I’ve been considering a workspace overhaul for a couple months now. For inspiration, I’ve been browsing the photographs at The Selby, a blog dedicated to the workspaces of creatives. Each post includes photographs of artists in their homes and studios, and usually a little handwritten interview at the end. A majority of their subjects are from New York or LA, but I’m hoping they’ll make it out to San Francisco one of these days.
With my space, it’s amazing I’m able to get anything done; clothes are everywhere, bookshelves overflow onto the floor, and wires tangle their way into everything. It takes me at least five minutes to find just about anything. In all likelihood, it will stay this way forever, but I figure if I spend enough time looking at other people’s workspaces, I might actually get motivated to make mine picture worthy. Then again, as most of the pictures indicate (and Scott has suggested before), a pristine workspace isn’t a prerequisite for productivity.
Can you name this poor, unidentified chair? Some people were asking that same question in the comments of today’s Dieter Rams post so I thought I’d put it up in the hopes that someone out there can solve the mystery because, as Joe Clay put it, that is a damn sexy chair. Sound off in the comments. First correct answer gets a Tycho single!
By the way, how badass is Univers LT Std 39 Thin Ultra Condensed? Completely, is the correct answer.
Update: That was quick, Vito called it, it’s a 620 Chair by, of course, Dieter Rams. Here’s some very nice high res shots from the link vito Provided.
I might have to put this at album #2 right behind New Age of Earth. Unfortunately, I don’t have an original pressing, but the 180g re-press sounds great.
Cluster (then Kluster) was formed by Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Conrad Schnitzler in 1969. Schnitzler had recorded Tangerine Dream’s debut Electronic Meditation just two months before Kluster’s debut Klopfzeichen.
After Schnitzler’s departure three albums later, Moebius and Roedelius renamed the group Cluster and continued recording starting with Cluster (aka Cluster ’71), and following that Cluster II.
A year before Zuckerzeit, Moebius and Roedelius joined up with Michael Rother of NEU! and released two albums under the name Harmonia (which I will be posting very soon). After Rother left Harmonia, Moebius and Roedelius went back in the studio to record Zuckerzeit, and if you listen to Cluster’s previous releases, you can hear Rother’s influence practically bleeding through the tracks. Mmm!
Zuckerzeit has a very interesting structure. Each track was written solely by either Moebius or Roedelius and, except one track, cycles between the two. It gives a very interesting mixture of light and fluffy to a much more experimental noise-centric sound. I tend to like Roedelius’s tracks much more, but “Caramel” is the exception.
Caught this ad on Paleofuture. The RCA Two Thousand was a TV set released in 1969 with a price tag of $2000 (roughly $12,000 in today’s market). It leveraged then nascent computer technology to, among other things, store favorite channels electronically and automate tuning. The interesting thing to me is how much it resembled a modern flat panel when the cabinet was closed (top and bottom left). Unfortunately, those are just doors; when in it’s opened state the Two Thousand looks a lot like any other old tube set from the 70’s. At any rate, the top image is wonderful to look at and downright prophetic when you consider this was designed in the late 60’s. It seems ripe for some sort of Ive-esque re-purposing a’ la the Dieter Rams inspired iMac.
Hoffman-La Roche commissioned this ad featuring photography by René Groebli for the anti-anxiety drug, Esanin. At first glance I really didn’t grasp how amazing this composition is. If you really study it you’ll see some incredible typography and layout. I love the image, the various faces blending to create these almost psychedelic colors is very striking. Those crazyGermans, why do they have to be so good? You’re making us all look bad.
When will it end? Apparently never. I think it’s time I just give in and nominate the Canadians as completely owning the mid-late 70’s. The more I look at this sort of design, the more I realize how much it has influenced my own style. It’s funny because I don’t remember really being aware of design when I was younger and I certainly wasn’t fortunate enough to be alive (much less conscious) during the ’76 games. I guess these sorts of things just kind of seep in to your consciousness over the years through random, passing exposure without you completely realizing or understanding it’s impact.
At any rate, I envision my dream space as a large, concrete floored, open room with 3 story ceilings, all white, with these printed massive banner size hanging all along one side. I think the other side would be wood paneled in a light walnut with a flush installed Bang & Olufsen circa 1976 Beo system right in the center. Sprinkle in a healthy dose of vintage Hermann Miller, some Dieter Rams-designed Braun appliances here and there and things would be starting to look right. Maybe a wax figurine of Jakub in his ATMSPHR promo photo get-up and Jarvis Cocker glasses would be encased in a Perspex cylinder somewhere, perhaps animatronics would be involved, budget permitting.
