This post is part of NOTCOT Having Fun In The Dark series sponsored by Canon Powershot’s Your Second Shot While taking pictures in the dark means standing super still, you may still end up with more graininess than usual …armed with Canon’s low-light HS SYSTEM, you can trust the tech to help you capture the perfect shot the first time!

A month and a bit ago the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans became the Mercedes-Benz Superdome… it is also the largest fixed domed structure in the world, designed New Orleans modernist architectural firm of Curtis and Davis. And our Tasteologie Editor, Jackson, had quite the view of it from the New Orleans Hyatt this weekend ~ coming home with some stunning pics and a video of the light show that takes place on at night… it glows through a rainbow of colors! Take a peek at some of the variations on the next page!

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Tags: lighting - sponsored - sport - travel

Sometimes the best art is locked away INSIDE TBWA\Chiat\Day! So, i’ve shown you their studios before, and you just saw their 5353 Music Art Fest ~ well, while i was there, popped inside again, and their latest internal art exhibit is awesome! Freerunning captured in action and printed larger than life all around their communal areas… only thing that could be cooler would be watching the LA based Team Tempest freerunners bouncing off the surfboard bar, gargoyle, fish tank, shipping containers and more!

And since i was a bit ignorant, just read up a bit on the difference between Freerunning and Parkour - according to wikipedia - “Parkour as a discipline emphasizes efficiency, whilst free running embodies complete freedom of movement — and includes many acrobatic maneuvers. Although the two are often physically similar, the mindsets of each are vastly different.” Watching some Tempest TV, it definitely look like an incredibly athletic art form that feels like urban tumbling/dancing at times! Mesmerizing to say the least ~ and apparently you check out Team Tempest at UCLA every saturdat at 11am!

For now ~ check out more pics of the exhibit up at TBWA\Chiat\Day on the next page!

p.s. UPDATE! The stunning photography in these prints are by people/dramatic sports photog, Andy Batt!

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Tags: advertising - art - events - gallery - outdoor - sport

Retro designs keep coming back lately! And remember the fun fact that Oakley started in 1975 with BIKE GRIPS? Well, their initial product was made of a special material, Unobtainium ~ and this also crossed over into their eventual eyewear lines, but it started first with the B-1B ~ and they’ve brought the design back in an extremely limited edition run, with an updated newer, softer rubber compound - and a 2010 stamp is embossed on the ends of the grips ~ they will be available in 5 colors, here’s a peek at blue and white and the black and grey… and more to come! In fact they even used fun retro inspired packaging! They gifted me a few pairs when i popped by their HQ today ~ and it was such a gorgeous day out, and we were joking around that “B-1B Guidance System” sounded like it could be for missiles… so naturally, had to take some pics of them in front of their huge missile before i left! See closeups of the packaging, the grips, and a peek at vintage models on the next page!

p.s. UPDATE! Check out the super limited edition NOTCOT black and white grips here.

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Tags: bikes - gifts - oakley - sport

Much talk on twitter this morning about clones… especially of the mentally networked type… so i could be in multiple places around the globe at once! One of the recent moments i wish i could be in NY and LA at the same time (or actually, i suppose teleporting would be ok too) ~ when the email came in with subject line: “CHANEL J12 Marine invites you to Montauk for Fireside Cocktails - Aug 21st”

As if i wasn’t bummed enough not to go see it in person, the pictures came in this morning ~ and it was just too picturesque not to share! Something fun about the way they were shot, it looks like the matte black and white Chanel logo’d surf boards were the stars of the party… in addition to their new brand ambassador, and the new J12 Marine watches of course! “Like CHANEL’s newest brand ambassador, Laird Hamilton, CHANEL has allowed themselves to be swept away by the beauty of the waves, and has incorporated these elements into the design of the J12 Marine, the newest addition to CHANEL’s fine timepiece collection.” I have a fascination with watching brands and experiences you don’t expect merging beautifully to create a whole new experience… Chanel + Surfing? Definitely quite the contrast to the socal surf scene and the art/design i usually imagine coupled with it… But lovely in its own way! Take a peek on the next page of the dinner Chanel’s J12 Marine and Laird Hamilton hosted in honor of “The Wave” by Susan Casey to benefit the Surfrider Foundation…

p.s. the email with pictures said “…dined on fresh seafood at wooden tables and then gathered around the fire pit for cocktails and smores.” How lovely does that sound right now?

