Maker Monday: CFL with Style - The Plumen

Photos from Plumen website
[Charles] As I read discouraging politically charged posts about how phasing out incandescent bulbs is an assault on freedom, I am well... discouraged. I think of how people reacted to the idea of their whale oil being pulled off the hardware store shelves or how life might be if we just burned all of our trash to light our homes. Progress is inevitable and instead of just whining about it, some designers are actually working to make it part of a more beautiful world.

I'll admit that I've marveled at the fine details of an antique filament on bulbs I've found and replaced. They are beautiful in their insect-wing sort of detailing and I'll certainly wonder at movies that used them when they no longer exist on our store shelves. The thing is, they've got these things called CFL bulbs which are much more efficient and are probably the simplest thing in the world to do besides perhaps actually turning lights off to save energy indoors. Samuel Wilkinson a UK designer decided to take the long tubes of CFL lights and instead of spinning them tight so they can be hidden in a fixture - he's uncoiled them in a ballet dance of curving shapes. The bulb takes its name Plumen from the showy plume of a bird's feathers. These, to me, are the new romantic bulb and they look great in a room with no shade just throwing the maximum light. Let me know what you think of them. They managed to win a Brit Insurance Design Award for 2011 so I can't be the only person that finds them intriguing...

Maker Monday : Soap Flakes?!

Photos from Core77 blog

[Charles] I love this idea. All of the best soaps you find come in bars. All those interesting homemade soaps that you can't pass up at the market. Unfortunately they get wet and soggy and then you need someplace to set them down so the sink gets gross where they sit. Then you go out and buy a soap dish and you have to wash it every so often and all of this because the soap gets wet when you use it. What you really need is just the smallest bit of the soap to actually do the work.

This came from Core77's blog and it is a project of a designer Nathalie Stampfli who I think did this for her graduation project at Eindhoven Design Academy in the Netherlands.

You get this cool little cheese grater thing going on and all you get are flakes. You push on the bar and it grates the bottom of the bar into your hand. Now you have no plastic bottles for your liquid soap which is mostly water anyway and you can make your bar soap last as long as it should and actually work like a liquid soap by making it into small easily soluble pieces! The other one is like a winding pepper mill for the shower which I'm a little less excited by but I could come around to.

Mechanically it looks a little simplistic and I wonder how it does if your soap gets too small but honestly those concerns are pretty tiny. The complicated squirting devices we see everywhere for liquid soap are much worse than this with their plastic parts all working to annoy you. Congratulations, I would love to see this in production!

Inspiration Thursday: Austin, Africa, and The New Imperialism

[Charles] Owning your own business is not for the faint of heart. It sounds great, work your own hours and do what you like, but somedays it just means staring at the door hoping somebody, anybody is going to walk in and buy something while all the while trying not to let your 1 1/2 year old screaming for attention drive you crazy. Somedays you really need some inspiration. You need some reason to go back in and face the ridiculous odds that seem desperate to crush you and your finances.

Thank goodness for the internet where you can connect with other businesses that are doing the same thing and joining the fight and making amazing things all over the world.

Our first stop would be the awesome Re-Nest blog on Apartment Therapy which comes through all day with a steady stream of great ideas and stories.

That lead me to Ref-Use, a company outside of Austin that makes something that I've thought about but yet to make - a stack of small scraps of plywood built into a beautiful chair. Trust me, in the shop there are so many small scraps of wood that are just dying for me to try and put in the saw and chop off some of my fingers in the process.

Last stop, for some true inspiration is a blog called Afrigadget where you can read about the ingenuity of people in Africa as they work to solve problems like building a radio from trash to trapping sewage waste and building your own personal biogas plant for sustainable cooking.

I was led there by the blog discussions I've been reading about the debate over "Humanitarian Design: The New Imperialism". Interesting stuff if you find yourself wanting to help the world but torn on whether helping in some far off place is really the sort of help you should be doing.

Happy reading! Hope some of these inspired you as well!

What's it like to make cool stuff out of crap stuff in zero space?

Photo from Daniel at Manhattan Nest Blog
[Charles] People ask how we make cool furniture out of beat up junk pretty often but I think our descriptions fall kinda short. Yeah, sometimes I take them into the workshop and say, that old rusty sink will someday be an amazing couch or table or something. Honestly though I get a lot of those blank "that piece of junk?" looks there. So my point is, I can appreciate somebody who does it well and explains it well with lots of photos. The best take away for me is to do it with a sense of humor. Check out this guy Dan's conversion and explanation on his blog. It was cool enough to get him on Apartment Therapy so maybe I should stop whining and get to work on taking more photos of how we make stuff...

Recycled Rubber Chaise... Awesome

[Charles] I read a lot of other blogs and lists that show what other people make from recycled materials. This chaise is so awesome and I'm just completely jealous that we don't have it in our little shop. It was on Great Green Goods which does a decent job of finding unique things online although most things are still in the Lebron James price range - (see I can put in random sports news references too!)

http://www.greatgreengoods.com/2010/06/05/recycled-rubber-chaise-lounge/

http://en.dawanda.com/shop/PunctureBags

The second link is to the Berlin artist Jaap Wijnants website for the Puncture Bags from inner tubes. It sounds like furniture designer Patrick Kerti was a partner on this one although my german is a little rusty. Very cool although a little out of my price range still... and shipping from Germany...

Neocon Gallery from Core77

Photo from Arktura

[Charles]This month is the Neocon show which sounds like some sort of Matrix get together but which is actually a convention so commercial furniture companies can show off what's new and exciting. I was snoozing my way through "new" cubicle designs when I smacked right into Arktura's designs which look a lot like the sort of things we at TSM would love to make. Lots of detail on a simple and sustainable framework of standard issue items like benches and tables. Here's the link if you'd like to check them out...

Also, here's the link to the whole Core77 gallery blog post

Enjoy the diversion and inspiration!

Brooklyn Designs 2010 - Wish we were there!

[Charles] So we are definitely furniture design nerds over here at TSM. We attended ICFF a few years ago and we have been known to hit places like the Noguchi museum or the Cooper Hewitt over the typical tourist attractions. Instead of dwelling on our depressed state from not being able to afford to go to NYC this year for design week, I've decided to post a few of the best designs I've seen while doing a virtual tour through the coolest and most outlandish new eco-friendly furniture pieces. Brooklyn Designs (May 7-9) is held on the weekend before ICFF and showcases the best of Brooklyn design studios which tend to be the greener design studios in New York.

First off, check out Uhuru Designs where they are happy to mix salvaged wood and metal just like somebody else we know... They probably have a pretty nice workshop and I'm gonna just say, it must be nice to have salvaged wood planks from Coney Island available for incorporation in designs like these. I can't hate on em too much though - this stuff is amazing!

http://www.uhurudesign.com/

Another place in Brooklyn I tried to drag Amy to was City Joinery where they do some really amazing and unique woodwork such as this table - The Winged Eliptical.

http://www.cityjoinery.com

Another studio called Ecosystems caught our eye earlier this year with their interesting shelf support system that allows for user configuration or as the London Financial Times referred to them - "Legos for design savvy adults."

If you'd like more info on Brooklyn Designs here's their link.

Also, you can read Core77 or Inhabitat for more info on the designers, parties, and the hobnobbing that goes on in the city.

Hopefully this time next year, we'll be sending posts from our own visit!