Influx Insights Weblog

starck goes for reality

Influx Insights — 2009-09-22T13:56:44Z

Philippe Starck has turned into an educator. The infamous designer best known for his work from the 80s and early 90s, has his own reality show, Design for Life, on The BBC, where he takes unknown talent and puts them through the typical competitive twists and turns.

The winning prize, a 6 month internship at this Paris studio.

It's clear from the onset that Starck is not interested in the obvious and literal, he's searching for creative leaps and insight. Surprisingly, this appears to be lacking from many of the show's contestants.

Design for Life from design on Vimeo.

Posted by Ed Cotton

influx curated speaker- emily pilloton- project h

Influx Insights — 2009-06-03T10:40:19Z

Dwell has a great interview with Emily Pilloton, one of our speakers at next week's Influx Curated Conference.

Emily is the force behind the Project H initiative, which encourages designers to work for social good and the author of a new book on industrial design.

Posted by Ed Cotton

brilliant design thinking from shigeru ban

Influx Insights — 2009-05-01T14:28:30Z

The design world is under fire, for many its seen as frivolous and unsustainable.

This environment is tough for those involved in categories like furniture to respond.

However, the Finnish company, Artek had a brilliant response to the current environment delivered by Shigeru Ban.

At the furniture show in Milan, Ban unveiled his 10 unit modular furniture system.

There are three reasons why it's great.

1. It's made from sustainable material- UPM (made from wood and recycled plastic)

2. It's modular and allows the user to build it themselves

3. It's easily to disassemble for transportation

Posted by Ed Cotton

reframing the luxury brand

Influx Insights — 2009-04-28T15:39:35Z

Luxury brands have a big image problem on their hands and urgently need to re-position themselves to be relevant. They need to search deep within themselves to unlock the "truth" that set them apart.

At the recent furniture fair in Milan, Fendi made a step forward in the right direction.

It took over a space, brought in truck loads of scrap material and invited a dozen industrial designers to make objects live.

For the opinion leaders Milan attracts, it was a good way for Fendi to immerse itself in the craft of making and to push against the frivolity of its fashion image.

Expect to see more luxury brands getting to grips with the substance over style story in coming months.

Posted by Ed Cotton

an experience into global culture

Influx Insights — 2009-01-05T14:42:53Z

The Double Club in London is an exercise in the fusion of different forms of entertainment and culture around a single location.

The club is only open for a total of 6 months, but allows visitors to experience the Congo through its music, food (pigs trotters, goat stew and conger eels for example), and art.

To make the contrast even more striking, visitors can alternate between The Congo and more traditional/expected Western club, art and restaurant experiences.

Of course, this is to ingenious to be a truly commercial concern and instead is the result of a collaboration between Fondazione Prada and the artist Carsten Holler.

Posted by Ed Cotton

breakthrough business card

Influx Insights — 2008-12-16T13:49:08Z

looking in new and different places- dj frank

Influx Insights — 2008-08-03T23:18:09Z

DJ Frank is a New York-based DJ and like any good DJ, he is on a constant quest to discover new sounds.

The difference is that he's not content with digging in old record stores and flea markets in the US, instead he travels to West Africa to find records, before they get destroyed.

This new documentary chronicles his journey.

Posted by Ed Cotton

is a phone the new watch?

Influx Insights — 2008-04-07T22:33:23Z

It must be pretty tough playing in the watch market these days.

Most people under the age of 30 are using their mobile phones as a replacement and aren't even wearing a watch at all.

At first glance, it appears this might be what TAG Heuer is thinking with the launch of its new phone.

However, instead of trying to appeal to the teen and twenty something crowd, the luxury watch maker's new phone costs around $6,000 and is going for the niche uber luxury market.

It remains to be seen how other players in the watch market respond.

Do the luxury brands extend their brands into a new category?

Where would that leave Nokia's Vertu?

Do the lower cost manufacturers move into the low cost phone business?

Could they compete with Sony and Nokia?

