Barneys Retail Theatre

Barney’s New York launched their latest fashion range (and accompanying window displays) with an interesting piece of ‘performance art’ by fashion icon Daphne Guinesse. At 5pm local time, one of the Barneys windows turned into a changing room in which Daphne Guinesse changed into one of her outfits before leaving for the prestigious Metropoliton Museum’s Costume Gala event.

The performance was filmed and streamed live. It’s a great piece of retail theatre with an engaging back story - one of the most effective ways to launch a new line:

The e2 Amazing Race

For our quarterly creative day in March, our internals teams staged their own version of "The Amazing Race". Armed with a camera and designated colour, each team was released from the Paddington office with four hours to complete a checklist of findings across the eastern suburbs.

The objective? Quality, not quantity. The more unusual a team's photographs, the more points they would be awarded. There were no restrictions to any one area. Let the team with the best photos win...

With the highest number of creative, bizarre, embarrassing and sometimes dangerous photos, our interiors department team came out on top.

As a result, we now have 197 team photos we will never be able to show anyone. Here are a selected few ...

The Future of Advertisements

With an audience increasingly disengaged by the usual bombardment of advertising and promotions, a few forward-thinking brands are developing ways to entertain, as well as inform. From the use of projection mapping to living billboards and 3D print methods, we applaud those brands who employ innovation, rather than scale or quantity, to attract our attention.

Cargo Container Housing

Cargo container house plans have come a long way since people first started thinking of ways to to make these industrial boxes work as habitable spaces. While they have always be eco-friendly insofar as they recycle used shipping containers, they have evolved not only along stylistic but also sustainable directions.

Illusive Environments

For the Fall 2010 Collection, Diesel wanted to create a dynamic and architectural model entrance utilizing metallic and reflective surfaces that would appear to emerge from the vast white-washed cinderblock venue wall.

A Museum for the Old and New

We have been following the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania since its opening in January this year. Designed and funded by David Walsh, MONA exhibits his own favourites from around the world and visitors can enter free of charge.

There are no labels on any of the artworks, instead visitors are given a touch screen MP3 player which can detect where it is in the building and tells you what artworks are nearby; you can read or listen to information about them.

The pieces are laid out in a way that feels uncoordinated; ancient Egyptian mummies are displayed alongside modern multimedia works. This is to show the art works as art, not as a chronological collection of a history of art.

Suspendable Sculpture

Janet Echelman’s 230-foot-long aerial sculpture “1.26” suspends from the roof of the 7-story Denver Art Museum above downtown street traffic to commemorate the inaugural Biennial of the Americas:



Echelman drew inspiration from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s announcement that the February 2010 Chile earthquake shortened the length of the earth’s day by 1.26 microseconds by slightly redistributing the earth’s mass.



Because this monumental sculpture is made entirely of soft materials, it is animated by the wind. Its fluidly moving form contrasts with the rigid surfaces of the surrounding urban architecture. At night, colored lighting transforms the work into a floating, luminous form while darkness conceals the support cables.

‘The Business and Design Mind’

The design and business mind share more in common than many would believe. The perception of the business mind as financially-driven, pragmatic and clinical is founded on our collective experience. From this position, there is little that the design and business minds share in common. However, on deeper investigation there are some key similarities. In these instances it would wise for both business and design minds to apply learnings from each other. This interactive presentation will examine the skills that designers exhibit, namely the ability to simultaneously think on multiple levels in devising a plethora of solutions and in the process determining the best solution from those proposed. During this session, David will lead attendees through a practical exercise which demonstrates the marked differences between these two minds and how both can benefit from understanding each other.

David Grant E2 strategist presents ‘The Business and Design Mind’ at the Brain Art Exhibition, on March 9, 2011 (Free Entry).

12:30 – 2:00
Global Gallery
5 Comber Street
Paddington 2021
Australia

Tickets are $85, but free entry is available as a special offer to e2 blog readers. Get in touch with david@e-2.com.au if you are interested!

American Design Heroes

Form and function. Vision and pragmatism. Agitators and conformists. Wednesday, March 3rd at the American Club Sydney, Alex Ritchie and furniture expert, Alan Boyd, will discuss the impact of three iconic American design heroes: Harley Earl and Charles and Ray Eames.



Click here for tickets.

Projected Experience

Mr. Beam transforms an entirely white room using 3D mapping, two projectors and a garish colour scheme. Patterns aside, the blank canvas and infinite variety of interior designs present intriguing possibilities within the concept of a completely transient experience:

Living Room from Mr.Beam on Vimeo.