2013 Trends – Consumer :: Media :: Technology

2013 Trends :: Consumer : Media : Technology from Savannah Strategies

Architecture & Design: Urban Outfitters Fake Block, Dutch Home from Home

Urban Outfitters Creates A Fake Neighborhood Block For New York City Store

Urban Outfitters, a Philadelphia-based retailer, is opening up a new store in New York City that will resemble a series of local mom-and-pop shops. The store’s facade would be split into four storefronts to look like a hat store, a hardware store, a neighborhood bar and a bodega, all reminiscent of what New York City once looked like. Ron Pompei, creative director of Pompei A.D., which designed the store says: The whole idea was to do this kind of ironic statement of lining the building with storefronts that would be reminiscent of independent businesses. It’s the story about the streets of New York as they once were.

(Pic) Dutch Hotel Is Your Temporary Home Away From Home
With the help of Dutch architects, WAM architecten, Inntel Hotels’ newly designed hotel pays homage to Zaandam’s industrial history. Situated minutes via train from Amsterdam, Zaandam, was one of the world’s premiere hotbeds for industry and an ideal place for construction as its rich history was modernized through the playful design for Inntel Hotels‘ new location. The unique structure is comprised of stacked green wooden houses popular to the Zaan region, symbolizing that the hotel is your temporary house.

Related articles

Now Booking | Dutch Treat (tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com)

Bizarre Dutch hotel looks like a pile of stacked houses (dvice.com)

A pile of modest, traditional houses stretching into the sky (boingboing.net)

Retail Watch: For a new store at Broadway… (ny.curbed.com)

Stacked Houses: New Hotel in Amsterdam by WAM Dezeen (apartmenttherapy.com)

Dutch Hotel Eats Up Smaller Houses For Lunch [Architecture] (gizmodo.com)

Hotel Inntel by Wilfried van Winden (design-milk.com)

Stacked Houses Apartment Building in Tokyo Muuuz (apartmenttherapy.com)

Much of a Dutchness: the Hotel Inntel Zaandam (guardian.co.uk)

Overcoming Creative Blocks, Keeping Innovation Alive

25 Ways To Overcome Creative Blocks

Scott Hansen has compiled a great list of tips and ideas to break out of the dreaded creative blocks we all encounter at one time or another. 25 different creative professionals all give their take on how to get back into the groove when faced with creative obstructions.

How to Kill Innovation: Keep Asking Questions
Sharing his thoughts in the Harvard Business Review, author Scott Anthony believes that content questioning is the real enemy of innovation. Anthony says that “What About…” questions – the ones which endlessly ponder every possible scenario and variable surrounding an idea or plan are what stops real innovation in its tracks.

And what’s the solution? Action.

Get Excited And change Things

Meh.

Courtesy of Flowers & Fleurons

Creativity: Out of Print Clothing

I love second hand book shops, and I am also a fan of graphic tees (depasse I know). That’s why I was intrigued by Out of Print Clothing.
With Out of Print Clothing, you can proudly wear some of the world’s great books. Each tee-shirt depicts an iconic or out-of-print book cover ranging from classic to long forgotten covers, yet all are strong images that speak for themselves. (Reminds me of the various Penguin artifacts I own). The company works closely with artists, authors and publishers to license the content that ends up in their collections. Like a well-read book, each shirt’s quality is made to feel soft and worn.

Out of Print T-Shirts (coolhunting.com)

Merry Christmas!

Here’s my (second) favourite Christmas story …

“One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six…”

Virtue v Vice

It seems my old mate Spencer Baim is kickin’ ass down at Virtue (the company he founded with Vice Magazine). The idea was to create a company that would add credible Vice-like mojo to brands and activate through Vice’s various media and experience channels. I just came across this article about “How Vice, and Virtue, Are Helping to Sell Brands” – seems they have picked up an AoR assignment …!

“Starting in January 2010, Virtue will serve as the agency of record for Palladium’s global creative and media accounts as the boot expands its relaunch campaign into countries like the U.K., Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Japan, the Phillippines and Taiwan in the coming months, all markets where Vice has a presence.”

2010: Trends, Ideas

Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2010: Flash, Crowdsourcing, Info-Art
As 2010 fast approaches, digital marketers are gearing up for yet another year of changes that will incorporate both the transformational and the incremental. From the economy’s influence on the burgeoning “do-it-yourself” culture to an increasing reliance on collective wisdom, information-based art, and remote computing, digital experts at Last Exit (via MarketingCharts) have put together the following list of top digital marketing trends they believe will play out in the year ahead.

2010: The Year of the Good Idea

Judy Franks believes that if the industry can begin to look at the media landscape as a whole and less at its parts, and understand the ways in which it is changing, 2010 can still be the “year of the good idea.”

Apparel: Hipstery Mystery T-Shirt, Madmen Suits

Hipstery Mystery t-shirts

There are no t-shirt designs to choose from on Hipstery’s site. Instead, customers select a size, pay EUR 17 (plus shipping) and answer a series of questions about themselves. The Hipstery’s ‘style scientists’ run the responses to this quiz through their ‘innovative style algorithm’—both concepts which the site’s irreverent tone would lead us to interpret loosely—to select the right t-shirt from their exclusive range of designs, many of which are out-of-print shirts from small suppliers.

Be as Dapper as Draper in Your Own ‘Mad Men’ Suit

You can’t drink Patio diet cola anymore and you probably shouldn’t smoke in your office, but you can still live the “Mad Men” lifestyle by dressing in a new Brooks Brothers suit that is officially endorsed by that hit AMC drama. On Wednesday, Brooks Brothers announced that it would begin selling a limited-edition “Mad Men” suit, designed with the help of the show’s costume designer, Janie Bryant, and inspired by the tailoring favored by Don Draper and Roger Sterling.

Brooks Brothers Launches Mad Men Suit (shoppingblog.com)

Zac Posen: From Duds To Domiciles

Page 6: “Zac Posen is moving on from duds to domiciles. Sources said the fashion designer is teaming with architect Morris Adjmi to create a luxury boutique residence just south of the Flatiron District. Posen, who also has a furniture line coming out next year, will be in charge of creating the fixtures, trims, and furnishings of the units, which will go on sale in December.”

Zac Posen and 16 West 21st Street
Earlier today Page Six reported that fashion designer Zac Posen is “teaming with architect Morris Adjmi to create a luxury boutique residence just south of the Flatiron District.” According to a press release announcing the collaboration, “[Adjmi's] ‘whiter than white’ pure glass design for 16 West 21st Street provides a stately yet minimalistic canvas, affording Posen the opportunity to create an environmental tapestry that evokes the rich colors and textures that are emblematic of his approach to fashion.” Not quite what we’d call concrete specifics, but this is not just a name licensing thing. We’re told Posen really is going to be putting his stamp on the building’s guts, including getting into the nitty-gritty on everything from cabinetry and hardwood inside the units to shared spaces like the lobby and hallways. Should make for an interesting sales pitch come December. There are 11 units, including a garden duplex and triplex penthouse.

Zac Posen Drafted to Bring Style to Ladies’ Mile Condos (curbed.com)