I didn’t post soon enough my warning about being influenced by the Beijing colors. But in truth Nike has used the colors sparingly thus well. Their LunaRacer (pictured) are found exclusively in Nike’s new 21 Mercer Street store in New York’s Soho district which opened August 22.

Given these shoes were originally intended for the Olympic athletes, it’s fitting they used the Olympic colorways. And to Nike’s credit, these are also limited edition.

So I won’t despair too much. If you have to use the colors, this is one way to do it so one is not blinded by it. Also shown are jackets with the colorways….for further information on the shoes, Nike’s store opening, and other product found there visit Coolhunter.

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This is something I expect to see more and more of if the world is paying attention especially to designers such as Janet Fernandez. Her work makes you feel as if you are holding something one of a kind in your hand…..oh wait, you are.

Janet’s studio, J.A. Design Studio, is based in Miami but her inspiration lies somewhere between there, Sweden, where she was born and raised, and Italy, where she lived for 20 years before coming to the United States in 1995. So imagine all of that influence hand painted onto your tablecloth and matching napkins (although each piece is hand painted so will be slightly different than the next), cushions and draperies….or whatever you want as you can also buy her linens by the yard.

Janet personally designs all the patterns and then paints them onto textiles herself. The products she creates are very exclusive because she hand mixes all her colors and also customizes the color of any of her patterns to match J.A. Design Studio’s clients’ needs. Also, all of their products are made with the finest 100% European linen (Belgium) and 100% silk taffeta (given it’s Beijing time, I couldn’t resist posting her painted Chinese symbol silk taffeta cushion above).

For more information visit her website, jadesignstudio.net, or call 305-858-2883. Too gorgeous!

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Before I move on from the Olympic discussion, since so many others can cover the games better, I must mention the subject of color………while I found the Opening Ceremony just as spectacular bordering on spectacle as everyone else did, and didn’t mind soooo much the colors the Chinese decided upon for that Opening Ceremony (I felt they were decidedly reflective of their culture) by now after over a week of watching the games pretty intently, I can now say definitively, I hope designers and manufacturers don’t decide to be too influenced by how color was used at the games.

Plainly, bluntly, after awhile, it was just too much. I am noticing some trend toward neutrals in home furnishings which after watching the Olympic games is pretty welcome, but hopefully it’s not the overriding case. I’m not going to say it’s an anything goes culture right now, but strong punches of color (the right ones) along with graphic prints against those neutrals is creating more of a tonic against the massive amounts of color we’ve been being exposed to than just going straight to neutral. It’s just the Olympics brought the use of color to a whole new level, and hopefully we can leave it there.

Please, I am open to other opinions here, let me know, let us know, if you feel otherwise.

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8.08.08 the Olympics begin.

Michael Phelps wins 8 Gold Medals beating Mark Spitz record of 7 gold medals in one Olympics–A Phelpsian Feat, coined by his teammate Aaron Peirsol.

Congratulations to Phelps and his teammates for bringing in the 8’s.

Beyond that, Dara Torres, at 41, broke all kinds of world records if not perceptions as the oldest Olympian to win a silver medal, and losing the gold only by 1/100 of a second. Rock on!

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I confess I’m a little late to this party…..Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, authors of A Perfect Mess, launched their book in mid December 2006 but as a testament to a core argument of theirs, I came across it a few days ago by not looking for it and discovered for me at least right now, A Perfect Mess is in fact my perfect answer.

In a previous post on Trendbites, I confessed to being a clutterphile and thus a pile person. By Abrahamson and Freedman’s standard that puts me on the creative edge of things. While I know that, the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily function by that criteria. In fact, in researching the net about the book, it caused quite a stir for the wrong reasons to my mind when in fact it hit a nerve for the neatniks of the world. Take for instance this interview (if you didn’t see it) by Matt Lauer on the Today Show in January 07 ….he had a noticeable reaction to the images of the clutter and is a self professed clutterbuster. But he isn’t the only one; it seemed to bring out a true confessions moment (read the comments section if you visit this link) for those on both sides of the neat vs messy fence.

The essence of the book lay more with management systems than with clean desks per se, but if I may, the messy desk was/is just a great introduction to the theory that having a more messy (read not so tightly controlled) management organization will lead to greater creativity and then they proceed to show nothing but example after example of how this theory is borne out.

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“>Sea Orchestra.Surely awards will be won if not already. Surely these will set off a flurry of animation in commericals the likes of which have not been seen ever.

