BRITE lite RESULTS!!

Hello! We apologize for the delay!! We held our first BRITE event on May, 16. We FINALLY went through the photos (I took 400+ photos!) and can now share with everyone what a fun event it was!

Just to backtrack a little, Dylan & I and Christa & Nin (from Cafe Weekend) teamed up to organize this design charrette (and a trial run) with a mission to start connecting people through interactive and spontaneous design activities. We're calling it the BRITE Collective.

For this first event: BRITE lite, LOCAL DESIGNERS & CRAFTERS teamed up to participate in a spontaneous 4 hour community scavenger hunt/design-build to create ready-made lamps from household and second hand materials.
There was a good turn out with 18 people (total of 9 teams) who participated that day. We asked people to bring materials to share with everyone and there were a great mix of lamps that came from it. We gave every team a BRITE lite kit...which I had a little too much fun with. :D
Everyone also got a special wooden BRITE badge! Our plan is to do that for every event! ...I mean , who wouldn't want to be rewarded for such accomplishments! A simple badge is a perfect item that says "HEY! I accomplished something today and that's a wonderful feeling! (blank stare and a giant stiff smile)" And THAT's pretty darn special, wouldn't you agree? We were all about making this event special. Christa even went and got some cheerful balloons!
It was a beautiful Seattle day so we were able to open the garage door at the Hiawatha community space and some people worked outside or walked to the nearby Goodwill Dearborn to hunt for interesting materials for their lights.
Nin and I were in charge of documentenging the event...we followed people around trying taking candid shots capturing their process at the Goodwill. And in the process of taking photos, I crept around like a creepy stalker trying not to get noticed....and also trying to stop myself from shopping. That was hard.Oh and look! Here's Steve with his new Friend! Apparently he decided to replace his hand with a rubber dinosaur head instead. Oh! all the wonderful things you can find!
It was so inspiring to creative energy in the room and see everyone brainstorming, sketching, playing ,and exploring with materials. It was just amazing to see everyone use ordinary things and turn it into something extraordinary!!

Okay I'll stop with the talking.. On with the results!

Here are some lights people made in 4 hours! Drum roll.....

Pair of hanging lights made with walnut edge banding and paper cups by Lindsay & Sena.

Table lamp made with stainless thermos and glass coffee pot by Joelle & Steve. Hanging shade made with wire ring, staples, and letter envelopes by Mat & Dylan. Table lamp wit braille paper and Stevie Wonder record at the base by Christine & Nick. Hanging chandelier made with mix match of magazine organizers by Chika & Cat.Come see TONS more photos here to see the entire process! The lights will also be exhibited at JOIN's Ctrl Alt Design show at Ouch My Eye, beginning June 12th, with the opening starting from 7-midnight.

If you like what you're seeing and would like to know about our future events, please join our BRITE facebook !

Thanks to everyone who participated. It was a very fun day and great way to kick off the BRITE Collective!!

MUSIC: Phoenix

I'm excited to hear Phoenix's new album, Wolfgang Amadeus. Yet another wonderful French rock band. I fell in love with them couple years ago because of the song, Too Young. (I'd put that song on every mix I made!)
I love their slight 80's optimistic sounds and beats!! Makes me wanna jump around!

You can hear some of their songs, here.


I'm SUPER bummed that they're not stopping in Seattle during their tour to the west coast though. They're gonna play in SF and LA end of June! Totally unfair...You luck bastards who lives there!
Perhaps in the future they'll come play in Seattle....at our house. That'd be sweet....

Scene From Above

Check out these series of amazing photos by Andreas Gefeller. From afar they look like abstract paintings, but as you look closer they're photos of various floor surfaces shot from above. It's from an perspective that one rarely sees...unless you cut a hole from the floor above looking straight down...or if you have an outer body experience. One or the other....which ever works the best I suppose.

I really enjoy seeing the subtleties of the colors where it indicates areas that are more worn than others...

Totally wabi....AND totally sabi.

I Pea-ed My Plants!

I have to credit Jared for this blog titled... This was a joke that Jared had made about my FIRST pea that I grew! That guy think he's a comedian or something....
But this is the first and ONLY one that grew since end of March when we started planting.
I like how you can see the inside! SO CUTE!
But the problem is that there's only ONE....and I worked too hard to want to eat it....quite a dilemma.Also, here's the recent update on the other plants....it's been almost 2 months since we started planting! The cheery and heirloom tomatoes are getting quite tall...at least 2ft tall now! We'll be transplanting them soon. Oh boy!! I just hope it'll yield more than one so I can at least keep one and eat the other!

