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!