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Tags: chanel - events - gifts - jewelry - luxury - new york - outdoor - shopping - sport - surf - surfboard - travel - watch

Beautifully sleek Silveira Customs Personal Watercrafts ~ are not the jetskis of the past… they are designed to “feel more like an extension of your body” and definitely lean more towards sport bike design streamlined for aquatic adventures. “The ergonomics evolved this way, based on simple physics involved. Physics dictated the advantages of reducing watercraft weight and positioning the handlebars as the center of gravity, so you can exert extreme body English. You can go from big high speed drifts , to cutting very tightly, all with just a small change in attitude of the craft, yet it’s all distinctive.” Take a peek at more pictures on the next page ~ i love that the Silveira site shows so much of the manufacturing process as well!

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Tags: gifts - ocean - shopping - sport - technology - watch

This post is a sponsored series that takes a fun peek at the gorgeous details of modern life. The irresistible design details that enhance our lives… Gillette is the sponsor (Thanks, Gillette!)… but, as always, the post and ideas are 100% NOTCOT!

Technogym is positioned as the most design oriented fitness brand, and has developed two eye-pleasing and highly innovative ‘wellness’ systems in collaboration with design masters Antonio Citterio and Partners. These are like works of art ~ that ALSO work you out… and now are even filled with tech! “Read e-mails, catch up on the latest news, or update your Facebook status while you workout. Today, it’s all just a touch away. VISIOWEB is the new interactive digital platform that transforms your workout into Wellness Time.” Yes, this means never stopping working, even while working out… but hey, i like to run and poke at my ipad anyhow… take a peek at the details of the line on the next page!

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Tags: exercise - gifts - gillette - home - shopping - sport

A fun and original (hopefully inspiring) use of diverse materials and packaging. These playful designs by the talented Troika studio are perfect for gifting! Troika was invited by the Barbican Gallery to create an event to celebrate Ron Arad’s retrospective ‘Ron Arad: Restless’ at the Barbican Art Gallery. Building on Arad’s long standing association with table tennis, Troika created a ping pong tournament with a twist, for which they designed 5 sets of custom bats, more or less playable and inspired by Ron’s classic designs. Amazing pieces forcing you to shift perspectives on the game! See lots of pics of all the fun details on the next page!

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Tags: gifts - shopping - sport

Leave it to Poke NY to enable 12 year old twins, Jason and Corey Grant, who desperately want LeBron James to join the Knicks (see the NY Daily News story). The result? A playful on and offline campaign that lives at nyHeartLeBron.com ~ where there is a giant counter next to a #NY<3LeBron button you can click… three ways to make the counter go up? 1. Click the digital basketball button on the site 2. Tweet with the hashtag #NY<3LEBRON 3. (and my absolute favorite!) Find one of the few #NY<3LeBron BUTTONS in real life around NY and push it! These adorable half basketballs encased in wood are circulating the city waiting for you… oh, and of course, they have a facebook page too. Peek at more pics on the next page! Including to the guts of the actual #NY<3LeBron BUTTONS!

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Tags: buttons - sport - technology - twitter

Unbelievably awesome. When my favorite crayon carver, Diem Chau, emailed me with pics last night of the latest project with W+K for Nike… for World Cup… the press kit for Write the Future campaign…. i was instantly amazed and jealous of all the lucky folks that got one. Such a beautiful piece of art. Incredibly packaged. Awesome idea. All the soccer stars are personified in crayon carvings! Huge thanks and congrats to Diem and W+K on an awesome project (and for providing the pics!) and see close ups on the next page…

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Tags: art - football - nike - packaging - press kit - sculpture - soccer - sport

You’ve now seen the Nike Golf Oven Testing Facilities, and the awesome Putting Lab… i’d be remiss not to show you some of the fun machinery in the Nike Golf Oven Grind Shop, Machine Shop, Tour Shop, Engineering Labs, Durability Testing Labs and more! Personally, the manufacturing/prototyping/testing phases of industrial design have always fascinated me so ~ and there is some of the cutest iconography on the warning labels! So take a peek at fun machinery, labs, close ups into microscopes, prototypes and more on the next page!

