Pushing the envelope with trendsetting ideas

Pushing the envelope with trendsetting ideas
Elsje Designs creates fun & functional gifts, stationery and table decor with a true South African touch

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Saturday, July 14, 2012

Yellow is the new pink

Yellow is my favourite colour.





Is it me or is it happening?

Of course, I was just following a hunch when saying that yellow would be the new pink, yet I do seem to see more and more yellow in detail as well as in bigger pieces of fashion and design – even as a colour for scooters and cars. Yellow seems to resonate with today’s current mentality, searching for a break from pessimism, radiating co...nfidence and glowing health and wealth.

As discussed last week, the arrival of mustard is changing our taste palette and style palette all at the same time; distributing tanginess in our salads, soups and sauces and a range of strange warm colours from light brown to bright yellow to yellow-green. This week I would like to discuss honey, which also seems to be an important ingredient on its way to becoming a mega trend. With the current bee scare (where we see bees endangered and disappearing at an alarming scale), it is only natural that honey becomes a luxury too.

With our countryside monopolised by industrial farming, biodiversity is in danger, causing beehives to die and bee colonies to dwindle. The cynical truth engrained in the condemning of an instrument of our own survival is telling of the power of greed over the basic intelligent management of our planet. Without bees no food, without food no survival; thus we are toying with the livelihood of our species just by dedicating land to the feeding of poor animals, destined to be industrialised for the mass consumption of tasteless hamburgers.

Therefore it is sort of a relief to know that bees are swarming to join us in the world’s big cities since bee biodiversity is now greater within the urban context – a strange reversal of fortune where our bees feed in our parks, rooftops, balconies and urban gardens, accessing plants, flowers and herbs from the four corners of the world as accumulated by us modern nomads. These urban bees are very happy to transform their exotic finds into fusions for new kinds of honey.

Thus the beehives atop the luxury brand buildings and major world bank edifices are doing well enough to presume that we will soon see Vuitton Honey and Hermès Royal Jelly from their own farms. Bringing us different honey colours to be used also as the nicest colourcards for their leather goods and scarves.

Biodiversity beauty!

To be continued…

Lidewij Edelkoort

Monday, July 2, 2012

fabulous (calligraphy) fonts

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I am seriously in awe by callgraphy and therefor also calligraphy style fonts. These fabulous fonts by the one-woman foundry called Emily Lime. Based in Greenville, SC, this brand new font company managed to score one best-seller after another these past six months. The energetic Southern Belle in charge of the operation has made fonts in a range of styles, but capricious scripts are what she does best. Her peacefully named Bombshell Pro is at the top of our Hot New Fonts list as we speak. And while her alphabets are nonchalant and untamed, the underlying font technology is smart and nifty. Emily Conners is a newcomer with a punch.