London’s Sketch restaurant continues it’s quirks with Gift Hampers
Eco-Frying Pan: I’m starting to think Holiday Gifts
Tactile Wine Bottle: Truley experience all your senses
No-Logo McDonald’s: (is that possible?!) In Tokyo anything is possible. via Core77
Organic Fast Food at Germany’s Nat
Recycline, based in Waltham, MA, has a product line called “Preserve everyday,” designed in collaboration with Evo Design and PagePD. Products, which are made from recycled #5 plastics, can be found in retailers like WholeFoods, Target, and Trader Joe’s. Find one near you.
Who ever thought that recycled goods could be so colorful!?
My very own Kor One Bottle arrived in the mail this last week! Completely rethinking the ‘bottle’ and all for one-handed use. Not to mention it’s beautifully designed by RKS Design of Thousand Oaks, CA. I love it!
Listen to Eric Barnes, Founder of Kor, in collaboration with Ravi Sawhney, CEO of RKS Design, talk about design of their BPA free resuable WaterBottle.
Buy one for about $30.
Some links in honor of tonight’s last night’s (I’m a flake sometimes!) GreenDrinks gathering:
Yup. A code to break.
-Egg Grade
-Free Range or Cage Free or Pasture Raised
-Organic
-Vegetarian Fed
-Hormones
-Omega-3
-Pasturized
the whole article at New York Times
via BoingBoing and TreeHugger
As long as people are eating beef, there will be hides to recycle that would otherwise go into landfills. So one of the environmental benefits is seen right from the beginning, just in the fact that the leather you are sitting on is recycled product.
According to this article, the more beef we consume then the more environmentally friendly we are in regards to the car industry.
via Inhabitat and MichiganBusinessReview
A couple weeks ago I made a new friend and found out about Green Drinks. Last week I attended my first gathering. Get together with friends and strangers alike at a pre-determined location (that changes each meeting, so make sure you’re on the local email list!) Talk about things-green (or not green) and meet some interesting people over food and beverages 
Simple and fun.
Check out the very simple, yet necessary information at the Green Drinks site. They have groups worldwide!
Wasara: a line of disposable paper tableware made from reed pulp and bagasse (sugarcane waste), inspired by Japanese aesthetics.
So refined! So simple! So elegant! Plain beautiful.
via DesignVerb
I came across this article from Metropolis Magazine and although it’s mainly speaking of graphics, I do believe it applies to other aspects of design from furniture and tableware to uniform of the servers and staff, which food/restaurant critics often do not comment on, but in passing.
“Perhaps there would be more reason to stress graphic design if critics paid attention to it. But they never mention graphics and, truth be told, barely assess the architecture (even when designed by Pritzker Prize winners). And while I savor the tasty prose of gifted food writers, if I were a critic, my readers would be treated to a regular menu of cuisine and design in an attempt to right the imbalance.”
It’s not only decor and graphics that dictate the identity of a restaurant, but the rest of the experience that probes at the senses make an impression on identity. How comfortable was that chair? How well was the knife designed to easily cut into the delicious steak? These things could be added to the last paragraph of the article…
“To convey the total dining experience it’s essential to include details that add to a restaurant’s overall personality. Granted, graphic design can never be the paramount reason for a diner investing time, money, and calories, but when viewed as a whole it should be worthy enough to be noted and occasionally celebrated.”
Read it here.
(I’m not disagreeing with Metropolis, simply wishing to include more..)
I was on the phone this afternoon with Brendan Baker (Centre for Sustainable Development, University of Cambridge), who’s doing his master’s thesis on “the state of environmentalism in product design,” elaborating on the survey I filled out from his site.
He’s collecting surveys until end of August, so fill it out and pass it on because he’s still looking for help and more contributors from the product design field!
It’s a very interesting project with many intriguing questions. He’s not pushing environmentalism or sustainability, just pure research into what exists in the business world today. It made me think about my company very differently- or perhaps allowing me to internalize after verbalizing what I already knew…
All this wasted food, I’m sure it doesn’t help that American’s always buy in bulk; there’s always something gone to waste.
via Core77
But, there’s hope! At least one local Boston restaurant has gone green to the extent of composting waste, energy saving, recycling, and eating locally. Now, we just have to start doing all of this in our own homes.
I found this article from Wired.com quite a coincidence as I’ll be taking a motorcycle class/lesson at the end of the month. Motorcycles as it is are better on fuel consumption than your typical car, but to make them electric is an even larger improvement, though I’m sure it would be more difficult to get that ‘thrill’ of riding fast on a bike when it’s electric. Anyways, some interesting concepts here.
Vroom vroom…