what a deastro!

can companies fall in love bringing a new dimension of B2B? i think so, as it is the case with nooka and ghostly records. well, ghostly records is celebrating their 10th anniversary and we are celebrating with them by giving a free copy of deastro's keppers with every web order of a nooka watch on us.nooka.com/buy from march 1st while supplies last.

why deastro? because keepers is one of my FAVORITE albums of 2008 AND i want to share that joy with as many people as possible.

more on deastro: Deastro is the brainchild of Detroit-area wunderkind Randolph Chabot, who's been recording music since he was 12. Deastro's Keepers contains a whirlwind of styles, as Chabot hops from shy synth-pop to instrumental robot-rock, whisper-soft ballads to sky-high anthems and coats it all in a delirious fizz of production. It's wildly positive, upbeat music tinged with an experimental spirit and a hint of melancholy. Deastro's next full-length, Moondagger, will be out this May on Ghostly International.

buy a watch after march 1st here or buy keepers on itunes here.

also, slightly unrelated, but if you're on facebook, join the "Love Nooka" group!

me on acquire magazine site

they made me look good [maybe those monkey arms need a trim though...]! full interview here.

i'm sporting a zon, available at fine shops and here.

also, slightly unrelated, but if you're on facebook, join the "Love Nooka" group!

nooka in LTD magazine

i can't believe i forgot to upload the december issue of LTD magazine [or did i?]. well, here is the winter 09 #14 AND the spring 09 #15 issue pages with le nookas featured prominently. the current issue also has some style picks of mine. the price for the zon is wrong, but hey, not complaining. get one here.

nooka pairings: android homme

how perfect is this? android homme is a new brand from 2 sexy guys in L.A. – what more do you need to know?

they've been great friends of nooka and now i want to spread the love.

get your metallic zub zoo at fine stores from our where to buy section of nooka.com and here. learn more about android homme here.

nooka + i love dust at vallery barcelona

some random shots from the "our friends and our family" show by i love dust at vallery in barcelona spain, february 16th, 2009. gracias to nuria mañe for the fotos!

nooka sightings: big sean

thanks to mike for the heads up. here's a post with a free mp3 from kanye west's blog, and big sean is wearing an über-rare garbege nooka! original post is here.

info on the collab featured here.

nooka press: mono magazine japan

really great press from japan. published since 1982, "mono" is japanese for "thing/object" and their focus has slowly been shifting from general goods to more 'design' products. i am very honored to be included as one of 118 designers presenting one new product for their 600th anniversary issue [i am designer #93 on page 42]!



clear zub featured can be found here.

barcelona

don't forget to check out the i love dust exhibition at vallery in barcelona. opening is tonight.

Thursday, February 19, 2009
Time: 8:00pm - 11:00pm
Location: Vallery, Calabria, 85
Barcelona España

nooka press: germany AND UK

what can i say, it's nice to see such a range of magazines and readers embracing my brand – also, it's been proven in many a study, titties sell!

zon available at fine shops and here.

glow-in-the-dark aslo at fine retailers worldwide, and here.

also, slightly unrelated, but if you're on facebook, join the "Love Nooka" group!

economic stimulus

i spend the valentine day weekend stimulating the global economy by shopping [research trip to see what's going on in retail]. i must say, compared to december, it seems like things are getting back to normal, stores were crowded and there were lines at the registers everywhere we went.

the crew: jason ng of cassius eyewear and his partner [both visiting nyc from new zealand], my partner frank nan of vinoly architects and our friend sergio. we hit [not in order]: prada, uni-glo, club monaco, bloomingdales, odin, alessi, kidrobot, ben sherman, jacques torres [bought yummy chocolates], and the 2 day only pop-up shop for alexander mcqueen's line for target!

i was dissappointed that the mcqueen line for only for girls, even the t-shirts were not cut so that i could wear them, they didn't even have the doll clothes used in the ad campaign as a product to buy! – oh well, they didn't get any of our money.

