It's monday, January 28th 2008, and the Berlin Fashion Week 2008 has just started..

Just like in the previous years the programme is quite comprehensive - here's two links to two websites that might help getting a good first overview:

www.berlin-fashionweek.de
here you'll find the Fashion Week's programme (January 25th - February 3rd), compiled in a downloadable large size pdf-document as well as in a compact table which will open in a popup-window..

www.fashion-week-berlin.com
you'll find the programme also on this website - a bit more detailled, listing also the links and addresses for all related designers and labels etc..  

..enjoy the shows! t..

When Steve Jobs introduced the brand new MacBook Air this week, he effectfully pulled it from a Manilla Sleeve to demonstrate its thinness - the MacBook Air iis currently the thinnest Laptop on the market.

For Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans that presentation probably was the moment of inspiration and enlightment - and everything went quite fast after that: they almost instantly designed a bag for the MacBook Air - which could easiely be called the bag:

The envelope - or actually the 'bag' is named "AirMail", it's hand made, costs about 30 US-Dollars and can be purchased though the website www.manilamac.com directly from the two designers themselves..

see also:
-> www.manilamac.com
-> Steve Jobs - Macworld 2008 Keynote

i just found the following message in my mailbox:
"a cute little online-tools is born: the Blindtextgenerator."

Well - ok - I have to admit that the mail I just 'quoted' was in german - and so is the Blindtextgenerator - which would actually mean something like "dummy text generator". But anyways - even though the tool has a german name it should still be possible to use it without knowing a word of german.. - ..so what doe it actually do? It generates different 'dummy texts' - on the fly - and according to your personal preferences - which means it will generate those texts with different font types (Geneva, Verdana, etc), different text formats (text alignment, uppercase/lowercase, adjustable line heights etc.) and a coulmn width that you can also chose by yourself..

..a nice and interesting tool - probably not only for graphic- and webdesigners. I'm actually not in urgent need of dummy texts that often - but now I know where to find it if I ever need it: www.blindtextgenerator.de

the exhibition "Eero-Aarnio-Retrospective" just ended (January 4th, 2008) and I take the oppotunity to publish some of the images I took already last year when visiting the exhibition at the Felleshus of the Nordic Embassies Berlin. I am sorry that it took me so long to get them uploaded - I 'just' had to work on them 'a little bit' - and that can take time..:]

The exhibition began already on the November 8th, 2007 - and some of the most famous and mabe even moste spectacular works of Eero Aarnio were shown..

Ball Chair, 1963

Pastil Chair (yellow, red), 1968
Mushroom Chair (white), 1961

Mushroom series: stool, chair, lounge chair
original title: Juttu
1961/1962

left: Polaris, 1966
right: UPO-023, 1972

Copacabana electric guitar, 2006

Puppy seat / furniture / toy 2005

left: table Parabel, 2002
right: chair Focus, 2002

..further information about Eero Aarnio and many of his works can also be found from the following websites:
-> www.eeroaarnio.com (official Homepage)
-> www.eero-aarnio.com (Aarnio-page of the company Adelta Ltd.)
-> web page about the exhibition at www.nordicembassies.org

sometimes it's that easy: Fashion + Photography = Fashion Photography http://www.designtransfer.udk-berlin.de/

freely translated from their Homepage: "13 students of the Institute for experimental fashion and textile design of the Universityof the the Arts were working on different designs and.." (to be continued)

Opening: Wednesday, December 12th., 18 'o clok

Exhibition: 13. – 21. December 2007
and 8th – 18th January 2008

opening times Tuesday - Friday: 10 - 18o'clock (free admission)

designtransfer gallery
Universität der Künste Berlin
Einsteinufer 43-53
Berlin-Charlottenburg

greetings! t..

Next weekend the Hamburg Comicfestival 2007 will be held - in Hamburg - under the headline "Äpfel, Nüsse, Fink und Star".

The festival begins tomorrow evening (Thursday, Dezember 6th, 8p.m.) with the exhibition - or actually with the opening of the exhibition "Action Sorgenkind" (at Linda e.V. - Hein-Hoyer-Str. 13).

On Friday (Dezember 7th) various other exhibitions and openings will follow - all the details can be found from the festival homepage at comicfestival.kikipost.com

i really don't know what to think about this 'book' that comes from probably the most successful online book shop Amazon.com just in time before christmas:
the 'Kindle':

Actually I have to confess that the name reminds me rather of a Berlin based beer brand than of the latest must-have tech gadget - but maybe that's just me..?

So - what does it do..? It lets you buy books (and newspapers) - or let's say the 'Kindle' makes it technically possible for you to purchase something formerly known as books (and newspapers) from Amazon.com - and then you can read those 'books' (and newspapers).

Oflline.

Wow.

..so after having just almost accepted that 99% of the functionality of the previous must-have device was designed to work online-only (yep, talking about the iPhone) now we finally have a must-have device that is designed to mainly work offline-only.

Strange times.

