Today’s CreativeMornings/NewYork with Charles Renfro was generously hosted by Park Here, a gallery turned indoor park. It was packed and seriously fantastic. What a fun venue! A big giant thank you to the team at Open House Gallery for hosting us. Here’s a short video about the space and the idea behind it all:

Parke Here is only open for a few more days. They are starting to break it all down on the 15th, next week. If you’re in NYC, make sure to stop by asap.

ParkHere.info

“From my experience, you can’t wait around to find what you love. You gotta work your ass off. And then you find what you love by doing piles and piles of work.”
- Kate Bingaman Burt

Kate Bingaman Burt, Illustrator speaking at CreativeMornings/Portland (*watch the talk)

I just backed LINX over on Kickstarter. It’s is a super simple toy that will most certainly unleash your inner architect. All you need is lots of LINX and lots of drinking straws.

Kid-in is a brand-new online magazine for the diverse perspectives of a wide range of international and local designers and photographers, artists and thinkers, focusing on the singular subject of childhood.

Brooklynites: They have their launch party on february 16th at the Invisible Dog.

TANTO is not your normal bean bag. It’s giant and magical – the perfect place to read (and write) fairy tales. TANTO is manufactured in Italy and you can place an order on Etsy! #wishlisted

The original Pennsylvania Station was razed in 1963. (Collection of the New-York Historical Society, negative number 59044)

A passionate NYTimes article addressing the calamity that is Penn Station:

“To pass through Grand Central Terminal, one of New York’s exalted public spaces, is an ennobling experience, a gift. To commute via the bowels of Penn Station, just a few blocks away, is a humiliation.

What is the value of architecture? It can be measured, culturally, humanely and historically, in the gulf between these two places.”

Restore a Gateway to Dignity, by Michael Kimmelman

(via @kbAndersen)

Instagram by Douglas Wray

I tweeted this a few days ago. Made me smile.

Linen Closets, Traverse City State Hospital, Michigan

Patient Toothbrushes, Hudson River State Hospital, New York

Bathtub, Fairfield State Hospital, Connecticut

Autopsy Theater, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, DC

I just spent way too much time on Christopher Payne’s site, staring at photos of abandoned asylums and hospitals. Fascinating.

(Thank you Sarah)

The EUScreen site is an astounding digital archive aiming to preserve Europe’s television heritage, 1900-present.

(via @dwell)

Here’s a useful post over on Apartment Therapy on how to get rid of those gray scratch marks on plates.

“Respond to emails with as few words as possible. Aim for a sentence, but if just a word will do, use it.* It will take practice, and some might dislike it. I argue that this is a fair trade for getting more time to work (and live) productively.”

But I of course fear that my short reply will come across as rude. What is better: Getting a brief reply or none at all? Maybe Five Sentences is a good middle ground.

The above video is embedded in a fantastic post on work-life balance over on Deliberatism.

(via @Aarron)

Kaleidoism turns your browser into customizable Kaleidoscope! #somuchfun

Little tip, after the image is loaded, click on it and move your mouse around and mouse hover the bottom of the browser window to bring the controls back.

(Thank you Tony)

Lovely Melissa Easton has an entire post dedicated to creating vintage 3 dimensional shapes out of paper. I found Le Cheval (The Horse) particularly charming, in a very analog way. She found them over at the amazing Agence Eureka.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Taken from this Guardian Article, via Jay Parkinson.

This is quite an impressive chart on animal longevity. Go turtles!

(via Maria)

Jay Parkinson and his team just launched Sherpaa, an around the clock email and phone access to friendly, NYC-based doctors (or Guides as they call them). Whenever you have a health question or concern, they’re here for you. And they play nicely with the insurance you’ve got.

For now, they’re focusing on working exclusively with tumblr employees but will soon be signing up other NYC-based companies. If you’re interested in joining Sherpaa, let them know. I am!

Jay gave an interesting CreativeMornings talk in 2010, in which he explains how he wants to change health care with help of technology and design. Worth watching.

“When my correspondents reproach me for tardiness, I can only say that I give as much atten­tion to a letter as I do to anything I write, and I work at least six and sometimes sixteen hours a day.”
~ William S. Burroughs

(via Brain Pickings)

I saw my friend Chris Glass tweet about his project of finding duplicate files on his computer over the weekend. Being the queen of multiple backups and duplicates I reached out and asked for more info.

Here’s a LONG REPLY tweet he just sent my way. He compared 3 applications to tackle the issue: dupeGuru, Araxis Find Duplicates Files and TidyUp2.

He ended up liking dupeGuru the best. Here are his findings.

How seriously cool is this Pixel-y Pop-Up Card? Click here for Full instructions and printable templates! See full instructions over at Mini Eco.

I fully agree with Fred Wilson’s post from 2009 on email intro etiquette:

“When introducing two people who don’t know each other, ask each of them to opt-in to the introduction before making it.” – Fred Wilson

The Double Opt-In Introduction

(thanks Cameron)

This Brooklyn Beta video made my day. Thank you @boltron!

