london

i am in london, and man, it was cold the past few days. luckily it's in the 50s F [15ºC] today! i'm staying in shoreditch house and i must say, membership does has it's privileges – best stay ever in london [london, like NYC, is a city where even paying $200+/night does NOT guarantee a nice room, or even good water pressure in your shower]. i just wish my room had a bath tub...

so, i got the most of the cultural stuff out of the way on monday, as it was a bank holiday here: design museum, tate modern, and even a show on royal british armor at london tower [my friend darren dragged me to that one]. great shows at both the design museum and tate but it bothers me deeply that my products are in neither of the 2's gift shops [but i won't get into that here].

darren also arranged tickets to see hair, which he did the press for. it was a bit of a mind fuck for me on a few levels. i'm not into musicals, but hair is one i grew up listening to because of my parents brief hippy phase [my mom's huge afro and colourful dashikis were part of my aesthetic influences] and also, the drama club in my high school did a production of it [against my best advise, inner city NYC public school with maybe 5% white kids is not the most supportive environment for a hippy musical. no one came]. the mind fuck part is really about NYC – a city that spawned jazz, folk music [still can't get my head around that], glam rock, punk, disco, AND hip hop is so different now, it's hard to process how much has changed even since i was in high school and i wonder how a city like new york will propel itself into the future. london seems so motivated by their olympics, shanghai by the the world expo...why is NYC so not interested in big events to force major improvements to infrastructure? of course, the federal government is part of the problem with nyc being bled dry of tax revenue, but i'm not an articulate enough writer to address this complex issue up...just mentioning it in the context of what went through my brain while watching a production of a musical.

anyway, excited to meet with illustrator extraordinaire, ken chung, go for a tour of the royal society of arts HQ, meet with the ilove dust team...all between now and friday when i return to NYC.

nyc icff 2010 X nooka

the 22nd annual international contemporary furniture fair, the icff, will turn new york into a global summit for what's best and what's next in design. this year, nooka and matthew waldman will be involved in three off-site shows, uncomfortable conversations by design glut, sounds like by joey roth, and cite goes america by jan habraken.

more details to come as the date nears!

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larry tee and nooka

in a recent interview with djmag, dj larry tee shared his thoughts on fashion. be sure to pick up your copy of the magazine and catch up with larry tee.

order the nooka strip that dj larry tee has here!

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nookanooka show in budapest!

budapest is a city i have always wanted to visit – rich history, their language is an isolate on the european continent [it's an altaic language more closely related to finnish, mongolian, japanese and korean than to any other groups], they have a culture of spending long afternoons in thermal baths, and the danube is a famous river. i was not disappointed!

my reason for coming was the hungarian custom nookanooka show organized by csap viktor, our man on the ground in budapest. the show featured 35 local artists, and i was blown-away by the enthusiasm and craft the artists applied to the competition. i will update the nookanooka pages on our website as soon i get the official photographs and artists bios from csap. larry tee was dj at the after party, and it was great catching up with him [i haven't seen larry since he moved to london]. i got to become friends with the madonna of hungary, kristóf steiner who splits his time between budapest and tel aviv and was our emcee for the evening. really great guy!

the only unfortunate thing was some planning issues, mainly the may day holiday weekend. like NYC on labor day, more than half of the city was out-of-town! hopefully the show will travel within buda or pest to continue the buzz when the city is back to full-tilt! i'll keep you posted.

so, let me end by saying, if you haven't thought of it, visit budapest! it's affordable, extremely bicycle friendly [i rented a bike for 2 days and it was AMAZING] and full of things to do. as for best thermal, i recommend széchenyi. gallért is more famous [matthew barney's cremaster cycle was partly filmed there] but not as nice overall [poorly signed, only some of the staff are helpful]. széchenyi is in a beautiful park with an amusement part and museums, so you can kill a whole day there!

vans pro team in guam

on april 29th, the vans skate and bmx team went down to tumon bay guam to sign autographs and put on a "jam session" demo in front of dna evolution and kicks/hi guam. dna of evolution and kicks/hi guam invited the public, especially skaters and action sports enthusiasts to come down and witness the occasion. the long live crew also released their long awaited skate deck/ tee pack and a preview of the long live skate video at the gathering. from the looks of it, this was an epic event!

our sales rep gifted kristy van doren, colin mackay and some other from vans pro team some watches. be sure to check out the great photos!