United hired international teams of animators, musicians, artists and directors from India to South Africa to Norway to France to China to create these masterpieces. Robert Redford is the voice over (I knew I recognized that voice). Their pr spin reads “New ads create an artistic interpretation of the emotions travelers feel when flying United’s new international service.”

So if artistic mastery weren’t enough, they launched them during the Olympics. Sea Orchestra, featured above, was first shown during the Opening Ceremony which is when I saw it and only a commercial like this could break through the spectacular nature of what the Olympic Opening Ceremony turned out to be.

“>Two Worlds. Then yesterday, Sunday, I saw the second one, “Two Worlds” which takes you from a black and white scenario (again animated) to one with color. You can’t miss the ads though, right, besides being visually arresting they have these catchy little customized versions of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” performed by the L.A. Philharmonic. In Sea Orchestra a United airplane crosses the ocean and
is serenaded by an orchestra of animated sea creatures that are playing a
unique version of Rhapsody in Blue using tubas, violins, French horns and
the Indonesian gamelan. The score was created by Shy the Sun, a South
Africa-based directing team, which used hand-drawn textures, computer
animation characters and photographs of water, reefs and skies. The Two Worlds commercial combines two different and distinctive animation styles created by directors SSSR, a Norwegian and Japanese team, who was responsible for the monochromatic world that was mostly computer-generated with a hand-crafted feel, and Gaelle Denis, a French director, who was responsible for the colorful
fantasy world that uses using live action, computer generation and matte
paintings, including textures such as Japanese rice paper.

So, I did read where the campaign “It’s time to fly,” created by ad agency BDM has earned the Gold Effie Award for marketing effectiveness and was nominated for an Emmy Award. I’ll say.

You can’t beat the timing. That alone is brilliant since what they are advertising is United’s new international first and business class service with flat bed seating. If the flying is as comfortable as these commercials make it look, then they win all around, regardless. It’s first class advertising not to mention international in nature (which is what really makes it all fly) and launched with not just one but 5 different spots to be aired during the Olympics where you get more international eyeballs than any other venue at one time.

Bravo BDM. Bravo United. Bravo Marketing Team. I’m on board. It’s time to fly!

(for more on the teams and intent behind each of the commercials go here and to see the rest of the new ads go here).

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(Adam Pretty/Getty Images for Boston.com)

The Chinese Olympic Opening in Beijing was full of symbolism, art, history, and choreography as well as technology, but mostly it was full of lots of people performing minute details that added up to masterful feats of synchronized movement that in turn became a feast for the eyes.

(Jeff Gross/Getty Images for Boston.com)

I am hard put to say which one of these beautifully choreographed movements was my personal favorite. That said, the above image which referred to how the Chinese invented silk and reminded us of how they were into trade long before their nation burst onto the scene in the latter part of the 20th century may have come close. Their nation is rich in history and culture and have had a sometimes unseen as well as unparalleled impact on the rest of the world.

While this opening was a tremendous undertaking and powerfully well executed my takeaway is yes, their richest resource is its people who can do amazingly detailed work in order to create magnificient things, but there are still a lot of problems to be solved. Now that we’ve all witnessed this at least in great numbers hopefully we can throw some weight behind it to solve them. It would seem to be worth it.

China has both extended the olive branch and thrown down the gauntlet at the same time. Anyone care to pick it up where they’ve left off? If I am referring to the next Summer Olympics, I vote for Brazil. Rio would be able to compete with this extravaganza (not so sure about Chicago). Otherwise, I leave this interpretation up to the viewer/reader.

(as a final word on the opening ceremony, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how far along LED lighting has come and will be with us now for some time to come after this)

(AP Photo/David Phillip for Boston.com)

For more spectacular images like these I encourage you to visit Boston.com; they’ve done a magnificient job of parlaying the images (many more than I am showing) into the powerful story China’s film director, Zhang Yimou, created.

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Do you love this look or not? This style actually satisfies my clutterphile tendencies and style yearnings at the same time (includes need for color and print)….can we pen the style clutterphilestyle?

Beyond that, I am quite excited overall about Pottery Barn’s latest fall (or should I say earliest fall) catalog. Just got it today. This is the most modern of homey statements I’ve seen yet. Well done. Bravo Pottery Barn! Their prints and colors are spot on, they’ve finally given some pizazz to their dark furniture by adding bold bright and graphic prints (some floral but very sophis).

Tell me they’ve got a new creative director, yes?

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