ryan mcginley: i know where the summer goes.

I’ve found a series of photos that I can’t get out of my mind. If visions you’ve only had in dreams and fuzzy flashbacks of nights that got out of hand were combined, you’d have the latest work of the amazing New York based photographer Ryan McGinley. And if you could take those moments, strip off all your clothes, take a road trip, light some sparklers, climb a tree, and live with absolute wild abandon, then you’d have his new collection “I Know Where Summer Goes”.

In the summer of 2007 McGinley took to the road with 16 models. Collaborating with his troupe and looking at inspiration from 60s and 70s nudist magazines, they shot an incredible 4000 rolls of film. McGinley has culled the 150,000 pictures created down to the 50 achingly brilliant photos that make up “I Know Where the Summer Goes”. I love the obvious freedom – not just from the removal of all your clothes – but a total freedom of form in the photos. Asymmetrical and organic, the essence of their locales infuses each photo. Not just through the presence of nature itself (anyone could just take a picture of the outdoors), but through the use of light and fog and movement the actual photos are sun-dappled and dusted with sand.

In what seems to have been some kind of pan-sexual road party, the photos are exuberant and splashed organically with light.  It’s like a ‘shroom trip brought to life in the dessert. There are so many simply perfect shots that I only have room for my absolute faves here, but you HAVE TO check out his website. You won’t be disappointed and the pictures are knock outs, one after the other.

There’s a definite modern-vintage feel to some of the shots, but I feel it comes more from a rediscovery than an attempt to look retro. It’s more a remembrance of a more care-free, less body-conscious, more pubic hair-friendly era. The photos are too unique to be a harkening back, and I feel it’s more like a re-claiming of freedom. That this kind of natural exuberance and love comes across as vintage is more a comment on our the stressed out state of our current media fear-mongering filled world than a throwback photograph. He’s reminding us of a joy and ease we’ve collectively forgotten.

If you’re in NYC, then “I Know Where the Summer Goes” opens tonight at Team Gallery in and runs to May 3,  2008. Someone please come and take me there. I need to go.

Via Jonah Samson @ Cool Hunting

help.

When looking to create a fresh, modern new brand, you might not think automatically of painkillers and bandages. Thankfully, Help did…

Help is to pharmaceuticals what the brilliant Method is to cleaning products: be clear, be environmentally friendly, be different, and look good enough that people will want to show you off. They clearly state that their goal is to make products that actually help people and to bring some simplicity and environmental responsibility to the ugly, plasticized, over-packaged pill industry. In fact, reading the ethics statement on their site was actually inspiring, and when was the last time you could say that about a company?

Their products are equally forward-thinking. Their packaging is made from 100% recycled paper pulp and is fully compostable. You can literally shove it in the dirt, walk away, and feel okay about it. “Help. I have a headache” is 500mg acetaminophen pills that come without coatings or dyes. They openly admit they aren’t as pretty, but they’re better for you and for the planet. “Help. I’ve cut myself” warns that the bandages inside are made from hydrocolloid, the same stuff hospitals use. Again, it doesn’t look like a Band-Aid, but it works better than one. I love everything Help is doing, and I hope they blow up huge. Right now they’re only available for sale online, but they promise they’re working on a nation-wide distribution deal. I can’t wait.

They’re also savvy enough to know that when a brand is this morally strong and beautifully designed, people want to interact with it and share it. That’s why they’ve got personalized “Help. I…” tees available too.

For just $20 bucks you can customize your own tee. The site’s easy to use ordering system lets you see exactly what your shirt will look like. Behold:

chocolate from mary & matt + brooklyn brothers.

I think I’ve figured out the key secrets to making modern-urban-funky chocolatricks. Herein, my thoughts:

1. Helvetica. The international font of modern. Use it everywhere. Use it often.
2. Packaging should include white, the traditional foil, and pink. Not any pink, but acid Barbie doll porno pink. The kind of pink that makes your eyeballs wiggle a little when you look at it.
3. Much like dropping cherry bombs in the toilet or stealing a large diamond from a pedestal in an art gallery, you need to create a diversion. Fool me somehow. If my mind is left to focus on the fact that I’m eating chocolate, I might get fat. Confuse and befuddle me and it’s possible my metabolism will be right behind.