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Tags: factory - golf - nike - sport - technology - texas

Nike Golf’s R&D Facilities, The Oven, in Fort Worth, Texas are a little golfing haven all on their own (far from the Beaverton, OR Nike HQ!) ~ Amazing to hear the stories all of yesterday about how Nike has broken into the more traditional golf industry moving from apparel and footwear to balls and most recently to clubs the last decade… and their shift into clubs didn’t start from scratch, they acquired the 5 man team of IMPACT, lead by Tom Stites ~ an impressive golf focused engineering team with years of experience working with top brands and athletes… and they let them continue doing their thing in Fort Worth! Now here’s the part that i found most fascinating at the facilities ~ their testing space is essentially like an indoor putting green equivalent to a 6+ car garage, and on a nice day, you just open the three large garage door/windows and instant driving range clear out into their own short course complete with water features! What i’m hearing from all of the golf fanatics on the trip is that Nike takes a very technologically focused approach to product development and are one of the most daring with visually innovative designs in contrast to the traditional companies… so when it comes to testing, no wonder their set ups are fascinating! Between endless heads and shafts to mix and match in this one room ~ you have an incubator (a fridge FILLED with golf balls), walls of premade clubs to test, the robotic golfer, and a putting lab. More to come on the putting lab next, but first take a peek at the testing facilities on the next page!

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Tags: factory - golf - nike - sport - texas

On fun press kit design and packaging - this one made me pretty giddy. Nike put a jersey in a bottle! And no, as much as i tried, pulling it out of the little hole doesn’t really work. They ingeniously put a pull tab across the label which hid the split in the bottle. Conceptually it really drives the point home that these super light dry-fit jerseys are each upcycled from 8 plastic bottles. I do hope they didn’t waste more making/using the plastic bottles to house these though! These also came with the most adorable teeny tiny USB keys containing the press releases and high res pics of the newly launched collections.

On design details to watch out for as the Nike World Cup team kits get launched (home kits we got a peek at, but official launches are to come…) ~ All of the 2010 World Cup Nike jerseys have a secret message printed on the inside behind the team emblem, next to the hearts of players ~ for the Brazilian one it says “orgulho e amor”, which is Portuguese for “pride and love”! It was the most exciting feature i was looking forward to once i got the shirt out of the bottle… for the others, waiting to see the artwork/calligraphy when Nike has pics ready! Take a peek at the un-bottling and details on the next page!

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Tags: gifts - nike - outdoor - packaging - press - shirts - shopping - sport - unboxing

James Jarvis!!! Ok, that’s my first reaction… or, maybe my second after, “oooh, florescent lights.” But what we have here is a first look at a the jackets in the new Nike Sportswear Six Collaborations… and its 5am, and i should sleep, but i wanted to share it with you… so see the pics on the next page, and SlamXHype has some good info and apparently more will come tomorrow… but for now, check out the close ups of the artistic crests and crazy fonts on the back. For each of these 6 countries, artists from the respective countries were selected to reinterpret the full team kit! The artists are as follows ~ USA - Mister Cartoon, England - James Jarvis, France - So Me, Netherlands - Delta, South Africa - Kronk, Brazil - Nunca. See the fun pics on the next page. I’m madly James Jarvis lusting.

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Tags: fashion - football - gifts - nike - shopping - soccer - sport

Good morning 3am London ~ it’s been quite the evening with Nike Football/Soccer, running around and ending up on buses with ~400 international press folks ~ ending up at Battersea Power Station in the rain with its huge purple projections, only to delve deeper into what some felt was like a bat cave or villainous lair of lights and steps and shiny new products to tempt us with. But the main attraction announced tonight (with the help of Cristiano Ronaldo) ~ was what all this purple was about! And my favorite part of course is not only the new shoe, the Nike Mercurial Vapor SuperFly II… but the magical glowingly purple glass/cement box that looked like an apple store in a shipping container. The purple dots on the glass became smaller and smaller until you could see the wall of shoes hung upon them… On the next page see pictures of the installation, the new Nike Mercurial Vapor SuperFly II, the new Nike Football+ iphone app (with twitter/facebook integrations), design sketches… and the full press release!

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Tags: fashion - football - gifts - london - nike - outdoors - shoes - shopping - soccer - sport - travel

On exciting CES launches to poke at in person next week ~ Liquid Image (who started with the scuba goggles with integrated digital still/HD vid cameras) ~ is announcing the Freestyle Series Swim Camera Goggle and the Summit Series Snow Camera Goggle. So now you can use their handsfree wide angle still/video cameras in the pool or in the snow… and actually with the goggles, you can use them anywhere as a wearable handsfree camera since you won’t have to breathe through your mouth if using them out of the water! See more images and details on the next page!

