It would be easy to be blue about the lack of eye-catching public design in many city centers if it weren’t for gems like Slovenian design consultancy Asobi’s outdoor chairs placed along the main street of the city of Ljubljana. The Slovenska Street revitalization project features transformable orange benches and chairs that were designed to be light but durable. The ARPRO material the chairs were created from is completely recyclable and has been used in everything from Volvo cars to baby car seats. Another approach to introducing seating space and blocking local traffic may not have received the same public welcome, which has encouraged the chairs to be made available for sale on the modular furniture site Movisi.

If a vintage suitcase featuring city stickers, a scavenger hunt, and an iPhone 3G were combined, the result would be location-based travel game Gowalla. The recently launched game from Texas-based “digital collectibles” company AlamoFire invites users to collect virtual stamps at the places they visit, hide icons for friends to find, and earn pins of glory, the granddaddy of Gowalla achievements awarded for completed trips. Austintonians and San Franciscans are currently the only app purchasers who can participate in the full experience, but other cities nationwide are being added and partially guided by the recommendations of user-added hot spots. Who doesn’t want to be rewarded for visiting extraordinary and everyday places with phone in hand?

Our pal Alice Wang dropped us a note letting us know about her latest project, Commodity Love. She’s at it again making us scratch our head wondering what’s true here. She says “As products get more and more attractive, can they replace the feelings we have towards our loved ones? Will you love your phone more than your girlfriend? Or will you love your car more than your wife? And how would you feel if your wife told you she suddenly loves chocolate more than sex?”

Depends what kind of car I guess.

The badges are made out of stainless steel with a piece of magnet at the back that can be attached to any garment.

They are on sale at Galleria Nina Lumer in Milan:

22-27 APRIL 2009
GALLERIA NINA LUMER
VIA BOTTA 8 20135 MILAN

Related Posts: Chairs with Personality, Sleep Inventions, Peer Pressure

The minds behind New Soap, Old Bottle are marketing multifuncionality in the form of new liquid soap sold in reused plastic and glass bottles. After being sanitized, the former Coke and Heineken bottles are filled with home or car cleaner, topped with child safe caps, and sold at $4 a pop. “Big companies aren’t going to do this on their own. So we’ll do it for them,” said Scott Amron, designer, electrical engineer and founding principal of New York’s Amron Exprimental. “We buy brand name liquid soap by the barrel and package it in old bottles here in America.” Recessionistas and green thumbs rejoice– we love this work.

Can anyone guess the bottles above? First one is pretty easy…

We can’t attest to the fact that Brooklyn-based illustrator Dust La Rock (a.k.a Joshua Prince) is either a gentleman or a scholar, though we certainly don’t doubt it, the least we could do is vouch for his being an absolutely awesome graphic designer. As designer-in-residence at Studio B and art director at Fool’s Gold Records and Syintific Skateboards, this extremely talented being lends his incredibly deft and imaginative eye to quite a few visual arenas. The best place to take a gander at just what beauty is in the eye of this beholder is by checking out his site. There you can revel the splendor of the oodles of web, identity, and print work that have complemented brands such as Missbehave Magazine, SeedNY and various NYC area DJ/Promoters. Dust La Rock is about to blow up, so best take cover. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.