Google Map Typography

Over the course of a year and half, Rhett Dashwood found these aerial views in Australia from Google maps of buildings and landscapes in shapes of A to Z. How neat!

BRITE LITE Showcase

We're gearing up for our debut BRITE LITE design charrette this Saturday! WOO HOO!!
I have to say, I'm getting pretty excited myself!!

WHAT: LOCAL DESIGNERS & CRATERS will team up together to participate in a spontaneous 4 hour community scavenger/ design-build to create ready-made lamps from house-hold and second hand materials.
There will be 20 some participants for this event, so it should be fun to see what everyone comes up with!

We'd also like to invite non-participants to come and see the results of everyone's ready-made lamps from 3-5pm.
WHEN: Saturday MAY 16th 3-5pm
WHERE: ARTSPACE HIAWATHA LOFTS/ in the Jackson Place neighborhood
843 Hiawatha Place South, Seattle WA 98144
WHY: Leave inspired to create something new, sign up to receive our future event updates, and get some espresso & treats at your new neighborhood spot café weekend.

If you're in Seattle, stop by and say hi! We'd love to say hi back!
Happy Friday!

Best Regards, Christa Thomas / Nin Truong/ Jean Lee/ Dylan Davis/ JoinDesignSeattle/ cafe weekend/ WKND/ Jackson Place/ Hiawatha Lofts

If Prince and Pee-Wee had a kid...

Found this (via Kitsch Cafe) and saw this great video by Sliimy!..(yes...yet another stop-motion!!) I just love his hybrid Prince & Pee-Wee pop, retro, colorful style. The video, the song and him... just adorable.
Sliimy also did the cover of Womenizer...and I love his version way more!

BRITE Idea

Dylan & I are collaborating with Christa & Nin from Cafe Weekend on a new "arm" of JOIN design Seattle. It will provide a series of spontaneous and fun design events made to stimulate, inspire, and unite the Seattle design community. We're calling it Brite Collective.
Our first event, a charrette where small teams will create lamp designs from existing objects, will take place this coming Saturday at the Hiawatha Lofts in Seattle.

Here's a little preview from a trial run we did together couple Saturdays ago. The trial run was to help us go through the process in order to figure out the details when we host the actual event...it was a TRIAL....it's not us cheating! WE PROMISE YOU!
The challenge:
Design a lamp shade with pre-existing object as a team. Shop at Goodwill thrift store together and spend no more than $15 total for materials. Incorporate the color yellow.
Make a lamp in 3 hours.
The process: Went to Goodwill to scavenger hunt. Got some inspiration for forms and materials.We gathered everything and had it out on a table to narrow down our choice. In the mist of all this, random people were looking over our shoulders, and some people actually picked up the things we had and was going to take it! I had to tell them to back off! See that lady on the left?...yeah..can't trust her. She was probably thinking of taking some stuff when we weren't looking! :P Beware...people at Goodwill are very aggressive...I guess its survival of the fittest..or something like that. After spending 1.5 hours at the Goodwill and discussing what we liked and what we can do with each object, we ended up with these items that came to a total of $11.70. Roll of yellow stickers, 2 bags yellow basket stuffing, yellow jar beater, manila dividers, wire basket, and a tennis frame protector. We all liked the tennis frame since we all thought it looked like a 2D lamp shape. But somehow we convinced ourselves to make a paper mache lamp shade that would mold around the form of a light bulb...big mistake. We started doing that and by that point we were already at 3 hours! At that point, we weren't even close to being done....so we FAILED....We didn't make it in the time line we made for ourselves...But we decided to just continue on, re-think, simplify, and finished the lamp despite our failure! We picked up the manila dividers and thought to just make that a lamp shade and clamp it in between the tennis frame. We played around folding and cutting the paper in various shapes.
So after two more hours of iterating....Voila! We made a simple light sconce made with only the tennis frame and one sheet of manila divider.
In conclusion: It was fun brainstorming and designing together, since we were able to inspire each other and explore new directions that we wouldn't do normally. And it was good that we did the trial run since when we do the REAL event, we won't want to keep everyone hostage for that long. :P

If you're interested in subjecting yourself to this kind of fun challenge email info@cafeweekend.com by Wednesday May 13th for more details on attending.

L&G Storytime No.10: To All The Wonderful Moms!

