*NOTCOT in me -

NOTCOT.org #025

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What can i say? Shade Elaine and i noticed there was a whole lot of art going on this week over at the .org.

(l-r, 2123, 2135, 2140, 2106, 2112)

*NOTCOT in wearable -

Cyberoptix Ties

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Somedays i can’t believe how fabulous the Fabulist is. They pointed me to Cyberoptix… a fine line of beautifully darkly illustrated hand screen printed 100% charmeuse silk or poly-blend based ties. These are the brainchild of Bethany Shorb, who holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and has dabbled and excelled in disciplines ranging from sculpture, to fashion and graphic design, to photography, to multimedia and music. She has an impressively wide range on her background… and Jermacide is in need of a tie. I think these might be the perfect gift.

*NOTCOT in playful -

Smushing

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Smush Bush! Makes me giggle. As do non stop 12+ hours work days on 5 hours sleep. This went around the office today and i couldn’t help but share it, Urban Outfitters has such great images. It’s a “no brainer”. [Unfortunately SmushBush.com isn’t working]

*NOTCOT in design - 11.15.06 -

Target Tordfest

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The Tord-fest continues at Target as the Holiday Season gets into full swing. Just saw one of the Target Tord Boontje adverts on tv last night, so was excited to see on MocoLoco today that there is Tord TV for everyone to watch.

Also~ check out the gift cards! (translucent even!), i never thought i’d be the girl who wanted a gift card to Target for xmas, but hey, i guess things change?

*NOTCOT in wearable -

Lorem Ipsum Cuff

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RUGenius posted this brilliant Lorem Ipsum Cuff by Veer on .org earlier today, and i’ve been wishing i had it all day while doing site mockups. I also wish it had magic powers - magic, like bluetooth, such that somehow whenever i needed to insert some random text, just a flick of the wrist and it would instantly fill my text space with not a word too many.

Also love their product description: “Life is better unscripted. Face the unknown wearing this wide stainless steel bracelet, laser-etched with centuries-old lorem ipsum scribed in Grad. For the designer who wants to say everything, and nothing, with a heavy dose of style.” So true.

Random tibit: I just noticed lipsum.com has a ranking of 7,628 at the time this was written… i just didn’t expect it, actually i didn’t know what i’d expect.

*NOTCOT in design - 11.14.06 -

Animal Logic

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For all of you familiar with oO (one of our .org editors), you may or may not know that he is Olivier Ozoux, of oO’s Very Eclectic and that he is freshly back in Venice Beach after 3 years of living in Sydney working for Animal Logic on HAPPY FEET! [Yes, the dancing penguins, which opens this friday! So you can only imagine how happy he is.]

Being the design junkie that i am, as excited as i am about the dancing penguins, i fell in love with the Animal Logic internal shirts… and also their gorgeous website intro (see images of all below)

TO PAGE 2 of "Animal Logic"! ----->

*NOTCOT in design - 11.13.06 -

World Usability Day 2006

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Happy World Usability Day! This post really goes out as a reminder, excuse, and/or swift kick in the butt to go promote the importance of usability, user centered design, and especially usability testing with REAL USERS (*hint *hint *nudge *nudge to some of my colleagues).

What is this day about? Well, to quote their about page: “Making Life Easy!” “Why doesn’t this work right? What am I supposed to do with this now?” World Usability Day, November 14, 2006, is for everyone who’s ever asked these questions. This Earth Day style event, focused on raising awareness and visibility of usability engineering and user centered design, is currently being organized by volunteers and local event coordinators from around the world. Whether a usability professional or just an enthusiastic (or frustrated) user, each participant is making a contribution to “making life easy”.

So go to their page, show your support by joining the charter, participate in local events, and really, please, help make the world a more usable place.

*NOTCOT in tech -

PitoTubes

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Pitotubes “It’s Rocket Science for your Packing”. Been testing these new packing tubes out lately, which are perfect for anyone flying, trying to deal with that under 3oz’s/only what you can fit in a 1 quart ziploc rule. Pitotubes was founded by Alisa Caviness-Driscoll, who grew up living and sailing in the Caribbean and worked as a flight attendant to feed her passion for travel. The unique aspect of these bottles is that they are airless (and leakproof!) ~ much like the ones you’ll get in some higher end cosmetic products… as you pump the contents out, the base rises up. My one issue, is that aesthetically, the images looked as if they might be glass/metal, but they are plastic - if there was a more understated model, that might be nice.

*NOTCOT in design - 11.12.06 -

Prints Gone Wild

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NY Corespondent, Sanam Petri, checked out Prints Gone Wild last week ~

I walked by the show three times before I realized I was passing it. And even then, I only stopped because of the strange tire bubble thing sitting on the roof.

Ten print shops, about three dozen Brooklynites milling around this strange Chinese auto warehouse. The show was set up so that nothing was priced over $50; it made for a haggle-free, let’s-celebrate-the-dying-art-of-handmade-print sort of vibe. Printmakers from all over the country, selling everything from turn-of-the-century woodblocks to abstract lithographs. It was a lot of fun… Lots of pictures and more continued below.

TO PAGE 2 of "Prints Gone Wild"! ----->

*NOTCOT in playful - 11.10.06 -

Recycle Your Decks!


