How to show time is evidently something that designers find intriguing and the creativity in clock-making seems to be endless. In the Front & Back wall clock, Giha Woo and Shingoeun have let the batteries become the hands that show hours and minutes. You no longer have to lift the clock off the wall to change batteries at its back side.

Batteries can be really nice looking. Colourful and shiny. So what could be a better way to show them than making them a part of a clocks visual appearance and to make them move themselves instead of something else?

You will find some other works that Giha Woo and Shingoeun have done together here…

The Wrong Objects

It’s time for the 10th edition of UPMARKET, the annual design and crafts fair at Trädgårdsföreningen in Gothenburg. In 2010 a new young division of the fair will be added, called UP/FRESH.

UP/FRESH presents ten new talented students form HDK: Anna Backlund, Anne Massler, Anni Foglert, Eszter Imre, Henry Lanham, Karin Mååg, Klara Berge, Min Gyung Lee, Shani Shtaingart and Ulrika Gustafsson.

The dates for UPMARKET and UP/FRESH are 13 - 15 August 2010.

Image: Ceramic rings by Eszter Imre.

Konsthantverkscentrum

Super Meal is a project that revolves around growing, cooking and eating the aquatic super plant Azolla, which is one of the world’s fastest growing plants and a rich source of nutrients. This among other things makes it an interesting crop for space agriculture. In the Super Meal project, by Erik Sjödin, Azolla is explored as a future fast food. It will be presented at Färgfabriken in Stockholm during the summer.

Agriculture designed to work under severe resource constraints in space can make positive contributions toward solving food shortages and environmental problems facing humans on Earth and provide effective sustainable solutions for the future. During the summer Erik will experiment with cooking food in the café out of Azolla grown on Färgfabriken’s courtyard.

Left: Close-up of Azolla
Right: Harvesting Azolla at Färgfabriken

Färgfabriken

We see them everywhere! The quotation marks have taken over texts in everything from casual emails to newspaper articles. This blog collects the most pointless use of these quotation marks, and it’s quite entertaining!

So “check” out this ”blog”! It is “really” nice!

The “blog” about “unnecessary” quotation marks

The soccer-obsessed designers at Hyperakt in New York wanted to improve the visuals of the results at the ongoing World Cup. Instead of the schemes that we see in newspapers and on TV, they made a circular bracket with unique colours for each country. This alternative design will be printed as posters in two different sizes and will be available in a limited edition.

All of you sharp-sighted readers may already have noted that the scheme isn’t correct, since Argentina is out of the tournament and can’t end up in the center of the scheme. But don't worry; Hyperakt promises that the final prints will be correct.

Hyperakt

At the Way Out West festival in Slottsskogen in Gothenburg you will not only be able to listen to Iggy & The Stooges, M.I.A and Lykke Li, but will also see a vast selection of Jan Stenmark’s most appreciated illustrations. In connection to the exhibition you can buy a signed copy of his latest book called “Pennan i näsan” (The pen in the nose), or original works that will be on auction for charity.

His famous collages of images from the weekly magazines of the fifties and sixties combined with unexpected, humoristic and existential texts have been widely appreciated throughout his artistic career.

A reminder for the Helsinki trip: The design walks in the design district of Helsinki are held in English and proceed through the entire summer, every Monday and Friday at 13.30 with the duration of two hours.

“The guided Helsinki Design Walk gives a general view of the Finnish design, its history and its world-known names and brands such as Alvar Aalto, Iittala and Marimekko. It also introduces young Finnish designers and emerging talents. The Design Walk tour takes you to design-related places of interest such as design boutiques and designers´ workshops within the Helsinki Design District area. The tour ends at Design Forum Finland where you can see the current design exhibition and maybe do some shopping to take with you from Finland.”

Helsinki Design Walk