i went to uni-qlo specifically to pick up some thermal "heat tech" undies for the nooka ski trip next weekend – all sold out of mediums – so i bought $300 of stuff i didn't need. i LOVE their preview display which is all miniature doll-clothe versions of the next collection in well lit recessed glass boxes, real cute and effective.

prada was packed and i picked up their new look-book which surprised me in how poorly the creative direction is – is the theme ancient sculpture? 80s furniture? modern art? – not a cohesive visual experience. they describe it as: "an exploration of the collection's domain of inspiration...divinity, tribalism and primitive symbolism...". i guess prada is allowed some lapses.

i picked up a copy of a book on pierre cardin at club monaco [i didn't go there for the clothes, sergio wanted to check out something there]. they only had one water damaged display copy left, but i knew i wouldn't remember wanting it, so i bought it anyway. it's a great book as i remember being very impressed with his fashions when i was a child. this book focuses more on his furniture design which towards the end looked more art-deco than cutting edge futurism. great book though i'm sure there's a fashion monograph out there i need to buy.

i tried overpriced moisturizer at bloomies and saw Y-3 shoes i wanted but they didn't have my size. i saw great shoes at odin as well, but the one i wanted was also out in my size.

managed to squeeze-in a lovely brunch at blue ribbon bakery before most of the shopping with the addition of lisa anselmo of people magazine and nightlife impresario lapo belmestieri. frank and i dragged our bags with us the the ghostly records "an evening of sensual machine music" at 8:00 pm, so it was a hyper-social day for me. we ran into a few unexpected though not surprising to see people at the venue: my music instructor bryan with a date, nooka staff andrew [futuretron infinity] with his girlfriend, the schna [my new name for michna], etc.

i'm sure i missed something, but i tweated some other details and fotos during the process. nooka_ for twitter.

nooka can be had at fine shops from the where to buy section of nooka.com, and on our online store here.

nooka insight: collabs, markets, magazines and design.

markets, magazines and design. there are many joys and problems with running a small start-up company and one of them is marketing. the quality of my products and the relative slickness of our marketing materials give the illusion of an operation much larger than the reality. and the reality is: marketing is VERY expensive – parties and events start at $10,000 to do right, in store POPs [point of purchase displays] run $1,000+ per unit to make an impact, and advertising requires $1,000,000+ to make an impact. sorry to burst your bubble, but nooka is not yet big enough to engage in much of the above. that writ, we are creative in our marketing spends to leverage relationships and press coverage, which knock-on-wood, has been phenomenal.

phenomenal yes, yet there are still magazines i'm shocked have not given nooka love – mainly the design press [magazines like wallpaper for example]. the reasons for this are understandable from a business perspective as a majority of the ad pages in many of these magazines are from established watch companies, and may i add, these products are for the most part antithetical to the editorial take on design for these mags. this points out 2 issues: how much sway the ad sales teams over editorial content [no mystery, i worked as an associate art director at a condé nast fashion mag in the past] but more over, how much i/nooka need to do a better job defining our products NOT as watches, but as a design story. of course, the release of non-time related products this fall will help in telling this story [more on that in future posts].

part of the way small brands [and nooka] increase press exposure [whether online or off] is the collaboration. collaborations are a great way to: work with fun talented people; play with alternate visual language not native to ones own design vocabulary/brand, gain access to new press opportunities and expand your audience to new people/markets. i believe the public responds so enthusiastically to collabos because of all the positive energy involved in the process as the goals are always based in mutual respect. we have had great success with our mutual admiration society endeavors – kid robot, hellz bellz, yokohama triennial, garbege and hope to see exciting responses from upcoming collabs with a focus on europe [supremebeing (UK), bleed (norway), i love dust (UK) etc. also look for some exciting nookanooka promotions this year!

now, that may seem like a lot, but all collaborations must be a good conceptual fit as well as strategic. for projects that fall outside of the brand, the individual designer can function independent with a halo-effect for their association with their respective brands.

