BleepBleeps

A family of little friends that make parenting easier

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The Loop

Every week we share a bunch of cool stuff we’ve seen on the internet we think you might like. You know, just to keep you in The Loop. 

Now, we know these are intended for our kids, but we’d be lying if we said we didn’t fancy a mini Discovolante car or a Testacalda tractor for our grown-up selves! Designed by Pierro Lissoni for Italian lifestyle + interiors brand, Kartell, these colourful, playful, modern designs are making us feel quite giddy. 

36 Days of Type is a collaborative, online community project that invites designers, illustrators and graphic artists from all over the world to reimagine and reinterpret letters of the alphabet and numeric symbols. Over 72,000 images have been submitted since the project started. Take a look at the Instagram feed for a feast of tasty typography! 

When baby Orson was born, new parents Lilly and Leon decided to do something creative (and a bit bonkers) to inject some fun into their weekends at home. By repurposing cardboard boxes and bits and bobs of domestic junk, they built sets, gathered props and made costumes - then recreated their favourite scenes from film and tv. Not only are the photos something special, the pun-tastic names are great too. Dark Knighty-Night, Tinytanic and The Neverending Laundry are just some of our favourites! Having started out as a fun family activity, Cardboard Office has been nominated for a Webby Award three years in row! 

Below: Potty Time, Excellent! (Wayne’s World), The Cardboardapest Hotel, Grease is the First Word.

The Hoop is a super handy new app that helps you find all the best family-friendly things to do nearby. You can filter recommendations by activity category, age of children, cost, travel time, local proximity, time of day - all sorts of things! The app lists family-friendly events and activities in London at the moment but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that The Hoop makes it EVERYWHERE! 

Have you spotted something online you think we should feature on The Loop? 

Get in touch with us via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Come hang out!

SOURCES

DesignMilk

36 Days of Type

Cardboard Office

The Hoop

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Five Minutes of SPACE

Run off your feet? Need some space? You got it! 

(For the next five minutes, at least!)

Eugenia Loli is a collage artist best known for her wit and clever, creative use of vintage imagery. Her collages have featured in the likes of Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair and Wired. Work clockwise from top left: ‘Star Hopper’, ‘Maker’, ‘Black Hole in One’ + ‘No More Galaxies Today, Timmy!’

‘Space Food’ by designer Giorgia Zanellato + photographer Alberto Ferretto. And from this day on, we shall take the sting out of early mornings, school runs and chaotic commutes by wrapping our lunchboxes in foil and pretend we’re heading off on a space exploration!

Wowsers. Would you just look at how flippin’ incredible our universe is! This is the Carina Nebula, Stephan’s Quintet + the Cotton Candy Nebula. The Cotton Candy Nebula is also known as IRAS 17150-3224, but um...that’s not quite as fun. 

You can keep your CGI graphics and your fancy sci-fi productions. Turns out, all you need to make one of the most charming tv shows ever is an egg cup and a couple of spoons. Have your kids ever seen Button Moon? Now’s the time!

Rob Hodgson is a designer + illustrator. He’s based in Bristol. His work is an utter delight. This little space animation made our day. We hope you like it too!

We’ll see you next week for another five minutes of good stuff.

SOURCES

Eugenia Loli

Trendland

Bt Images

Rob Hodgson

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The Loop

Every week, we bring you a little roundup of things we’ve seen on the internet we think you might like. You know, just to keep you in The Loop! 

This week, we’re excited to finally get to see the finished results of Japanese artist Misaki Kawai’s colourful collaboration with high street store, Tiger! Intended to encourage play for children and adults, we can’t wait to see up close how Misaki has translated her art into fun products. 

And speaking of things that surprise and delight adults and children, what about THESE? Made by Straight Line Designs and inspired by the postmodern architecture of Palm Springs, these miniature, wall-mountable butterfly houses are designed, not just as dolls’ houses for grown-ups, but as functional shelf storage for small items like keys, specs, mugs - that sort of thing. Pretty dreamy.

This is just about the cutest thing we’ve seen this week. And we’ve seen kittens AND babies. Find out more about about the Danboard Cheero portable device charger at Lazy Oaf. 