I have the perfect Mother's day book for L&G storytime! This is the most adorable and sweet little book titled "For a Wonderful MOM." Here's a shout out to all the wonderful mom's out there!
The book itself is covered in colorful flower printed fabric, and the illustration inside is even more ridiculously cute!
Moms are there to give us hugs....awww. Shut up!
Moms always know to keep us out of trouble! Moms are always there to teach us things
Moms are always there to tell us we're okay....or oaky-doke! Eh? Get it? Oak..Oaky-Doke!Sniff sniff...This book is seriously unbearable!!
I'm getting all teary eyed and warm and fuzzy inside! Moms are awesome...

Have a wonderful day on Mother's day!

Oh NO! Run, Piggy, Run!

OH dear...yet another stop-motion video. Every time I find a stop-motion video, I say they're the best one....but this one is SOOO good!! Saw it on Jamie's blog, Design Mate, and HAD to post it to share with y'all!!

It's brilliant.....and SU-PA Cute-O!!

Happy Friday!

EVENT: Art + Design happenings TODAY!

Two events are happening this Thursday art walk...today!
SOIL Expo, Opening reception Thursday, May 7, 5–8 pm
Our friend, Nicholas Nyland, also member of the SOIL coop art gallery is showing some new and experimental work! Expo is an experimental show for which fifteen current SOIL members accepted the challenge to create new works in an unfamiliar medium.

112 3rd Avenue South, Seattle, WA 98104


Also Seth and Jon from Graypants are presenting the winners of the M+D+F winners tonight at the downtown Seattle DWR!
DWR Presents: M+D+F Winners
Thursday, May 7, 6-8pm

M+D+F 2009 is a juried exhibition of innovative furniture by emerging designers in the Seattle area. Organized by the DWR Seattle Studio and juried by Seth Grizzle and Jonathan Junker, of graypants, and Craig Brooks, Principal of KONTENT PARTNERS , M+D+F provides an opportunity for peer, public and professional recognition for up-and-coming designers and firms.

1918 First Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101

Playing and Designing With Food

Awhile back I read about Tricia's secret supper and her eating-design projects via Chelsea's Village Mews blog....who found her via Abby Try Again. (small world...and another point for how awesome Portlanders are....)
Since I started reading about Tricia's work, I've been totally fascinated by the philosophy of eating-design and how food and design all relates...yum yum. But it's more than just talking about food and making it....Tricia approaches food the same way we connect with people by communicating through stories, memories, associations, and all of our senses. Ultimately, she sees how foods can connect to one another and how people can create meanings and memories through the common forum of food... Tricia creates dishes and eating experiences as a segue to challenge thinking on design and its greater connection to the world. Intrigued??....How can you not be?!
"The tastes and textures in your mouth, the act of chewing or feeding, the sights, sounds, smells and colors of the foods as they spread before us while we eat are all integral to what I consider and play upon in my designs. It is through these sensory experiences that I am weaving a story
or a message into what it is we are eating and how we are eating it."

She's done so many projects that its hard to keep up, especially they're all so different and captivating to read about. But some the bigger-scale projects she's done are: Uprooted, a dinner surrounding the concept of sharing in a history of uprootedness and how the feel of being home always comes back to people and food.
Pietopia, a contest to bake a pie that describes one's state of mind and mood. The 2009 contest just started if you're in Portland! I wanna go down for the actual pie tasting event!
and Secret Supper: a meal that was designed to incite conversation and create interactions between people. She used half plates with different food on each side with everyone having different things on the plate. So in order for the guests to complete their meals, they had to interact, communicate, and share to get everything that was served.

I haven't even shared half of what she's done and I'm already having a tough time keeping this post brief....at this point, I've already given up!
Tricia is finishing up her MFA thesis at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. For her thesis, she designed a beautiful book titled, "Eating Design" and it's all about the eating-design projects she has done with great visuals and layout! You can see more pages and even get a copy, here!
There's so much that Tricia shares on her blog, Eating is Art, and her eating-design studio, Taste Matters. It totally keeps me glued to the screen wanting read and see more beautiful photos of the food and thoughtful meal arrangements and designs she creates! Definitely allow some time to read all the work she's done, the food she made, her thought process, even the designs she made and the way she's connecting people through the universal forum of food.
I love food and the the type of rituals one can have with food. It's so interesting to look at food from an intellectual and design perspective. Especially because it's so easy to take food for granted and eat something with little awareness. It's fun to think about why something is made the way they are or taste the way they do...or analyze the types of associations people have with a particular food whether they're from social, cultural or environmental influences....super fascinating.

I'm hoping to get Tricia to come up to Seattle at some point and do some fun eating-design project!!