to facilitate non-nooka collaborations, i started toying with a "MW" logo which gets a public airing in the image above [it is not final, i'm still not sure the one 'w' for matthew and waldman is working in this iteration. i'm open to all opinions and suggestions]. the more i think about it, i don't see too many opportunities to use it, but i may be wrong. until i need to use it, i have time to tweak and re-design:)

pictured in this image is the deska™ desk nooka which debuted at tokyo design week 2007 [we are planning the commercial release next year], a peak at a summer model with a pattern designed by futuretron infinity, a zon, new heather model available soon and the adorable nookanooka.

want to do a collab? let me know!

nooka can be had at fine shops from the where to buy section of nooka.com, and on our online store here.

location scouting

does anyone know if this sculpture garden in mexico city still exists?

nooka press: inked

i didn't even realize this magazine cleaned up so nice!

model featured can be had at fine shops from the where to buy section of nooka.com, and on our online store here.

nookanooka goes to québec city

Présentez vous au Périgny place Ste-Foy vendredi 13 entre 18 et 21 heure ... Artistes invités Avive Ifound et autres... démo de peinture sur figurine Nooka ...33 Mag et Dj sur place ...
Event Info

nookanooka at PÉRIGNY

Time and Place
Friday, February 13, 2009
6:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Périgny Place Ste-Foy

creative mornings: matthew waldman february 27th

2 swiss miss related post in 2 days? well, i love tina and her work, but if it's here – it's got to be about me from some angle – i was invited to speak at her creative mornings series. info here on the swiss miss blog.

parsons was very kind to lend the space as my studio is too small to accommodate 50+ people. i hope i can handle a crowd like that in my own space soon though [will the economy deliver a dream space sometime soon?].

don't forget about tina's talk tonight at the soho spple store in nyc!

swiss miss: tina roth eisenberg

tomorrow, wednesday’s AIGA/Apple “Pro Sessions: Design Remixed” here in NYC.
Wednesday 11 February 2009
6:30–8:00PM
Apple Store, Soho
103 Prince Street
New York, NY 10012
map

Admission: These events are free to all. Seating is available on a first come basis. No advance registration is necessary.

i hope she wears her nooka! the swiss miss blog is here.

noo music: school of seven bells

noo music video from school of seven bells. very nice!

i love dust in barcelona reminder

it's getting closer to the date, february 19th...make sure you go to the show if you're in españa!

if you can't make it, nookas siempre disponible [always available] aquí.

inauguración el 19 de febrero en
opens february 19th at
VALLERY
Calabria, 85
08015 Barcelona
Spain
+34935396430

nooka press: LUCKY

how lucky to be in lucky! really cool placement though not sure where metallic yellow came from. i guess i should go back and rename those zubs as U.F.O. Gold [i have to admit, it is a weird gold, but i made it intentionally with a green base over gold for a sci-fi-feel]. thanks to the fab editors at LUCKY. this march issue is on newstands now.

model featured is available at fine nooka retailers, especially the shops at W hotels here, and on our site here.

the foto lucky took is really cool. i hope the model or stylist got to keep it.

nooka creative x-change: kate simko

recognizing that creative people find inspiration from multiple sources, matthew waldman conducts mini interviews to hopefully gain insight into the creative processes of the artists he meets.

can you give me a short bio?
"...Kate’s music occupies the space between techno and house with an international voice that sets it apart. The artist in question is something of a complete package, a classically trained pianist who found herself at Techno’s doorstep during Midwest rave’s heyday in the mid 90’s. A student in music technology at Northwestern, Kate later ventured out to continue her studies in Santiago, Chile and a start a successful project with Andres Bucci under the name Detalles, marking her entrance into the emerging new techno scene. Playing events such as Detroit’s Movement Festival, Decibel, and MUTEK have steadily built Kate’s reputation and her Chicago night Wake Up! has hosted everyone from John Tejada to Mikael Stavostrand, earning a “best regular club night” nod in the weekly publication New City. Kate is a music lifer, committed to the craft and impressing the more savvy critics one record at a time."

