REBEL GREEN FRUIT AND VEGGIE CLEAN

Good product and marketing design can make all the difference in the cutthroat American economy. With a slew of new "green" products inundating every product category, brand meaning and image might be the only distinguishing factor. Perhaps noone knows this better than design powerhouse Wink, and their latest mission, REBEL GREEN, the punk rock of green labels with a nostalgic nod to mid century Americana design. If you're gonna need to give your fruits/veggies a cleaning (or bag em'), it might as well be a handsome one. I think they might need to diversify. (via Lovely Package)

KNOW JAVIER JAEN

Barcelona's Javier Jaen is official. His artist profile says it best:
"His work is in close relation with symbolic, ludicrous and two-sided languages, where subtractions and additions abound. He is interested in wordplay and the formal relations between literary and visual language. He looks for narrative and aesthetic scenarios within close and every day experienced contexts. His works involve techniques such as collage, appropriation, the object and image recycling."
(via drawn)

SWISS COMPANY RELEASES BABY REVOLVER

Are you letting your baby breastfeed unarmed? Is your toddler unable to protect your home in your absence? Have no fear brave parents, weapons manufacturer Swiss MiniGun (yes, from the notoriously neutral country of Switzerland) has invented a truly tiny revolver. The gun is 5.5 cm long and fires a bullet 2.34 mm in diameter (OF COURSE IT FIRES, WHAT WOULD THE POINT BE OTHERWISE?) at over 300 mph. Yes, it can kill you. Or home-invaders, or bullying 2 year olds (hard to imagine death from a 2.34 mm bullet, but possible nonetheless).

Unfortunetly, you can't get these in America. Yet...
A message from the SwissMiniGun website:

"The US Department of Justice has mentioned that our miniature revolver, ref. C1ST does not meet with the minimum size prerequisites referring to the Factoring Criteria for Weapons ATF Form 4590.

Therefore, our revolver is not classified as sporting and is not importable into the USA.

We feel sorry for all the US collectors who have showed interest in our miniature revolver.

We promise that our next model will meet with the US Factoring Criteria for Weapons."

Yes, that's what America needs... tiny, deadly guns that fit in your wallet. (via gizmodo)

SURPRISE, MICROSOFT'S "LAUREN" IS AN ACTRESS

Shocking. The "regular girl" who is given $1000 to buy a new laptop "of her choice" in the latest Microsoft ad campaign is actually a SAG eligible actress with over 20 film/commercial credits to her name. According to her website, Lauren De Long was proud to have booked a "market and research job" that turned out to be the lead "regular" in the commercial (last month she was psyched to be in a 7-11 webisode commercial). However, the Wall Street Journal reported on the story and included this seemingly seedy explanation of the hiring process:

Microsoft’s recruiting process for its commercials is interesting in this regard. Brooks says of the roughly dozen computer shoppers its agency recruited, not a single one ended up spending their money on a Mac. Brooks says he “swears on a stack of Bibles” that the agency didn’t in any way steer the shoppers towards a particular brand of computer or operating system. “Value is on the top of everybody’s mind these days with the economic situation we’re in,” he says.

FIRST, if T.V. viewers actually believe this girl is just a "shopper", shouldn't it worry Microsoft that she immediately went to a Mac Store First?! She obviously knows where the better computer is, but only upon leaving with no macbook (too expensive), she bitterly proclaims that she "isn't cool enough for a mac".

SECOND, Microsoft hired the girl for a "market/research" job so of course she was going to pick a computer that uses the operating system of the COMPANY THAT HIRED HER. I hope they didn't swear too many times on those bibles.

Once her identity was discovered, several Mac users volunteered to give Lauren their 17" Mac Books (her required screen size that eliminated Mac from her price range) so the poor girl didn't have to go through life using Windows. (Despite her "freedom" in choosing the laptop, she declined to talk about Mac/Microsoft comparison since she had to sign a non-disclosure agreement) (via Gizmodo)

NO ESCAPE FROM NEW ADS.

Marketing firms are always looking for new ways to "break through the clutter" to reach potential customers in more cost effective ways. My students are consistently surprised at the places they find ads, but they've never seen anything like these. In the picture on the left, an elevator floor becomes a high-flying ad for a Swiss skydiving company created by Wirz/BBDO Switzerland. On the right, shoppers resemble fleas (imagine that) on a gigantic floor sticker is seen from the upper levels of a Jakarta, Indonesia shopping mall for Jakpetz and Frontline flea spray courtesy of Saatchi and Saatchi (once one of the biggest ad firms out there). Speaking of Frontline, the PBS series produced the must-see documentary on the subject of advertising and persuasion called "The Persuaders". According to the movie, and unfortunetly for us, breaking through the clutter usually just leads to MORE CLUTTER. Where will it end? I'm sure we don't want to know. (via coolhunter)

SERIOUS RAMP HOUSE

It's about damn time. Greek Architectural firm Archivirus has created the "Ramp House" in Athens, Greece. Now this isn't just a ranch house with a crappy 2 foot particle board mini-ramp crammed in the living room like that divorced guy down the street had, the ramps are sizable and the house is handsome. Lead archtitect Athanasia Psaraki designed the wood/concrete space for a client who wanted a livable, functional skateable home (you can even skate from room to room). Eat your heart out. (via the Architectural Review)

3/28 note: once again, I got on this story before HS, only by a day though. Those dudes are good, damn them.

