brooklyn circus

of those of you who know me and even from what one can gather from fotos online and in press – i have a HUGE t-shirt collection. actually, i could probably occupy a few months of posts just on t-shirts, but i will control myself since there are so many people doing the same. of course, being an art and design snob, i'm happy to tell people the arcane far-flung places i get my t-shirts when asked. but a few of my faves are available locally! i therefore want to give some props to my friends at the brooklyn circus who have a shop in brooklyn nyc and in san francisco. they have great t's and the CMYK palette of many of the designs works well with my sneaker collection. (even if they weren't enthusiastic supporters of nooka [they carry a few models in both stores!] i would be wearing their t-shirts) learn more about them here!

the other place i get a bulk of my t's people ask about is graniph in tokyo. many times i've trekked all over tokyo to find a specific design in my size! i'm a bit jealous that sydney australia is getting a graniph shop and not NYC! you can see their english language site here.

the old man with the monkey arms sporting a fancy black nooka zirc is wearing a brooklyn circus t shirt. nooka zirc available here.

the image shot is from the graniph.com website.

design and the elastic mind

last week on the 19th i went to the preview opening of 'design and the elastic mind' at MoMA at the invitation of paola antonelli. i was a bit shocked how crowded it was, so much so that i wasn't able to even see the show [there was a huge queue to the escalators] i was expecting a more intimate "preview"as my invite came from the curator but i guess that's just my inner prima donna taking control. the mezzanine bar was not crowded so i got some good stiff cocktails out of the affair and yummy salty cashew nuts to nibble. also, the art fabricator i use for my own installations had just finished an installation for some artist on the MoMA floor as seen in the photo here. i will definitely go back to see the show, but the online show is pretty amazing and the NYT review was the most glowing i have ever read from them.

nooka is looking for a superintern

one of my star employees, an assistant designer, has left our small studio to prepare to go back to college, which leaves us just a bit short handed. we need a superhero-level design assistant intern. spread the work, specs below:

Nooka is seeking a versatile, self-motivated graphic design student who has a solid understanding of Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign to work as an intern under the guidance of an art director and the Nooka design team. The intern will be responsible for concept development and creation of Nooka marketing materials ranging from the 2008 look book to product line sheets and advertisements. Additionally, the ideal candidate will be able to contribute to the design and maintenance of content for the Nooka website.

Internship can be part or full-time and is for school credits. Intern should be available to start asap. Length of internship is approximately three months, but could go into the summer if candidate is available.

To apply, please send a PDF of sample work or link to your online portfolio and your resume here. Only candidates selected for interview will be contacted. No phone calls please.

the gayest letter in the alphabet

i have recently begun to organize my CD collection into sleek muji cd holder books [i have close to 5000 disks!] and i have come across a breakthrough scientific discovery – the letter "S" is the gayest letter in the alphabet. now someone needs to study if the letter itself is inherently homosexual [it doubles up in alot of words: associate, sassy, ass, etc.] or if it's environment [between "R" and "T" is sometimes a tough position for a young letter of any orientation!]. also, it is the only letter that can be lisped.

i discovered this from the abundance of gay bands [gay members or just gay sounds included] that start with the letter "S":
Saint Etienne, Scissor Sister, Peter Shelley, Spandau Ballet, Jimmy Somerville, Soft Cell, Sondre Lerche, Donna Summer, Sweet, the Swingle Singers, Sylvester, Suede [the London Suede].

just some food for thought from an armchair social scientist...

Nooka®, ZIRC™ and GRAMMY's

our handsome man on the ground in LA, javier laval put together a great grammy awards party, getting lot's of stars to pose with [and leave with] some nooka watches. i probably should've gone to show him the correct way to wear the zirc as it is backwards on everyone who posed with it, but who's complaining? we did change the position of the strap AFTER our look book came out – the "specifications subject to change" thing! therefore i will post a pic of the proper alignment here along with a pic of snoop dog! i'll update with more pics as soon as i label the fotos with the right celeb names.

apparently kanye west was there –– i hope he enjoys the new watch –– go kanye!

oh...i have a sporty mohawk.

zircs available now at fine shops and our webstore.

let's boycott air travel

i was itching to write a blog entry on the environment, but decided on an airtravel one since i've already written a few posts on that subject...AND fortuitously...i found a great blog that does a better job than i can [takes the pressure of one more major problem off of my shoulders:)]

it's a blog by chris elliott and well worth reading as you can find great resources. i suggest everyone urge him to post a link to every government offical making TSA decisions so we can help in this crusade, especially now that they think it's perfectly fine to search people's laptop and mobile phone content. read the post on a boycott here.

and the less air travel we make, the lower our carbon footprint though you can do more for the environment by NOT eating beef [or limit to special occasions and then only if the beef is from a grass-fed animal [grain-fed livestock contributes more greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere per year than all the e SUVs in the US combined! also, believe it or not, eating whole grains cuts down on your carbon foorprint.

Aluminum [or Aluminium for the UK] Nooka

without any fanfare, we launched a line extension of nooka watches with aluminum cases and polyurethane bands with a butterfly closure. this creates an extremely light-weight watch with lots of opportunity for color variation. it also adds a model to our lineup with a sexy polyurethane strap that is replaceable – placing it in between our zubs and the v-series. i tried to come up with a model name that fits our current convention of z+identifying sound to no avail....ideas anyone?

quick facts about aluminum: it is the most abundant metal in the earth's crust, and the third most abundant element overall [after oxygen and silicon]. makes up close to 8% by weight of the earth’s crust... was once more expensive by weight than gold! napoleon bonaparte had a set of aluminium cutlery used for only his most honored guests – it was THAT expensive at that time. it is easier to recycle than to make from bauxite [aluminum never occurs in it's metallic state in the earth, which is why it took so long for it to be discovered] – so make sure you recycle even scraps of aluminum foil! read more about it here. thanks wikipedia!

these are available on our website now in black, anodized blue and anodized orange.

the giants and super tuesday

i was told by our new intern, carl 2.0 [karl 1.0 was last year's design intern...both from sweden] that my blog is more interesting when i write about non-nooka stuff, so here's another rant for you.

as you know, the new jersey giants won the bowling championship [or something with bowls] this past sunday and new york city decided to have a ticker tape parade today. it also happens to be super tuesday, and i wanted to vote before i went to the office. i live just east of the parade route, so on a practical note, the parade route separated me from the polling location – no biggie, just frustrating finding an intersection where i could cross. what i didn't expect was how depressed, almost to the verge of tears, the sight of all these football fans made me. in a country where 70 million people have NO health insurance; the fact that so many people felt it a good thing to take a day off of work and take their children out of school to celebrate the win of a game they did not participate in made me think of how dismal the education system in the united states really is. how is it that people can invest so much energy into a parade and not keeping the streets paved, the airports up-to-date, the population insured....

on another note: i boarded the subway from a station i normally don't take and took this great photograph of a paint splatter on the platform! also, hypebeast did a mention of the lego show i wrote about last week making me a minor internet star yet again!

noo look for the nooka website

we soft-launched a new design of our website as part of an ongoing process to better present the fashion focus of the brand, and to control international versions. it's still a bit buggy, but a redesign was way over-due, so feel free to use the contact form for comments and programming tips!