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matthew waldman in yrb

matthew waldman and the nooka brand were featured in design @ work, an article focusing on 7 different brands with 7 unique aesthetics in the latest yrb magazine. be sure to check out the great photo courtesy of esteban aladro!

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hong kong update and a small rant or two

i used to go to hong kong once or twice a year when i started nooka, but due to frustrations with dealing with the first factory we contracted, i began to send other staff members to do the factory visits. though things have improved on all fronts, and communication being the main ongoing issue, it is yet again necessary for me to shepherd the process directly. so after an absence of 2 years, i went to hong kong. so even though it is late april, and i packed not much of warm clothes, i was shocked with cool weather [snow in tokyo, freezing smog in beijing, but cold in hong kong?!?]. this actually worked to my advantage as i don't do well in hot sweaty weather – my hong kong productivity doubled!

since it was a short trip, i planned all the meetings to be in the HK offices of the factories we use. without going into minutia, the outcome i have been feeling mount, is that a company like nooka needs to have it's design office in hong kong or at least closer than a 14 hour plane ride. the iceland volcano put a stop to fedex up until a few days before my meetings, so my timing couldn't have been better. moreover, being able to discuss design changes face to face is by far the most efficient way to produce things. i really need to think this through: can i live in HK 6 months of the year? is tokyo close enough to base the design lab there? i was impressed with the energy and people of beijing, but the pollution there would kill me. how do other small independent design brands handle these issues? remember, i sort of fell into product design! still figuring this stuff out...

<volcano: if my anti-gravity drive transport was developed we wouldn't see the huge disruptions caused by this event. am i the only one consistently ranting about the lack of technological progress in air travel? this is the same technology in use since the 1960s...just sayin...>

i got to meet the great people at victionary publishing, the incredible chris ng of idn magazine, and arnault, proprietor of kapok, your place for nooka products in hong kong! his combination cafe, shoppe and gallery on a cute hidden street in wanchai is a great place for a coffee and nooka any day of the week. check it out; G/F 5 saint francis yard, wanchai. www.ka-pok.com.

aside from work, caught up with mark landwehr of coarse toys – had a IKEA swedish meatballs at his apt with some of his friends and coworkers. my friends andrew and marco actually live 3 floors below him in the same building, so i invited them to meet their neighbors. a friend from when i was a young adult in tokyo has been living on lamma island for 14 years, and we had a lovely seafood meal there, my first time on lamma island.

www.idnworld.com for one of the last surviving international design magazines, produced out of hong kong. http://www.victionary.com/ for victionary design publishing, also out of hong kong. support independent design, buy their products as well as mine.

business travel notes: do not get brainwashed like i did and get an american express platinum card. you do not receive any better service from the airlines than if you were to book all your flights on kayak, nor does it get you access into any of the airport lounges in tokyo narita or beijing international. they booked me on air china for 2 legs of my flight, and this is an airline to avoid – unresponsive counter people who just stare at you when they don't want to answer a question and the interior of their planes are old and quite smelly. luckily i always have a muji moisture mist and travel sizes of nooka fragrance to keep me from not breathing. i have to say, american express marketing is certainly successful enough to get me to pay the $750 annual fee which will be contested when i cancel this card on my return to NYC.

put hungary on your list of countries where google sites do not work. they are not blocked but i can't get gmail or blogger to work at all – times out. search is fine but painfully slow. so if you are like me and do cloud computing, make sure you have back ups to download from other servers and POP/IMAP set up on your laptop for your email. i am writing this [and updating the blog via email, not the website] in sunny budapest where we are having a nooka dj event with larry tee this friday! i haven't seen larry since he moved to london so this will be a cool environment to catch up. let me know if you're in buda or pest this week. also, if you are lactose intolerant or have a milk allergy, bring a huge supply of lactase or soy milk with you.