Sections: Auto, Uncategorized Jul 30th, 2004 3 Comments 
Some photos I took a few weekends ago at the Lake Forest Classic Car show. I actually just happened upon it and stopped by.
[LINK]
Sections: Uncategorized Jul 28th, 2004 No Comments Transportation Futuristics. This is my personal favorite.
Sections: Uncategorized Jul 27th, 2004 2 Comments 
It goes against much of what you'd assume about Philippe Starck but, yes, he is indeed a minimalist in many respects. These new Starck/Puma shoes clearly show that (dibs on the grey/grey low-tops). Design 4 Design has a great interview with the man himself where he discusses design, shoes, and generally disses the idea of marketing.
Starck designed the Evolutionary Shoe Collection 12 years ago and has been waiting to find a suitable producer which could help him work out the technicalities. He partnered up with Puma six years ago, working hard for the last two ‘trying to figure out how to do it’.The design is as minimal as a shoe could be, while invisibly incorporating thermal management, anti-bacteria, anti-odour, anti-static technologies. With a compression-moulded rubber outsole, a leather upper and an injection-moulded heel cap, it is lace-less, streamlined and lightweight, if a little like a cartoon spaceman shoe.
…Tony Bertoni, Puma’s design manager, speaks highly of Starck. ‘What’s he like to work with? He’s heaven. There’s no ego – no “This is the way”. He totally wants this shoe to happen. Puma finally gave him a chance to make it, and the team genuinely wanted to learn from him. Shoe companies make 600 shoes every season and if you remember one it’s a miracle. This is one of those – it has longevity.’
‘We tried not to make a trendy product,’ agrees Starck later. ‘If it’s too trendy, in six months we will have to change it. And we cannot because we’ve designed the shoe to go to the minimum. When you go to the minimum to change it all you can do is add. And if you add, it’s contrary to what you want to say.’
But my favorite comment comes when Starck is talking about his rather unsucessful (when it comes to actually getting juice) lemon squeezer:
'I am a post-Freudian functionalist.’
A what? ‘This means I am purely functional, but after Freud. I know that function is sometimes not to squeeze a lemon, but to create a conversation. It is more modern.’
[LINK] Design 4 Design
Sections: Uncategorized Jul 27th, 2004 2 Comments This is great: Dodge Magnum stealing buyers from SUVs and trucks.
So much more sensible, so much cooler, and so much more fun to drive. Kudos to DaimlerChrysler for taking such a huge risk on a segment thought to be dead in the US.
Sections: Uncategorized Jul 13th, 2004 1 Comment Sections: Uncategorized Jul 13th, 2004 No Comments
Gabriel Bridger is a creative director, and part-time blogger living in Chicago. Bridger.us is a rambling collection of thoughts, comments, and various media in no particular order and, at times, of no particular merit.
