sleeper magazine is ready to go

We’re having a blast at the HD Expo in Las Vegas. We’re speaking with various folks in attendance to find out how they’re READY TO GO this year. Here’s a taste of what we’re hearing so far:

Also, be sure to check out our Tumblr.

The interior of the headquarters for KH Gears exudes a sense of engine power, industry and technology. One can almost hear the metallic rumble of massive machinery, toiling tirelessly in a massive engine room somewhere in the not-so-distant future.

The 855 square-meter (about 9,200 sq.ft.) first phase of the 5,300 square-meter (about 57,000 sq.ft.) industrial laboratory and office space of one of the world’s largest gear producers, opened in Zhuhai, Guangdong, China, in December 2011. The remainder of the space will be developed along the same design guidelines in 2013.

Hong-Kong-based Arboit, lead by founder, Italian-trained architect, Alberto Puchetti, designed the space.

The overall goal was to refresh the brand image of the well-established company, to emphasize its strong scientific heritage and the high value of its products.

Arboit used extremely crisp and large grey-tone visuals of the actual gears sparsely yet effectively to celebrate their beauty, precision and balance.

KH Gears logo green appears strategically throughout the space.



It is used on walls and in corridors as a definer of space and as an aide to directions in the large facility where clients also frequently visit the laboratories, and on parts of furniture as an accent. The green also refers to the company’s environmentally friendly policies.

As a nod to the heritage of technology, the font used in the directionals is the typical font of the early days of computers.



The shiny, dark-gray floors, coated in epoxy resin, and the partially smoked glass walls add to the feel of meticulous, laboratory-grade orderliness and efficiency. – Tuija Seipell

We think Rokeby studios in Melbourne’s Collingwood could be a portent of things to come: the designer photographer’s space. Photographer Mariija Ivkovic wasn’t happy with the spaces she shot in. They didn’t reflect the creative spirit she wanted her work to imbue. So she created the space herself.

Joining forces with photographer Lachlan Moore she dug out a warehouse space to create a smattering of studios that now house two architecturally designed chameleon SMEG-stocked kitchens, a salon with a fully plumbed hair basin, a cafe area, board room, client “snug” and, of course, three lush shooting spaces.

It was much the same “build it and they will come – bugger the insanity of it all” attitude that saw the pair invent the world’s first inflatable and portable photobooth. Just because. They built the Photobooth prototype for a party they were hosting. For fun. Folk liked it, so they turned it into a side-business, catering to weddings, parties, anything. Photos can be branded, uploaded, shared and printed.

Perhaps Marija’s name rings bells? Her work has been featured on TCH before. She’s responsible for this McFancy range of images, which have since been featured in magazines around the world.

This is how creativity works. – Bill Tikos

Pencils, pegboards, pins, pixels — we’ve been fascinated for a long time by the notion of creating big things from tiny parts. Hiding the image in plain site. Creating pointillist art with physical objects.



So whenever we see yet another iteration of this idea, we pay attention.

Apparently, Stockholm-based photographer Philip Karlberg has also been twirling his pencils for some time, and now all that toying has resulted in a photo shoot for Plaza Magazine.



Karlberg’s six famous sunglass wearers were created using 1,200 sticks and photographed over six days.

From top: Karl Lagerfeld – Jackie O – Lady Gaga – Johnny Depp – John Belushi

We envision using something like this for an eyeglass or sunglass brand, a movie theatre, an optometrist office. The fertile pointillist idea continues to fascinate us every time we witness the power of tiny components exploding into huge impact. – Tuija Seipell

This ad is part of the Utah Office of Tourism’s (UOT) $2.2 million regional spring/summer Utah Life Elevated® campaign and it will stay in place till the end of June. It was created by UOT’s ad agency of the record for the past seven year, Salt Lake City-based Struck. The extensive regional campaign includes network TV commercials, digital outdoor, online display and social media promotion.

