The Practical Made Beautiful

What you see above is a hydroelectric power station in a medieval town in Germany. ! Oh how I love when practical, necessary things are made beautiful.

A hydroelectric station from the 1950s that supported 3,000 homes with clean energy every year previously existed in this same spot, and when it needed to be rebuilt, the town bypassed plans for a standard station in favor of this more contemporary, sculptural beauty by local firm Becker Architects.

In contrast to most hydroelectric stations, which, by their form, look like the evil sorcerer come to harness the power of the water and beat it into submission, the design of this one takes its direction from water itself– the station has been compared to “a river stone,” “a fish,” “a frozen wave,” and a “stranded whale.”

The approachable, organic form creates a link between the town and the river, where a typical industrial design would have closed one off from the other. The inside, with its arches and curves, is like “a cathedral in raw concrete” and houses the necessary equipment.

photos by Brigida Gonzalez, [via]

Andreas Neophytou

Loved this branding work by Andreas Neophytou for British rifle maker William & Son, and loved seeing bits from the creative process that went into, including all of these different type treatments below. Interesting what a difference the different style of “W” can make, the weight of the line, or whether the letters are varying sizes, heights, etc.

Also, the next thing I now want for Cultivate is a brand pattern like Neophytou made for W&S. We actually will use lots of different patterns in our packaging (all the boxes will each have a different pattern), but what fun to have a brand pattern!

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I think we’re probably way to fickle and flexible as a brand to pin ourselves to one pattern (or color scheme)– it took us AGES to settle on a logo and brand colors, and we finally settled on navy/cream, and then decided basically that it was too much commitment and changed to charcoal/cream. But I do love the idea of a brand pattern like this one.

More of Neophytou’s logo work in the gallery– two fun scripts and couple that really reminded me of the mid-century logos in this post!

Tasty Hotels

If you need to do some armchair traveling this weekend, I suggest you check out photographer Alex Profit’s site Tasty Hotels, a collection of beautiful hotels he has photographed.

Above (and below) is my favorite from the site, La Feline Blanche, which is at the base of Mont Blanc. Check out the gallery for more from this hotel and others from his site.

I also found the below video on Profit’s portfolio site– a video for Lancome’s Tresor campaign– and it’s a beautiful stop-motion compilation that takes you “around the world in 2000 photos.” Definite must if you have the armchair travel bug.

found via Emma’s Design Blogg

The Phoenix Dust Storm

I can’t believe this hasn’t gotten more press, this is CRAZY looking. 30 second time lapse of the Phoenix Dust Storm.

(Thanks Monica! You and Seth have been key to WL this week )

Recently on Editor’s Chair

For random reasons I won’t go into, I had to change the name of Editor’s Chair, so it is currently just titled with my name at the top of the page. I’ve also been rather slack about posting to it recently, but I just added a ton of new images, so wanted to alert you that there’s lots of new eye candy to check out, and even a page from one of my favorite books– The History of Love– if you’re looking for some summer reading. Happy browsing…

Also, a few favorite videos and songs from this week:

Current favorite song off the new Bon Iver album (with an unofficial stop-motion animation video):

An adorable mother-daughter video from Kate Spade’s youtube channel:

It’s like time-lapse/stop-motion week around here… I was just in Chicago last week (for the first time!) so I loved coming across this time-lapse of a boat journey through the city! Particularly love it as the sun starts to set… and the fireworks!

Chicago by boat: A timelapse journey from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

An absolutely random but delightful video:

And a cover by Billy Simons (a friend of mine) of “Run” by George Strait. Billy isn’t actually a country singer but I love this cover! His album (which I also love, it’s been on repeat all week) is available for free here.

Seth Epstein and Horse Thoughts

Love these striking photos from last month’s polo matches in Santa Barbara by my friend, the multi-talented Seth Epstein (we worked together on the Fable project).

They also reminded me of this room I recently bookmarked…

And also the abstract expressionist horse paintings by Edward Incandela, like this one…

The Swings Project

This kind of thing is exactly the reason I started Wonderlust. This random act of creativity just made my day.

Last year, Jeff Waldman and a few friends were talking about the simple joy of swings. Out of that conversation around a coffee table evolved a project to hang swings all over San Francisco “as a part of an ongoing Happiness Project aimed at a loss of youth.”

…And then they took the project to LA, the Marshall Islands, and Panama. Now they’re headed for Bolivia through this Kickstarter project, which received over 200% funding (!), all with the goal of adding a little moments of happiness to people’s lives.

Here’s more about the the mission from his kickstarter page: It’s a universal message. An appeal to celebrate the passions of our youth, to give in to simplistic urges, but mostly, to remind people of the difference a smile can make in their day and the infectious effect that smile has on those they encounter.

Check out the video below to see lots more examples of places the swings have been hung and how the whole process happened.

Waldman has done other such projects, including this Mother’s Day Project where he installed supplies on public mailboxes, including prepaid postage envelopes, for sending your mother a card.

Also, their mission of putting smiles on people’s faces reminded me of this great little TED talk about the power of smiling. Did you know that a person’s smile can predict their lifespan or their marriage? And that children smile over 400 times a day on average? And that a smiling actually makes you feel happier?

Finally, this also led me to discover The Awesome Foundation (they funded the LA Swings project), which gives $1000 grants to “furthers the interest of awesome in the universe– in other words, they give out $1000 to projects they think are cool, no strings attached. Oh the things I would do if I were rich. Actually, I think I would probably just spend tons of time on Kiva and Kickstarter and IndieGoGo… there are so many productive ways to give your money away on the interweb these days!

