MOMOKO MASHUPS

DVF Debuts Google Project Glass On The Runway

Fashion’s heavyweight, Diane von Furstenberg and Google may be one of the most interesting matches this season. At this year’s New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2013, Google teamed up with the celebrated fashion designer to showcase Google’s Project Glasses.

The eyewear worn by some of DVF’s models are actual prototypes and were shown in various colors that matched the silhouettes, sculpted ruffles, polka dots, and color-blocking of each ensemble. Backstage the designer was wearing pair of glasses herself as she ushered the models onto the runway. The glasses have a built-in camera on the right-side of the eye that will record the entire show.

It’s apparent that Google is taking steps toward branding its geeky gadget as a must-have wearable high fashion accessory, especially with one of fashion’s biggest influencers. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, says:

“We were at a conference together and we were testing out a prototype,” Brin said of the collaboration. “I talked about it to her and she [Diane von Furstenberg] loved it. We thought about it. It’s really a perfect combination. What we really have been going for is style and comfort, and I can’t really think of a brand that signifies that better than Diane’s.” 

Project Glass’s appearance at Fashion Week is its first officially endorsed appearance after its concept reveal early this year. Sergey Brin adds,

“It’s been under development for over two years now, and the goal is to really connect you to digital life without really taking you away from real life,” Brin said. It looked like he was wearing a pair of sporty blue-and-gray sunglasses without the lenses. “You can [record] video, still [images], get text messages — reply to them and things like that,” Brin said. “We have hundreds of ideas, we just only have so much time to implement them now.”

The device will likely include navigation functionality and photo capabilities. It is slated to sell at less than $1,500 when it hits the market in 2013.

The footage recorded on the runway will be featured in a short film called, “DVF Through Glass,” and also gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look into DVF’s creative process in bringing her collections to life. The film will be released on September 13 on the designer’s Google+ page and YouTube channel.

Infographic on Sex

transparency: how kids are having sex

Once upon another lifetime, I was a sex ed counselor at an inner city highschool in Pasadena, California. Fresh out of college, it was an awkward yet fun experience. Somebody had to teach these highschoolers about sti’s. Anyhow, I don’t think I was good at giving advice on those things so I bonded with some of the students on things like comic books, web design, and the rules and etiquette of facebooking in highschool. Evenutally, I led a career day presentation about design and communication arts that led to a field trip to the Art Center.

This infographic summarizes my experience well. Back in 2004 Bush decided to cut all sex ed programs centered on contraceptives, and instead decided to allocate 100% federal spending on abstinence programs. Our program was at risk, but thankfully due to California’s state funded sex education program, the funding was only reduced to about 89%. Good produced this great infographic that communicates how adolescents are having sex. It’s my ah-ha moment of the day because it summarizes my first-job-of-college experience. (Later, I went on to study consumer and social behavior on millenials in Japan and North America.) I also love it beautiful design that communicates social statistics well.Oh, I’m super happy about the section titled “condoms and culture” because it seems like inner-city kids are receiving the proper sex ed that actually (works) is a bit more realistic.

Among 14- to 17-year-olds, 80 percent of boys and 69 percent of girls say they used a condom the last time they had sex, compared to well under half of sexually active adults.

I’d like to know the sample size and the geographic location of sample.

via good

Brand Thoughts: Fashionista

After publishing with a blackletter logo since 2007, Fashionista decided it was time to reconside and redesign its stoic face as well as swap its back-end CMS from Movable Type to WordPress.

The old logo was this oversized, domineering, gothic lettering thing that said “spiky, aggressive, old-school news brand.” That’s not what Fashionista is. The editors of Fashionista are excellent journalists who will be critical when it’s called for, but they’re also unashamedly fashion lovers. They might poke fun from time to time, but they’re not spiky or unnecessarily aggressive. And they’re also inherently new-generation when it comes to how they go about their business — they use a blog platform, Flip cameras, smartphones and various social media to deliver their content and engage their audience — so unless we were being very ironic with the gothic, old-school newspaper font thing it just wasn’t really appropriate. I’m also a big believer that the logo and furniture on the site should be a little subservient to the content — it’s the content that engages and the content travels well beyond the site too — so we also needed something a little less imposing.
— Jonah Bloom, CEO/Editor-in-Chief, Breaking Media

More treatments of the new logo at Brand New.

A New Kind of Typography

LAIKA from Michael Flückiger on Vimeo.

Michael Lebovitz pointed me to this cool dynamic typography tool where you manually stretch and contort the typeface. There’s a dial that controls the LAIKA typeface to elongate or widen the font. On Sputnik, the typeface is influenced by people’s swaying motions against the wall. The project is part of Michael Flückiger’s bachelor thesis and he explains his idea behind the concept:

Since not much work has been done in this field, we devised a system in which a typeface would not be defined static font styles anymore but would be able to change it‘s shape and appearance at any moment reacting to a broad spectrum of inputs.

Here are more of his typography experiments:

Details Pandoras Box from Michael Flückiger on Vimeo. Continue reading…

Visionaire 57: A Plug-In, Electric Magazine

This post was originally published on PSFK.com

The fashion and art publication Visionaire has continuously used a variety of unique formats to present its content. For the 57th issue, the publication draws inspiration from the two-seater Smart Fortwo car. Visionaire 57 “2010″ will be the first plug-in electric issue in the publication’s history. As seen in the photo above, the plug is shaped like Daimler’s compact automobile. Continue reading…