A very happy and relaxing christmas holiday to everybody with Denis Leary’s “Merry F****ing Christmas” video!

The ingenious website Cheatneutral offers a great service for all those who can’t help themselves but cheat on their loved ones. Particularly at this time of year with all those boozy Christmas parties taking place, it happens a lot that people end up in bed with someone else but their own partners. But thanks to Cheatneutral you can neutralize the damage you have done to your relationship by paying the small amount of only GBP 2,50 which will be used to offset your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat.

Obviously this website is not meant seriously but designed to ridicule the ridiculous idea of carbon offsetting. Carbon offsetting is about paying for the right to carry on emitting carbon. The Carbon offset industry sold GBP 60 million (!) of offsets last year, and is rapidly growing. Carbon offsetting is a joke - just like Cheatneutral!

I’m back in Italy again for today’s opening of the D_Art Lab exhibition where I participate in. As part of the Torino World Design Capital festival and the 10th anniversary of Cittadellarte, a number of prototypes of new sustainable design objects will be presented - created by 10 Italian and international designers for 12 companies from the Piedmont region (Northern Italy). The show will run until February 2009 - so if you are in the area please stop by Fondazione Pistoletto near Torino and have a look. There’s also a great restaurant here to enjoy slow food with mountain views.

Norwegian percussionist Terje Isungset has for years used a variety of organic sound elements in creating music and instruments, incorporating the sound of naturally found wood, stone, metal objects and industrial machines and processes in the creation of musical works. But his certainly coolest instruments are his ice instruments - made from solid blocks of pure ice, some of it more than 450 years old glacier ice! He is not only making them but also uses them to produce the most beautiful recordings of ethereal sounds and serious music under harsh and extreme conditions.

His series of ice concerts takes this one step further by presenting the same concept live, using fragile instruments with very quiet sound output. I was amongst those view privileged people who were able to listen to one of his wonderful and truly intriguing concerts that he gave in London last night. For you to get a better idea of what these amazing instruments actually sound like please follow this link and watch some amazing videos here and here.

The Huggy Armchair that I had designed for the Italian furniture company Lago was featured in the German TV show Galileo (Pro 7) on 5. November 2008 and got a very positive review. Vielen Dank!

Shoot the Stylist! was commissioned to design a new concept for a bus stop to be exhibited at Sheltered: The Bus Stops Here. Happening in the Gallery@Oxo in Oxo Tower this week, the exhibition was curated by the MA Curating Contemporary Design. The Private View will be on Friday 31st October from 6.00 – 8.30pm and you are cordially invited, although I unfortunately won’t be able to be there myself since I am currently in Japan.

Exhibition Times
29 October – 2 November 2008
11am - 6pm
Gallery@Oxo, Oxo Tower, Bargehouse Street, London SE1 8QG

“Sheltered: The Bus Stops Here celebrates the bus shelter as a vital part of our existing urban landscape and as a vehicle for the future vision of today’s design-led cities. The bus stop is an everyday marker, meeting point and point of departure. Love them or hate them, we’ve all spent some time waiting at one. But while its function may be universally understood, the design and appearance of this icon varies greatly. From city to city across the world – even between neighbourhoods within a single city – the bus stop defies its universal status and takes on a wealth of local meaning. Sheltered is a celebration of innovation in existing and future bus stop design and will show different views on the bus stop from the past till now - featuring new commissions by 5 architectural practices and a product designer - this exhibition will challenge to examine the future of the bus stop for London.”

During the London Design Festival I reported regularly for Core77. Here’s a full list of all the posts in one place and the picture gallery with a selection of about 200 pictures that I took throughout the festival can also be viewed. However, it has to be said that overall the London Design Festival was just another “Emperor’s new Clothes” design event with very few glittering highlights shining through the vast mass of self-regarding, repetitive, meaningless design objects.

Sustainability has become buzz word number one - but unfortunately appears to be used in most cases simply as a marketing exercise with very little substance. It would have far more value, meaning and indeed sustainability to simply do nothing, rather than reproduce old ideas, already passed their sell by date, and try to pass them off as new envelope pushing concepts. I did however thoroughly enjoy reporting on the festival - and this first experience as a “design critic” certainly awakened my urge to apply more much needed critical judgement to the world of design, which in true “Shoot the Stylist!” spirit I will enjoy delivering for Core77 in the future.

I just returned from four very special days in Dartington Hall, Devon (Southwest England), participating in the »RDI Summer School«. Organized by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), this creative gathering brought together 12 Royal Designers for Industry (RDI) and 30 young designers to exchange & explore together and discuss current design & social issues.

»Royal Designers are responsible for designing, amongst other things, the Millennium Bridge, the iPod, the Rolls-Royce jet engine, the Harry Potter film sets, the Mini-Skirt, the Kenwood Chef and the B of the Bang. A unique chance for 30 young designers to step from the everyday world into a four-day design experience.«

I was one of those 30 lucky young designers and unfortunately have already very quickly re-assimilated to the »everyday world« again. However, having met all these wonderful people and experienced all those inspiring discussions with generally like-minded people of different generations has definitely created a very memorable and mind-altering experience.

Yes, these gatherings can feel a bit like group therapy - but the main realization for me was to feel that even though it can be frustrating sometimes to try and follow creative ideals clashing with economic and political restrictions, there are lots of creative people out there who face the same problems and it left me with a great sense of belief and positivity. So thanks to everyone involved!

More pictures of the event can be viewed on this Flickr site.

Whatever you are doing right now - you should spare 9 minutes of your time to watch this amazing and wonderfully bonkers clip collection of Rube Goldberg machines Japanese style, all built solely from household objects! Unfortunately I couldn’t find out who exactly builds them, but it seems to be an entire movement of »Pythagoras Switch« creators, spending most of their time building truly marvelous ways for marbles to roll (inspired by the Japanese Kids TV show »Pitagora Sōchi« on NHK).

After several shows outside of Germany we are happy to announce that Happy Trigger will finally have its live debut in its Heimatland: We are invited by Radio Koelncampus to play during the c/o Pop Festival on the Blueshell stage (after Menelaos Tomasides and before Bob Humid). We are currently insanely rehearsing - for the first time with some guest musicians! So if you are in the area it would make us happy to make you happy by playing some live Happy Trigger tunes to you!