Taxi Mittens

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These Taxi Mittens made me smile. A perfect gift for an avid NYC taxi rider.

(via a cup of jo)

Live Taping of Design Matters TV Pilot

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Here’s an event you should *not* miss: The taping of “Design Matters” TV Pilot will take place this coming Friday, Dec. 11. I am so incredibly thrilled for Debbie Millman, the lovely host, that Design Matters will soon be making it to the screen. The show will be directed by Hillman Curtis.

The TV show is conceived as a design version of “Inside the Actor’s Studio,” and Millman’s first two interview subjects will be Milton Glaser (the designer who created the “I <3 NY” logo) and Stefan Sagmeister (the only graphic designer to have won a Grammy award and a design award from the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum). After each interview, an audience Q&A will take place.

The pilot taping is free and open to the public—seats will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

School of Visual Arts Theater
333 West 23rd Street
New York City

I am *not* going to miss this, more info here on facebook. See you there?

Who lives here?

who lives here

Who lives here? Who can afford to live here? An interactive map showing income/rent data by NYC neighborhoods.

(via @brokelynnNY)

Grocery Store Musical

For Improv Everywhere’s latest mission, six undercover actors burst into song in a grocery store in Queens. Three minutes and lots of silly choreography later, they returned to their roles as shoppers and stock boys. The mission was filmed with hidden robotic, lipstick, and wearable cameras. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with on their site.

Eric Sanderson pictures New York — before the City

400 years after Hudson found New York harbor, Eric Sanderson shares how he made a 3D map of Mannahatta’s fascinating pre-city ecology of hills, rivers, wildlife — accurate down to the block — when Times Square was a wetland and you couldn’t get delivery.

Invisible Dogs

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Yesterday’s Improv Everywhere Invisible Dogs all over Carroll Gardens made me and our little Ella Joy happy.

Imagine thins: 2,000 (!) people participated in yesterday’s mission in Brooklyn. For those of you who were not there – Improv Everywhere passed out over 2,000 “invisible dog” leashes and had everyone go for a nice Sunday walk in Brooklyn. If you were anywhere within a one mile radius of the Bergen St. stop in Cobble Hill today, you would have seen all types of folks very seriously walking their very silly dogs.

The invisible dog toy was invented in the 1970s in the Brooklyn factory that served as their meeting point yesterday. No Longer Empty and The Invisible Dog art space were nice enough to loan them the vintage dogs for an afternoon of fun.

If you were there, please leave an Agent Report in the comments on their site. There are thousands of funny stories waiting to be told. Also leave links to any photos you might have been taken. They hope to have their video up in a week or so.

swissmiss hearts Improv Everywhere.

AIGA/NY: Dog and Pony Show

AIGA/NY

AIGA/NY is on fire! I just bought tickets to two events within 4 days of each other. First, Ji Lee’s presentation this thursday and then monday’s Dog and Pony Show at Galapagos in DUMBO. The line up of presenters is breath-taking:

Jonathan Alger of C&G Partners will present an instant replay of the Yankee Stadium, er, pitch.
Debbie Millman of Sterling Brands will present: Tropicana, or how a straw in an orange became such a beloved icon that people fought over it.
Michael Bierut of Pentagram will present: his maddening identity for the Museum of Arts and Design.
Liz Danzico of Bobulate and Jessi Arrington of WORKSHOP will sympathetically present: the Charter for Compassion.

See you there?

Park(ing) Day NYC

Park(ing) Day is an international event that reclaims parking spots and transforms them into engaging, people-friendly public spaces for one day a year.

Park(ing) Day NYC is a New York City Streets Renaissance collaboration which supports the conversion of parking spots throughout New York City’s 5 boroughs into human-friendly places for a single day. These small, temporary public spaces provide a breath of relief from the auto-clogged reality of New York City, and aim to spark dialogue about our valuable public space and how we choose to use it.

This.is.the.coolest.thing.ever.

‘Mannahatta/Manhattan’

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What was Manhattan like 400 years ago, before the first settlers arrived? Designed by Abbott Miller, the new exhibition Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City at the Museum of the City of New York reconstructs the ecology of the small wooded island originally known as Mannahatta (“island of many hills” as the Lenape Indians called it) before it became one of the most densely built places on earth.

I can *not* wait to see this exhibit, designed by Pentagram.

