The Uncommon Life

Gift Lab #2: Simon & the Stormy Seas

May 18, 2010

Stormy Seas

1)  Product Name: Stormy Seas

2) Background Research: I really enjoy simple, wooden toys. And thanks to my son Simon I have an excuse to slowly build my (I mean, his) collection. I saw this product and thought it would make a great gift for Simon’s upcoming birthday. He loves stacking things and balancing tall towers of blocks. My only concern is that he often yells at the blocks when they fall over. Would this game cause constant weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, or is it the perfect chance for him to finally get over his angst toward topsy inanimate objects?


3)    Hypothesis: If I get this for my 3-year-old son, I will be the best dad ever.

4)    Experiment: Wrap it up. Mix it in with the rest of his gifts. Unwrap. Play.

5)    Results: Simon loves it. I love it. My wife loves it. My 6-month old son is indifferent.

We all had a lot of fun playing. The concept (just balance the differently shaped items on the boat) is so simple that we had no problem explaining the rules to him. It was just as easy for him as it was for us, and, yet, we oddly found that we tipped the boat almost as often as he did. I thought it would only be a game for parents and adults to play with kids, but I think it would do just as well at a dinner party or between my wife and I (though I worry I would lose badly if I challenged her).

I am also a fan of the materials used. The game is made from fast-growing bamboo, the printing inks for the rules and promo booklet are soy-based, and the paint is kid- and earth-friendly.

My only real qualm with the game is that the box is much too big. They are obviously a very environmentally focused company, but I think they could be a bit greener if they made the box only as big as it needed to be and save on cardboard and printing. It would also be easier to store in our little apartment.

Conclusion: This is a great game. I realize, of course, that some days hungry hungry hippos (which he also got for his birthday) will catch Simon’s eye. But for me, it is really important for him to have a simpler, non-plastic, less generic alternative to pull down from the shelf on game night. Stormy Seas fits the bill nicely.

About the researcher: Micah is a graphic designer and associate art director at UncommonGoods. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two sons.

Maker Stories

Congrats to artist Tammy Smith!

May 18, 2010

Tammy Smith

Just wanted to give a big shout-out to artist Tammy Smith who recently won Best in Show at the New Orleans Jazz Festival art fair!

Tammy joined the UncommonGoods artist team in the fall of 2009 – with her signature treasure boxes inspired by old-fashioned circuses and abandoned carnivals.

Tammy won the “best in show” award for her entire body of work which consisted of mixed media wall art and wire sculptures that teeter between joyful and eerie.  In addition to showing her work, Tammy was also in a demo tent, and spent several hours a day showing people how she makes her wire sculptures. Very cool!

Tammy Smith

A little about the festival: The New Orleans Jazz Festival art fair is a national juried art fair that is
held every year in NOLA. This 10-day cultural festival not only consists of artists and craftspeople from all over the world, but also thousands of cooks and musicians serving up delicious Louisiana cuisine and world-renowned music. The show has three art areas: Congo Square, featuring mostly African American artists, Louisiana Marketplace, which features local artists, and the Contemporary Crafts area, which features artists from all over the country. Tammy participated in the Contemporary Crafts group with a focus on  3D mixed media.

Congrats Tammy!

Design

Compostapalooza — it’s on!

May 17, 2010


compostapalooza

It’s time to get your compost on! UncommonGoods and Quirky have officially launched Compostapalooza — the quest to create the perfect composter. So, put your thinking caps on and get to work! The contest will run from May 17-26th and more information (as well as submission forms) can be found at Quirky. Good luck and get dirty!

The Uncommon Life

A Composter’s Dilemma

May 17, 2010

In preparation for Compostapalooza, our partnership with Quirky to create the ultimate composting product, we’re running a series of compost education posts. Read up, then put those brainstorming caps on for kick-off on May 17!

compost

I got into composting in 2008.  I had never seriously considered doing it until I read the Omnivore’s Dilemma (by Michael Pollan) earlier that year – it helped me understand the food cycle and how throwing organic material into landfill was a lousy solution.  Sanitation departments waste a lot of energy, money and land carting away food scraps that could otherwise be enriching the soil.

However, like recycling, composting is more work than just throwing something away, especially if you’re an urban dweller like me. To start with, you have to take the food waste and put it in a separate bin (no big deal).  But you also need to cut up the food waste into small pieces to help it break down faster and then put the compostable material into some vessel outdoors. We were lucky to have a few friends and neighbors that were interested in the same thing and were able to convince our building to provide us with an outdoor space to place a compost tumbler.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that our sons knew all about composting from school and were only too happy to tell daddy everything he was doing wrong, which was plenty. There was nothing they enjoyed more than catching me putting compostable material into the trash.  I then had to dig through the garbage to find the food scraps and move them to the compost bin.  I learned the messy way that tea bags, coffee grounds and egg shells were all fine for composting.

