Furniture Design Blog | Maxine Snider | A portal to the design world » General

MAGIC CARPETS

Maxine — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:32:02 +0000

Featured today on Design Sponge, these “magic carpets,” made of every day objects, are playful but sophisticated. I can marvel at the materials or take a few steps back and lose sight of the clothespins, the paperclips, the thumb tacks…More carpets from We Make Carpets can be found here.

BOOKSHELF PORN

Maxine — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:04:31 +0000

BOOKSHELF PORN, right here. Enabling you one shelf at a time.

TEMPORARY TATS

Maxine — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:47:00 +0000

Tina Eisenberg (aka “Swiss Miss”) is a leader in the design world, for her design work, as well as her gift for community-building and curating. One of her recent projects drew from a band of creatives, ‘design celebrities’ in the blog-world and beyond, to create a series of temporary tattoos, which she calls Tattly’s.

Tattly from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

Happy New Year! Resolutions

Maxine — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:19:14 +0000

Welcome to 2012. I’m so happy to see you here. I’m sure many of you have a nice plate of New Year’s Resolutions in front of you. I offer my faith, support, and this wonderful article on keeping those resolutions. Before the end of the week, why not fine tune that list?

“To tear ourselves away from the everyday, from habit, from mental laziness which hides from us the strangeness of reality, we must receive something like a real bludgeon blow,” wrote playwright Eugene Ionesco in 1959.

Ionesco’s metaphor may be violent, but with good reason. Breaking from our usual habits is difficult and often painful – requiring not just willpower and stamina but also the courage to take risks, to fail, and to pick ourselves up again.

The turn of the year presents a dangerous allure: That of the clean slate. We make big, bold resolutions as if starting from scratch. Didn’t accomplish those 2011 resolutions? Well then, it’s time to double-down for 2012!

Unfortunately, it’s not so simple. Most of us have existing commitments (jobs, relationships, etc) and a slew of bad habits (a Twitter-checking obsession, a weakness for mindless Netflix instant movies) that don’t go away at the end of the calendar year.

Now, before you think this post is going to depress you, my point is not that we should throw up our hands and do away with New Year’s resolutions. Rather, it’s that we should simplify our goals – fully recognizing our existing constraints, strengths, and weaknesses – so that we can actually achieve them.

Let’s choose quality over quantity this year. Let’s dispense with the resolutions list that’s a vague mishmash of broad ambitions and aspirational new habits in favor of a more targeted, more meaningful, more achievable list of goals.

As you consider a simplified approach to setting your resolutions for the New Year, here are a few guidelines and resources:

1. Reflect on what you have accomplished. I love Chris Guillebeau’s annual review approach, not least because it begins with an oft-overlooked activity: reflection. He starts by asking two questions: What went well last year? What didn’t go well last year? It’s a very simple but useful exercise that takes stock of where you’ve built new skills for success and where there’s room for improvement. After a clear-eyed assessment of what you’re capable of, you’ll be in good stead to set your goals for the year ahead.

2. Select 1-3 meaningful goals that will make an impact. When it comes to resolutions, research and experience show that you’re much more likely to be successful if you: (1) lay out a small list of very specific goals, (2) outline a clear plan of action to achieve them, and (3) plan for what will happen in case of setbacks, distractions, and interruptions. So consider this: What matters most to you in the coming year? What are you passionate about and well-equipped to achieve? Choose your battles wisely, and commit to them completely.

3. Remove the inessentials with a “stop doing” list. Chances are, you probably weren’t working at 80% capacity last year. In fact, I bet you felt too busy. So just where does the extra bandwidth to work on these new resolutions come from? That’s where bestselling author Jim Collins’ “Stop Doing List” comes in. To gain the time needed to enact these new goals, know that you’re going to have to give up something. It may be extra client work after you meet a certain monthly financial goal, or maybe it’s just sleeping in an extra hour. Identify what those elements are, and commit to NOT doing them.

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What’s Your Take?

How do you decide on your resolutions? What have you been meaning to do for awhile that you haven’t done?

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Jocelyn K. Glei is the Editor-in-Chief of the 99%. You can follow her intermittent tweets @jkglei.

[image and text via here]

ON TIME: CALENDARS, Part I

Maxine — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:27:14 +0000

It’s almost 2012, and a perfect time to stock up on your 2012 calendar. It’s hard to choose among the flood of attractive formats, but these make great gifts, too, if you want to buy them all:

Beginning with an oldie but goodie, the Stendig Calendar.

Here’s a much different take, for your desktop (your actual analog desktop, not your computer), Ryan McGinness’ to-do list calendar, with a drawing on each page:

For the more lunar-minded, how about this one?

Prefer more color? I like the Stars Kaleidoscope Calendar for the kitchen

ORGANIZATION

Maxine — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:10:50 +0000

To my favorite compulsive organizers out there, a new blog for you: Things Organized Neatly. When Martha Stewart Living doesn’t satisfy your need for order…

[via]

That Was Then and This is Now

Maxine — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:13:25 +0000

Irina Werning has been working steadily on a series of paired portraits. Her Back to the Future 2 Series recreates original (child) portraiture with adult subjects, with details meticulously recreated.

Everything changes and everything stays the same.

You can find more of Irina’s work, here.

EAMES Redux

Maxine — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:44:35 +0000

Have you seen the new Eames documentary, yet? The full title is Eames: The Architect and the Painter. Here’s a teaser, the trailer, above. Bonus: James Franco narrates!

