Decadence Bicycle Chain Rings
Design:
Client: Race Face
Date: 2011
Add comment January 22nd, 2012
Metalwork
Taxali Coins
Design: Gary Taxali
Client: Royal Canadian Mint
Date: 2012
“Toronto contemporary visual artist and award-winning illustrator Gary Taxali has collaborated with the Royal Canadian Mint to create a series of six celebratory coins to feature in its 2012 gift sets, covering the themes of Birthday, Wedding, Tooth Fairy, New Baby, O Canada and Holiday (which will be released later this year). The Taxali-designed coins are a departure from the Mint’s usual coin designs, with a edgy, vintage yet contemporary style. The words “25 Cents,” “2012” and “Canada” are depicted on the coins in Taxali’s font called Chumply. This is the first time the Mint has allowed an artist to change the typography on coins”.
Peter Giffen
Add comment January 20th, 2012
Angel Ornaments and Tree Topper
Design: Cristina Covello
Client: The Good Work Co.
Date: 2011
A set of ornaments, constructed out of tins cans by a social design project in Vancouver called The Good Work Co. and designer Cristina Covello. The project works to make socially responsible products by repurposing waste materials. Doing good with the resources we have…great project!
1 comment December 16th, 2011
Enameled Silver Plate
Design: Monique Drolet-Côté
Client: self-initiated
Date: 1960s
“Monique Drolet-Côté, one of Canada’s foremost enamellists, studied at Georg Jensen in Copenhagen, Denmark, around 1960.” (Allan Collier, The Modern Eye: Craft and Design in Canada 1940-1980)
Add comment December 16th, 2011
Lucky Iron Fish
Design: Christopher Charles
Client: University of Guelph, The International Development Research Centre in Ottawa, and the Canadian Institute of Health Research
Date: 2011
Starting with a challenging problem…a medical issue deep in the jungle where 60 per cent of Cambodian women face premature labour, hemorrhaging during childbirth and poor brain development among their babies all due to simple anemia, or a lack of iron. The solution was pretty obvious, throw a piece of iron into a cooking pot, but how would this be done?
“We knew some random piece of ugly metal wouldn’t work . . . so we had to come up with an attractive idea, it became a challenge in social marketing. The research team tried a small circle of iron. The women wouldn’t use it. They crafted iron shaped like a lotus flower. The women didn’t like that either. But when Charles’ team came up with a piece of iron shaped like a local river fish believed to be lucky…bingo. Women were happy to place it in their cooking pots and in the months that followed, the iron levels in the village climbed. We designed it about 3″ long, small enough to be stirred easily but large enough to provide up to about 75 per cent of the daily iron requirement,” said Charles. They found a local scrap metal worker who could make them for $1.50 each, and so far they have been reusing the fish roughly three years. The iron fish is incredibly powerful.”
3 comments December 2nd, 2011
First Chair Series
Design: Roy Mackey
Client: Flaming Steel
Date: 1985
Add comment December 2nd, 2011
Silhouette Cutlery Series
Design: Anneke Van Bommel
Client:
Date: 2010
Add comment November 23rd, 2011
“Monument for East Vancouver” PennySmash
Design: Ken Lum
Client: PennySmash
Date: 2011
“Monument for East Vancouver is a nod to the street image circulated in East Vancouver for decades. The image has multiple associations, including religion and irreverence, and is an assertion of eastside identity.”
Ken Lum, beloved Vancouver artist, former head of the studio art graduate program at University of British Columbia, professor in Paris, Munich, San Francisco and Hangzhou. Curator, editor, published author, and exhibited at Biennales around the globe. Creator of the Monument for East Vancouver erected at the corner of East 6th Avenue at Clark Drive, Ken Lum now brings his iconic piece to your pocket.
When you purchase the Ken Lum penny you will be contributing to BC Children’s Hospital.
1 comment November 4th, 2011
“Flip” PennySmash*
Design: Jerszy Seymour
Client: PennySmash
Date: 2011
“Let fate help you decide, just flip the coin.”
Long an expat in Europe, Jerszy Seymour has roots in Vancouver and is rumoured to have been named after the local Mount Seymour. Living in London, Berlin and Milan, Seymour has produced work characterized by fun, wit, humour and innovative use of materials and has exhibited at the Vitra Design Museum and Pompidou Center among others. He has designed for Swatch, Perrier, and Magis and now this PennySmash penny, which aims to help you make up your mind.
*This is a rare two-sided press.
1 comment November 3rd, 2011
“Button” PennySmash
Design: Natalie Purschwitz
Client: PennySmash
Date: 2011
Photo: Bob Kronbauer
“I like to use wearables as a starting point. This design is a pattern to make your own squished penny buttons.”
Seeking out spaces between art and design, performance and daily life, Natalie’s work begins at the intersection of human needs and gratuitous objects. Founder of the clothing line Hunt & Gather, the Makeshift Project, and Thing to Thing, Natalie has shown work around the world. Always smashing boundaries, she proves even a penny can be transformed from currency to fastener and accessory.
Add comment November 2nd, 2011
