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!

nooka look book for 2009-2010 preview

like all venerable brands, nooka produces a new look book each year. this exercise is always takes longer than scheduled and usually runs over-budget, but the results help add new visual vocabulary to the marketing materials [in our case, we use the images on the web site and print materials]

last year [the images on nooka.com as of this writing] we used a studio comprised of students still at carnegie mellon called the supervisory. they have since graduated and moved their studio to nyc and we have contracted with them for this years as well!

(though not necessarily apparent in the finished images) conceptually, we pushed a sci-fi inspired angle for 2008 with a nod to the aesthetics of both westworld and blade runner by treating the models as androids. with the new look book and moreover with messaging for the brand, i want to focus on the concept of universal language as this is a common theme in what motivates me as a designer. this line of thought brought me to contemplate the concept and how to explore it more...math is a universal language, as is music. what movie told this story better than 1977's close encounters of the third kind? and this became our conceptual jumping off point for the art direction of the 2009 photo shoot.

it is from that point the ball was in the supervisory's court to cast and direct the photography to create the images previewed here. the hair and make-up in many of the images is a bit 1970s, but then again, that was the decade that best presented the look of the future in its sci-fi and fashion (both things that inspired my aesthetic approach for nooka).

we will preview the new look book at our pop-up shop at den in the east village of nyc opening july 9th. more on that in a later post. this is where we will launch our belts, wallets and our something else that's very exciting!

more about the supervisory here.

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!

juan mclean on tour

some pics from the boston and atlanta gigs of the juan mclean last week. more info on the link at the bottom of this entry to find out when the band and the robot nookanooka will be in your town!




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!

nooka creative x-change: nid and sancy

i recently got to catch up with one of my favorite european electro outfits, nid and sancy. it was over 2 years ago when i stumbled upon a cd of their music on the desk of someone in my tokyo office and have been eagerly awaiting new music from them since! their new album yeah yeah yes is available on itunes now.


bio: HI. We are Nid And Sancy.We come from Ghent, Belgium, Europe. Our music is mostly electronic but we also use live instruments to create a tension and inject some sweat, rawness and life into our music.We have always been fond of strange sounds. We like energetic performances. We like punk in its truest DIY form. So far we recorded 3 albums ( plus one unofficial one) under this name and played countless shows throughout Europe, Asia and the USA.

Q1 i find that most creatives confuse "motivation" and "inspiration", and certainly there are times when they are the same. do you as artists see them one and the same or as different drivers for your creative process? No ,they are different to us. motivation encompasses a bigger thing in our view. Motivation is the bookshelf. Inspiration are the books. Its the drive that makes us do what we do without having to think about it.. We have worked together closely for years and we have never questioned why are musicians. Its a natural given. Like breathing. Inspiration is a different thing. its how you perceive the outside world into your work and alter it to your own perfection.

Q2 nid and sancy is obviously a play on "sid and nancy", the tragic couple of the sex pistols. can you tell me a bit about how you came about the name? The name came about because of 2 coincidental occurrences that had nothing to do with eachother.

In 2000 we had a project called "Galacticamendum" and we were invited to play our first two shows ever in a small electronica tent at a big and famous festival over here. At that time most of the other acts were noodlin on their laptops live and their live shows looked more like they were checking email then anything else. We didnt even have a laptop. Just some old boxes and vintage gear. We were much like a punk band, only with old electronic instruments. Afterwords the journalists described us as the Sid And Nancy of electronic music.

A bit later a theatre company invited us to NY to record sounds of the city and turn them into a soundtrack for their theatre play. Unknowigly, they had booked us in the Chelsea hotel , where Sid vicious reportedly murdered his girlfriend. Soon after we came back we started doing some bootleg mash ups and needed a different name then the unpronounceable "Galacticamendum"...and thats how we got to Nid And Sancy.

Q3 i know that visual presentation and design is very important to you. how to you feel now that itunes is the main market for your music as a design issue? Thats probably the biggest downside of itunes. The artwork doesnt come off the way it should. But we already felt that way with cd. So we're definately loosing ground here. We've also come to notice that kids dont seem to be hung up on artwork as before. They're happy just downloading a file. At the moment we are thinking how to incorporate our artwork in other ways into our work. As all the parameters are changing, we have to. The good thing is with new parameters, new opportunities arise. We are looking into an iphone app now and we will find ways of incorporating our artwork in there. Cds are almost gone...there are a lot of people playing music on their iphones. Even ipods will be a thing of the past sooner then we think. So its a situation that changes fast and will keep on changing fast.

Q4 what's next for you guys? coming to the states? Yeah. We are planning to come to the states. We just returned from playing Steve Aokis club in Los Angeles and the SXSW festival in Texas. We already played NY as well and are planning a few new dates. We have a small but dedicated following in the US that seems to keep growing and we love coming there. So we will definately put more energy towards it. Our sales have grown the most in the US over the last 2 years. We feel people are very perceptive to what we do and that has given us a very good vibe to work more on that "market".

Q5 what does nooka mean to you? Well.We never been big fans of watches but when we saw the Nookas on the website...Some models immediately appealed to us because they simply put the idea of a watch in a new perspective.

I am wearing the ZON right now and its just a pleasure to wear and look at. Also the idea of reading the time from the blocks. Its a fresh take on how you look at time by just displaying it in a different way.

Nookas are what we call classic futurism. They present something in a new way. When you come in contact with the nookas, all other watches look a bit bland and boring. And they are not gadget-like in any kind of way giving you all these whistles and bells you dont need. In that respect they are classic where they need to be and futuristic where they need to be. Great pieces!



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!

nooka in china and hong kong

china and hong kong are known to be difficult regions for smaller brands – and establishing a brand takes more time. simply put [and of course i am over generalizing], the chinese consumer will not buy an item at full price unless it is a well-established major fashion brand. so though we have had consistent great press in hong kong [thank you allan!], we had some difficulty creating the same retail experiences we enjoy in tokyo and new york [for example].

well, this is now going to change as i am super excited to announce our exclusive retail partner for hong kong: LANE CRAWFORD! i love their stores – where else can you sit down and have an espresso brought to you while your goods are being wrapped? they are experts at retail experience and a perfect enthusiastic partner for not just hong kong, but shanghai and beijing as well!

so look for nooka in the watch departments of lane crawford in hong kong, shanghai and beijing. you can also find nooka at glossy shanghai and the mori art center.

lane crawford website is here.

not in hong kong, shanghai or beijing? 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!

nooka on style.com

vogue and style.com are showing nooka some love again this week! have a look! fa fa fa fa fashion!

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