Wednesday, June 24, 2009

nooka sightings: dorian via complex blog


this is from a fashion-on-the-street entry on the complex blog:
"What do chicks dig about your style? They like my Nooka watch and think my look is fresh and appealing."

see full post here.

nooka is available at other fine stores and here! follow nooka on twitter: nookaNOW look for posts from matthew waldman on spacecollective.com/NOOKANYC

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

noo retail partner: odin new york


there are few milestones that i set for the nooka sales team in regards to placement, some of which are stores i want to see my designs in. well, one of those milestones was achieved this month with our debut at odin nyc – one of my favorite shops. odin is a curated retail experience, much like the select shops i'm used to shopping at when i'm in tokyo (which is to say, whether you buy clothes, shoes, bags, or accessories [now including nooka], you can be confident that you end up with one cohesive look and aesthetic). being that the common denominator in my wardrobe is neutral grey, what better a store than odin!

odin is located at 199 Lafayette St New York, NY 10012-4003 (212) 966-0026 open daily from 11am-8pm. their website is here. they have a great edited collection of nooka styles in all our price points. the staff are amazing [they'll keep bags behind the counter for you while you shop] and you can always enjoy the best mexican food in manhattan at la esquina on the same block [where else can you sometimes find huitlecoche, my FAVORITE edible fungus?!?] before or after you shop.

nooka is available at other fine stores and here! follow nooka on twitter: nookaNOW look for posts from matthew waldman on spacecollective.com/NOOKANYC

koolaborations: nooka + undcrwn

i'm a bit late in posting this so i swiped verbage from hypebeast via our own press release!


The basketball and Hip-Hop-centric brand known as UNDCRWN team up with Nooka on an upcoming watch release set for later this June. The colorful striped design features a multi-colored polyurethane band designed by UNDRCRWN founder Dustin Canalin. With the ZENV as the model of choice, logos of both Nooka and UNDRCRWN are showcased. Limited to 200 pieces, the watch will release soon at Nooka.com/Buy.

nooka is available at fine stores and here! follow nooka on twitter: nookaNOW look for posts from matthew waldman on spacecollective.com/NOOKANYC

Monday, June 22, 2009

studio visit: josh wilson


josh wilson of the seattle seahawks [cornerback] came by the nooka lab on thursday june 18th. he was in town on the way to his bachelor party in DC [where he's from] and he wanted to come by and meet us. again, this is a star athlete who sought us out on his own after buying a deep blue zub zen-h at nordstroms in seattle. he's very knowledgeable about independent fashion and he told me that nooka is one of his favorite brands – one reason being that he likes to accessorize his watch with what he's wearing [notice nooka+cap, too bad you can't see his kicks, they are the same blue] and no other brand offers as many color choices as we do. now that we've met in person, i look forward to seeing photos of josh+nooka in action!

josh's official website is here.

nooka on josh in this foto is available at fine stores and here! follow nooka on twitter: nooka
look for posts from matthew waldman on spacecollective.com/NOOKANYC

Thursday, June 18, 2009

nooka reignites interest in digital watches!



i often feel under appreciated, and admittedly, i do require quite a bit of attention. i'm doing my little thing with rather large ideas and i know that not everybody 'gets it'. it is the occasional fan message that confirms that more people do 'get-it' than i imagine, and it inspires me to keep on producing new designs and products. here is the text from one of those emails which i received yesterday:
Your work is inspiring!. Your concepts for the future are not far fetched and may go misunderstood. Yet, in reading your blog they all hit home. They all sort of confirmed thoughts Ive been having for quite some time now. Thank you for creating something for weird intelligent people who like to look good also. I bought a yellow zub in july '08 to get away from the Casio rush that was going on. I needed something that set me apart from the masses. I forgot what I typed in google but it was something along the lines of "watches + colorful + new" and came across a Nooka and it blew me and people who saw it away. Your play on the idea of science, math, and good looks is AWESOME. Thank you for the refresher and inspiration.

it really is nice when people take the time to leave comments or write an email!

on another note, i was recently invited to join the space collective, an online community of futurists. i so love the word "futurist" that i even considered replacing 'chief creative officer' with it on my business card but was told that "futurist" sounds 100 years old. it's kinda sad that utopianism and optimism have an archaic feel to them now. i trust it will change. anyway, i will use the space collective for posts that are appropriate for that forum.

and since this post is really about me me me me me me, how about this quote from this week's guardian newspaper in the UK:
"James Gurney, editor of luxury horology magazine QP, reckons the renewed interest in digital watches is largely down to funky, New York-based watchmakers Nooka. Some of its models don't even have digits, just a row of lines and progress bars to denote the time." read the full article here.