Pecha Kucha NYC on Monday

pecha Kucha

Monday September 14th, will be the next Pecha Kucha night here in the city at SOLAR 1! I will be out of town unfortunately, I wish I could make it. Check out the interesting line up of confirmed speakers.

I was invited to partake in the last NYC Pecha Kucha, here’s my 6min40second presentation.

The Feast Conference

The Feast

The Feast 2008 was one of my personal favorite conferences I’ve ever attended and I am truly looking forward to The Feast 2009 on Thursday, October 1st, 2009. (Here are some notes of last year’s event.)

The Feast gathers the world’s greatest innovators from across industries and society to empower, inspire and engage each other in creating world-shaking change. A creative look at the world’s toughest problems, The Feast Conference presents the most innovative solutions, insights, and best practices as a catalyst toward action.

More than a conference, The Feast represents a bottom-up movement, so they are curating an audience as cross-disciplinary and diverse as their talks. But they’re doing something a little different — they ask those who can afford to pay higher prices to micro-sponsor The Feast, which allows them to offer $99 invitations to awe-inspiring vanguards whose brains get them where their wallets can’t.

See you there? For more information go to Feastongood.com.

Customized MoMA Summer Planner

Customized MoMA Summer planner

With so much to choose from at MoMA this summer, you may need a little help planning your visit. This customized MoMA summer planner will tailor your MoMA experience based on your Facebook profile and personality. Made me look!

Delve NYC

Delve UI

Here’s an event that made me look: DelveUI: A 2-Day Masterclass on Designing (Web) User Interfaces. Think of Delve as the antidote to the bloated conference experience. Basically small, affordable & frequent vs. overwhelming, occasional & costly. Each DELVE consists of a series of masterclasses conducted by expert practitioners, authors and thinkers of the biggest topics facing those of us who design and develop for digital, interactive spaces. Fantastic!

(thank you rob)

PSFK Snapshot Brooklyn

PSFK Snapshot Brooklyn

Part inspiration source and part guidebook, the latest edition of PSFK’s Snapshot series features a hand-picked selection of the most interesting happenings from around the dynamic neighborhoods of Brooklyn. From one-of-a-kind food purveyors and meticulously curated shopping experiences to unique performance spaces, the book provides a focused tour of over 40 of the most choice activities and venues Brooklyn has to offer.

The Lost Tribes of NYC

Urban anthropologists Andy & Carolyn London interview some of New York City’s more overlooked citizens.

(via joanna)

SIGNS by Pentagram

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Pentagram Papers 39 features signs from the personal collection of author and legendary Texas musician Joe Ely, photographed by Randal Ford, and a series of large format portraits of homeless people by Austin photographer Michael O’Brien. Ely wrote the foreword.

Simply moving.

The Feast

The Feast

The Feast is a cross-disciplinary series of programs addressing social innovation and new ways to make the world a better place. Their secret sauce lies in a healthy combination of passion, creativity, and entrepreneurship to shift the way things are done – thereby changing individuals, industries, and ultimately the world.

On October 1, 2009 at The Times Center in New York City, “The Feast Conference” will gather the world’s leading creative entrepreneurs, revolutionaries, radicals, doers and thinkers to inspire more action, share best practices, and create valuable connections that will change the world.

During this summer The Feast is having a plethora of events in New York. Slow down and enjoy the simple things in life at the “Feast Dinners.” Hear short talks and insights from remarkable speakers at the “Feast Salons.” Or get hands on at the “Feast Workshops.”

MoMA Line of People Project

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What: Photo shoot for a new banner that will cover the west-lot fence on 53rd Street for the duration of the year
When: Wednesday–Friday, June 17–19, 10:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m.
Who: You!
Where: The lobby near the film desk at the 11 West 53rd Street entrance
How: A professional MoMA photographer will be taking full-length photographs of visitors, staff members, friends, and family. A selection of these pictures will then be assembled into a graphic rendering of the legendary MoMA ticketing line, which often extends alongside the 53rd street fence.

The MoMA is looking for people of all ages and backgrounds to show a real slice of New York. If you’d like to participate, please visit the MoMA set in the lobby near the film desk (enter at 11 West 53rd Street) on June 17, 18, or 19. They also encourage you to stop by their set during special extended hours, from 10:00–11:00 a.m. and from 6:00–7:00 p.m. Come as you are, dressed as you like—the more colorful the better!

