toy box

Design Statement (in vinyl sticker)

Picked up at IDSA conference in San Francisco (Nov. 07)

How often do you talk about this topic recently? The high gas price is definitely starting to drive our decision making process.

Shopping cart reused

Documented in Tijuana, Mexico. Shopping carts as a store front. If you have an entrepreneur spirit, there is opportunities everywhere to showcase your products. The next step for this shop owner is opening a shop at a local swap meat (where many of the Hispanic small businesses are known to start their official entrepreneurial journey).

Documented in Tijuana, Mexico. Shopping carts as a store front. If you have an entrepreneur spirit, there is opportunities everywhere to showcase your products. The next step for this shop owner is opening a shop at a local swap meat (where many of the Hispanic small businesses are known to start their official entrepreneurial journey).

Writable surface in the city

I wonder if it would be interesting to find all the 'not so obvious' writable surface in the city.
This one I found in Chinatown in LA downtown.

and this one in Tijuana last week

Patterned environments

We've noticed recent updates in design with lots of patterns. Water cut patterns, patterns made out of alphabets, patterns creating spaces... Here are some of our pics.
Water cut carpet designed by selina rose. Clean and precise edges make the image of patterns look very sharp. via: DesignSponge
Laser cut Uppercase scarf by Little Factory. It's interesting to see such a familiar shapes creating a pattern. You almost don't see the alphabets unless someone shares the secret with you.
Parametre from 3Form. Beautiful repetitive patterns creating a ambiance shade. via: Apartment Therapy

LA to TJ Mobile Conference: Connecting Goods, People, Idea

We had an opportunity to attend LA to TJ Mobile Conference organized by Colors of Green Committee and Latino Urban Forum. The conference was hosted in a very unique style. We took a train from Union Station in Downtown LA to Santa Fe Depot in San Diego. Along the way, train passed multiple spots that are either controversial and/or influential to LA region's economy and wellness including LA River, 710 Freeway and Irvine great Park Site. Each speaker spoke briefly about key topics such as air quality, health, housing, open space, transportation while train passed by the area relevant to those topics. Our organizer James Rojas put it in the perfect sentence. "Our slide show is the view from the train".

Listening to the speaker on the train

Few interesting points we learned from the conference.

Ready for being fashionably anti-car?

Los Angeles MTA (metro) ridership is hitting the record highest while the infamous LA traffic is starting to show the decline in congestion (link to LA Times). It might be the beginning of LA consumers' mindset change from heavily car dependent to fashionably anti-car. For those of you who are ready to make the shift, we came across perfect bicycle basket carrie that could also be used as a shopping basket at the grocery store. Who wouldn't be tempted to pull out the old bicycle from the garage when we have such a whimsical accessory? 

Inspiration for packaging: Framing the authenticity

We like this packaging idea designed by Lewis Moberly. It frames and showcases color and texture of what's inside rather than hiding them.
via: Notcot

Twitter + Barack Obama

Obama Barack's openness to engage people in his campaign using web 2.0 has been talked about for a while. I was told by my friend that I can "follow" Obama on twitter. First when I chose to "follow" him, he requested to "follow" me as well. All the sudden the channel has been opened both ways. I get updates from him few times a week and I could send 140 word messages to him. Okay... it's sort of nice. But since he doesn't post anything personal, if you read newspaper, watch TV... the information is available. That's what I thought until today. This morning I got an update from him saying, "Made an important decision today and wanted to share it with you. Visit link".

Dwell on Design: HOM outdoor shower

We thought HOM outdoor shower w/solar panels is great way of using both kit-a-part parts and locally available resources (ex. use of locally grown plants as filler for the shade). Wondering about the possible application for disaster situations.