Marmite pop up store

Love it or hate it, a pop-up shop devoted to iconic British yeast spread Marmite has opened at the Piccadilly Circus end of London’s Regent Street.

Spread over two floors and created by fledgling design company SunHouse Creative, the lower ground floor is devoted to product, while upstairs is a 1950s-style tearoom where shoppers can enjoy a cuppa and a round of toast with Marmite.

The store features a raised plinth in the window where a pair of mannequins are seated at a breakfast table where Marmite takes centre stage, while behind them is a pyramid constructed from Marmite jars. Elsewhere, other oddities include a black turntable on which jars of the condiment spin endlessly and a bamboo bird cage containing a jar of the black stuff.

At the back of the shop, a multi-colour Union Flag with a Marmite jar at its centre covers the whole of the rear ground floor wall. Painted by recent graduates from The Royal College of Art, it was created during the course of three days, according to Rupert Pick, director at Hot Pickle Trading, which runs the shop.

The store will remain open until the end of the year.



Published in Retail Week: 16 November, 2009 | By John Ryan

Taxi share

Just love how simple this is

http://www.taxi.to/

Immaterials: the ghost in the field

Some cool visualisations of RFID fields. Would be amazing if this could be done in real time, in-situ where the readers are installed. Could really make swiping that card a lot more engaging...

Immaterials: the ghost in the field from timo on Vimeo.

Pepsi's Stimulus Plan: Putting Up Money To 'Refresh' Communities

Thanks GENWOW for this on Pepsi's impressive take on how to engage with communities... going to be interesting to follow this one.

Call it the American Renewal and Refreshment Act.

First, Pepsi seemed to have taken its cue from Barack Obama when it refashioned its logo.

Now, it appears to be stealing a page from the Obama administration with the "Pepsi Refresh Project," a campaign designed to pay up to $20 million for projects people create to "refresh" their communities.

The whole thing gets underway in tomorrow's (Tuesday"s) Wall Street Journal and USA Today. According to the AP, the effort will fund thousands of projects, and could involve getting other businesses to participate. Consumers will list their projects online and vote on winners.

Not to be outdone, Coca-Cola seems to be taking a cue from Obama's diplomatic overtures in a campaign that will send three people - chosen by online voters - to 206 countries as part of its ongoing "Open Happiness" campaign.

How all this plays in 2010 - think about those president's-party-on-the-outs mid-term elections - remains to be seen.

Will Pepsi move past Obama to whatever's next to capture the zeitgeist?

Now that would be refreshing.

Read more, here.

Making Concrete Interactive

Even the walls are talking... thanks PSFK

November 9, 2009

Tokihiko Fukao of the University of Tokyo has developed a new kind of light-sensitive concrete. The material is sensitive to ambient light levels, able to take note of the luminosity distribution across it’s surface. The incoming light level data is then routed to a computer. This turns the concrete into a kind of control surface where varying degrees of illumination can be used to direct different audio and visual outputs.

Transmaterial explains more:

Light-Sensitive Concrete consists of concrete, embedded optical fibers, photodiodes, and electrical circuitry. Optical fibers are distributed within a regular grid, and sensors are attached beneath them in the same arrangement. The interactive properties of the material are intentionally hidden within what appears to be conventional concrete—suggesting possibilities for other light-sensitive building materials and surfaces as part of a total ambient interactive system.

Transmaterial: “Light-Sensitive Concrete”

Presence In Absence: Digital Heirloom Anchors Digital Communications

Two nice posts from PSFK ... think this is such a cool way to tie digi and real worlds together

November 9, 2009

Noting the growing number of long distance relationships and the primarily digital communications channels that sustain them, Irish designer Colm Keller has created a digital heirloom set which can act as a beautiful physical anchor for sharing experience. The Presence In Absence kit is composed of a digital scrapbook carved out of birch with two porcelain caps. A provided knife lets users cut the into two pieces for each person to carry. A porcelain hub lets the couple plug in and share gathered digital bits and memories when they get together in real life. Similar to Mimi Son’s Diary Objects project, Presence in Absence adds a more tangible, personal element to transient digital communications.

[via designboom]

Interactive wine bar

Clo winebar features a revolutionary multi-user, multi-touch projection menu, which allows customers to easily explore and find information on over 100 wines available. Guests can learn about a wine, its history and tasting profile, then quickly find its location within the bar. If a more human touch is desired, Clo offers a full staff of knowledgeable sommeliers.