Burning Man on Ice

I've wanted to make it up to that Ice Hotel in Norway ever since I saw pictures of it a few years back. Turns out those ice bearing locales have all kinds of ways to entertain themselves. For instance, here is the annual Snow Show set to start again in February 2006 in the Italian Alps.

There are four unique types of ice exhibits: Compacted snow, Harvested ice, Caste ice, and Experimental processes. You can see by the images that each really is a distinct medium. Yoko Ono is one of the featured artists in the harvested ice category.

Neato design portfolio

I stumbled onto this great design portfolio via coolhunting.com, called byDefault. It's the work of Anisa Suthayalai out of NYC. Really great array of work, from slick video work to b/w wallpaper patterns.

I always find it refreshing to see designers with the ability to create lush visuals who also embrace the low-fi funkiness of the Web. Anisa does this in her index of portfolio items, which is her primary navigation on the left. With nary a gif in sight she creates a meaningful but no-nonsense way of browsing her work. The colors are types of work, and the little pluses are new items.

It's kind of geeky, but I like it.

Abstracting time

I've been thinking about alternative ways of visualizing time for years. Some of my ideas have been pretty far out there. I discovered this company, Nooka, last night which is doing abstractions of familiar timepieces--albeit more reigned in than some of my outlandish concepts. I actually gave up wearing a wristwatch a few years back. But I might just buy this one...

simple merchandising of artsy products

Defunker
I've seen more and more of this low-impact approach to pushing products. It generally involves a grid of square photos without explanation, promoting exploration and self-direction. In this case there's a rollover effect that displays price. The approach works well for products differentiated purely by design/aesthetic, and with low information content.


And here's another one, a designer boutique in NYC, with an online store using the same premise (minus the rollovers):

Antique cartoons

Here's a nifty site that tracks amazing cartoon work both new and old. Some are kitsch:
Some are surreal:


While others are evocative and abstract:


Cartoon Brew