Fantastic Interpretations of the London Underground Map

To celebrate the 150th Birthday of the London Underground, Design Boom has put together a fantastic collection of different interpretations of the famous map, which was originally designed by Harry Beck in 1933 (on which the present day map is mainly based).

The collection includes a geographically accurate map by Mark Noad, and a tube map of the Milky Way by Samuel Arbesman.

To see the full collection, click here.

Home: the must-see homewares and interiors event

Sunday 13th January see’s the opening of Earls Court’s anticipated homewares event, Home.

Running until Tuesday 15th January, the event managed to establish itself last year, and the second outing is promising to be even bigger, taking up both Earls Court 1 & 2 alongside Top Drawer.

The show hosts a compelling cross-section of stylish, design-led homewares and interiors products from the very best of UK and international companies, featuring over 220 brands, the majority of whom are making this their exclusive UK appearance. This is the ultimate buying destination for the trade, with the two events presenting collectively over 1000 design-led brands.

Register for free here.

Architecture, Art and Collaborative Design: Harry Seidler Exhibition

To celebrate the 90th Birthday of  Harry Seidler, the leading Australian architect of the twentieth century, the ‘Architecture, Art and Collaborative Design’ traveling exhibition will take place January 10-February 10 in Sofia, Bulgaria at the VIVACOM Art Hall.

The exhibition traces Austrian-born Seidler’s key role in bringing Bauhaus principles to Australia and identifies his distinctive place and hand within and beyond modernist design methodology. The exhibition was developed by curator Vladimir Belogolovsky of Intercontinental Curatorial Project in New York with Penelope Seidler and Harry Seidler & Associates in Sydney and sponsored by Seidler Architectural Foundation. 

The fifteen featured projects—five houses and five towers in Sydney, and five major commissions beyond Sydney—focus on Seidler’s lifelong creative collaborations, a pursuit he directly inherited from Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, with progressive artistic visionaries: architects Marcel Breuer and Oscar Niemeyer, engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, photographer Max Dupain, and artists Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Norman Carlberg, Sol LeWitt, Charles Perry, Frank Stella, and Lin Utzon.

See other dates and venues here.

Photo Credits:
Berman House, Joadja, New South Wales, 1996-99 © Eric Sierins
Harry and Penelope Seidler House, view from North, Killara, Sydney, 1966-67 © Max Dupain
Julian Rose House, Wahroonga, Sydney, 1949-50n © Max Dupain

New Advertising Campaign Makes Clever Use of Airport Tags

A new marketing campaign for Expedia by ad agency Ogilvy cleverly uses luggage tags from various airports to create words or phrases.

The ads are otherwise simple, with a plain background, focusing attention on the tags themselves, which convey a variety of messages such as "Bon Voyage" and "Wish you were here". Although some of the messages are prone to "text speak" they generally do a good job of conveying the idea of getting away.

See more images from the campaign at the Creative Review website here

Barbour ABI featured in Evening Standard

The Think Tank has been working with Barbour ABI to raise awareness of the great construction and housing sector data that they deliver every month.

As part of this activity we were able to secure them a mention in the Evening Standard Homes and Property supplement as part of an article discussing the 'don't move, improve' trend.

The article featured Ed Miliband and his wife, as they extend their house in Primrose Hill, and quotes Barbour ABI's statisticss that detail the volume of planning applications received across London boroughs.

In the article Adam Valentine, Group Content Director at Barbour ABI, said he expected the upward trend to continue – in 2010 some 55,000 London homeowners applied for permission to extend their homes. “I think that the areas where we are seeing a large volume of home improvements are those where prices are still rising. These are the areas where people will seek to increase the size of their homes,” he said.

Read the full article here.

Miliband's Primrose Hill mansion gets even bigger _ News _ Property news _ Homes & Property.pdf (300 kb)

Feeling under the weather? Use this App to find out who gave it to you

Help Remedies has produced a fun little app for it's Facebook Page, which allows you to see who may have given you the flu.
If you haven't fallen ill, it can also tell you who to "quarantine" to avoid becoming ill.

The app works by analysing your news feed for mentions of certain words as well as looking at the timings people post, find suspects based upon these guidelines and gives you reasons to avoid them. The app then allows you to send these friends messages, letting you know that you are placing them under quarantine.

The US based health-care company have “won” with some amazing marketing and social awareness campaigns, including handing out “Help, I'm Nauseous" packages outside the Republican Headquarters after election day and creating a bone-marrow donor kit to accompany “Help, I’ve cut myself” bandages in their “Help, I want to save a life” packs.

Check out the app here

The Rainbow Igloo

While spending time in Edmonton, Canada with his girlfriends family, New Zealand engineering student Daniel Gray was given the task of trying to build an igloo from ice blocks his girlfriend’s mother had prepared for his arrival.

To make the blocks, Brigid Burton, mother of Gray's girlfriend, poured water with food colouring into empty milk cartons then froze them.

Gray took on the task over 5 days with help from the family and neighbours and this was the result.  

Check out the full story with more images here

National Geographic 2012 Photo Contest

The entries are in and the decision has been made, the winner’s of the National Geographic 2012 Photography Contest, have been announced.

The contest had over 220,000 entries from more than 150 countries and features some of the most spectacular photos submitted by professionals and amateurs alike, with the categories being People, Places and Nature.  

The winner's were:
Nature: Ashley Vincent (also won grand prize)
Places: Nenad Saljic
People: Micah Albert

Have a look at the Winners and Honourable Mentions here.  

Or see all the entries here

Motherhood meets gangster rap in new Fiat ad

In a campaign far removed from the norm, Fiat has released "The Motherhood", a mock rap video featuring a stressed mum with her three children.

The ad covers the trials and tribulations of the daily life of a mum, and, whilst avoiding the coarse language normally associated with the genre, the main character acts in very much the same way. Especially in posing next to her Fiat 500L, the real 'star' of the video.

The tagline for the video also mocks the genre: "Word to all the mothers out there. This one goes out to you..." ' The Motherhood' feat. Fiat 500L is dedicated to all those women who have to be all things to all people and live it large on a daily basis."

Very funny but a bit long - worth watching until the end though.

Make it snow in the City with Evian

This week, as part of a new advertising campaign, Evian has set up two adult playgrounds in London, which are linked to snow machines, meaning the more you play, the more it snows! This is part of their on-going Live Young Campaign.

The playgrounds will be at Canary Wharf from Monday 7th January to Wednesday 9th, then at Finsbury Square on Thursday 10th until Friday 11th.

Find out more on Facebook

Top Ten Architecture and Design Videos by Dezeen

Dezeen's architecture and design movies had a staggering 2.2 million plays in 2012 and they've rounded up the ten most popular ones for you. It's a great collection of videos from their Vimeo channel.

At number one is this film (top) demonstrating the Stair Rover by Po-Chih Lai, an eight-wheeled skateboard that can roll down stairs. The movie formed part of their coverage of Royal College of Art graduate projects in the summer and was selected by the team at Vimeo as one of their Staff Picks.

Their second most-watched movie from the last year is all about the future of lighting design, where glowing walls, windows and furniture will replace light bulbs and LEDs in homes according to Dietmar Thomas of Philips Lumiblade, who commissioned Dezeen to make the film.

See the full list here.

Size Matters or Matter of Perspective?

Franck Allais is a French photographer based in London.

His series “Size Matters” takes a new look at quite usual scenes and reverses the sizes of people or elements in the picture. The result gives you a whole new perspective.

See more at Designer Daily by clicking here