Wednesday, February 4, 2009

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.



Tuesday, February 3, 2009

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.

Monday, February 2, 2009

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.

objectified


last month i caught up on some documentaries i missed in the theater by seeing gary hustwit's "helvetica" on PBS and verymuchso's production, "crossing the line" on the sundance channel. helvetica explores the development and impact of a typeface and crossing the line tells the story of american defectors' lives in north korea – both incredibly thorough, educational, and surprisingly engrossing!

as many things in my life tend to seem magical, not 1 week after seeing helvetica, my friend sam valenti tells me, "i think you should meet my friend gary hustwit, you guys would really get along well"! as it happens, gary is finishing up his next film, "objectified" and needed to shoot objects in-situ at people's apartments to create the interstitials for that. it's unfortunate that i wasn't introduced earlier to perhaps be considered for the main part of the film, but i'd be such a minor player next to people like jonathan ive! that said, i have so much stuff in both my apartment and office – having a famous documentary film maker photograph it helps justify keeping these dust collectors in my life – and i was told that i definitely had the most "junk" of any apartment he's been to! needless to say, it was a pleasure to meet gary this past saturday, and hopefully be a small part in what will surely be an amazing film!




Crossing The Line: Gone from Nick Bennett on Vimeo.

gary's site for objectified here.

verymuchso's crossing the line here.

Friday, January 30, 2009

openers january


t took a while for the editor to get this up, but here is my 'most played music 2008 list'. i had a similar albeit shorter blog post on 2008 music here on nooka style around new years time. if you can read japanese, enjoy my fragmented writing style brushed up-to-snuff by yu yamada of nooka japan. article here.

support musical artists and buy music on itunes or other legal online purveyors.

if u were looking for nooka accessories, click here.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

just wanted to share this news from 1981

noo territories: romania



i have written before on the subject of social networks and also a separate post on the different ways communications get to me [via nooka.com, matthewwaldman.com, linked-in, facebook, PR company etc.]

well here is a poster-child for linked-in, the business online community as andreea is someone who initially contacted me there. this turned into a sample order for her online store which then turned into a full-fledged business relationship with her becoming the distributor for nooka in romania!

my fondness for romania goes way back to an early childhood obsession with vampires, and was only strengthened with my professional relationships and moreover, friendship with graphic designer extraordinaire, dan dumitriu in london. i was since told that romanians do not like being referred to as vampires, and in actuality, there are no vampires there – it's like a christian child being told there is no santa claus!

already, andreea has garnered an AMAZING amount of press for nooka in her beautiful country, a sample of which is here. i hope to see nooka grow with the new economies of eastern europe, and really want to go skiing in romania some time soon.

andreea's company is called clockwise, and their site is here. pretty amazing to have a 2 different products featured in a single edition of ELLE magazine, especially for a small brand like mine.

not in romania? nookas always available here.