BOXED WATER IS BETTER FOR THE EARTH

Alongside the constant talk about lessening our carbon foot print, a massive movement in the development of responsible (and handsome) consumer products has emerged in the past few years. Tops on the list of earth-friendly water peddlers (there aren't many) is BOXED WATER, a new company that provides an interesting alternative to Americans' current obsession with plastic bottled water. If you have to drink packaged water, this is the company to support. Their website makes their case:

"Started with the simple idea of creating a new bottled water brand that is kinder to the environment and gives back a bit - we found that it shouldn't be bottled at all, but instead, boxed. So we looked to the past for inspiration in the century old beverage container and decided to keep things simple, sustainable, and beautiful.

About 90% of the Boxed Water container is made from a renewable resource, trees, that when harvested in a responsible, managed, and ethical way serve as an amazing renewable resource that benefits the environment even as it's renewed. Our carbon footprint is dramatically lower as our boxes are shipped flat to our filler and filled only as demand is created, opposed to most bottled water companies that ship their empty bottles across the globe to be filled, then shipped back for consumption. The flat, unfilled boxes we can fit on 2 pallets, or roughly 5% of a truckload, would require about 5 truckloads for empty plastic or glass bottles. Our cartons can also be broken down to their original flat state, are recyclable in most areas, and will be everywhere shortly. We're also giving 20% of our profits back to the resources our product is composed of - water and trees. Not only does it simply make sense, but we really enjoy supporting water and forestation organizations as it's part of our company's ethos and way of thinking to give back and participate. All that and an over-arching focus on simple and beautiful design that compliments our brand as well as the spaces it's sold and consumed in."
(via LovelyPackage)

CASSETTE TAPE PORTRAITS

Amazing portraits from iRI5 made from cassette tapes. The collection includes Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Ian Curtis and the Stone Roses' Ian Brown. Enough said. (via Drawn)

MAY YOUR SHIP HAVE IRONSIDES?

As the first month of my blogging experience comes to a close, there has lately been a significant rise in the amount of people reading (can I call it "reading"?) the ol' blog here. Whether you're genuinely interested in what I post or enjoy perusing my horrible grammar/spelling, I appreciate your "visits" cause let's be honest, blogs without readers usually suggest a mental deficiency in the writer.. or that we can't afford a journal.

Anyway, I've had a few questions about the name of the blog (this proves people have at least read that far) and so I wanted to provide a few answers. First, since this blog is meant, generally, to link people to sites that contain interesting information, I imagine I send most of my readers off in the first few minutes. (I think this might be contrary to what websites are supposed to do which is keep readers on the site to make ad dollars) Anyway, I chose a title that I think reflects the "see you off" part and that indeed is the point of the title, "May Your Ship Have Ironsides". It is a simple farewell, one that was lifted from a Brown Bird lyric actually (From the album "The Bottom of the Sea" -highly recommended). It is not a popular saying as far as I know, but as with most things Wallace, there is history behind this name.

Old "Ironsides" aka the U.S.S. Constitution in fact, did not have iron sides. No ships at the time it was built (1794) used metal siding (that didn't come till the mid-1800s). During the war of 1812, the Constitution earned its nickname by famously defeating the British vessel HMS Guerriere. According to the legend, the ship was said to be made of iron since it's thick wooden sides resisted British cannon fire. 116 years after its last "sail", the ship was reborn in 1997 when it was completely rebuilt.

This name was not particularly original though, as a British ship (the HMS Britannia) was given this nickname 30 years earlier and British military commander Oliver Cromwell held the title in the mid-1600s for leading his "ironsides" cavalry troops.

PHOTOSHOP EVERYTHING REAL OUT OF LIFE.

Let me start by saying, I don't gives a sh*t about Kim Kardashian. However, when I noticed this story on Gawker (don't ask) I couldn't resist weighing in. If you live in America (or an industrialized country), you shouldn't be surprised to learn that along with the pounds of make-up used on the models, there are also "changes" made via Photoshop that are also applied to images gracing the pages of several main stream magazines. They're used for a variety of reasons, but they become pretty obvious if you look at the before/after pics of Kim on the Complex website (the one on the left was removed), a mediocre street wear/hip hop/culture rag owned by Marc Ecko, maker of discount-store Marshall's exclusive label, Ecko Clothing. Anyway, the thought of an average or "normally" proportioned woman on the cover of any magazine is enough to applaud the inclusion of Kardashian in Complex (although that statement itself is pretty sad), but the fact that she's computer-lipoed should leave a horribly bitter taste in the mouth of American pop culture. As my sister just announced that her new baby is a girl (due in August), I can't help but imagine the brutal pressures that will be placed on her in only a few years to be "beautiful" in a way that pleases Marc Ecko and seemingly, the rest of America.

Note: I won't get into the fact that Kim's skin looks quite a bit lighter or should I say "whiter" in the new pic OR why her talentless self is in the magazine in the first place OR generally speaking how women are portrayed in these types of magazines and/or mainstream rap (not typically hip-hop mind you, but mainstream rap).