summer collection is available at fine stores and here! follow nooka on twitter: nookaNOW look for posts from matthew waldman on spacecollective.com/NOOKANYC

Friday, June 12, 2009

noo styles: summer 2009


i am very happy to announce our new summer series of designs inspired by higher dimensional physics and our utopian optimism that the planet will once again embrace space as a necessary next frontier! the designs left to right are: string theory [black and white], hyperspace and sky pyramid. they were designed in-house by futuretron infinity of dinosaur island. my personal touch was the decision to have the pattern in the string theory models overprint the whole face – me likey.

they also come in snazzy custom packaging! the only word that comes to mind is "dope".


nooka is obsessed with 3 things: science, math and looking good! string theory is a theory that is attempting to provide a unified theory as proposed by einstein. michio kaku is a contemporary physicist who best articulates string theory for laymen. string theory can be best rationalized in 12 dimensions. time is a number system utilizing base-12 math. learn more about the technological singularity here. learn more about string theory here. learn more about base-12/dozenal number systems here.


these models are available at fine stores and here! follow nooka on twitter: nookaNOW look for posts from matthew waldman on spacecollective.com/NOOKANYC

Thursday, June 11, 2009

nooka innovation: the nookard™


as many people who follow my blog know, futurism is a big theme in my work, and indeed, many of the nooka designs were conceived during a very optimistic time, the dot com bubble. it was at this time there was a clinton as president, the stock market was on fire, miu miu had a men's line, seiko had spoon as a sub-brand, and i was carving myself a niche in the new field of interactive design. spoon is gone, miu miu only has women's stuff, then as now, i am frustrated that the planes i board to go to tokyo are the same technology and design as the ones i boarded to go visit my grandfather as a child. so it seems my job of holding up my tiny torch of utopian optimism in design is ever more important.

i always present nooka as a design studio, the nooka lab, but as of this writing all we have is our line of time pieces. there are a few reasons why we are a bit slow releasing new lines, the major one being the down economy of the past year plus the fact that we are a small self-financed studio. also, unlike other design stars, my designs, though aesthetically slick have philosophical underpinnings – not that this makes me a perfectionist, but it does limit the type of products i can put my limited resources toward.

well, this is all about to change, but first a little story to get us there.

i must go back even further to 1984 when i ran my first design studio at the age of 19 with a friend who was a student at pratt – var grahics [even then, obsessed with universal communication, i wanted a name that had no linguistic ties to any one culture]. one our first projects was to come up with the look and feel of a new kind of credit card, one with an ic chip in it to act as a debit card or credit card with the goal of getting rid of physical checks. at this time it was quite revolutionary and i truly enjoyed making realistic comps of these cards [i wish i could remember the name of the company!]. before i saw them bring the project to fruition, i closed var graphics and moved to tokyo and never saw the product take hold in the US [though it was adopted in europe by the mid 1990s].

so now back to the dot com bubble of the mid/late 1990s. i'm back in new york and the creative director of a small interactive design studio, new york zoom where we quickly make a name for ourselves creating corporate identities for new media. i created the corporate identity for screaming media with jay chiat who was someone i admired since i was a teen. it was amazing to be able to work with him before he passed away. another start-up that contracted with us was called net-gen who were developing a back-end system for managing credit card usage for kids and teens – a great idea. it was quite the dream team on my end: tina eisenberg [neĆ© roth] now famous blogger swiss miss, alain grossenbacher [now the creative director at bodum], and of course me. we delivered a kick-ass identity system as well as a complete interface design for 3 different types of users. well...they didn't get their funding or were sabotaged by visa/mastercard [depending on which version of the story you hear] and another good idea never sees the light of day.



now we are in 2009 and i still have to fly in 1960s technology for 15 hours to get to tokyo when i was promised a 3.5 hour flight in a supersonic stratospheric jet as a child AND my wallet is full of a rediculous amount of plastic – credit cards, atm cards, id cards, store cards and paper currency. multiply this by 2 for the set i need to bring when i go to do work in my tokyo office. quite simply, bloated wallets ruin pants. the nooka solution to this design problem is to introduce the nooka card!

how does this story get us to my upcoming product launch you may be asking...

the nooka card ~ nookard™ streamlines access to all your financial tools into one single magnetic strip. a comprehensive web interface allows you to link any one of your bank accounts or credit cards to the nookard™. when you use the card at a terminal with a screen, a menu with all your linked accounts shows up for you or the shoppist to select. want extra security, add a password of your choice unique to each account or one as a master, or better yet, choose the "check photo id" option. not at a screen terminal? the account you select as primary will be used as a default. more than just that, you can protect the card by registering thes ites you shop on into the system so the card can never be used by anyone else. you can even require the extra security steps you choose for the check outs on the sites you frequent. the AMAZING thing about the nookard™ is the technology used to make all this magic happen – it's all existing for well over 10 years! why go use a time machine to go to the future when you can go back in time for innovation? WOW, the nookard can reduce average thickness and weight of your wallet by up to 99%! if any banks, visa. mastercard or amex want to license my scheme, it's not hard to contact me.

