Geoff McFetridge X Makr Farm Tote

One of my favorite artists and designers, Geoff McFetridge, has teamed up with one of the finest bag and accessory crafters, Makr, to create a tote bag that will grab people’s attention. Based on the prints that Geoff created for his wallpaper company Pottok, Makr has crafted a limited series of farm tote bags with a couple of extremely graphic prints, which are personally two of my favorite images that Geoff’s created. I feel like they’re made for two kinds of people, the minimalists and maximalists. I guess if you lie somewhere in between those mindsets you’ll have a tough decision to make.

Click here to grab one of yourself, there are only 30 of each available.

Bobby

A Year of Sun with Mr. Persol (Video)

When I started watching the video above, I immediately thought to myself, “This is like a cartoon version of Monocle.” Well sure enough, I wasn’t too far off. This new spot for Persol sunglasses was put together by an A-list team put together by Winkreative, with Tyler Brûlé heading things up as creative director alongside the boys of Fleet Street Scandal, Kevin Dart and Chris Turnham, for direction and design. The color, light and sound of this pot is perfect and idyllic, making the brand seem like the perfect sunglasses for an extraordinary life. Kevin Dart did fantastic job at directing the spot, you can see some of the behind-the-scenes work he did over on his blog, and the backgrounds created by Chris Turnham are also quite spectacular to see. To see a full list of everyone who worked on the spot, click here.

Bobby

Keeping your keychain simple

Simplifying my life has been another big goal, and I think I’ve been pretty successful at this in most areas. One place I have managed to trim down is my keychain, which you can see above. There’s not a whole lot there – two keys, the sensor to get into my building and a pocket knife. The other two things are what I wanted to point out, my bottle opener by Makr, and my leather key ring by Me and Arrow.

First, the bottle opener by Makr, which is technically a “bottle key”, is something I bought in SF when I was there in September. It’s simple, it’s brass, it doesn’t look like a bottle opener, and that’s why I love it. You could even have this carved into a real key if you wanted to. That’s the beauty of an object like this, that it doesn’t stand out.

The leather key ring by Me and Arrow was something I picked up over the weekend. I realized I didn’t have a proper key ring, just one of those flimsy rings that was sure to break at any time. It’s not fancy, just a bit of leather in the shape of the end of an arrow, but I love having a beautiful material like leather in my pocket.

Hopefully this inspires you to lighten your keychain load.

Bobby

Nothing Major, A New Lifestyle Brand Out of Chicago

Launched today by Chris Kaskie & my studiomate Mike Renaud, Nothing Major is a cheeky & irreverent line of artist-commissioned, gender neutral tees & accessories made with careful attention to quality, responsible production & aesthetic integrity. So many small details to fall in love with: surprising typography elements, a random pocket, or specific illustration style. I love the logo too, those chunky round serifs fell me every damn time. The website is well worth the trip, especially the extra-thoughtful section that features interviews with each of the contributing artists. I’m eagle eyeing that smart little tote bag! So many pockets it has!

Margot

Interview with Uniform Wares (Video)

Last August I wrote a small watch brand called Uniform Wares to see if they had a black model of their 100 Series watch in stock. It was a simple watch that had a minimal face and band, and that’s why it was so great. Cut to just about a year later and now Uniform Wares is all over the place, becoming a watch that designers like myself see as a modern icon. I thought it would be interesting to post this interview that Crane.tv did interviewing Patrick Bek and Oliver Fowles, the designers and co-founders of Uniform Wares.

What’s interesting is that they started out as furniture designers, getting the idea to start crafting watches in the beginning of 2009. Their goal was to design a watch that appealed to themselves and their peers, creating a watch that could be dressed up or down. It’s also great to see how young these guys are, I honestly thought they’d be stuffy old men!

Bobby