Like a giant awaken from its slumber. The new headquarter complex of China Central Television (CCTV) raise above the busy cityscape of Beijing. Designed by architect Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), the A L-shaped monolith, along a few other structures within the compound, recently received a new “skins” treatment as workers rush to completion for the Summer Olympic. Created by Nike China, the “skins” are actually digital projection slideshow. It highlights the members of the Chinese Olympic team, who are determine to win the most gold medal this Summer. To see their individual story, you can visit the special Nike Gold website for more in-depth video on each athlete.

> Nike China
> Nike Gold
> China Central Television (CCTV)

After an overwhelming successful exhibition at Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). The retrospective of Japanese pop-artist Takashi Murakami, titled © Murakami, just arrived in New York City. The exhibit will feature some 90+ works in a multitude of mediums from 1992 to 2000. All of which will be on view at the 4th and 5th floors (a total 18,500 square feet of space) of Brooklyn Museum, one of the oldest and largest art museum in the U.S. A 550 square feet mini-boutique, manage by long -time Murakami collaborator Louis Vuitton will showcase several new products, including the new Monogramouflage print, a collaboration between Murakami and designer Marc Jacobs. The exhibition is set to opens this Saturday, April 5th, through Sunday, July 13th.

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway | Map
Brooklyn, NY 11238-6052

Event Date: 04.05.2008 ~ 07.13.2008

» Brooklyn Museum

» Takashi Murakami

The “pay as you please” value scheme, by Radiohead last December, forever altered distribution channel within the music industry. This month, the pioneering rock band initiated another great experiment - viewer generated music video. The contest is simple, the rules are straight forward. Just upload your creation (must based on songs from Radiohead’s newest record, In Rainbows), either in basic storyboard or a simple animated clip to AniBoom, an online animation community. Then, members of the AniBoom community will rate each entry for a duration of 3 weeks. 10 semi-finalists will be chosen. Another round of selection will narrow the field to 5, of which members of Radiohead will pick the winning concept. A $10,000 award will be given to the winners to assist them in creating a full-length music video based on their concept. AniBoom will then distribute and market the finished product on their behalf. Submission of entries started on March 17th and will continue until April 28th.

» Radiohead

» AniBoom

» via: Freshness Mag
» Obey
» Barack Obama for America

The prolific New York-based designer, Karim Rashid, just designed a series of unique bottles for Bombay Sapphire. in conjunction with 2 luxury icons - jeweler Garrad and crystal brand Baccarat, Rashid designed 5 bottles, made of crystals and embellished with sapphires and diamonds. Part of the collection titled Revelation, the bottles are priced at US$ 200,000 each. Crafted by hand at Baccarat’s work shop in France, the bottle is cut into a large gemstone shape with 10 facets. The 10 facets represent the 10 herbal ingredients that go into Bombay Sapphire, creating a signature aroma and flavor. Each bottle is then detailed by the oldest jewelry house, Garrard, with an unique stopper decorated in sapphires and diamonds. The bejeweled creation will be on public display, first at the inaugural event on March 27th to celebrate the grand opening of Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow Airport. Subsequently, 1 bottle will be exhibit at airports in New York, Dubai, Singapore, and Sydney. The coordinating world wide exhibition will end a few months later with the bottles going to the new owners. The profit from the sale of each Revelation bottle will benefit charity The Smile Train, which provides cleft lip surgeries to children within poverty stricken nations.

» Karim Rashid

» Bombay Sapphire

©Luke Hayes

Presently on display at London’s Design Museum are the nominated designs for this year’s Designs of the Year Award. Celebrating the best of international design over the last 12 months period, the Birt Insurance sponsored awards high light all the disciplines in design: architecture, graphics, fashion, product, furniture, interactive, and transport. In total,100 designs from the 7 categories were chosen as nominee. Just a few in the contention this year are SANAA - The New Museum (architecture), Peter Saville - Kate Moss brand logo (graphics), Raf Simons - Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2008 (fashion), Jonathan Ive - Apple iPhone (product), Philippe Starck - Moore Chair (furniture), United Visual Artists - Volume (interactive), plus JCDecaux - Velib Communal Bicycle (transport).

Each will go through another round of selection to be the winner of each category on March 11th. The final 7 will advance for the overall winner round, with the Design of the Year title announce on March 18th. In the meantime, the exhibition will be ongoing in the museum until April 27th.

Design Museum
Shad Thames | Map
London SE1, UK

Exhibition Dates: 02.13.2008 ~ 04.27.2008

» Design Museum

» Brit insurance Designs of the Year

Susana Soares - BEE’s Project - Face Object

In a reflection of our even design-driven lifestyle, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York just opened its newest exhibition last month. Titled Design and the Elastic Mind, the exhibition highlights the intricate relationship between design, science, and innovation. Over 200 objects, including 4 special commissions, created by designers, architects, engineers, and those in the science/technology field, are all on display. The exhibition is divided into 3 parts: small scale in addressing the growing interests in nano-technology. Human scale in ever blurring boundaries between human and machine. And large scale, the modern struggle of individualism and pluralism, which increase exponentially with the advent of the Internet. In conjunction with physical exhibition in New York City. MoMA launched a special website designed by Yugo Nakamura, the person behind the interactive website for Japanese apparel label Uniqlo. Desing and the Elastic Mind will be on display till May 12th.

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street | Map
New York, NY 10019

Exhibition Date: 02.24.2008 ~ 05.12.2008

» Museum of Modern Art

» Design and the Elastic Mind