I give you Exhibit A:

Here’s the Chocolate Scrabble bar from New York design team Mary & Matt. Clearly demonstrating all three hallmarks of choco-cool, the best of all is the Scrabble-game diversion. You’ll be so busy thinking up “qu” words that you won’t have time to count calories. Unfortunately, it’s not available on their website as of right now. Either it sold out, or Hasbro (á la Facebook’s Scrabulous) is trying to sue their asses off for daring to tread upon the sanctity of Scrabble™®© without their express permission. It’s a game, not the Qur’an, let’s try and keep that in mind. Also keep in mind the proper and legal trade-marking, registered trade-marking, and copyright I have assigned to the Scrabble™®© name, should anyone from Hasbro see this and have the urge to run me into the poorhouse.

And now, Exhibit B:

Fat Pig Chocolate, created by New York creativos Brooklyn Brothers, features all the hallmarks of cool candy. You’ve got your vagina-pink foil and nifty branding in Helvetica. But, in a surprise twist, rather than divert you from the fact that you’re eating candy, they’ve called a spade a spade. Eat up fatty!

shape + colour on she does the city.

How cool is this? My li’l ol’ blog got featured on Cyber Stalker at She Does The City.

Thanks to righteous babe Rachel M. at She Does The City for making me seem much cooler than I actually am.

trekking mahlzeiten: cheeseburger in a can.

This is all kinds of wrong. Is it strange that in some kind of Andy Warhol-esque way I want this more as a work of art then as an actual foodstuff? Come to think of it, “foodstuff” is a good definition for whatever this… thing… is.

The brain-child of Swiss company Katadyn, which specializes in ready-made meals for campers and athletes (though I’m not sure which athlete would actually consume a canned burger) through it’s Trekking Mahlzeiten brand, this cheeseburger lasts for 12 months. That’s right. Something that supposedly contains cheese and meat has a one-year shelf life. That just ain’t right, and yet there’s something about it that’s oddly fascinating.

If the cheeseburger isn’t your thing – and how could it not be – then they’ve also got dehydrated wine. Coming in handy single serving pouches, much like Crystal Light, just rip open, add water, and stir. Sommeliers everywhere just cringed.

smiley®: “happy therapy”.

This made me happy. Maybe not for the reasons it intended to, but the end result was still joy. Brightly laughing yellow-coloured joy.

The iconic smiley face has expanded into the world of aromatherapy and fragrance with Smiley®. This isn’t your normal cologne. It’s a “happiness factor” claiming to be the “very first anti-stress perfume”. It’s literally bottling happiness. Smiley offers a full range of olfactory upers; the unisex fragrance is filled with an ”olfactive substance with euphoriant bio-mechanics”. It contains two chemicals derived from cacao extract: Phenylethylamine (a hormonal joy booster) and Theobromine (an adrenaline blocker and stress reliever) help get you pepped up and then keep you that way. The top notes are bergamot, orange, and pimento. The heart is cacao, pralines, and curaçao, and the bottom notes are musk, patchouli, and myrrh.

I’m not sure if this would physiologically actually affect your mood, but I’m pretty sure that psychologically it could – and as long as you’re happier, who really cares how you get there?

The packaging design is killer. I suppose the whole concept would naturally steer them away from that sort of ubiquitous Calvin Klein-esque sleek crystal obelisk we’re sused to seeing frangrance bottles in, but Smiley has really run with the whole pharmaceutical cuteness vibe. Bright white and sunshine yellow, each product has it’s own medicinal function-first sort of bottle – the body wash comes in old-skool Wizard of Oz type oil can, the perfumes in a pill-shaped spray bottle, and bath powder in single-use tablets. If you’re in desperate need, then you can get a whole bunch of happy in their First Aid Kit.

Designed by Ito Morabito of ora-ïto, whose previous work is for style-heavy brands like Nike and Swatch, the entire line is brightly and perfectly on-brand.

But that’s just the beginning. Smiley’s website is a written playground. The English section of the site is a lost in translation dream (or nightmare, depending on how you look at it). I honestly can’t tell if all the grammar nonsense is supposed to be intentionally funny or if French directly translated into English just comes out hilarious. I’m hoping it’s intentional because, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, just reading the descriptions on the site made me really… yes, you guessed it… happy.

