Little moments that make you happy – Papernomad

After an exciting and tiring several weeks and days, I was coming home from work feeling blah, only to discover that my long-awaited package has finally arrived. Oh boy, you should see instant smile on my face and even more excitement as I was opening it: my very own Papernomad sleeves for laptop and phone! What makes it even more special is that I am officially the first one to have one for laptop 11′; my waiting apparently paid off.

Scribble on sleeve for your notebook; Source: Facebook/papernomad

 

How it all started: I read about them in a magazine and found the idea very cool. Winner of Red Dot design award, sleeves are made of 100% natural material. Outer cover is made of specially patented paper, which is water-resistant and impossible to tear. I have tested it myself: it envelops those devices tightly and feels very soft in your hands. However, what makes it even more special is that you can actually design it on your own as you wish. Go ahead – just scribble something and it will be also 100% unique! As they said on the website: You will never find two paper nomads that look alike…

The one for phone can look like this; Source: Facebook/papernomad

Back to my story: it was in autumn or winter last year when I checked out their website, but they didn’t have a model for my notebook. I have written to Papernomad and guys came back in touch with me, telling me that they are working on it. Somehow I never got some sleeves in the meantime from other manufacturers and designs (and, yes, both devices got scratched, with display of iPhone now also broken )… I don’t remember how, but Papernomad got in touch with me recently again, telling me the model that I need is (finally) ready and saying that I can be the first one to it!

I mean, small and simple gestures is what matters. I like the idea that I would be getting those anyway, but now this all made it much more special (and the fact that the owner did not forget me). It is not only about the thing (yes, it is great!), but also in appreciating you. This is also a pure sign of a company that is genuinely interested in its customers.

Source: Facebook/papernomad

(One part of me would like to promote them now, but on the other side I would like to be unique with my discoveries… but then, hey, You will never find two paper nomads that look alike…)

High-quality stars

Thomas Ruff is one of the most representative contemporary German photographers. When studying at Düsseldorf Art Academy, he was strongly influenced by  Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose works I wrote about earlier. What fascinates me particularly about Ruff is the variety in his opus, flexibility in choice of topics and media as well as versatility in portraying those topic. In that way, you find in his works everything from Portraits, very plastic depiction of houses (Häuser), astronomic and scientific images of stars (Sterne, Zycles, cassini, ma.r.s), where Ruff collaborated even with Nasa and was inspired by electromagnetism, to Nudes. When it comes to media, Ruff experimented with pixelisation (jpeg) but also with collages and posters, juxtaposing two images to create one portrait, stereo photography as well as night photography using the spy equipment.

Thomas Ruff could be seen earlier in Venice Biennale, Documenta in Kassel and MoMa, just to name few. Currently his exhibition is shown in Haus der Kunst in Munich and here I am showing only a little preview of it.

Thomas Ruff, Sterne (1989)

 

 Exhibition can be seen until May 20, 2012.

Salone del Mobile or “Two Alices in the Wonderland”, Part II

I had a chance to visit this time Salone del Mobile in Milan, one of the most prestigious design furniture fairs in the world, together with its accompanying content outside the fair premises. That included visiting the city center, Brera and other areas within FuoriSalone, fair program that is being shown for many times in the row now outside of the regular fair content. Second day was reserved for the furniture fair itself.

The day after we went to official fair areas, which was expectedly overwhelming. As we were not looking for anything in particular, we hit first SaloneSatelite and in  the end of the day, that remained our favorite spot. Satellites are those relatively smaller boots, mostly arranged by less established younger designers, such as Zeljka Kavran or design schools, such as New York Institute of Technology or American University of Sharjah, just to name few. This area was boosting of freshness and new vibes – it is not to say that others were not, but we found this one more to be more innovative and dynamic.

I hope you liked Salone del Mobile 2012!

(Please note that I have marked the design objects to the best of my knowledge. If there are any objections, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. I can remove the picture from this blog right away.)

