These unpretentious paintings by Eric Zener capture the simple watery pleasures of a suburban summer. Something to savor in these last few aestival days…
via Wide Open Spaces
Nick Olsen describes painter Sally Benedict as “Rothko meets Twombly with Tidewater-twilight coloration.” I just think her stuff is purdy, and the perfect pick-me-up for a cloudy Wednesday afternoon.
Joyful wrappings at Purl Soho, via simple song. A little early for Christmas, but just in time for a little “thinking of you” present…
Check out this joyful remix of pearls from last month’s InStyle, spotted on my friend Deirdre’s vintage jewelry blog. If you happen to be in the Charleston area, stop by her Trunk Show on September 26th to pick from among her amazing finds (and make me very jealous)!
I love this idea for a custom baby gift: a book made by photographing common objects with the names spelled out in baby blocks. A joyful gift you can guarantee they won’t already have.
Lay it out and have it printed on Blurb, which has the nicest looking photobooks around.
via Design Mom
While I’m on the subject of animated cuteness, I was a little surprised to discover the whimsical Hermés corporate website while doing some research yesterday. I expected a typical luxury brand website — staid, self-aggrandizing, and a little up itself about its heritage, craftsmanship, prestige, etc.. What I found was something entirely different, a website that brings the brand’s story to life through charming, beautifully illustrated little vignettes.
The usual topics (history, design, inspiration, materials, craft, lifestyle) are all covered, but in surprisingly novel ways. The story of a bracelet’s design is told through an animated line drawing. The iconic scarves are shown in a grid of real people who have sent in photos of themselves wearing them. The dozens of shades of ties are shown gorgeously styled like trees in a forest. Some sketches are just silly, like the orange Hermés boxes that self-assemble into a plane, or the wallets whose zippered pouches open and start chatting with each other like mouths. Others are more serious, like the somber, read-aloud description of rolling, the method by which scarves are finished, which takes more than 6 months to master.
I was particularly moved by one sketch in particular, which likens the noises of the Hermés workshop to the sounds of an orchestra. For a designer, craft is music, and the sounds of fabrication trigger a sense of joy at the rhythmic cacophony that is creation. In the app, clicking on each instrument adds another workshop sound to the mix, until with speakers cranked you feel the bliss of being surrounded by craftspeople, each absorbed in the melody of his own making. You can turn the instruments on and off, playing around with trying to figure out how they’ve chosen which tool marrys with which instrument. It’s a small miracle to me that no self-promoting text accompanies this joyful little toy, and it gives me a wonderful new feeling of admiration for a brand I once thought of as elitist and unsoulful.
You could probably waste a lot of time on this site, which I’m sure is exactly what Hermés intended, but you’ll probably leave in a good mood. Happy exploring!
Hermés corporate site
Video and computer games are not really my cup of tea. Yes, as a kid I played my fair share of Mario Brothers on my old first generation gray Nintendo box, but the games these days have gotten so elaborate, photorealistic, and violent that they’ve lost all joy for me. But a few years ago I did discover one exception. Orisinal, the “personal playground” of flash game designer Ferry Halim, is an oasis of innocence and charm in the increasingly intense world of computer gaming.
Playing an Orisinal game is like being in the best children’s book you ever opened. It’s a world filled with leaping frogs, quacking ducklings, sliding monkeys, exuberant puppies, flowers, bubbles, and balloons. The enemies in the games are snails, puffer fish, bouncing bunnies, ladybugs, “cranky” crabs, or falling acorns. The premises are simple, based around natural or childhood themes, yet the situations are novel and sometimes comical. In the game Bugs, you’re a little girl trying to blow a bubble and keep the ladybugs from popping it. In High Delivery, you use a fan to blow a bottle hanging from a upward-floating balloon towards magically-suspended roses, which appear in the bottle when caught. And in Chicken Wings Are Not For Flying you throw umbrellas to chicks jumping out of their nest so that they can have a soft landing on the ground.
The soft palette and charming style of the animation, plus the original situations and sweet music, make the Orisinal games a great example of joyful aesthetics that are approachable to both children and adults. You may find the games don’t reward serious playing — I confess I just open them to check out the illustrations but don’t really make an effort to play them — but they’re still very enjoyable and inspiring just to look at for a little while.
Today’s first bit of joy comes from illustrator/photographer Garance Doré’s wonderful vacation shots of a little girl she met on the beach in Corsica. A friend once said to me that she frequently has the urge to dress like a little girl, pulling out an orange top and a pink skirt and believing that the two look just perfect together. Before the anxieties about body image, tween trends, and peer-pressures set in, girls take a pleasure in dressing that is deliciously pure. The little girl fashion sense revels in color, delights in texture, and gives credence to the David Hicks maxim, “Colors do not clash. They vibrate.”
This photo makes me want to do my errands in a skirt like that, worn with a t-shirt in some bright shade of red or yellow. And if it’s raining, maybe add some wellies and a striped umbrella?