We paid a visit to graphic arts festival, Pick Me Up this week. Isabel + Helen, Alec Doherty, Dan Singer and The Clay Collective were among our favourite bits. If you’re nearby and want to take a look for yourself, the event runs at Somerset House, London until 2nd May. 

SOURCES

Fast Co.

Straight Line Designs

Misaki Kawai

Play With Misaki

Lazy Oaf

Isabel + Helen, Instagram

Dan Singer, Instagram

Milo Ceramics

The Clay Collective, Instagram

Pick Me Up 

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Five Minutes of STATIONERY

Since it’s National Stationery Week and to mark World Stationery Day, we are gifting you five whole minutes of papertastic, office-supply-alicious, raid-the-stationery-cupboard delight. Enjoy!

Present & Correct know how to awaken the stationery fetishist in everyone! Their ongoing Stationery Compositions project is just awesome.

For her 2007 exhibition, Directed Perspective, New York artist Rebecca Murtaugh created a series of incredible sculptures from post-it notes. 

The first rule of The Society of the Crossed Pencils is... don’t talk about The Society of the Crossed Pencils. Actually, it isn’t. The first rule of The Society of the Crossed Pencils is, ‘Use pencils daily’. Of course. Founded by artist (and pencil lover), Victorija Semjonova, this Instagram account is the stuff of stationery dreams. 

To help prospective tenants visualise how they might allocate and partition off space in the huge office floor, design studio Radford Willis installed ‘Division of Space’ - a fun exhibition featuring super-sized stationery items!

Mr Printables sure knows paper. He also knows how to design clever (printable) things from paper - like ‘a house a month’ street calendars, super-cute greetings cards or a rather lovely DIY face that helps kids (and adults!) understand and express emotions. Lovely!

We’ll see you again next week for another quiet, peaceful Five Minutes of You Time, ok? 

SOURCES: 

Stationery Compositions

Present & Correct

Rebecca Murtaugh

The Society of the Crossed Pencils

TrendLand

Mr Printables

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The Loop

Every week we bring you a roundup of things we’ve seen on the internet we think you might like - just to keep you in the loop!

We’re enjoying some springy Springtime vibes this week, helped along by the work of artist Sabine Timm. You might know Sabine as ‘virgin_honey’ on Instagram. Working with found objects and subtle colour palettes, Sabine’s miniature sculptures, figurines, collages and little still life compositions are cute enough to make your heart leap like a lamb in Spring!

And talking of things that make your heart leap - take a look at this. The Vitra Colour Machine! A whizzing, colour-popping installation of mechanical spinning tops and colour wheels, all made from the materials and components of Vitra furniture designs, are installed in temporary venue, ‘CasaVitra’ in Milan - and we’d like to live there please. Let’s go! 

Our friends over at Anorak Magazine are in the midst of their 10th anniversary celebrations and this week they bring their colourful touring festival, ‘The Drawing Imaginarium’ to London! As part of the D&AD Festival, Anorak Press founder Cathy Olmedillas and long-time collaborator Rob Flowers are delivering a talk on Creativity & Childhood at The Old Truman Brewery on Saturday 23rd April. If you’re in the area, the event is FREE! 

Along with the joys of spring come the ‘bleughs’ of spring cleaning - but, to get you in the mood for decluttering the kitchen cupboards and boxing up this season’s charity shop donations, there’s THIS! French artists Lucie Thomas + Thibault Zimmerman (Zim & Zou) were commissioned by the Washington Post to create this series of rather marvellous paper-craft sculptures for a candy coloured spring cleaning themed supplement. We’re off to throw coloured sprinkles all over the floor.

SOURCES & CREDITS

Sabine Timm

virgin_honey

Anorak Magazine

Zim & Zou

CreativeBoom

Trendland

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5 Minutes of PLANT LIFE

These next five minutes are just for you. Fix a snack, take a seat and enjoy five mellow minutes of PLANT LIFE, courtesy of our friends, plants (and their friends, flowers). 

In his latest series of work, ‘Somewhere Small’ LA based artist Jedediah Voltz builds teeny tiny treehouse sculptures around houseplants. 

Started by Lotte van Baalen, Plants on Pink is a joyful, sunny little corner of Instagram where photos of, well, plants on pink, are shared from all over the world and curated/collated in one place. Very pleasing indeed!