Salone del Mobile or “Two Alices in the Wonderland”, Part I

I had a chance to visit this time Salone del Mobile in Milan, one of the most prestigious design furniture fairs in the world, together with its accompanying content outside the fair premises. That included visiting the city center, Brera and other areas within FuoriSalone, fair program that is being shown for many times in the row now outside of the regular fair content. My personal highlight was Tortona Design Week in Zona Tortona.

 Zona Tortona is a rather non-conventional area, which is normally populated by young people with artistic inclinations. During the time of Fiera, it transforms into an open-air art fair, with a huge mass of people checking out the design spaces and art boutiques hiding in Zona Tortona streets. We* absolutely loved the atmosphere here and enjoyed the sun, crowd and also beautiful sights and innovative design ideas!

What we have seen there was a variety of funky design commercial products, such as senz°/the orignial storm umbrella or the o bag, which I will try to cover in some next posts. There were a lot of events in Via Tortona and Via Savona as well, but what we like the most were huge pavilions and halls, all with different themes but all equally interesting. Again, it is very difficult to make a right selection but here is some preview.

- to be continued -

* by ‘we’ I mean, my host / guide / artistic advisor & my lil sis (Please note that I have marked the design objects to the best of my knowledge. If there are any objections, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. I can remove the picture from this blog right away.)

When your lap gets hot

Hihihi … I couldn’t stop laughing and smiling today: I’ve got a present this morning! In fact, I got it several days ago but only today I went to post office to take over my ‘delivery’ and I had absolutely no idea what it could be. It turned out to be this:

You might be asking yourself, ‘what is that ?!’. Well, you know probably how inconvenient it is in summer to surf with laptop in your lap. After some time it gets really hot. Now this laptop pillow allows air to circulate and the material in between takes care of proper isolation.

However, how I got it is a funny story. I have participated several months ago in a lucky draw organized by a magazine “Schweden Aktuell” and scandinavian lifestyle. I am not sure that I knew what the prize is; I was more in the mood to  drool over my favorite Scandinavian design that I have at home. And, today – voila! Scandinavian lifestyle, a store that specializes in Scandinavian brands for home decorations, such as Kosta Boda, Royal Copenhagen, Marimekko, just to name few, sent me this cute present. It could not be a better day to start of my week.

Picasso on Neretva

While I am still on topic: as I was last week home in Bosnia, I spent several evenings just chatting with my parents and keeping it low. One evening we came to the topic (now don’t ask me how) of then famous movie “The Battle of Neretva” from 1969.  Although a subtle part of communist propaganda, especially portraying partizans in heroic endeavors and leader’s mastermind behind the strategy, the movie itself was internationally  very well accepted and even nominated for best foreign movie at Oscars. Some international stars at that time played in the movie, such as  Orson Welles, Franco Nero and Yul Brynner, and budget was obviously available. Back home, whole nation loved it, watched it numerous times and is still part of national heritage.

While my parents remembered their own perceptions of the movie, my dad mentioned that -listen this - then very well-known, established and already internationally proclaimed artist Pablo Picasso was asked to make a poster for the movie. He apparently accepted, but then when he was asked how much it would cost, he answered that a cast of best local wines would do. … and this is how he made a special poster, which was printed in only 80 editions.

Hearing this story for the first time, my suspicious face had expression ‘are you for real’  but apparently my dad was – and after checking it out online, here is this beauty. I love it – hope you too!

On being sad

Last week I was in Sarajevo and my time there was spent in remembrance on aggression on my country. April 6th was 20-year anniversary of the longest siege and many world media have reported on this.

I am not about to write about historical facts on this; they can be found elsewhere. I can just say that it made me feel extremely sad, deceived, disappointed and played out. This is how I felt then, being 10 years old and this is how I feel even more now, as a grown up. Nevertheless, it also gives you a strange feeling of being proud, more about those who have been killed for Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also of us. We are still here.