Struck executive creative director Steve Driggs explains that the forced-perspective feel of the tunnel installation started with a 3D illustrator scanning the entire tunnel in all of its dimensions, and continued with the scans being plotted based on GPS coordinates in a 3D architectural rendering program. The result does give experiential advertising a cool, new dimension. – Tuija Seipell

showroom fun

Our new 3form showroom is now open in New York City! It’s a gorgeous space – it feels so vibrant. Surrounded by glowing color and spaces that are well coordinated you can’t help feeling great. I’m very excited to share it with everyone.

The space is bigger and more centrally located for our clients. There are five spaces within…these spaces demonstrate the range of possibilities with 3form solutions – Ready to Go, lighting, receptions, partitions, doors, etc… The key commercial market sectors are represented – corporate reception, hospitality bar, a cafe that would be ideal in a hospital or institution, a hospitality lounge and a conference room for either corporate or healthcare.

Let’s take a virtual tour:

Chroma | Stone (Onyx) | Edge

Entrance: corporate lobby

In this corporate lobby we wanted our brand colors to be infused throughout the space. Our translucent materials enable color to glow; the color reads three dimensionally, across the planes of the space. Our new stone material creates a really fresh look, balancing a timeless appearance with the edgier look of a Chroma lightbox. This vignette really demonstrates the value of our C3 color system. The Chroma lightboxes match the Edge feature on the wall. The look is cohesive. It is a strong and memorable statement. Corporate lobbies should make a lasting impression like this.

Chroma | Struttura | HighRes Nature Gallery

Kitchen: hospitality bar

3form Chroma is a always so striking as a bar top. In this installation, the material drops to the floor, creating a beautiful frame for the back lit Struttura bar front. This is one of our niches – bar tops and fronts. We wanted to show two solutions in harmony with each other. The HighRes Nature Gallery image wraps from wall to wall, complementing the blue bar top that has similar movement. The oversized orchid imagery delivers a powerful punch! It feels like a fairy tale come to life.

Varia + Birch | Chroma | Solitude

Seating area: healthcare/institution cafe

There are four 3form solutions in this vignette. I love the Birch, so natural and wild, surrounded by bright sunny tones of the lightbox bench, Chroma table top and Varia ceiling feature. The glowing lightbox bench activates the floor space, while the Solitude Shapes as the ceiling feature draws your eye upward to complete the picture.

Varia Mirage | Chroma

Lounge: hospitality lounge

We carved out this space with a curved partion. This created a nice separation from the adjacent area – the partition clearly “belongs” to the lounge. This allowed us to have two visually busy areas side by side that don’t compete with each other.

HighRes Nature Gallery | Chroma | Varia | LightArt

Meeting room: corporate or healthcare conference room

The Nature Gallery stones image was the main inspiration for the palette of this space. We picked up several of the brown rock tones with the LightArt basket fixture. The weaving earth-toned bands in the fixture are reminiscent of drift wood. The partition and doors are part of our new Hint texture collection. We chose a design and color that felt like falling rain. The total impression of the room is calming, yet every element has detail and refinement that keeps you wonderfully engaged with the environment.

Drop by and see us! It’s fun to see the materials and Ready to Go packages full size and in the flesh!

come get inspired

Can you believe it’s already May? And, of course, that means it’s Expo time – and THAT means it’s time for product launches! We’ve all been working so hard to develop a ton of intriguing new products, and I’m really excited to unveil them to the world next week.

This year, we’re pleased to announce new Varia Ecoresin interlayers, new textures, a new addition to our Stone line, the brilliant Edge wall feature from Studio, new LightArt, new Ready to Go packages, and much more.

You can check out the new 3form collection in a hands-on experience at our HD Expo booth, May 15-17 in Las Vegas. We’ll be at Booth #2414. Of course, we’ll also be at NeoCon in Chicago, June 11-13, at booth #7-4094.

And be sure to visit our Facebook page and follow our Tweets for special expo promotions.

Can’t make it to the expo? Ask your rep for the show to be brought to you. Schedule a presentation.

