Bright Young Thing Indeed

Can't read the fine print? Here, let me help you feel bad about yourself:

Source: TMagazine
If the initiatives that Project H Design has taken on seem largely geared toward young people — Learning Landscape playgrounds and sustainable food programs for public schools, to name but two — it may have something to do with the fact that Emily Pilloton, the founder of the not even two-year-old humanitarian organization, is herself only 27. With the help of nine volunteer-driven cells from Austin, Tex., to Johannesburg, Pilloton, who started the company with a laptop and $1,000 while living at home with her parents, aims to create local design solutions and apply them globally. (The playgrounds, for example, were conceived in Uganda and have since been installed in North Carolina and the Dominican Republic.) Pilloton is also the author of the just-released book ‘‘Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People’’ (Metropolis Books), which gives well-deserved shout-outs to everything from the Hippo Water Roller (a portable vessel that can carry a week’s worth of water for a family of seven) and Braille-based Lego-style building blocks to D.I.Y. soccer balls and SkySails (which are large enough to help propel cargo ships). ‘‘If it’s any consolation,’’ she insists, ‘‘I’ve aged a lot over the last year.’’
ALIX BROWNE

The Brooklyn Aesthetic

Venturing out into the world of what's happening now, I'm always struck by what I like to call The Brooklyn Aesthetic. The Brooklyn Aesthetic manifests itself in handiworks created by, of course, the Brooklyn Aesthete.

I'm sure there are many permutations of the hipster idea, and even variations on The Brooklyn Aesthete, but I'm just making a composite picture from what I've gleaned from etsy and the tabloid shots of Michelle Williams at the park. It's a sort of Ramona Quimby look, only on 20- and 30-somethings in our place and time as opposed to a kindergartner in 1955. But it is classic, in a way. Thematically, the Brooklyn Aesthetic can be divided into the following categories:

• Birds
• Bicycles
• Terriums
• Typewriters
• Record Players
  
• The Forest
• Creatures: deer, owls, bunnies, birds (so dominant they get their own category, see above) and the occasional elephant or hippo.
• Mustaches (really.)

Personally, I find the aesthetic compelling, but will be curious to check back in 50 - or five - years to see if it has any legs. Handmade things you will always have with you, as any museum collection would indicate, but I'm not sure how long I'll be keeping that pillow printed with a lemon-yellow owl.

Magazine Talk: Volume I, Issue 1

The new online magazine Lonny was published yesterday. Lonny was created by some of the talent formerly associated with domino, that much-mourned publication. Oh domino. You were snotty and a little too rich peoples' bohemian sometimes but pretty wonderful nonetheless. According to the very lengthy bios in the front of the magazine, Lonny was put together within four months, the idea taking shape in what seems to me like just a few weeks ago. In light of that fact, I must say Lonny is pretty amazing. It has the clout to attract national advertising, some great photography, a few good concepts and a decent-enough look. But the writing! Wow. Lots of overflowing sentences. Lots of sentences. The subjects of the articles are "quipping" their insights - chuckles all around - and when designer Eddie Ross spray-paints his resin federal-style mirror with an eagle "resting atop", the idea is written up as revolutionary. And speaking of Eddie Ross, apparently his personal mantra is, and I quote, "now widely-quoted." The mantra? "It does not need to be expensive to be beautiful." It also does not need to be original to be widely-quoted.

That said, more power to the people behind this. I know I'll be reading it regularly, or at least looking at the photographs. And maybe they could get some seasoned writers to donate a little of that free time they unfortunately have so much of these days.

A little late with this thought but the redesign of Country Living is making me pretty happy, at least in terms of my magazine-reading. Unfortunately I cannot count on the redesign to resolve my larger malaise. I've been eagerly checking out each new issue since the new editor came aboard but the October one stopped me cold. Please please please lay off Halloween. It's great that people like to dress up as something other than themselves, but since when did that become the norm post-adolescence? Unless you're a clown? I just don't get it. I don't plan on having a Halloween party, and I know it's not just me because I won't be invited to one either. Meaning, no one I know will have a party - though maybe they are and just aren't telling me. The point is, no adult I know likes Halloween nearly as much as these magazine editors - including the venerable M.S. - seem to think we do. I don't want to see any more glittery papier mache cats or cake toppers made out of ghostly marshmallows or - and this violation can hardly be borne - cheesecloth draped over an attractive couch to mimic a giant cobweb. Actual money is being spent on this stuff. I might add that this couch belonged to a real home-owner, and was not just a prop. This person apparently drapes cheesecloth over her furnishings during the month of October, and Country Living is there to document it so that we, as readers will be inspired to do the same. Please, no more. Or at least less of.

Don't forget to put up yer Hallowe'en bats this year!