A garden shed or a home away from home?

I came across these lovely photos over on Anthology and was totally surprised to find out that this is not a lovely bedroom, it’s actually a garden shed. The styling that was put into this, while minimal, made me think this was some sort of outdoor vacation lodge that you could camp out in during the warm summer months. And maybe you could? It would certainly be romantic and not entirely impractical. If you’re interested in learning more about this garden shed, you can click here.

Bobby

Architects Have Answers

The video above is made from snippets of 20 interviews with architectural luminaries. Conducted by Luca Farinelli, the interviews are published in the latest issue of Log, and it’s funny to see how the architects’ answers compare to each others… or maybe it’s not surprising that Peter Eisenman thinks that only architects make architecture. And then there are other kinds of surprising answers: When asked if he prefers a Mac or PC, Rober Stern (Dean, Yale School of Architecture) answers: “Never turned on a computer my entire life.” But maybe this just means that he has someone else to turn a computer on for him.

This issue of Log also has an article by Nicholas de Monchaux (remember him?) writing about the painted and unpainted fuel tanks of the space shuttle program. And much, much more.

Alex

Why hasn’t anyone created a better web-based email provider?

For me personally, I use and love Gmail. The team behind the service has to be one of the best, hardest working teams in tech, as they’re constantly rolling out new changes and improvements, especially on the mobile front. The big problem is, they’re a part of Google. Lately Google has been getting pretty shady, like adding in Google+ results into search, and now their policies are being updated as of March 1, 2012, which means a few things. The good is that you’ll have a unified “profile” across all of their divisions. The bad being that they’re going to start using even more of the data we input to further sell more advertisements. Remember, Google is not here to help you, it’s here to make money. So why isn’t anyone taking this opportunity to make some money on their creepiness?

I’m the first to admit that I have no idea what it takes to create an online email provider. I’m sure you’d need all sorts of server clusters and cloud membranes and yadda yadda, but isn’t that stuff getting cheaper by the second? So imagine that we have the backend figured out, and it all works like magic. Couldn’t someone design a cleaner, more human version of Gmail that doesn’t use your information to sell ads? You’d probably have to pay for it, but don’t we all pay for things that make our lives easier? I pay for Rdio, I pay for Dropbox, I pay for my water and electricity. I don’t know about you, but I’d put email up there with all of those essential services.

As far as I can tell there are about 3 or 4 major web-based email providers, namely Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, etc. But where’s the cool, design driven alternative? Perhaps I’m being to flippant about this, and maybe it’s way too hard to actually do, but I feel like there’s a serious gap that could be filled by a strong team with a great product. As Google (and Facebook, can’t forget about them) start to creep their tentacles around our lives, shouldn’t we start building our own alternatives?

Bobby

The Desktop Wallpaper Project featuring Denise Nouvion: Day 3

I’m a bit late in the day on this, but here is our third wallpaper from photographer Denise Nouvion. I really like today’s wallpaper because it’s so abstract and how vibrant the colors. You can clearly tell that it’s a window, but then around the edges everything gets a bit fuzzy and the whole image gets really interesting. It almost looks like oil in water, with lots of beautiful, murky colors.

You can click here to see the other days:
Denise Nouvion: Day 1
Denise Nouvion: Day 2

Bobby

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