Sick of losing your spot when you stop reading halfway through an article? Hate to leave magazines simply strewn about the coffee table? This two-in-one storage solution is a minimalist solution for saving the page and stacking your light reading material.

The angled roof provides a way to make the page without bending or creasing the magazine, while also making it the most accessible of the bunch (sitting on top) for when you want to pick back up where you left off.

The interior area works as a way to keep magazines roughly straight, while still allowing you to grab out another from the pile out either the front or the back. For a single sheet of wrapped metal painted in a solid modern color (black, red or white), this little design idea from Rudolph Schelling Webermann, aka DING3000, goes a long way.

“Everything under one roof.‎ Lifestyle for the readers.‎ Practical and ornamental.‎ MAGAZIN is a timeless and beautiful magazine stand in shape of a house.‎ When disturbed while reading, just lay the open magazine on the roof of the house, and you can easily pick it up again to carry on reading, without losing the page.‎ Meanwhile your other favorite magazines can be stored under the roof.‎  Color: white, black, red, pastel turquoise, squirrel grey or beige red. Material: Steel sheet powder coated.”

“Our multiple design awards and bestselling products tell its own tale: We have the ability to develop exciting concepts and turn them into market-ready products. How do we do it? By making special to our specialization! We specialize in making unique and distinct products. With a mix of methods and *magic we work in a variety of industries by seeking the unexplored and defining new products or entire product categories. In the unknown our design approach has the most value: It creates special user-experiences and iconic products with relevance for brands and people. “

The post Rack & Stack: Page-Saving, House-Shaped Magazine Stand first appeared on Dornob.

The magazine, entitled LogoArchive, rounds up some of the most iconic (as well as a few lesser-known gems) mid-century brand identities and logos and puts them together in a handy zine that any lover of good design will be able to flick through with ease. LogoArchive originally started off as an Instagram account, which itself now boasts an impressive 126,000 followers. The magazine bills itself as “A study of form language in logo design. A recovery, research, and restoration project.” Both the magazine and the Instagram account are run by Richard Baird, a London-based designer. He says of the project: “I have been scanning and archiving logos for a long time, and I have a network of designers with whom I collaborate with, who have access to an invaluable volume of historical artifacts, in particular Christophe De Pelsemaker of LogoBooks and Blair Thomson of CanadaModern.”

The success of the Instagram page lies in its clear and crisp delivery, which sees the logos take center stage. Each individual logo is executed in white on a black background, with the information being placed entirely in the caption so that the image is not interrupted. This is the same strategy that’s employed for the magazine, which sees the white logos set against dark backgrounds, with four laid out in a minimal fashion on each page, the year and company listed in white in the top corners, and the designers listed at the bottom.

Speaking on the process of choosing which logos to include in the zine and on the Instagram account, Baird explains: “All the logos featured in the zine speak to me personally, be that in the conviviality of a metaphor, the retention of a distinction and memorability, or a clever take on a family symbol.”

Some of the logos chosen by Baird distill the essence of good graphic design with their clarity of communication. One of the most interesting and well executed logos is that of the Place Fleur-de-Lys Centre Commercial, designed by Claude Plante in 1972. To create the logo, Plante had to take the iconic image of the fleur-de-lys and rotate it 45 degrees to conjure up the shape of a bird.

Baird speaks of his fascination with this moment in graphic design, saying: “The formalization of corporate identity design was in its infancy during the mid-century. There were a lot of opportunities to keep logos simple and communicatively immediate without the potential of infringing on the trademarks of others.”

The first edition of the print version of LogoArchive was published in July 2018, and it sold out very quickly. The second edition of the zine is being released at the end of August and is available to reserve here.

The post New Magazine Celebrates Mid-Century Logo Design first appeared on Dornob.

Subscribing to magazines may keep you up on the latest fashions or industry news, but what do you do with all of those periodicals once you are done reading them and they start piling up? They often occupy dusty shelves for years and years, though sometimes they make their way out to the recycling bin before they become a troublesome mess.

The Hockenheimer stool from NJU Studio makes great use of all of the old magazines hanging around and cluttering up your home. At first, the seat consists of a wood base, leather straps and a soft cushion. But as you live with it over time, you stack your used magazines between the seat and the cushion, effectively making the seat grow taller with each new addition.

While this solution won’t exactly help keep your home free of magazine clutter, it offers a clever way to display those magazines while making use of them in a novel way. One could conceivably store other objects like old phone books, text books that college bookstores won’t buy back, and even extra pillows. As long as the leather straps fit around the objects, the possibilities are almost limitless.

The post Rear-cycling: Minimalist Stool Grows With Old Magazines first appeared on Dornob.

In most homes, the closest we come to having literature in the bathroom is a magazine or two on the back of the toilet. The Thing Quarterly and American nonfiction writer Dave Eggers have made a move to make bathrooms a little more high-brow with a limited-edition publication printed on a shower curtain.