i find most artists are very good at talking about their inspirations and moreover, influences. what was your motivation to continue with music and what continues to do so?
Since I made a transition from playing classical piano pieces to making my own music, music turned into a quest to define my own sound. It motivates me the most when people enjoy my music. That, combined with a desire to express myself and grow as an artist, inspires me to keep going.

the digital revolution has reduced the real estate given to visuals for marketing a musical artist. how important is 'design' to your work as a musician?
Design has always been important to me. I've always been involved in the creative direction of the design for the events I've organized and past CD / vinyl releases. Ideally, a musical release should be an aesthetic package complete with tasteful design.. not much you can do about that with digital releases, which is a negative of that medium, for sure.

what does 'nooka' mean to you?
Nooka means sleek style outside of the box. The nooka way of marking time is creative and inspiring. I hadn't worn a watch in years until I found Nooka recently.

what's your next project?
Right now I'm in Buenos Aires recording an album. As far as releases, Ghostly is putting out an ambient film soundtrack of mine in the next couple months, and Spectral Sound is set to release my next 12" of dance music.

the nooka kate proudly wears is the blue aluminum zot available here.

learn more about kate's releases here.

comicon nyc 2009

friday afternoon, i took most of my staff to comicon thinking it'd be good research for our ongoing development of the nookanooka character. also, we wanted to meet-up with friend, jeremy of mad toy design as he was doing a signing. his space at my plastic heart was mobbed, so we didn't get to talk much, but it was nice running into some people i knew and also to catch up with the guys at giant robot who sell nooka at their shops. alex got to hug the ugly doll mascot, see foto.

i have to be honest, i find it difficult to accept a so-called trade show that charges so much money to get in and 99% of the booths are basically stores selling goods. it's like macy's charging an admission. it's cute though, and a cultural phenomenom that's best experienced in san diego for the much much bigger comicon there.

as we didn't get a chance to talk, i met up with jeremy for lunch on sunday. so overall, a comicon-themed weekend.

studio visit: supremebeing

david and damian of sooper cool UK brand, supremebeing visited the studio on friday! i haven't seen david in 3 years, since the first time we met in barcelona at bread and butter where we exchanged nookas for t-shirts. i still get compliments and comments every time i wear the original CMYK Ts [see my ryan mcguinness post to see one of the series as i was wearing it that day too]. it's exciting to see them branch out from Ts to really well-made, well-designed apparel and shoes. also, this post is a teaser for a collab we will be doing with them this year. i'll leak the designs closer to the release date.

noo catalog site for nooka

everyone has heard the saying: "the cobblers children have no shoes". i find it seems to be quite a truism – the children of psychiatrists i've met are all crazy, the children of dentists have horrible teeth [except my friend joseph], and yes, world renown interactive creative directors sometimes have crap websites of their own [when will matthewwaldman.com ever be updated for example]!

well, here is nooka online catalog and store site version 3.0 and i'm happy to say it is an improvement and a good compliment to the brand site, nooka.com. we are always looking to improve the site and the process, but it really is quite an arduous task. i'm sure we will need to revisit the site design process when we launch non-watch lines, but for now i hope this version is well received. of course, to truly enjoy the design, you need to buy some stuff.

check it out here or from the catalog link on the nooka homepage.

the next improvement will be the launch of our international sites.

site designed by yumi asai. programming by leslie harper. thanks guys!

noo spring colors

we designed and printed our first poster! actually, my in-house art director, yumi asai designed it. i had fantasies of all our stores putting the poster up, and still hope they do, but my biz guy tells me that no one will – someone prove me wrong please.

the poster is to announce our noo spring colors which are: deep blue, fire engine red [more on that later], bermuda blue, beige [yes, BEIGE!], lavender, transparent, and heather gray. these color names are the compromise as i originally wanted to spin a story like: vatican inspired colour collection: including light and dark papal, stigmata, pale thorn, heaven sky powder blue...