This just in, Ice Cube on the Eames:

TOOL: CONCENTRATION

Maxine — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:38:02 +0000

99 % is a great website (whose name predates the popular OWS movement), focusing on workplace efficiency and creativity. Recently, they posted 10 tools for concentration and efficiency. This is a good time to double down on your efforts to work effectively, as holiday distractions are around the corner.

Here are ten applications that can help you focus:

1. Self-Control – Block out distracting websites for a set amount of time.
If you find yourself slipping into a Twitter sinkhole when you should be updating your business plan, Self-Control may be the app you need. Set it for 4 hours, for instance, and your browser will behave as if it’s offline for that period of time. No amount of browser restarts or computer reboots will stop it. Before you have heart palpitations, know that you can whitelist or blacklist certain sites. So, rather than completely disabling the entire Internet, you can selectively decide which sites are OK, or not OK, to visit during your focus period. For Macs only. PC users can try Freedom, a similar app.

2. TrackTime – Audit how you’re spending your time on your computer.
This good-looking app tracks everything you do on your computer, spitting back out a sort of “attention audit.” How much time are you spending in Firefox? How many hours a day in your email client? What are listening to on iTunes? If you let TrackTime run in the background, it builds these patterns into a lovely rainbow-colored timeline of your online life. Its most effective use is as a sort of wake-up call: If your daily timeline shows you shifting between apps and tasks every 2 minutes or less, you know there’s a problem. For Macs only.

3. Concentrate – Maximize focus while shifting between different tasks.
Concentrate is great for shifting between tasks that require different mindsets. I have a variety of recurring tasks that require different tools: 1) Writing, 2) Social Media Management, 3) Event Planning. Concentrate lets me configure a different set of tools for each task. When I activate “Writing,” the app automatically closes my email client and Internet Browser; blocks me from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube; launches Microsoft Word; and sets my instant messaging status to “away”. Then, when I want to concentrate on “Social Media Management,” I can customize a completely different set of actions to happen relevant to that activity. There’s also a handy “concentration” timer. For Macs only.

4. Notational Velocity – Centralize and sync all of your scattered notes.
If you’re anything like me, one primarily challenge for focusing is getting all your notes in one place. Before Notational Velocity, I would write some notes on paper, some on text files on my desktop, some on my iPhone notes app when on the go. Notational Velocity organizes all of your notes on your desktop in a centralized, searchable location and syncs with Simplenote or WriteRoom on your iPhone. This seems like a little thing, but it really makes life so much easier. (More nerdy details here.) For Macs only.

5. FocusBooster – Focus on single tasks for 25 minutes apiece.
This app is based on the principles of the Pomodoro Technique, a time management system that challenges you to focus on a single task for 25 minutes and then give yourself a 5-minute break. Combining the features of a to-do list and a time-management coach, FocusBooster allows you to list out your daily tasks, and then it tracks your time as you work through them. When 25 minutes are up, an alarm sounds and you get a break. It’s an easy way to practice expanding your attention span without going overboard. For Macs and PCs.

6. Think – Limit your attention to a single application at a time.
This is an extremely simple app that’s akin to “Spaces” on a Mac. When activated, Think allows you to bring just one application into the foreground on your computer, while everything else is hidden underneath a nearly opaque backdrop. While you can easily shift between other applications when you need to, it creates a clean space for focusing on the task at hand. (It also works well in tandem with FocusBooster.) For Macs only.

7. FocusWriter – Create a distraction-free environment for writing.
If writing is something that you do on a regular basis, it’s incredibly useful to have an easy way to create a distraction-free setting. FocusWriter re-creates a word processor-like environment, blocking out absolutely everything on your screen except for the words you type on a simple grey background – all menus (date, timer, dock, etc) are tucked away until rollover. Despite its pristine appearance, FocusWriter does have the usual rich text editor features, such as spellcheck and word count. Plus a few bonuses like a daily writing goal (word count or writing time) and very gratifying typewriter sounds for each keystroke. For Macs and PCs.

8. Anti-Social – Block the social websites that are killing your focus.
Anti-Social is like a light version of full-scale Internet-blocker Freedom. Rather than blocking the Internet in its entirety, Anti-Social automatically blocks all of the known timesinks for a set period of time. Sites that are off-limits include Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, Reddit, YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo, and all standard web email programs. It’s not that different from Self-Control (see above), except that it comes pre-equipped with a blacklist (which you can add to, of course). If you can’t handle your Internet abstinence, you can turn Anti-Social off by rebooting your computer. For Macs and PCs.

9. StayFocusd – Curb the time you spend browsing time-wasting sites.
This extension, for users of Google’s Chrome browser, works in the reverse manner to Anti-Social or Self-Control. Rather than setting a period of time for which you CANNOT use the Internet, it allows you to set a period of time to indulge in time-wasting sites. Only want to give yourself 60 minutes a day for Twitter, vanity Googling, and updating your Netflix queue? This is your app. Rather like when you were a kid and only allowed to watch 2 hours of TV a day. For Firefox users, LeechBlock performs a similar function. For Macs and PCs.

10. Time Out – Take regular breaks to keep your focus sharp.
For optimal focus, we need to take regular time-outs to relax and rebuild our energy. Time Out is a super-simple application that runs in the background while you work. At set intervals (say, every 90 minutes), it fades in and gently reminds you to take a 5-10 minute break. You can also use it to remind you to take 1-minute “micro-breaks” to avoid eye strain from staring at your computer like a zombie for hours on end. For Macs only.

The Selby: On Lucy Chadwick, for Zara

Maxine — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:00:54 +0000

I have posted photos from Selby photoshoots before. Today, I offer you additional guilty voyeuristic pleasure with a Selby film on Lucy Chadwick. It’s “a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll,” as the Osmonds once sang.