"Stuff. And Junk Like That." -spanky

OK, it's time to get organized. Randomness, be gone.

The Style of Elements will begin providing recurring features and schedule them regularly. From "Made In (Italy, Austria, Mexico, etc.)" to "The Classics" such as the PH pendant lamp to "Out of My Reach" which will focus on exciting but crazy costly things.


Guaranteed new posts will appear on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays (and unexpected randomness in between).

So let's start with the our first Wednesday of the month which will be devoted to "Made In_____".

First Saturday- the Classics

First Monday- Museum Shops

Second Wednesday- Out of My Reach

Second Saturday- Up Close and Personal (ya know, personal stuff)

Second Monday- Make My Day (gadgets meant to make life easier)

Third Wednesday- Cruisin' the Mags

Third Saturday- Out of Doors

Third Monday- Product Promotion

Fourth Wednesday- Ephemera

The remaining two or so promised posts will be dedicated to Guilty Pleasures (whatever I feel like talking about)

On your mark. Get set.

Magnificent Obsession

As most of my friends know (and now my classmates), I am a broken record when it comes to the the things with which I am obsessed. I tend to stop only when I bore myself. (So don't expect rants about NYU anytime soon, however I certainly could turn that into a discussion about product design.)



I find the need, once again, to champion my favorite kitchen gadget: the Tools Design lemon juicer because a) it can no longer be found at the MoMa design store and b) because I love it. The design is perfect. It is powerful, simple and elegant and it is 100% pure function.




Every household I grew up in, visited or created on my own had a lemon juicer. It usually consisted of a weapon-like cone that resembled the inverted fruit connected to a catching dish. A very functional solution.





When NK and I bought our first humble cottage, it came fully furnished and I was happy to discover this workhorse of a juicer among the melange of someone else's kitchen stuff. It required far less muscle than the other but because it was made with a number of removable parts, cleaning it was a drag. It was only bought out when multiple lemons needed to be squished.




Ok, two very viable solutions. Done. No more design thinking needed. Oh, unless you're Phillipe Starck.




Well, that was unnecessary.


Fortunately for us,Henrik Holbaek and Claus Jenson from Tools Design decided to keep thinking about the lemon juicer. A friend of theirs went to India and told the boys about a juice seller who came on their bus to sell orange juice to the tourists. The man entered the bus, softened the orange with his palms, jabbed a piece of tubing into it and pressed out a glass of juice. Henrik and Claus set about making a consumer device that did the same thing.


Even though the perfect juicer exists, designers will still attack the problem. Unfortunately the results often end up in the land of "cute".



























I am profoundly against cute when it comes to tools. Unless of course it is the Hello Kitty chainsaw.







(you can get the Tool's design lemon juicer through its manufacturer, which is rosendahl)

If you have to ask the price, then...

When my February issue of Wallpaper arrived electronically, I was rather excited because it was the Design Awards 2011 issue. Now who isn’t thrilled when a major publication wraps up a year’s worth of design investigation and puts it all together between some 160 odd pages? I was hoping to see extraordinary, forward thinking, thought provoking, awe-inspiring ideas and things. Now, I know that Wallpaper isn’t the pinnacle of design mags but I thought it deserved some rank. My takeaway from “leafing” through the pages was that this is spoiled rag of the super rich.

From Biggest Home (Antilla Tower, Mumbai)





to Eco Luxury (Petit h collection by Hermes)





to Best City (Rio de Janiero).



(whatever)


And now for Best Boat...the winner is:



Really? Really?

Nearly everything in the issue was at a dollar scale so prohibitive and decadent that I honestly felt disgusted.


(on a side note there was the confusing layout of the issue itself. There were the Design Awards, the Judges' Awards and the Domestic Design Awards. We were shown the Judges' Contenders somewhere in the middle and then there were the Readers' Choice Awards (ok that one I get) and the Winner Aren't Awards. The problem in navigating the issue may be a product of the e-mag medium. I will investigate this further in a later post)

Welcome to the Blog

The Style of Elements is going to take a slight turn and focus solely on product design. It will still be about what catches my eye…so either the posts will be about objects that make me happy or just plain ol’ piss me off.

I will examine the things that touch our lives, weigh their merits and successes, faults and failures. Wherever possible I will find a deeper story, something to contextualize the object with, something that gives it meaning; all the while keeping in mind that elements are still only a part of a larger whole. I hope, that no matter what, the posts will be more than informational, they will be entertaining.

This is going to be fun!







(for more on the previous blog please check out the old address: http://annweiser.blogspot.com/)