It sounds like everyone working at Smiley mush be high. I challenge you, dare you in fact, to read the following quote and not smile. Guffaw even. Perhaps chuckle:

“These two cardio-tonics associated together dope the vitality and sets up the moral. It’s that simple! What were we waiting for to flood these benficial molecules on everyone?!!!”

I’ve totally been looking for a new way to dope my vitality. And of course, once your vitality is doped your moral is set up too.

Smiley’s online store, called the “Happy Therapy Centre”, sells the whole range of smiley products – including Smiley Rubbing Body Friction, an“epidermal stimulating massage oil with micro-nutrients to activate happiness”. The site also ships worldwide and has a store locator in case you want to go pick up some happy in person. I need this stuff. Not to use, just to have for the pure comic value.

youbar.

When it comes to new-fangled flavours, nobody knows what you want more than you. Sure, Peach-Pomegranate-Cumquat sounds nifty but it’s really not for everyone. As the flavour aware consumer seek out new taste sensations, especially in the growing and competition-heavy health food market, how’s a company to keep up?

With YouBar, that’s how. Now you finally get to be the master of your own energy bar destiny. I know it’s been hard letting “the man” tell you what to eat after your workout, but that’s all behind you now. You get serious culinary control; choose from a base of 7 different nut butters (cashew macadamia… yes please!) available in chunky, smooth, raw, unsalted, or organic. Add in your fave protein and then take your pick from 27 berries, nuts, cereals, fruits, and other seasonings and you’ve got the ultimate YouBar.

Best part of all, at the end you get to name it. I just ordered my own box. Josh Spearians, I give you the “Skinny Bitch”: crunchy almond butter, organic oat bran, egg white protein, sesame seeds, bananas, coconut, and a little dash of clover honey to top it all off. Damn right.

Sounds good to me. If you want one, go make your own.

studio m: happy pills.

Candy is awesome. Drugs are awesome. Candy + Drugs = Mega Awesome.

Um, what I meant to say was Candy is Awesome. Store-bought drugs that are legally sanctioned by the government are awesome. Candy + Tylenol = ….ah, screw it.

Designed in Barcelona by studio m, Happy Pills is a modern day collision between confectionary and apothecary. The store, literally wedged between two large buildings, might go unnoticed if not for the acid-pink Red Cross logo above it’s door. Inside, the pharmaceutical design bend is consistent: jellybean filled pill bottles and fully-stocked “first aid kits” line the shelves, or you can self-medicate by filling up bottles with your candy of choice. My personal fave are the handy “morning-afternoon-night” pill holders, just to make sure your sugar-toothing stays on schedule.

graziano cecchini has rome by the balls.

Only three months after dying the Trevi fountain red, 54 year-old Italian artist and activist Graziano Cecchini has done it again.

Yesterday he dumped 500,000 multi-coloured plastic balls down Rome’s famous Spanish Steps – causing insanity, mayhem, a whole bunch of tourists to wonder what the hell was going on, and several Italians to look up from their espressos and roll their eyes.

The area was quickly roped off and city workers were soon on hand to scoop up the protest balls, but not before a bunch of gleeful witnesses began gathering their own souvenirs and a good number of them ended up bobbing in the Barcaccia fountain. Apparently the significance of it all is in the Italian word for “balls” (“palle”) which can also mean “untruth”. The symbolism behind 500,000 “untruths” rolling through town is beautiful in it’s simplicity, noticeability, and ability to totally piss people off.

Detained by the police for “interrupting public services”, Cecchini said, ”This is an artistic operation which documents through art the problem that we have in Italy. They’re always telling us lies, both the Left and the Right.” You know this isn’t the last we’ll hear from Mr. Cecchini…

In an interesting side note, only a few hours after the stunt several of the balls were already for sale on eBay at the bargain basement price of 50 Euros (about $75 CAD)…for a plastic ball. An hour later a second seller appeared online. Though only offering one red ball for grabs, it was cleverly positioned as being “coloured red for positive feelings”.

the snoballer: ballin’.

This may not be the kind of snow balling some of you are used to, but for those of us that live in the cold for several months of the year Plow & Hearth has come up with the perfect tool for making the perfect snow ball.

It kinda look likes the bastard child of a garlic press and some salad tongs. It makes some nice looking snow balls, though. Dayyyyum. If you’re looking to construct the perfect snow fort for protection while using the Sno-Baller® (yes, it’s registered!) then check out the Snow Block Maker.

Via Cool Hunting