Brooklyn Beta is a fantastic conference organized by my studiomates Cameron and Chris. Brooklyn Beta is my twitter stream come to live. A small group of incredibly talented, smart and *friendly* folks.

A Book Apart publishes highly detailed and meticulously edited examinations of single topics. We produce brief books of about 100 pages—the perfect size in terms of subject depth and coverage for topics like HTML5, CSS3, content strategy, responsive web design, and more. The goal of every title in our catalog is to shed clear light on a tricky subject, and do it fast, so you can get back to work. Look for Mike Monteiro’s much-anticipated book, Design Is a Job, this April.

(Interested in sponsoring a week of my RSS feed, learn more here.)

I find this MRI cross section of leg muscles utterly fascinating (and sobering).

(via JayParkinson)

It’s that time of the year again: Nerd Valentine! YES!

Aboard the New York City Startup Bus.

Imagine this: You and a team of strangers, on a bus, traveling at 60 miles per hour, have 72 hours to conceive, build and launch a startup. That’s StartupBus in a nutshell.

StartupBus began life as a joke, a roadtrip starting in San Francisco with friends, but with the twist of launching a startup on arrival in Austin in time for the SxSW technology conference. Somehow though, people thought Elias Bizannes (the founder) was actually serious. A few unexpected blog articles and many emails later, he was stuck with having to now make good on his pub night promise.

StartupBus has since evolved into a competition and grew six-fold with buses departing from San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Miami. In 2011, an impressive 156 ‘buspreneurs’ participated who produced 38 different products.

Talk about turning an experiment into an international community! I can’t help but chuckle at the term Buspreneur. To become one, apply to the StartupBus.

StartupBus – what a refreshing and charming concept! Hat tip!

“If we want to really show what design is and what it can do, we need to get design elevated to the partner level. Partners have major equity stakes, real decision-making power, and are involved in product development from the beginning.” – Cameron Kozcon

A quote I keep coming back to. Taken from an A List Apart post written by my studiomate and friend Cameron Kozcon: An Important Time for Design.

Three Primary Colors is a collaboration between OK Go and Sesame Street explaining the basics of color theory in stop-motion. Try to watch this without smiling.

(via Brain Pickings)

There are *a lot* of people that would have every reason to send me that first card, on the left, ‘hi. i sent you an email. ok‘.

(via found it loved it)

“For every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.”

Economist Glen Whitman on The Two Things. Make sure to check out this collection of various Two Things. I must now think about what they are for blogging…

(via bobulate)

Thank you Erik Spiekermann, for creating this US Liquid Conversion Chart from US fluid ounces to milliliters.

My kids are completely crazy over this Free Form Magnatab Toy. They draw and write with the magnetic stylus, which raises metal balls to the surface of the sealed Magnatab base. And erase their creation by pushing the magnets back down with the back of the stylus or their fingers.

To me, it feels like taking designing for screen, pixel constraints, to the analog world.

In case you keep forgetting where you live, you might want to get a Custom Family Pillow with your address on it. Great gift for someone that just recently moved.

Next time you’re invited for dinner at a friend’s house, don’t just bring a bottle of wine, bring Corkers as well. They are a pack of adorable animal parts that turn any cork into a bunny, buffalo, bear, monkey or deer.

Repeating easy tasks again and again gets you not very far. Attacking only steep cliffs where no progress is made isn’t particularly effective either. No, the best path is an endless series of difficult (but achievable) hills.

Seth Godin’s hill approach to career development.

(via bobulate)

Your outlook is about to clear up, thanks to LOOKMATIC, the online prescription eyewear retailer that combines fashionable glasses with affordable prices.  With frames to fit any point of view, like the Jesse oversized frames for the hipster, the best-selling Andy frames for the Geek Chic, and the cat eye Marilyn frames for the retro darlings – everyone will be seeing clearer. Fancy some vintage-looking shades? They do that too. Turn any available frames into prescription sunglasses, readers or normal shades. And if you’re not sure how they’ll look, try ‘em on with ‘Virtual Try On,’ their virtual mirror.

The best part about LOOKMATIC: not only are the styles for everyone, but so are the prices. All frames are $58 alone, $88 with prescription.

(Interested in sponsoring a week of my RSS feed, learn more here.)

Readmill is a community for readers, allowing you to easily share and highlight the books you love. Read with the Readmill for App, and sync highlights from Amazon Kindle with the Readmill Bookmarklet.

This is Readmill from Readmill on Vimeo.

I love the Readmill tagline: Welcome to a world of reading.

This minimal table by Switzerland based company Colin is quite beautiful. And how fun are those random feet sticking into the photo? Made me smile.

This Cycle-Skating video, a sport of 1923, made me smile.

(via the kids should see this)