Posted by Ed Cotton

h&m sets a new course

Influx Insights — 2008-03-17T11:38:08Z

The well-known Swedish fashion company H&M enters a new phase. H&M always followed the same route: cheap trendy fashion. Now they enter a new phase. By buying the upcoming Swedish fashion company Fabric Scandinavien (behind brands like Sunday Sun , Cheap Monday . HM enters a new role as a venture capitalist. Before HM had to produce products to get revenues, now (with acquisitions) they have to control the portfolio of stocks.

This could be a boring, dangerous and reactive way to go. Before they were forced to lead and forge a path, now they can just look and follow. In the long run, this could be a problem: when you fall back and get satisfied, the world around seems to fade away.

The acquisition strategy marks a shift from H&M’s old approach of launching sub brands (or rather sub companies in another category such as COS

Where will it end for H&M? Will it become the new PPR ?

By Claes Foxerus. You can find more writing from Claes here. He’s also the co-founder and editor of The David Report . And, for those of you looking for Swedish Planning connections Claes is the man, he is the co-founder and secretary of the Swedish APG.

Posted by Ed Cotton

new prada store in san francisco

Influx Insights — 2008-02-12T14:58:32Z

Posted by Ed Cotton

ralph lauren creates a nostalgic dream for jc penny

Influx Insights — 2008-02-12T11:05:03Z

Department stores have been trying for years to turn their private label offerings into real brands.

Most attempts have failed because they are just names with no deeper meanings making it impossible for them to compete with the genuine article.

JC Penny clearly understood the weakness in this approach and went outside to the brand master, Ralph Lauren to create its latest offering, American Living.

What's interesting about this concept, is although it has touches of Lauren's style all over it, he's created another world for the department store. Lauren's past success has been driven by the clever balancing act between present and past, His ideas were classical, but they were always believable in a contemporary context.

American Living is different, it's unabashed in highlighting the past as its inspiration. The web site suggests that the concept is anchored around the General Store and is rooted in a time when American's were practical, had a sense of humor and dreamed of a better life. This is no daily commute from the suburbs.

It's fascinating to see such a shift to the past in a country that's usually so wrapped up in the future.

Something has changed and perhaps the future no longer looks so bright.

In such a world, we are going to cling to the icons of the past for re-assurance and confirmation of who we are and where we stand.

American Living is just one example of the nostalgia for the past that America is now craving in everything from its cars to its politicians.

It's a force that cannot be ignored.

Posted by Ed Cotton

spike jonze for lakai

Influx Insights — 2008-02-11T23:30:45Z

Spike's played with fire and skateboards, now he goes one step beyond.

Posted by Ed Cotton

why didn't the gap think of this?

Influx Insights — 2007-11-22T16:20:20Z

Uniqlo continues to push the envelope - mixing utility clothing with cool brands, art and ideas.

This time it's a partnership with Pantone for cashmere sweaters.

Posted by Ed Cotton

tokyo: design week and beyond

Influx Insights — 2007-11-15T17:08:28Z

One of our designers at BSSP, Vince Montelongo, just got back from Tokyo. He attended Design Week and took shots of other interesting stuff.

Here are his photos.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Posted by Ed Cotton

brands and private label clash at the department store

Influx Insights — 2007-11-01T08:52:52Z

Fortune has a good story about VF's Nautica brand, which seems to be having some trouble competing with department store brands and the category leader Polo.

VF has long adopted a strategy of acquiring brands with limited distribution and leveraging its muscle at a department store level, to grow them. It now looks like this strategy is coming undone. Department stores are in love with the margins that private label can achieve and some have even gone out to seek the services of Ralph Lauren to help them develop their own-label brands.

This makes life tough for VF, it can no longer rely on department store distribution as a given and has to invest in building these acquired brands through broad scale communication and brand experiences.

Fortune, even notes one of Nautica's major weaknesses is that it has no stand-alone stores and I noticed it doesn't yet have e-commerce on its website, although this is coming in 08.

Posted by Ed Cotton