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Tags: ces - fashion - outdoors - scuba diving - snow - sport - swim - technology - water

It was a gorgeous day in NY to take the VIP ferry out to Governor's Island for my first official polo match/picnic. Granted this was no ordinary day in the park ~ since there was much buzz with Prince Harry playing, Marc Jacobs and Madonna wandering around, and never ending Veuve Clicquot flowing at the second annual Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Polo Classic. The views were absolutely stunning ~ the manhattan skyline peeking out from behind the game, endless smatterings Pantone 137c between the lush green grass and perfectly clouded blue skies, and amusing people watching with lots of "daring hats" as requested. Take a peek at the experience on the next page...

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Tags: animals - champagne - nature - new york - polo - sport - travel - veuve clicquot

Sinking into my bed barely conscious, debating what to show you before i give in and pass out... been quite the night of wandering, but the most bizarre and not so design week related event this evening brought me back to those awesome Artek Shigeru Ban chairs i showed you... only instead of being on a tour... this was the The Standard SPiN New York Classic - for those (like me) who know little about the ping pong world - here is the SPiN bio: "SPiN New York is a 13,000 square foot ping pong social club on Park Avenue in Manhattan's Flatiron District. The club offers unparalleled table tennis courts with Olympic quality cushioned flooring and 17 individual tables, including a stadium-like center court. In addition, SPIN New York houses a pro shop, lounge, bar, private room sponsored by Fred Perry and over a dozen internationally known professional coaches and players who are available for private and group instruction." Intense, right? Did you know Susan Sarandon is a huge ping pong lover?

Anyhow, in addition to this party of a ping pong classic (don't get me wrong, there were some there extremely serious about the sport, and alongside were many party goers and an open bar) - the sunset out on the deck and in the background was absolutely stunning. Jaw dropping to say the least... so check out the many pics of this scene on the next page!

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Tags: events - hotels - luxury - new york - ping pong - sport - standard - travel

With a title like, FreeDarko presents The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: Styles, Stats, and Stars in Today's Game... how can you not look twice? And then when you see the incredible illustrations? And that this is described as "The indispensible, amazingly illustrated companion to today's NBA--a roundball Rosetta Stone that hilariously decodes the trends and tendencies of pro basketball." on Amazon... I think we may have just found the perfect gift for both basketball fans and designers without a clue about the current state of the NBA... Who knew it'd be possible? And only at 15$!

The illustrations are drop dead gorgeous, the Style Guides incredible, and FreeDarko even has limited edition prints and shirts! First spotted over at Bobby Sattler's Whole Lot of BS, then i got quickly distracted at the FreeDarko site (so gorgeous, and full of design details and digital goodies)... then got busy making pics for you to see my favorite excerpts from the book on the next page! So, go on, click to the next page and take a peek inside the book!

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Tags: books - gifts - holiday - illustration - shopping - sport

Karma Balls! I am in love with the packaging for these Nike Karma Golf Balls ~ apparently, for the golfers, these are more forgiving on slower swings - they are " Nike's softest compression ball designed for added feel and distance." You can read a review on the balls from 07 over at The Sand Trap... i discovered this fun grassy/cardboardy/vectory packaging over on BeSportier. Larger image on next page!

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Tags: gifts - golf - packaging - shopping - sport

The Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Polo Classic will take place on Governors Island (Sat 31 May) and can you believe that this will be the first time Polo will be played in NYC for over 70 years... bringing taste of Hamptons to NYC. Ralph Lauren's team (Blackwatch) is playing Asprey's team and Nacho Figueras (the face of Polo Black and best player in the world will be playing)

And guess what? The event is open to the public! So head over to Governor's Island on Saturday if you are in NY, and let me know how the polo match turns out! Hopefully it will be a beautiful (non rainy) day! More images on the next page...

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Tags: luxury - ny - polo - sport - travel - veuve clicquot

In addition to my growing porcelain fascination this ICFF, i have also been noticing a lot of Foosball Tables going more high design. During the Conran Shop's Rojo opening (incredible! Definitely worth how wet i got in the rain to get there)... i came across the bright red metal RS Barcelona RS #2 foosball table designed by Rafael Rodriguez... and then saw the white one downstairs in the shop... the silver one at ICFF... and the coat rack versions in both the Conran Shop and ICFF. Really what stands out about this one is the bright metal frames and the arms and expressions on the player! Their faces scream "pass it to me! pass it to me!" with that excited/alert look... and their arms make them look like they are always on the go... which is admittedly, even funnier on a coat rack. There is also a hilarious stumpy super-buff silver and black set of players on another table i found at the Conran Shop that you've got to check out on the next page (and maybe one of you knows who made that one?)... see all the pics on the next page!

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Tags: foosball - football - gifts - icff - kids - shopping - soccer - sport - toys