until the nookard system is adopted, you can help reduce pocket congestion by using the nooka AO [asset organizer], a color coded wallet system made of pliable silicone rubber – it conforms to the shape of your butt [flat or bubbiliscous] without breaking your cards and can be packed with cards without you 'losing' them behind a card in a too-tight slot of traditional wallets. keep one color for daytime and another for night / one for nyc, another for paris...seriously, it's a simple and elegant solution for organizing what goes in your pocket or bag. the nooka AO™ will be available in july! SRP is $35US. price and specifications subject to change.

so there you have it!





nooka is available at fine stores and here. join nooka and love nooka on facebook and nookaNOW on twitter.

Nooka is an official sponsor of The Juan Maclean US Tour happening now!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

jimmy and justin


as handsome a photo i have ever taken with my 1st generation iphone: jimmy knehans and justin tratner [of semi precious weapons]. buy justin's jewelery at barneys new york and his music on itunes. buy the zirc he's wearing here.

this photo was taken 2 weeks ago at justin's sunday rooftop party. tons of fun, met a lot of great people.

follow nooka on twitter: nookaNOW

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

the nature of collabs [collaborations]


yesterday, robert and i spend part of the day with the kdu collective in williamsburg – learning about what they do and talking about what it is we do here at the nooka lab [kdu = The Keystone Design Union – a privately held, global creative collective with members working in all disciplines of design and beyond]. of course, the goal is to explore any potential synergies, which are many i can sense.

their studio and showroom is very cool, housing the apparel lines they create themselves and others they rep. they have a 17 year old snapping turtle the size of a small dog in the garden in the back and a laser cutter i'm jealous of having!

we were discussing the nature of collabs and whether or not they are played out when i explained my theory on why it's important [or perhaps my argument is an argument against them?]. i posited that engaging in brand+artist / brand+brand collaboration is a form of social network brokering similar to alliances via marriage amoungst royal families in previous centuries – basically "i can't give you the money for your ad campaign, but you can marry my son/daughter". it's a good discussion to have as collabs, when done correctly, generate a good deal of online buzz, but for some reason, not as much buzz in traditional media, and moreover, they don't often directly translate into sales. for nooka though, it's a great way to learn about new markets and connect with new consumers and fans.

had a great lunch as well: lobster on a bun with lettuce, avocado and BACON – thanks guys!

the kdu blog here. check it out, it's a truly impressive network of talent and really amazing people in the NYC hub.

nooka is available at fine stores and here. join nooka and love nooka on facebook and nookaNOW on twitter.

Nooka is an official sponsor of The Juan Maclean US Tour happening now!

nookanooka show preview: house of liu


we are planning an exhibition to launch the mini nookanooka for sometime in the fall in both NYC and tokyo. here is a preview of a piece you will see in that show by veggie something aka james liu.

from the artist: The general concept for my customs is sort of like House of Liu meets NookaNooka meets Game of Death meets a little sci-fi. But if you look closely enough, you'll also see a convergence and juxtaposition of opposites.

NookaNooka always seemed futuristic to me. This impression was futher ingrained when I removed the head from the body. I noticed that NookaNooka's body by itself seemed really tough and strong and reminded me of an organic robot that could really battle - sort of like Robocop and the likes. Visually, the form also seemed to fit the head of Di Di and Mei Mei from my House of Liu character line rather nicely.

With the help of some clay, wooden parts, and felt, I was able to attach the House of Liu heads to the NookaNooka bodies. I decided not to glue the heads to the bodies as I thought the customs would have more personality if the heads were articulated like the arms.

For the paint job, I decided to take away some of the cute factor by giving the bodies a slightly weathered look. This was a little tricky as I had to find a happy medium between making them look battle worn enough and still being able to compliment the cleaner paint job of the heads. I picked the colors of yellow and black for the bodies in order to give reverence to Bruce Lee and the Game of Death. I chose black and blue for the heads and blue spatters for the body to even things out.

Oh, some of the juxtapositions include... future vs. past (NookaNooka reminds me of the future and House of Liu took place in ancient times), worn vs. clean (the weathered body and the clean head paint jobs), and the usage of yellow (a happy color) and blue (a calm color) instead of red (an action color).


nooka is available at fine stores and here. join nooka and love nooka on facebook and nookaNOW on twitter.

Nooka is an official sponsor of The Juan Maclean US Tour happening now!