this is pretty amazing

it's in japanese, but it's an underground bike park [chika-churinjo].

poptank and real music

i have recently taken a non-paid position as creative director for a game startup called poptank which will produce game software where the user actually gains musical skill while playing! i can't get too deep into it, but i'm now looking for C++ interns and illustrator/animator interns. we can pay people with experience, but this is a self-funded startup and we need to be creative with compensation until we get financing.

(i should add that this in addition to nooka and berrymatch)

green concerns

i've been green when it was a hot topic the first time around as a child in the early 70s. this has filled me with varying levels of anxiety at different points in my life, from being macrobiotic in my teens/early 20s to having a career crisis of conscience in my late 20s thinking that design is the devil's work producing disposable culture!

i now have a more optimistic view on design as a discipline and understand the importance of contributing to the evolution of visual culture. who knows – it may be the designers that figure out how to communicate with the first extraterrestrials that land on earth for formal contact!

this wider view has not freed me from ecological concerns, and i have always produced minimal packaging for my nookas – sometimes more successful for one line and not another. for example, the leather strap models all come in a slim padded fabric wallet that can be reused for pencils, make-up, jewelery and also for keeping your nooka. our zubs are made out of a minimal amount of acrylic plastic and double-duty as display cases.

are these ideal solution? no. but here's the problem i'm putting out in the blogosphere in hopes that someone can help us improve:
design websites, newspapers and news media often feature the NEXT green solution. for example, corn or soy based plastics, cool recycled materials etc. AND i'm sure dupont or monsanto and the chemical concerns of the world also have new materials touted in press releases.
can a small start-up like nooka have access to these materials?
do any of the affordable alternatives have partners in china where most manufacturing is done? i ask this because we have had ZERO LUCK finding answers to these questions and we are very pro-active in research [try to get a person in dupont to direct you to a marketing person who knows of a new material reported in the press!]

i am sending our production designer to dusseldorf this week to go to interpack, the international packaging fair in order to find the answers to the above questions, but if anyone reading this has any insights or contacts to share – please do.

also: i contacted the american plastics council which spends millions on television and print advertising to see if they had field staff to send to schools and companies to educate about environmental issues and new developments [the paper companies all have these kinds of programs], and i was shocked that they do not.

i-D magazine

thanks super fashion stylist for i-D magazine london UK! may 08 issue.
watch featured available here, but the fotos do not do justice to the neon red/orange of this particular zub.

i can't believe how the early 80s NYC east village look is soooo back again....i think i may need to post some pics of me from that era!

busta rhymes and mike shinoda

it's funny, i just got an update on the busta rhymes + mike shinoda [of linkin park] collaboration and noticed that i'm wearing the same nooka today as busta is in the video! more on their song together here. there's a link in mike's blog to the video preview.


i'm wearing a t-shirt from ghostly records and green mihara pumas from a few years ago.

grand sounds in the nooka studio

i must say, i have a great knack for predicting music success. i predicted that tainted love by softcell would be an unprecedented hit in 1981 when it was still an indie release as well as predicting scissor sister's fame after seeing them play in a dive bar on pearl street a year before their first single in the uk – and i'm happy to see the musings in my past music reviews for the presets coming to form.

and the theme is "grand vision". there are bands that just have fun and find fame in the process, and others who have a grand vision of their sound. i heard that in scissor sister on a crappy sound system in a dive bar and i hear it in these two bands below.

the presets when i first heard beams by the presets i felt that they were another band like cut copy that produced great sounds, especially as remixers for other people, but had little to say on their own. after listening to it more and more, the girl and the sea became my favorite song of that year and i had a feeling that there was a lot more to them than what was heard on beams IF they got into more songwriting. well...apolcalypso is exactly what i expected in that direction. this album has everything, dance beats, atmospheric sounds, actual songs, and great production without sacrificing that indie feeling modular records is so good at! it's like speak and spell by depeche mode had a baby with duran duran, and the baby's nanny was Fischerspooner.

midnight juggernauts here is another australian act that sounds like they're from williamsburg brooklyn. dystopia is a grand endeavor – though the sound is electro, it's more like the gothic/scifi local synthpop of the early 80s in NYC that never really caught on anywhere with a real 2008 production budget. there is something reminiscent of sparks but somehow less contrived and more future-forward. they actually sound a bit like visage. i actually imagine this band eventually morphing into an arena rock band producing scifi inspired heavy metal...but that may be 5 years off for them. i can see them doing fun covers of the sweet or even queen. all-in-all, a very fun album.

coming soon, nooka nooka

here's a preview of what the package will look like. coming in may!