I think I still want another device where I can actually choose if I want to use it offline OR online - and if I want to read an ebook OR write an email - maybe something like a portable computer..?
..na - that would be probably boring..:]

..greetz, t..

ps: Robert (scobleizer.com) doesn't like the design

in Germany Apple's iPhone should actually only be available at Deutsche Telekom - uand actually it should only be available if you sign a two year iPhone-contract with the doughter of Telekom 'T-Mobile'.

Fortunately nowadays we have a quite 'free' Europe and a free market economy - and that brings us to a number of alternatives to this exklusive T-Mobile-contract..

The first alternative came up when a court decided that T-Mobile's exclusive contract might not go so well with the idea of a free market - and made them sell the iPhone alone - without that contract - for 'just' €999,- - a price tag, that reminds me of a symbolic fine rather than a real price..

Another alternative seems to be available in France: France Telekom's doughter Orange offers unlocked iPhones for 'just' €649,- plus a fee of €100,- for actually unlocking the device - that's €749,- -- quite exactly €250,- below the price you'd have to pay for a freePhone in Germany..

iPhone-shopping at Orange in France - picture from mac4ever.com

Now we'll also have a closer look at the special offer Debitel is currently offering: if you choose to sign a two year iPhone-contract with Debitel they will 'give' you a €600,- credit-note / sign-up-bonus - which after my calculations would then again reduce the price you'd have to pay to only €149,- - in words: onehundretfourtynine Eurodollars!!!

..well then - bon voyage! t..

PS1: here the article at engadget.com about the french iPhone:
• Orange to sell unlocked iPhone for €649,- + €100,- unlocking fee
• Debitel offering €600,- sign-up-bonus for .. iPhone in Germany

PS2: well yes: I do have to admit that the device shown in the picture above is actually no an iPhone - but an iPod Touch - and it's not even mine - but at least I did take the picture myself.. - ..followed by some five hour retouching session..:]

PS3: please feel fre to correct me if you think I'm wrong about the €149,-..:] 

it 'only' took a couple of months - but now finally ding-pong has its own link-page. At the moment it's just one page that can be found from the folder 'designlinks' - but that will grow soon - and in the near future you may find a comprehensive link directory..

..please feel free to suggest a link by mailing it through the  contact page ..:]

..greetz, t.. 

..looking for an oportunity to go for a design related stroll across Berlin's destrict Mitte..? This Saturday (November 24th, 16h-20h) might be a very good option: almost fifty shops, galleries, show rooms, workshops and studios are open for the design interested shopper.

The 'Berlin Design Tour' is organized by the Berlin design network berlindesign.net - a list of all participants as well as a map of Mitte is available as a PDF-Download from their website..

If you happen to be a) in Tokyo next week and b) interested in Design, then you should probably visit the Tokyo Designer's Week 2007 - and then you could take a few pictures and write some lines of text and tell us about it. The announcements look at least more than promissing.

The Designer's Week is actually only open on five days (October 31st - November 4th) - which might not really be enough time to run around and see everything if you concider the number of different exhibitions the Homepage of the Japanese Design Association lists:

• 100% Design Tokyo
• Sangaku Exhibition
• Blickfang
• Container Ground
• 100% Designer's
• Japan Brand Exhibition
• Student Exhibition
• Shop Exhibition
• Akasaka Zero Exhibition

..well - what else can I say..?! ..wish I was there..:] +greetz! t..

..maybe that translation is a bit unprecise - it's rather a hand made word by word translation of the german title "Filmgeschichte in Kleider". Anyways - it's the title of an exhibition that will be shown until 30th of March 2008 at the Potsdam Filmmuseum in cooperation with the Modemuseum Schloss Meyenburg (Museum for fashion at Castle Meyenburg). The show is dedicated to the german 'Ufa' movie star Jenny Jugo - and her clothes.

Shortly some details about the background: Jenny Jugo was allowed to keep all the custom-taylored dresses, coats, jackets - clothes that were made for her, or actually for the roles that she was playing, every time the shooting of a movie was completed. She kept almost everything in a flawless condition. This way she unintentionally archived a representative collection of german fashion design of the Twenties and Thirdties. This collection can be looked at as a treasure of german fashion design and a unique recource for research - since almost all other clothes of that time got either destroyed or 'recycled' during or after World War II.

Parallel to the exhibition the museum is also screening various movies featuring Jenny Jugo and her wardrobe - for example "Der Turm des Schweigens" a.k.a. "The Tower of Silence" [imdb] (D: Johannes Guter) released in 1925, "Die Hose" a.k.a. "The Trousers" a.k.a. "A Royal Scandal" [imdb] (R: Hans Behrendt) released in 1927, but also "Die Carmen von St. Pauli" a.k.a. "Docks of Hamburg" [imdb] (R: Erich Waschneck) released in 1928.

more details, movies, images and links are available on the related webpages:
-> www.filmmuseum-potsdam.de/en/432-0.htm

and the complete movie guide of the museum can be found from here:
-> www.filmmuseum-potsdam.de/en/397-0.htm

..greetings, t..

ps: probably the title of the exhibition could as well have been "history of german fashion design in movies" - but that is probably not really important information..:]