Well, we’ve heard of ‘bringing the outside in’, but - WOW! In her latest large scale installation, florist and artist Rebecca Louise Law has suspended 30,000 flowers from the ceiling of a popular shopping spot in Berlin to glorious effect!

French architects Ateliers Jean Nouvel designed this building in Cyprus with perforated walls and wide balconies, filling the spaces with plant life. In the summer months the foliage protects the apartments from the heat and in winter, the plants shed their leaves to let the sunshine in! 

And just when you think plant life can’t get any more LOVELY, there’s this from Oh Joy! Polka dot plants? Why not?

We hope you’ve enjoyed your Five Minutes of PLANT LIFE. See you next week!

SOURCES

This is Colossal

Jedediah Voltz

Plants on Pink

DesignBoom

Oh Joy!

Dezeen

Ateliers Jean Nouvel

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The Loop

Every week we bring you a roundup of things we’ve seen on the internet we think you might like - just to keep you in the loop!

This week, thanks to the Instagram-happy team at DesignBoom, we’ve been browsing around Milan Design Week 2016 from the comfort of the BleepBleeps office...

These ‘Herringbone’ furniture designs by London-based design studio, rawedges attracted our attention.  Pine blocks are dip-dyed at 45 degree angles, then, as different coloured dyes are layered one on top of the other, the herringbone pattern emerges. Nifty, right? 

rawedges are exhibiting at the Spazio Sanremo in Milan until 17th April - you know, just in case you’re in the area. (Think of us, won’t you?) 

We hear from the fellas over at Penguin Random House Children that 5 classic Beatrix Potter books are set to get makeovers this summer to coincide with what would have been Beatrix Potter’s 150th birthday! The special anniversary editions will include cover artwork by fashion designer Henry Holland (The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck) and interiors + fashion favourite Orla Kiely (The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle). Do you think updating the Beatrix Potter covers will give the classic tales a new and fresh appeal? 

Film maker and animator, David Sandell’s film, A Small Escape, won the Best Animation award at Sweden’s Short Film Festival 2016. With help from his stationery friends - paperclips, post-it notes, a paint tube and some pens, the scissors make their escape from the kitchen. Bright colours combined with great design and lovely interiors result in the most beautiful backdrop for a short but sweet tale! Your kids might like this one too. 

In the run up to Record Store Day, get in the spirit of things and enjoy the latest Secret 7″ exhibition. Secret 7” takes 7 songs from 7 of the best-known musicians around and presses each one 100 times to 7” vinyl. Acts this year include Etta James, John Lennon and The Jam. Creative people from around the world then interpret the tracks in their own style and design one-of record sleeves. 700 sleeves are exhibited the sold - with all proceeds this year donated to Amnesty International. Artists and tracks are kept 100% secret until the exhibition is over and you’ve bought your record!

See all 700 sleeves in person at Sonos Studios, London until 1st May or browse the online gallery on the Secret 7″ website.  Here are some of our (secret) favourites:

We wish you a fun-filled weekend. 

ORIGINAL SOURCES

DesignBoom: Milan Design Week 2016 

Creative Review

rawedges

It’s Nice That

David Sandell on Vimeo

Secret 7″

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Five Minutes of COLOUR

With a hundred and one things to tend to at any give time, something’s guaranteed to get in the way of your daily walk in the park, that weekly gallery visit you’d promised yourself - or whatever it is that soothes your soul. Carving out big blocks of time for yourself every week is difficult - but five measly minutes? Much more achievable!

Grab a cup of tea, sit down and, for five eye-popping, joyous minutes, enjoy your own company - uninterrupted.

This week we bring you five minutes of COLOUR.

Anna Kovecses is an illustrator and graphic designer from Hungary. Her work has appeared in the likes of Creative Review, Monocle and The New York Times. Her trademark style of minimalist shapes combined with warm, bright colours is a delight. A delight!

If we asked you, ‘What’s the first thing you think of when you think about Istanbul?’, your first answer probably wouldn’t be, ‘Why, the brightly coloured, minimalist architecture of course!’ And that’s exactly why architect and photographer Yener Torun embarked upon his architectural ‘treasure hunt’ - to seek out, document and share this rarely seen, different side to Istanbul.