The shower curtain is printed with a monologue told by the curtain to the author. The unconventional expression of an inanimate object’s innermost thoughts ought to keep any shower-taker busy while they wait for their hot oil treatment to set.

The Thing Quarterly publishes each issue on a different useful object, putting a new and wonderfully quirky spin on literature. Eggers’ shower curtain puts the words of an accomplished author in a place of honor in the home: the center of the throne room. You can buy it here, and read more about it at The Guardian.

Curious what the full text says? Here you go:

“I am your shower curtain and I am watching you. I surround you, I shield you, and I like you. I like to see the water touch you, travel down upon you, searching, falling away from you. I like to see you lather. I like to see you rinse. I like to see you thinking your thoughts with your eyes closed. I do not like to hear you hum.  I do not like to hear you sing. I like you quiet. I like you thinking, silently, your lips moving, your eyes closed tight. I like your fingers. Your wrists, your toes. I like your shins. Your knees. I like the way the water funnels between your legs and cascades down, turning in corkscrews. I like it when you like yourself. When you give a moment to your thighs. When you give a moment to the back of your neck, to the inner fold of your arm. Take a moment. Give yourself time. Take the soap and make circles on your flesh. Make slow circles on your flesh. Make long elliptical shapes upon your beautiful flesh. Your beautiful flesh today. Tomorrow your flesh will be different. It will be older. Appreciate it now. Your flesh is a miracle. You started from nothing. From an egg too small to see. Then a relentless multiplication of cells, each one a miracle, each one a preposterous happening. And from this ridiculous profusion now you are you. You are a giant. You are a giant and water is falling upon you and you are cleaning yourself because you are beautiful. Please don’t think about anything else. I know I said I liked to see you think but that, i realize now, is not true. I don’t want to see you think. I only want the elliptical touching of your flesh. throw your mind away and enjoy your wet flesh. thrill in your existence. Your persistence. the fact that you can be here, under this falling water. this, as much as any other reason, is why you are here, why you exist. to enjoy this. to feel this. it is good enough. It is good enough to justify everything else.”

The post Shower Curtain Brings Literature to the Bathroom first appeared on Dornob.

Shredding is supposed to be a last step into an informational abyss, where secrets are buried forever and trash is recycled into new forms. Instead, this series of ultra-sturdy furniture puts shredded paper on display.

Some of these fossilized items by Jens Praet are made from white-page document sets while others come from a single magazine title with enough issues available from which to build a side table, bench, console or shelving unit.

Mixed with clear resign, the limited-run objects are made in a mold then finished by hand. As needed, they are then topped with additional transparent polycarbonate to add structural rigidity or create a flat surface for everyday use.

While the effect is neat regardless, it would be even more compelling were the magazines chosen visibly different in terms of the color spectrum – remixed together within single pieces, it is still impossible to tell the titles apart.

More from the designer

WHAT STARTED AS A RESEARCH PROJECT, TURNED OUT TO BE A CONTINUOUSLY GROWING FURNITURE COLLECTION THAT ENDED UP TRANSFORMING SEEMINGLY USELESS DOCUMENTS AND LEFTOVER MAGAZINES INTO USEFUL OBJECTS. PAPER WASTE RETURNS TO OUR LIVING OR WORKING AREA AS USABLE FURNITURE.

THE SHREDDED PAPER IS MIXED BY HAND WITH RESIN AND PUT INTO A MOULD TO HARDEN. ONCE HARDENED TO A FIRMNESS SIMILAR TO WOOD, THE WORK IS FINISHED BY HAND. THOUGH WE USE A MOULD IN SHAPING THE PIECE, EACH WORK IS IN FACT HAND MADE AND UNIQUE, BECAUSE THE EXACT MIXTURE OF PAPER AND/OR MAGAZINES DIFFERS FROM ONE PIECE TO THE NEXT, AFFECTING THE COLOUR AND APPEARANCE.

About Jens Praet

STUDIO JENS PRAET WAS ESTABLISHED IN 2007 IN SAN GIMIGNANO, A BEAUTIFUL MEDIEVAL TOWN NEAR SIENA IN ITALY, AND RUN BY BELGIAN DESIGNER JENS PRAET UNTIL HE TOOK ON THE ROLE AS CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF GALLERIA J (*), A JEWELLERY, FASHION, ART & DESIGN STORE, IN 2017.

JENS STUDIED INDUSTRIAL DESIGN IN FLORENCE AND ATTENDED THE MASTER CLASSES AT THE RENOWNED DESIGN ACADEMY IN EINDHOVEN UNDER DROOG DESIGN’S CO-FOUNDER GIJS BAKKER.

STUDIO JENS PRAET’S WORK HAS BEEN EXHIBITED AT IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL VENUES AND HAS BEEN FEATURED IN MANY MAJOR DESIGN PUBLICATIONS AND NEWSPAPER WORLD-WIDE.

PRAET’S SHREDDED SIDE TABLE IS PART OF THE PERMANENT COLLECTION OF THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART IN PITTSBURGH AND THE MINT MUSEUM IN CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA.

