This week we greet the fall equinox (or the Harvest Festival of Dionysus) with a return to traditional Seattle weather (rain, rain and more rain). Celebrate with a glass of wine and the best paper crafts the Internet has to offer. Or, you know, perhaps just the wine. Your call.
3. Permissibly Indulge in a Bento Snack
Enjoy!
Last weekend we pointed our browsers towards Apartment Therapy for some much-needed design inspiration. Our walls have been looking a little on the dreary side lately and we've found ourselves desperately searching for all the attention-grabbing patterns that spring has to offer.
Imagine our delight when we happened upon these photos of the train car IKEA decked out in celebration of their new location in Kobe, Japan. While the color pop of fabric chosen for the installation would be a little hard on our sleepy eyes first thing in the morning, the design insures that commuters can’t ignore this superbly executed experiential advertising. Give us a fabric be-decked train car over an ad-wrapped bus any day. Also, those seats look pretty darn comfortable.
This is not the first time we’ve noticed IKEA’s flare for site-specific advertising. In 2006 Seattleites were treated to the IKEA-sponsored Experimental Housing Project at the Bumbershoot music and arts festival. The interactive exhibition (or Living Art Advertising as one company likes to label it) featured several structures, designed by local artists and outfitted by IKEA. Festival goers were provided with perfect photo-ops, pleasing visual landscapes and much-welcomed spaces to rest their tired bones. 
IKEA is one of many companies to increasingly use functional advertising as a unique way to draw attention to products and services. Through site-specific events and promotions consumers are able to engage with brands in meaningful ways that fulfill their needs. Take for example the Charmin Restrooms located in New York City during the holiday season. For two consecutive runs Proctor and Gamble has provided clean facilities and bathroom products to busy shoppers including luxury seating areas and baby changing stations.
Interactive, experience-based advertising takes consumers beyond a free sample or in-store demonstration to a memorable and helpful encounter facilitated by a brand.
IKEA’s colorful train is simply one example of an effective way of building brand presence without inundating consumers with advertising.
We’re still waiting for unique prints and seating to reach our own public transport. In the meantime, though, we’ll head to our local Ikea to see what’s new in the fabric department. Those walls won’t color themselves!
Still have some extra cardboard kicking around from the holidays? Having a bit of a seating crisis? Unable to reach the top shelf of the pantry? Have a point to make but no soapbox in sight?
Do not fret, foldschool is here to help.
Foldschool provides a selection of free downloadable patterns for making cardboard furniture of your very own. The designs will hold up to wear and tear and are perfect for kids.
Not confident in your construction skills? Cardboard furniture is available for purchase here. However, if dropping 2498.75 Swedish kronors (that's 390 US bucks) on a recliner takes you back a bit, you'd be best advised to roll up your sleeves and start folding.
With Thanksgiving rapidly approaching, many hungry pilgrims are dreaming of the ambrosia salads and vegetable gelatin molds of yore. Looking to put a new spin on an old favorite? Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to present turkey gelatin:
Ingredients:
One large, 6 ounce box of peach or watermelon flavored gelatin. (Use any flavor, if a flesh tone is not desired)
Six ounces of lite evaporated skimmed milk (99.5% fat free).
Oil Cooking Spray (to lubricate the plastic mold)
Green food coloring
Instructions:
Time and again, Flickr proves itself as a go-to resource for innovative photography on the web. With near-perfect search functions and organizational features, Flickr boasts a devoted community of users with diverse talents and interests.
Here are three photo sets worth exploring:
1. Faces in Places (and blog)
3. The Art of the Business Card
BRDA's Hood Chair provides a much needed seating solution for those who've forgotten their hats.
Magazine holder? Nap-time convenience item? Quick cocktail party disguise? The Hood Chair does it all. The only thing missing? A dock for your iPod.
Just in case you've been living in a hole since December, Apple is set to release the iPhone this evening. Mac enthusiasts and opportunity seekers young and old are waiting with bated breath, many having been camped out in front of Mac motherships across the country for the past week. Their reward? The ultra-anticipated status symbol of the year.
Craigslist posts abound with titles like, Will wait in line for you! iPhone $125 and, our favorite, Homeless crew will wait for iPhone $50 (apparently, they're also willing to sit in exchange for cigarettes). Ebay is pulling auctions for the yet-to-be purchased phones left and right. If fast-food restaurant openings have taught us anything, it's that folks will wait in line for pretty much everything, if only to turn a profit or boast the golden ticket of being first in a crowd of many, in this case ten million.
We're hoping beyond hope that when the clock strikes six, Steve Jobs himself will descend from the heavens, an iPhone in each hand (adhering to the two-per-person limit, of course) to personally bestow his latest technological gift upon the masses. Frankly, anything short of that would be a disappointment.
For more iDay coverage, check out a live map of the happy campers here.
A shipment of fresh meat has arrived on the alternative magazine scene. Hailing from San Francisco, Meatpaper is a "journal of meat culture." That is to say, this is not your typical publication. Think: poems about flowers made of ham rather than tips for basting and roasting. A few of our favorite articles from issue zero include the documentation of a pig slaughter in Italy and the musings of one self-described "shameless carnivore." Inspired by our culture's complicated and ever-changing relationship with meat, we look forward to seeing what Meatpaper serves up in the future.
For those of you perpetually on the go but still etiquette conscious, we
present Credit Card Cutlery.
Compatible with any wallet, these petite and convenient utensils are currently being sold by the design-minded folks over at Cooper-Hewitt.
Starting a pantry in your purse? The set pairs well with a sprouting business card. Keep harboring condiment packets and you'll have yourself a salad in no time!
(via Boing Boing)
Is the cost of modern living getting you down? Do you find yourself unable to afford even the most humble of abodes? Are you a nomad? If you answered "yes" to any of the previous questions, you might be interested in constructing your very own portable micro home. They DIY zeitgeist has manifested itself in the form of movable housing modules. Providing transitory "social constellations" 
suitable for both land and sea, micro homes can be easily constructed by, "anybody that knows how to weld."
Does metal work make you nervous? Are you design conscious? Then the m-ch may better suit your needs. Guaranteed for up to five years, the m-ch is sold as a fully-recyclable temporary living space. As the structure is made of aluminum, "it is possible to clad the m-ch temporarily with a heavy-duty graphic film." Never before have individuals been able to coordinate their cellphones, laptops, iPods and dwellings so seamlessly.
If you'd prefer something a little more spacious and lasting, IKEA is currently applying the concept of modular green housing to several projects across Europe. The appropriately named BokLok structures (Swedish for "live smart") were initially designed to provide functional, minimalist homes for lower income families.
While the m-ch and the BokLok are not yet available in the US, there are plans to introduce them shortly. Without the collective acceptance of the "less is more" mantra, their potential for success is undetermined.
(via Digg, TreeHugger)
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