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.