Jaume Plensa, Pt. II

Remember Catalan artist Jaume Plensa’s giant figures constructed of steel letters from this post?

Plensa now has an exhibit of recent works at the Yorkshire Sculpture Garden in the UK, including this incredible wire mesh piece above that I hadn’t seen before, as well as the letterform-figures below. For more about Plensa’s reasoning behind using letters (and hence language) in creating his figures, check out the previous post and this interview.

I loved this bit below from the interview about his use of letters…

These are metaphors for the concept that life is permanently tattooing our bodies. Every second, every moment, our experiences are tattooed on our skin. But the ink is transparent. And then, suddenly you may encounter somebody who can read it and will give you feedback.

Photos from this BBC piece.

Introducing: Cultivate Wines

Finally, I get to share this with you! Get ready for a long post, this is the project I’ve been working on for the last several months, and there’s lots to tell you!

Started by my sister and brother-in-law, I’ve been working with a great team of people to get Cultivate up and running. In short, Cultivate makes (awesome) wines and gives 10% of sales to non-profits supporting education and basic human needs. It’s our hope that in ten years, American consumers will insist, by how they spend their dollars, that the companies they buy from have some sort of socially responsible model. In twenty years, we hope that “buying American” is restored as a positive phrase because American companies will be known for their socially responsible models.

One of my favorite things about Cultivate is that we decided that rather than us choosing where the money we would go, we would let the buyers choose, so we’re setting up a voting platform on our website. First, non-profits submit themselves to have a project at their organization funded by filling out a form and creating a video, and then anyone can vote on which projects they think should be funded.

Another cool thing: in addition to wine in bottles, we’re making wine that comes in really beautiful boxes. That’s right, boxed wine. (And no your eyes do not deceive you– there’s a wine called Wonderlust, named after this blog!!)

Yes, we know there’s still a stigma attached to boxed wine, but sooner or later y’all are going to have to come around– it’s the responsible way to consume wine– it has half the carbon footprint of a bottle due to shipping efficiencies and the material!

Also, if you’re like me, when you want a glass of wine with dinner, you don’t necessarily want to open a whole bottle knowing you’ll pour half of it down the drain later. A boxed wine lasts for up to 6 weeks in the fridge!! So you can have a glass any time you want (ha) without worrying about having to waste wine.

Eventually, people will come to see the box as just another packaging format for wine instead of seeing “boxed wine” as a different thing from bottled wine. There’s no such thing really as “boxed wine”– it’s the same wine you could put in a bottle, but it’s in a box instead. So anyway, all that is to say, a ton of companies have made a lot of headway in dispelling bag-in-box wine, but we’re on a mission to get rid of the stigma for good.

Yet another cool thing about Cultivate: we’re using different designers on each label/box. The bottles and boxes you see above are by 6 different designers/artists!

Shout outs to Lindsay McCabe for Dream Walking, Alvin Diec for Double Blind (remember him from this post? I pulled him in to design a label for us! So fun!), famed photographer Fred Lyon for the Gambler photo (along with Catherine Ray on the text and layout), Leigh Nelson for the Feast, Cynthia Warren for the Copa Cabana and Wonderlust labels (Remember Cynthia from this post? Another Wonderlust hall-of-famer I got to pull in for this project), and Catherine Ray for the Copa and Wonderlust box designs and our LOGO!!

Above is a screenshot from the video below, which is integrated into the banner of the homepage on the site. I’m super excited about this video– stop-motion animation and a chalkboard– two of my favorite things! Thank you to Catherine Ray for writing and drawing the entire thing and to Chip Lay for executing the photography and editing. (Post it to facebook/twitter and help us make it viral!)

Finally, be sure to check out the website to learn more, there are lots of fun things to explore– for example, very non-traditional wine descriptions, non-traditional team bios (mad-libs as bios), and a great blog getting underway. Yesterday’s post was by our winemaker about how to taste wine. I’m so happy with how the site came out (and is still coming along, certain pieces are yet-to-be-launched), so huge thank yous to Leo Basica for designing it and Chip Lay for building it!

PS- you can follow Cultivate to stay up-to-date on everything related to the Cultivate lifestyle (wine, social entrepreneurship, giving, recipes, etc) on twitter and facebook. Follow us/like us!

Playing Favorites

I’m obsessed with this tumblr– Awesome People Hanging Out Together– that the photos above are from. What a great concept for a collection of photos.

I thought I’d take this chance to share my favorite blogs and tumblrs, and give you the chance to tell me (and the other Wonderlusters) yours! I love trading blog inspiration…

Mine change all the time (internet-induced ADD), but here are a few current (and some perennial) faves…

Tomboy Style (no explanation necessary), Clippings (tumblr), The Steward (tumblr), Miss Moss, My Favorite Color is Shiny (love this lady), Sunset in the Rearview (music), French By Design (interiors), The Coveteur, Because I’m Addicted (fashion), This is Glamorous, Nick Olsen, Could I Have That, and of course Smitten Kitchen (recipes and wonderful commentary).

So PLEASE, comment and share your favorites with me too!!!

PS- Follow Wonderlust on Twitter for daily finds that I don’t post to the blog.

PPS – You might have noticed my posting on Wonderlust has been a little sporadic– my job has been a little nutsbusy recently (but in a good way!)– just wanted to let you know it’s only temporary and WL should be back in full swing shortly! I’ll also be sharing the project I’ve been working on in the very near future… so excited!