RUGenius created this recycle your decks! as “just a continually growing collection of sweet products made from recycled decks…surf, skate or snow.” We got a bit stumped and were a little sad we didn’t find better designer goodness to add to it… anyone have suggestions? One more find i came across for her to add is shown below - its like the ultimate lazy susan. [Also, click the specific items in the image above to check out what she has to say about each and every one, post made with Blog-It]

TO PAGE 2 of "Recycle Your Decks!"! ----->

*NOTCOT in wearable -

Blonde on Main

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Blonde on Main Street, that that heavenly sliver of LA that exists on the border of Santa Monica and Venice Beach, is one of my favorite boutiques, and last time i was in there i discovered this amazing map. Retro, i know! But one theme you could always find in my UX and Design concepts and ideas was transcending our digital layers that are taking over, and bringing it back to the physical. Well Chris and Amber (an adorable husband and wife team) have been running Blonde since 2000, and just launched their online presence (part store, part community, part vlog). So this map in the back room is where they’ve been sticking a pin for every order that has come in (Chris said they haven’t found the right world map yet, so don’t think its US only). Other than their awesome map usage, the main reason i wanted to highlight their new online shop is that they aren’t trying to compete with LA Celeb plastered Kitson and Shop Intuition, but have actually managed to convey through their cute videos of the store and latest fashions ~ that chill laid back boutique vibe you get when shopping higher end boutiques. So for international readers especially, you can get your real LA fix if you can’t come shop it in person, but via phone and email they’ll make you feel like you were here with us.

TO PAGE 2 of "Blonde on Main"! ----->

*NOTCOT in design -

Treachery of Images

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I’ll be honest, i burnt out this week. Got excited about too many projects and got stretched a bit too thin. Good news? NOTCOT is what i do to destress ~ so no worries this site isn’t going anywhere, but do need to slow down for the weekend. (But who knows, slowing down might mean on everything else, and in increase in design posts)… but between all the burning out yesterday, i looked up walking back from lunch with ThisNexters and saw the bright blue banner (you know, the vertical lamp post ones they sell and make bags from now) with Magritte’s not a pipe… and i stopped dead in my tracks, and felt a momentary giddy excitement, that it was coming. Here!

So starting Nov 19 (until March!) LACMA is getting surreal in a big way. Treachery of Images is the first major exhibition of Magritte’s work as well as others like Johns, Koons, Warhol, Baldessari, and more… “the exhibition examines the different and sometimes unconscious ways that pop, conceptual, and post-modern sensibilities have referenced Magritte’s ideas and imagery” And this is a show that will not be traveling around, so you’ve been warned, plan your trips now. [copied the LACMA description below]

TO PAGE 2 of "Treachery of Images"! ----->

*NOTCOT in me - 11.09.06 -

NOTCOT.ORG #024

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With all the random snapshots of designer goodness and random inspiration submitted to .org every week, its getting harder and harder to pick for the roundups!

So Shade Elaine did the honors this week. “It’s 2:05am on Thursday and we are tirrrred. We got some useful things to check out on .org this week: a handy font booklet, silly bottle openers, a great resource for car designs/logos, a place to sit, and something to get you around town if you put wheels on it.” You have NO IDEA how tired we are. It has been a LONG week, and i’m still working my butt off trying to get this surprise ready for you guys next week. So please keep the awesome posts coming to .org, it makes the days that much more fun!

p.s. contrary to the emails and comments coming in more frequently, we are neither a store, nor necessarily have relationships with the vendors/designers we feature. Sometimes we do! But please try contacting them via their pages if you have questions about specific products/services.

(l-r, 2032, 2041, 2045, 2046, 2050)

*NOTCOT in food+drink - 11.08.06 -

Absolut BLING.

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Absolut is the gold standard of design in my books ~ everything they do is gorgeously over the top, and their flashiness never pains me as much as the majority. This year they Blinged the hell out of everything imaginable and while being incredibly amusing and laughable, technically its well executed. From the animation and voiceover of the “History of Bling” (a MUST see, i just downloaded it for my iPod)… to the Bling Your Name wallpapers with cash and cityscape backgrounds… to the gilded holiday giftpack. Wow. Bling it on Absolut style. (Lots of images below, because this is one of those campaigns i know i will want to look back on someday when the site is long gone.)

TO PAGE 2 of "Absolut BLING."! ----->

*NOTCOT in tech -

Radar

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Ever get the feeling that the good inside joke started to die with the internet? Ok ok, maybe i’m reaching a bit, but between myspace and email forwarding, private just isn’t private anymore! With the onslaught of google crawling/caching secret webpages and images hardly stay that way. And as much as having a public space like NOTCOT has been fun for me, i’ve been quietly loving Radar.

What is Radar? Its a simple service to bring back the fun of those inside jokes VISUALLY…. think NOTCOT.org for just you and the elite few of your choosing… that while you wander the world, cameraphone in hand, you take those snap shops, add a witty comment, and beam it over to your Radar Channel… and only those with permission can see it. Not to mention, beautifully clean UI that is both mobile and computer accessible…

In a world of broadcasting yourself (myspace? blog?), your images (flickr?), your videos (youtube?), etc across the world ~ gorgeously intuitive personal invite only playgrounds are hard to come by. Their site falls into my “it’s so easy” category of usability. They create easy playfully memorable emails to send the photos to, and you can set your own password to have your friends join. Simply adding a ‘p’ before your subject line will make it completely private when it gets uploaded. Had a conference call with John Poisson, founder and ceo, yesterday ~ and conceptually i’m in. Screenshots and more below!

TO PAGE 2 of "Radar"! ----->

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