Compost

Read more about Dave’s adventures in composting!

The Uncommon Life

Compost & the City

May 13, 2010

In preparation for Compostapalooza, our partnership with Quirky to create the ultimate composting product, we’re running a series of compost education posts. Read up, then put those brainstorming caps on for kick-off on May 17!

compost

I’ve officially caught the compost bug.

I never thought I’d get much satisfaction from dumping smelly food scraps into a bin of other smelly food scraps. But sometimes I surprise myself.

I now bring my raw food scraps (i.e. fruits, vegetables, egg shells, tea bags) to my neighborhood community garden in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The scraps are then processed into compost that is used to nourish the vegetables and other plants in the garden with essential minerals.

I love the concept of making something useful from something we have no use for. We recycle paper and plastic. Why not food? Food waste accounts for the largest component of our trash each year.  Composting also reduces our need for chemically laden fertilizers, most of which are derived from oil.  And why pay for something you can get for free?


compost

I store my food scraps in the freezer. That way, you can enjoy the benefits of composting without the stink factor. I then make my weekly trip to the Garden of Union on Saturday morning. I simply look for the marked bin, add my scraps, and cover with sawdust. The sawdust helps keep rodents away and also ensures the proper chemical balance of carbon and nitrogen. And that’s it! I’m doing my part to reduce my footprint, and grow yummy food within my community.

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Design

YouGoods: Buckle Up for the Seatbelt Chair

May 13, 2010

“I’m in the pursuit of happiness and I know
Everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold
I’ll be fine once I get it, I’ll be good”

These are the Kid Cudi lyrics that Adam Barron — the winner of our YouGoods Vintage Vehicle Challenge — lives by. And with his spunky, take-charge attitude you better buckle your seatbelts because this guy isn’t planning on slowing down!

adam barron seat belt chair

Made of steel and junkyard seatbelts (don’t worry, he washed them!), Adam’s winning design, the eye-catching Seatbelt Chair, was a project originally created for an industrial design course at the University of Cincinnati where he had to incorporate 3 of 5 Japanese design principles: humor, craftsmanship, compactness, asymmetry and simplicity.

Seat belt chair

As Adam tells us, the final product was a result of trial and error, “When I originally designed this chair, I designed the shape of the frame before I chose to use seat belts. My original plan was to make the chair out of large sheets of bent plywood, but based on time, money, material, and space restraints, I had to consider other options. I wouldn’t say that I had a eureka moment, I just started exploring different materials, and wanted to use a thin and minimal material that would let the ergonomic research that I did on my frame speak for itself. ”

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Design

Compostapalooza 2010

May 3, 2010

Quirky and UncommonGoods are proud to present… Compostapalooza!

On Monday, May 17th we will be joining forces with Quirky — a social product development company with a great community and fun, innovative products to boot — to create the world’s best composter! We like to think of it as a Compostapalooza!

The mission: to create a useful, interesting, one-of-a-kind composter for indoors, outdoors or both. To enter this crazy earth-lovin’, garbage-hatin’ contest, just complete your submission and post it on Quirky between May 17-26 for a chance to have your design come to life.

Is this mission impossible? Of course not! With composting on the rise across the country, it seems that everybody’s doing it and tons of people have ideas on how to create the ideal composter or at least improve current models.

But, first things first, you gotta get hip to the dirty details of composting. For the skinny on how to compost, what to compost and where to compost, Quirky has you covered. Check out these informative posts on Composting 101.

compost cycle
The Uncommon Life

Hail to the Chief

April 29, 2010

obama

Yesterday at 4:32 p.m. my heart stopped.

This was the moment I received an email informing me that my request to hear President Obama speak had been approved. Cha-ching! It was only a few hours earlier that I received a message from the American Sustainable Business Council – a coalition of businesses (one of which is UG) committed to a vibrant, just, and sustainable economy – saying there were a limited number of seats available. I swooped in like a hawk.

I was thrilled that UncommonGoods was invited (well, truthfully, I kind of invited myself). I was honored that I was allowed to attend. And I was sweating one big question. What would I wear?

After ripping apart my breadbox-sized closet Thursday morning, I finally chose the perfect Michelle-inspired look (sheath dress, cardi, belt combo) and was ready to face the Secret Service and rub elbows with political figures I had only witnessed on CNN.

joannaobama

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