While they cannot guarantee that your photograph will be used on the final banner, you will be able to download your professionally shot, full-length, high-resolution photograph from the MoMA Flickr site in the week following the photo shoot. Participants will also receive a free admission pass to the Museum!

In order for them to anticipate attendance, please RSVP with the date and time you think you might be able to attend. Kids, extended family, artist friends, and MoMA members are all welcome.

AIGA/NY | Seymour Chwast Today!

Seymour Chwast of Pushpin

Here’s an event you shouldn’t miss: Seymour Chwast, the quintessential New York designer/illustrator/painter, is launching his newest book with AIGA/NY tonight, June 16th, 2009.

Chwast and Steven Heller will flip through the book chapter by chapter and allow us to listen in on their various and variegated commentary. Chwast has promised to expose his obsessions, as well as his fears, follies and successes.

For those of you who don’t know, Chwast has illustrated for most major magazines and has designed and illustrated over 30 children’s books. He is co-founder of Push Pin Studios and is a root source for the spread of comic expressionism across America. His posters are held in many museums including Pompidou Center Gallery (Paris), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Library of Congress (Washington D.C.) and the Israel Museum. He is in the Art Directors Hall of Fame and he is the recipient of the AIGA medal.

It’s killing me that I can’t attend. But maybe you can? Make sure to register! Please report back!

Oh, and here’s a link to the book. (thanks Ben)

On Frank Gehry Being Fired

Seen over at Subtraction:

“The recent news that the developer Forest City Ratner had scrapped Frank Gehry’s design for a Nets [basketball] arena in central Brooklyn is not just a blow to the art of architecture. It is a shameful betrayal of the public trust, one that should enrage all those who care about this city… A new design by the firm Ellerbe Becket [is a] colossal, spiritless box, it would fit more comfortably in a cornfield than at one of the busiest intersections of a vibrant metropolis. Its low-budget, no-frills design embodies the crass, bottom-line mentality that puts personal profit above the public good. If it is ever built, it will create a black hole in the heart of a vital neighborhood.”

NYT: Nicolai Ouroussoff on Frank Gehry Being Fired from Atlantic Yards Project

What can you teach me?

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At today’s CreativeMornings I asked the question “What can you teach me?” Here are the answers in a flickr set. (These tags are meant to help break the ice and facilitate a conversation!)

So, what about you? What can you teach us?

By/Assocation

By Association

By/Association seeks to reinvent the traditional notion of “networking” by enabling substantive interactions and long-term relationships. By/Association is for people who want to make their lives, ideas, and networks richer by meeting other remarkable people. It’s not about getting help with your current need or project. It’s about connecting to people that make you better — to inspire more action, better ideas, and new ways of seeing the world. They hand select their members for their exceptional creativity, vision, and cross-disciplinary networks. They then introduce them to each other. Because when two amazing people get together, their potential impact grows and the world changes shape.

By/Assocation is launching its first memberships in New York City and San Francisco in July 2009. As a gift, the first few accepted will be established as the “100 founding members” for their city, which includes waived membership dues through 2009. Apply!

A Job Grows in Brooklyn

Think you're good?

HUGE is hosting an interesting event at the DUMBO Arts Center for this year’s “Internet Week”. It’s totally free and guaranteed to be a fun time. Here’s the scoop:

Friday, June 5th, some of the biggest brains from Brooklyn-based interactive agency HUGE challenge you to steal their jobs in this 1pm-3pm seminar. Think you’re good? Then take it to the next level by pitching yourself (and your work) to HUGE’s celebrated senior team. Find out what they’re looking for in the next big talent.

Did you do some hot Django coding? Prove it. Execute a project plan that never once lead to scope creep? Show them! Do you have graphics that have been passed around Ffffound and wowed your clients? Bring it. Bring your resume and portfolio and prepare to present two of your best pieces of work. Drinks, snacks, good people and a better job are a borough away.

What: A Job Grows in Brooklyn: How to Advance Your Career in Digital
When: June 5th, 1-3pm
Where: DUMBO Arts Center
Who: The stellar executive team at HUGE

Event details.

Intern Meet-Up Party

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The cool peeps of Rumors are hosting an Intern Meet-Up Party Tomorrow Night TONIGHT to welcome their new intern Zack Seuberling who is coming all the way from Ohio. Know interns that are in the city and would love to make some connections so they won’t have to go to the museums alone anymore on the weekends, send them to The Magician at 7pm tonight.