The post Shredded Paper Furniture? Just Add Resin to Make it Work first appeared on Dornob.

Viewed from above, it looks as if giant (book?) worms could have carved out the niche storage spaces in the surface of this reading table. The effect is reinforced by rippling layers of exposed natural wood and solid-painted white.

While the prototype ExhibiTable (designed by Lu Chieh-Hua & Cheng Tzu-Hao) is clearly oriented toward institutional and retail uses (e.g. stores, libraries and exhibition spaces), it could work equally well in a the home of an avid reader who likes to leave out their favorite books or magazines.

Unlike a conventional system of well-organized public library bookcases or bookstore shelves, this table has a built-in lack of hierarchy – one could picture the locations and orientations of reading materials shifting over time rather than being fixed in place.

The flip side to this apparent freedom, however, is a rigid sizing system that would preclude many volumes from easy inclusion in the mix (unless larger, longer and wider books are able to be turned on end).

The designers have both practical and philosophical reasons for designing the combination table and bookcase this way.

“The design concept of the table comes from creating a platform system of sharing, collecting and recommending the new-arrival readings,” say the designers. “We often got lost in libraries and bookstores, when facing hundreds of different books, but did not know how to start to make a choice to read. The main reason is that the display of those books is too miscellaneous, which makes us dazzled and then just shooting a glance.”

“By the design of the table, we display every book in the way of regarding it as an individual and important role. Different from the usual way, which just places books on the surface, it is more like ‘book-recommended.’ And it can also provide a delicate vibration, that is, our senses are provoked by the process of searching, observing and approaching the information of books. In the state of stuffing books onto the table randomly, it can be changed when interacts with the action of readers, bringing an interesting and versatile reading experience to the atmosphere.”

The post Reading Table Puts Books on Display first appeared on Dornob.

Lighters, keys, coins … cushioned chairs and couches are notorious for nomming all kinds of things that slip out of our pockets or otherwise get left behind and slide into the cracks. This design simply celebrates that existing phenomena, like a giant-sized pin cushion.

It may come as no surprised that this clever-but-boxy furniture piece was developed by architectural designers (of Daisuke Motogi Architecture), who have a knack for exposing and expanding uses for classic furnishing types.

Pixel-like pads cover the entire surface of the seat both inside and out, forming slots in which one can accidentally drop a small item or intentionally stick a book, magazine, remote and more.

Cleaning this piece would not be trivial, but for those who enjoy the occasional boredom-induced, couch-cushion treasure hunt, who knows what you might find that you or someone else left behind.

The post Lost & Found: Comfy Chair Cushioned with Built-In Storage first appeared on Dornob.

In one smooth stroke of genius, this interior design moves from minimalist and modern to colorful and creative. Wallpaper in the style of stacked magazines makes the space come alive with a home-made look that is appropriately clever for the office of a company of graphic designers. Crisp, clean, contemporary … and just plain cool.

Placed to divide a conference room as well as a copy and storage space from the main entry and work area, the wallpaper runs from floor to ceiling and wall to wall (except for windows and doors of course) on either side of this central and conceptually pivotal room divider. Designed by Elding Oscarson for Oktavilla, these wallpapers make you want to literally turn the page to walk into the next room.

Simple white ceilings, likewise walls and structural elements combined with wood desks, tables and work stations make the rest of the space seem subtle, stylish and contemporary rather than bare and boring as black-and-white color schemes can be. Abstract in the background, relevant and bold close up, this whole design idea from start to finish is one great graphic illustration of the potential of a single well-chosen designer strategy – what better way to brand your graphic design agency?

“This design bureau for magazines and web is housed in an old textile manufacturing hall in the very center of Stockholm. They loved the naked, lofty and bright spaces, but needed to alter it drastically to make it operable for their business. There was a mezzanine in the space, with a windowless meeting room underneath and an country style kitchen sprawling along the walls, all arranged in what appeared to be an L-shaped space. Our client liked the uninterrupted row of windows, and wanted to keep it that way. Yet a bigger meeting room with windows, an atelier table for informal meetings, and more workstations was on the wish list, along with an entrance lobby and a small kitchen with a dining table.”

“Dividing the space with a wall gives a very bright and large meeting room, as well as a clean rectangular room for the rest of the program. This large space is softly divided with a box containing service functions and a kitchen. By compressing the contents of the box and positioning it very carefully, the program effortlessly falls into place without breaking the impression of a single large room. The purposefully magnetic cladding of galvanized steel picks up the colors of the surroundings in a hazy reflection and further defines the box as an inserted element.”

“By finding the right balance between a very large pane of glass in the wall and a construction method for the wall that makes it feel both temporary and solid, the spatial atmosphere of an uninterrupted row of windows is kept while the rectangular geometries of the rooms are clearly defined. Besides having a literal relevance to the client’s business, the wall made of stacked bundles of magazines is not only a natural conversation piece in its mere irrationality, but also works as an acoustical absorbent.”

The post Fun Graphic Wallpaper for a Design Company first appeared on Dornob.