Creative Cloud

Renaissance of Holland’s greatest museum

Michel Cruz - Manifesto — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:12:55 +0000

Paris has the Louvre, London the National Gallery, Madrid the Prado…and Amsterdam the Rijksmuseum. First opened in The Hague in 1800, the museum was moved to Amsterdam in 1808 and settled into the iconic palace designed by Cuypers in 1885, … Continue reading →

Seriously cute – Nissan Figaro

Michel Cruz - Manifesto — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 08:12:40 +0000

Normally I would – with all due respect – not regard Nissan as a maker of particularly stylish cars. Functional and utilitarian, yes, but desirable for its own sake, seldom. There are some notable examples, however, and the Nissan Figaro is one of the funkiest and most memorable of all. I suppose the fact that this is a retro car says as much about me as it does about the car, but given its popularity and subsequent cult status I am obviously not alone in seeing its appeal. Originally appearing in 1991, the apparent risk of launching a 1960s lookalike in the early 90s was soon dispelled. Sure, Nissan had received a healthy collection of reservation signatures at the 1989 Tokyo Motor Show and subsequent events, but even they could not have envisaged the wave of nostalgia that this model would ride – and indeed help create. Continue reading →

Winning business strategies for tough times

Michel Cruz - Manifesto — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:57:54 +0000

Times are tough. We’ve seen a macroeconomic downturn, Wall Street crash, financial crisis and public debt disaster play out before our eyes as one domino pushed the other in rapid succession. Much of the focus is on the Euro zone, but it is a malaise shared by most developed countries, the US and Japan included, which has now also stunted growth in the developing world. The latter will soon return to growth, but for us the problem is that there isn’t much scope for growth left in the developed world. Sure, we can try and latch on to the momentum of the emerging countries and sell them capital goods and high-tech services, but before long they will be selling those back at us, as they have done with their cheap consumer products. The main hope, therefore, lies in innovation both technological and commercial. Continue reading →

A feast for the eye – designer hotels

Michel Cruz - Manifesto — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 09:57:30 +0000

Designer brands have cashed in on our obsession with design and the desire to be surrounded by beautiful things, but a new generation of architects, interior and industrial designers, landscapers and hoteliers have collaborated to revolutionise the hotel industry too and offer today’s traveller a veritable smorgasbord of stylish options. Often referred to as boutique hotels, they have emerged across the globe, acting in contrast to the uniformity of large urban chain hotels and attempting to blend into and celebrate their surroundings, both natural and cultural, as they offer visitors a very personal service within a stylish setting. From Soho and Sydney to Penang and Palermo, these individualistic venues are usually run by people who bring to their auberges not only a sense of décor but also a relaxing setting in which to contemplate the beauty that surrounds. Continue reading →

A London Landmark

Michel Cruz - Manifesto — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:48:01 +0000

Inaugurated as the Great Central Hotel in 1899, The Landmark London was the last great Victorian railway hotel, and remains a living monument to that halcyon era of elegance and style. In over a century, hotel and structure alike have made their mark on the city – not just as a well-known architectural landmark, but also establishing a place for itself in the rich tapestry of London’s recent past. Continue reading →

Cradle to cradle – Remaking the way we make things: Part ll

Michel Cruz - Manifesto — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:10:59 +0000

Eco-effectiveness McDonough and Braungart do not see greater efficiency of raw material use as a real solution because it simply slows down the process of depletion and pollution, but doesn’t really break the negative production cycle and replace it with a sustainable one. Their leap outside the box involves looking at the whole process of production, consuming and waste disposal in an ‘eco-effective’ way. They believe we should shed the old concept of efficiency and replace it with one of effectiveness: an eco-efficient building is a big energy-saver, sealed tight to avoid heat loss and leakage, which would make it use more energy or water to achieve the same ends. It likewise lowers temperatures with dark-tinted windows that help reduce the workload – and energy consumption – of the air-conditioning system. Being more energy-efficient means lower bills and less pollution, creating a double-whammy in which you do the right thing and save money. Continue reading →

Creative Cloud is turning pages

Michel Cruz - Manifesto — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:40:02 +0000

Creative Cloud and Delft Highlights created a newspaper for the city about the technological innovations from the Technological University Delft. Delft possesses a lovely landscape of canals and Delft Blue earthenware as well as ties within the Dutch royal family. An additional magazine layout by CreativeCloud was for Surinam Airlines inflight magazine. The airline was first established in order to connect small towns across Suriname and is owned by the Surinamese government. They contain articles about Suriname and on-flight shopping. Continue reading →

Cradle to cradle – Remaking the way we make things: Part l

Michel Cruz - Manifesto — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:15:10 +0000

Our world is increasingly built upon a pile of junk. In fact, ever since the onset of the mass-production and mass-consumption era, with its mass-marketed brands and the onslaught of cheap, readily available synthetic materials, the world has become increasingly inundated with junk. We are aware that factories, cars and power plants pollute, but seldom take into account how much of this is directly contributed to by us as consumers. We crave goods, go out and buy them, rip off the inevitable plastic layering, consume or use the product and eventually dump it somewhere. Not knowing where it all ends up, we happily dump and defer responsibility to the manufacturers, who defer responsibility to our political leaders, whose only solution is to hold environmental conferences once a decade, impose new taxes and raise the charge for collection of said rubbish. Continue reading →

Rock and Roll is here to stay!

Michel Cruz - Manifesto — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:37:56 +0000

For what is a rock star primarily renowned? Well, apart from their blazing onstage performances, many of the music business's biggest names are equally famous for the myriad creative ways that they trashed their hotel rooms. In the glory days of Led Zeppelin, drummer John Bonham memorably rode a motorbike along the corridors of Los Angeles' Continental Hyatt House, thus securing the establishment's somewhat louche reputation. Those of a sensitive disposition should be advised that the motorbike incident was one of the more repeatable stunts pulled by Robert Plant and friends, whose famously over-the-top on tour lifestyle set the gold standard for rock 'n roll excess. Continue reading →

Endless garlands of flowers

Michel Cruz - Manifesto — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:35:10 +0000

Curled around the borders of my note pads when I was a schoolgirl. And thousands of roses were cut out from my mother’s gardening books. At the Academy of Arts, flowers as large as life were painted on my canvasses. There were always flowers. They flourished in the self-portraits of the eighties and grew bigger in the flower wallpapers made in the nineties. Continue reading →