While you’re waiting for next week’s big product launch, check out what we have available now…and check out our cool teaser video:

Lafayette Tower | Washington D.C.

On a recent business trip to New York to work on our new 3form Showroom, I had a chance to take in an awesome exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY). The exhibit featured photography of the design work of architect Kevin Roche.

Roche designed the headquarters for the Ford Foundation in New York, the One United Nations Office Building, the Plaza Hotel, the Central Park Zoo, and the UNICEF headquarters in New York. He did drawings, renderings and models for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1969. He designed the New Haven Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum, and transformed the museum environment at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He also did additions and scores of renovations to existing landmark architecture.

From the exhibit:

“Roche is one of the favorite architects of corporate America. With clients including Aetna, JP Morgan, Merck, and Union Carbide, Roche designed many new headquarters in the suburbs. In these, he confronted pragmatic issues such as how to provide parking without erasing nature with asphalt, while at the same time crafting a new office typology for the increasingly self-contained work environments that these complexes present.”

The exhibit in New York is over now, but it moves to Washington D.C. in June, for a few months, then on to Toronto in January 2013. We love forward-thinking architecture – very cool stuff!

at the museum

in the museum

the exhibit entry

more of the exhibit

Lucent Technologies building | Nurnberg, Germany

It is time to save inflatables from death by boredom, and elevate them to must-have designer experiences! We are talking about enhancing the way adults enjoy playing in the water, although even kids will find a designer inflatable quite a refreshing experience!

What if a designer hotel or resort had amazing, on-brand  inflatables in the pool, or on the beach, available for guests to enjoy, take pictures of, share with their networks?

We are looking for architectural, playful, cool, imaginative, never-before-seen designer ideas for inflatables. Show us what you can do. Show us how far we can take this unexplored water experience and we’ll manufacture them.

An entire new water surprise waiting for guests - what can we do to WOW them?

Please send us your design ideas including 3d renderings by the end of May, 2012.

What we are looking for specifically is an inflatable for one or two people. We are in search for the best design idea for a practical but awesomely cool water accessory that will make you want one as soon as you see it floating in a pool or on the beach.
 
The inflatable must fit into the vibe and atmosphere of a five-star resort – we are looking for something super-cool, sculptural, desirable.
 
The winning design, if and when manufactured, will earn the designer a royalty from each sale of the inflatable.

The design competition is open to all designers, industrial designers, graphic designers, illustrators, architects etc -

There’s something about hot air balloons that makes us all smile. Perhaps it’s the colors, the roundness, the weightlessness? Or maybe it is our eternal desire to fly, to be weightless, to float happily in the air?

 

At home, colorful balloons have been used to decorate parties, and maybe that is one of the reasons why we associate all balloons with fun and happy times from early childhood on.

 

Outside the home, massive inflatables often decorate celebratory parades, with Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade the best known and oldest (since 1924).

 
Balloons are part of store openings and sale events, and they create brand awareness in TV commercials  and crowd gatherings. Blimps float above baseball stadiums and inside hockey arenas, sometimes towing banners with commercial messages.

 
Balloons have also been a part of movies, from Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg’s stylish voyage in Around the world in 80 days in the 1956 movie, to Karl Fredricksen’s trip to Paradise Falls in his house lifted by thousands of balloons in Disney/Pixar’s Up (2009).

At country fairs and all kinds of festivals, hot air balloon rides are a big draw and a once-in-a lifetime experience for many.

Interestingly, hot air balloons – like so many technological inventions including the internet – have their beginnings in the military. Unmanned balloons were used in China for military signaling and other purposes more than 2000 years ago.

 
It’s also been amazing to learn how big a hobby hot air ballooning has become for thousands of people today! Large festivals and races take place around the world with competition categories ranging from speed to size to creativity. It seems that our fascination with balloons will continue for another couple of millennia. – Tuija Seipell

 
If you have recently seen a super-cool balloon, please let us know!

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