is celebrating Dutch graphic designer Wim Crouwel with his first UK retrospective. Crouwel is renowned for his bold typographic designs that captured the essence of emerging technologies during the 1960s. The exhibit opened on March 30th and runs until July 3rd. You can find out more about the exhibit at the Design Museum’s site for the exhibit: ‘Wim Crouwel - A graphic odyssey’ and see more images of the exhibit below.

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What a roundup! This week we’ve seen a Gehry birthday cake, time lapse cities, the classic Eames lounger in the making, microcameras and so much more! To find out more about each post, click on its individual image and for more design inspiration, be sure to drop by NOTCOT.org.

Photo credit: Tom Swain

On more awesome London window discoveries, Justine has been working on this post all week ~ but we got a bit distracted while running around in Paris!

“The craftsman’s heart rate will be monitored while he works and transferred to a computer, which will in turn convert the data into commands for a sewing machine.” Interactive installation art from Fendi over at Harrods! I spotted these gorgeous windows at Harrods and was intrigued by the intricate leatherwork and prominently featured machinery. While many of Harrods’ other windows are under construction, window number five features the work of British artist-designer Rowan Mersh and artisan Cyril Letellier. The collaborative performance and is a part of Fendi’s global project, ‘Fatto A Mano’, which translates to hand made. From leather to heart rate to machine to more machines… the out put is a fascinating sculptural form of sorts… see it all in action on the next page!

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Just came home to Audrey Kawasaki’s “She Entwined” print ~ and it’s stunning! In her usual delicately innocent and suggestive (ok, this one is more suggestive than some) style ~ with her girls coming out of the wood ~ it looks gorgeous in the frame! I gave in to one this one at one of her flash print sales a month ago (seriously, they disappear in less than a minute it feels like!) ~ and ended up with lucky #13 out of 300. Take a peek at some of the details up close on the next page…

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It was fascinating to see Guy Limone’s work up close at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin… and the way people interact with it. The Parisian artist’s works are often made of miniature plastic figurines strung in long ceiling to floor length strands as statistical visualizations (taking infographics to a whole new level), two of which i encountered when wandering the gallery ~ and others are figurines spreading across a table/etc… what’s most fascinating when encountering them with no context or explanation, are the details! The bizarre situations/characters these figurines are in… from farmers to scuba divers, pigs to horses, police men and shopping carts and so much more… they also make awesome shadows! Take a look at some details at two strands i was mesmerized with on the next page!

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So many experiences and pictures i’m dying to share with you about adventures with Perrier Jouët from the last few days, but a full day without WeeeFeee (wifi sounds like that in french! i love it!) and i’m in slight withdrawl, so silly, fun posts first! Yesterday while explore the caves in Epernay, we ended the tour of where the champagne is stored in the beautiful new vault of a room to house the special 100 magnums of ‘98 waiting to be “passed on” as part of the limited edition collaboration series with Daniel Arsham, but more on that later. For now… you HAVE to see this amazing vintage safe they moved from their main offices into the space to hold the certificates for the bottle holders… the 4 dials have alphabets on them! And the key holes are covered by fire breathing dragons! And when it opens, the doors are even thicker than they appear! OH, and the KEY… it looks like a rocket launcher… absolutely amazing! So take a peek at all the details on the next page!

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Stunning roundup of a fabulous week at NOTCOT.org. This week we’ve seen slides instead of stairs, book sculpture portriats, high end foosball tables and so much more. To find out more about each post, click on its individual link.

Teeny tiny elevators… which of course open and close and make all the corresponding noises… except actually moving up and down. (Though i’m still secretly hoping, if you put something inside one, it disappears, or pops out in the other.) Discovered the Liliputian “Lift” by Maurizio Cattelan while checking out the legendary Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris. See more pics of it on the next page!

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Laser cut stacks of uncut money… into skull motifs… that is one QUICK way to grab my attention, and almost want to miss a flight to paris. Almost… thank goodness Linhchi was able to go check out the inaugural exhibition of the OH WOW Gallery, SCOTT CAMPBELL NOBLESSE OBLIGE. Scott Campbell has been much loved on NOTCOT over the years, from tattoo artist, to laser artist, to beautiful collaborations with laser cut leather for Louis Vuitton… and to my favorite, his work with laser cut stacks of uncut sheets of US currency. And this time there is even tattoo inspired art inside ostrich egg shells and burning images into stacks of money…Take a peek into the show and the lush green gallery on the next page!

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I’ve always wanted one of Emilio Garcia’s Jumping Brains by Lapolab… remember the peek at the making-of the new Brain Hues? When i popped by The Toy Art Gallery to pick up Squadt ~ it was the Brain Hues launch day, and a few still remained… so i picked two up! Their pearlized finishes make them perfect to photograph in the sun out in the yard… So take a peek at my random little backyard photoshoot and the packaging/limited edition details!

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