In an interview with Dezeen Magazine, Yener says, ‘Bold use of colour in architecture fascinates me. It has a really positive impact on me’. 

Us too, Yener! Us too.

For his latest exhibition, Abstract Browsing, New York based visual artist Rafael Rozendaal created a series of tapestries based on bare bones website structures. He likened each stitch to an on-screen pixel. When art meets technology like this, the colourful results are mesmerising!

We hope your day has been sufficiently brightened! See you next week for another 5 Minutes of… something good.

SOURCES/CREDITS

Anna Kovecses Tumblr

Dezeen

FastCo.

Raphael Rozendaal

Yener Torun

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The Loop

Every week we bring you a quick roundup of things we’ve seen on the internet that we liked and think you might like too - just to keep you in the loop! While we can’t rule out a complete absence of fluffy rabbits and cat videos, you’re much more likely to find us talking to you about cool design and tech stuff. Like this...

If this is the future of multi-tasking, you can count us in. Product Design students at The Low Tech Factory, a project by Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne in Switzerland, set out to invent simple machines that combine both a physical user experience with the production of a physical item. Designers Damien Ludi and Colin Peillex invented the Rocking Knit.

This beautifully designed wooden structure isn’t just a rocking chair - it’s also a knitting machine. Yes, as you take a little break to rock yourself into a state of calm and read the paper - the Rocking Knit will make you a hat! As long as you rock*, it will knit.

*You totally rock.

And from rocking chairs, to rocking horses!

Japanese design studio, Nendo, have produced this - the H Rocking Horse. It’s named after the ‘H’ beam used in building and construction that inspires its structure. The rocking horse is, remarkably, made from just three pieces of transparent plastic! Nendo have successfully combined a sleek, minimal aesthetic with function and strength.  Would your kids want to hang out and play with ‘H’? 

Instagram is much brighter now artist and placemaker, Morag Myerscough has an account! This week she’s been sharing behind the scenes snaps from her studio as she creates her latest colourful structures.

And here’s a nice thing. Le Cinema Club is a new film theatre - based on the internet!

The theatre screens one film each week, for free. The club champions independent cinema, presents rarities and showcases the work of new filmmakers. You’ll find a new film online every Sunday.

SOURCES & CREDITS

This is Colossal

Dezeen

Morag Myerscough

Le Cinema Club

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How do you use Sammy Screamer?

It’s so fun to see the new ways people use Sammy - from deterring naughty snack raiders to keeping track of kids, pets and even t-rexes! 

We’d love to see how she helps you...

Photo by Mum to a Monster

Photo by SuperLuckyMe

You can find us on Instagram @bleepbleeps. Share your photos and show us how Sammy helps you! 

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Who is Sammy Screamer?

While we’re busy beavering away to make three new devices to join the BleepBleeps family, we thought we’d give you a little introduction to our friend Sammy Screamer. Sammy is a cute little movement sensor who’s controlled by your smartphone. She keeps an eye on your stuff. Sammy has a little hanging loop and a magnetised back so you can stick her on the things you want to keep track of - like a door, a bag, a buggy or your fridge. The BleepBleeps app lets you activate Sammy and set her sensitivity and volume. You’re in control of how loud you want her to scream and how sensitive to movement she is! Then, if your stuff gets moved, Sammy screams and sends a notification right to your phone. Nifty, right? 

Here are some of the things Sammy can look after for you.

Nifty, right? 

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#SammyScreamer coming soon in six juicy delicious colours #pink #red #orange #yellow #green #blue 🌈🙌🏁

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Getting ready for #shipping #Sammy Screamer from this #epic #warehouse #iot #connecteddevices #cool #parenting #design

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#SammyScreamer is going to enjoy sliding down here in this #epic #warehouse #shipping #iot #connecteddevices #cool #parenting #design

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Getting ready for #shipping #Sammy Screamer from this #epic #warehouse #iot #connecteddevices #cool #parenting #design

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Introduced the @geekgirlmeetup ladies to the @bleepbleeps gang on Saturday #latergram (at Central Working Whitechapel)

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Six juicy, delicious @bleepbleeps flavours #nofilter #pantone #chips