update: i forgot to mention the semi-translucent clear zub! this is fun with a black face, but technically, is not a color per se, but the lack there-of:)

the poster is 23 x 34 inches in size and available folded to letter size and flat [approximate metric size is A1] and printed in 4 color process with love and care on long island, ny.

now, red is a very interesting color. i am not a scientist, so i'm giving an overly simplified summary here, but here it goes: the gene for detecting red hues is found on the X chromosome. therefore, men [unless xxy males] only recieve one copy of this gene, and many women receive 2 copies. this is why color-blindness is almost exclusively a male condition as a female will need 2 defective copies of this gene to be color-blind. it also means that many woman see a wider range of the red spectrum than most men. it is theorized that women need this sensitivity to understand the health and needs of infants before they can learn to speak [women can detect a wider range of emotions in peoples faces from expressions and seeing minute changes in blood flow/hues of pink and red].

why am i writing this? because our first line of zubs had both a "red" and an "orange". to be clear, i would call the red i chose "vermilion" or "crimson" [cinnabar, sometimes referred to as chinese red] to be more exact, but nonetheless, it IS a red. so many people said it was "orange" and only conceded it was red after putting it next to the very orange orange of that first line. needless to say, it was educational and became something i am now very sensitive to [i have no idea how i got 2 copies of the red gene or perhaps i have a very robust copy as i see minute differences in reds].

so with out any ambiguity, this red is a classic "red" to both men and women. lucky for us, it is also a color i trend-cast to be big this fall. let's see how it goes.

i think the gray and the lavender complete the collection to give a very classí feel.

all of these new colors are available for pre-order here. look for them at your local retailer in 2 weeks or so. also, if you'd like a copy of the poster sent to you, email us from our nooka.com web site and we'll send one or request one when you place an order.

i lego nyc

here is a another post totally unrelated to nooka but i thought was cute enough to share here.

Christoph Niemann's illustrations have appeared on the covers of The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration. His work has won numerous awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Art Directors Club and American Illustration. He is the author of two children's books, "The Pet Dragon," which teaches Chinese characters to young readers, and "The Police Cloud." After 11 years in New York, he moved to Berlin with his wife, Lisa, and their sons, Arthur, Gustav and Fritz. His Web site is christophniemann.com.

original post here.

nooka and milk

i was reading up on harvey milk on wikipedia, and what did i stumble upon? a nookanooka and nookas in front of a lovely mural!

Mural by John Baden of Harvey Milk at given, 575 Castro Street, the former site of Milk's store, Castro Camera. Emerging from the gun at left is a quote from Milk: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let the bullet destroy every closet door."

nooka stuff by nooka:) in sf? want to see the mural? buy a nooka? then go to given.

objectified

last month i caught up on some documentaries i missed in the theater by seeing gary hustwit's "helvetica" on PBS and verymuchso's production, "crossing the line" on the sundance channel. helvetica explores the development and impact of a typeface and crossing the line tells the story of american defectors' lives in north korea – both incredibly thorough, educational, and surprisingly engrossing!

as many things in my life tend to seem magical, not 1 week after seeing helvetica, my friend sam valenti tells me, "i think you should meet my friend gary hustwit, you guys would really get along well"! as it happens, gary is finishing up his next film, "objectified" and needed to shoot objects in-situ at people's apartments to create the interstitials for that. it's unfortunate that i wasn't introduced earlier to perhaps be considered for the main part of the film, but i'd be such a minor player next to people like jonathan ive! that said, i have so much stuff in both my apartment and office – having a famous documentary film maker photograph it helps justify keeping these dust collectors in my life – and i was told that i definitely had the most "junk" of any apartment he's been to! needless to say, it was a pleasure to meet gary this past saturday, and hopefully be a small part in what will surely be an amazing film!




Crossing The Line: Gone from Nick Bennett on Vimeo.

gary's site for objectified here.

verymuchso's crossing the line here.