Discover Top Posts Tagged with #wanted worldwide

The New Economist

While advising a new creative start-up and preparing to launch an app and quarterly newsprint I came across this brief I wrote for a new magazine one month after 9/11 while sitting in a friend’s backyard. The first internet revolution crashed and we were all feeling the effects of our missing expense accounts and diminishing music video budgets – clear barometer of the creative economy (thankfully Kanye and Gaga have gotten them back up the seven figures again).

#design thinking #wantedworldwide #wanted worldwide #David Komurek #publishing #thrift #hipster #diy #new economy #magazine #zine

The Chelsea: Recreating the Smell of an Iconic Hotel

I recently lived in the infamous Chelsea Hotel, in part because I was infatuated with the building, its architecture and the fact that I never set foot in the building apart from getting my hair cut from Mariano in Suite 303 during the late 90s. I managed to secure a lease in hopes of helping the original owners not “mess the place up.” After several months of meetings and proposing the future of public spaces, food and beverage, room design and segmentation, loyalty programs, amenities, merchandise, partnerships, customer adoption and art curation, I was able to renovate (with the help of my dear friend Tobias Funk) Arthur Miller’s room where he once lived with Marilyn Monroe. Needless to say the end result was so undesirable; I refused to even take a single picture of it. My efforts were helpful, though, as they ultimately managed to sell the building.

So on the verge of extinction and moving out, I happened to meet the perfumer Christophe Laudamiel (crashing a meeting my dear friend, Carrie Keagan, was having with him) to whom I proposed the concept of creating the smell of the Chelsea. In the past, he recreated every scene for the movie Perfume into an exclusive $1,800 box set of scents, as well as a smell opera for the Guggenheim Museum and mainstream hits like Polo Blue.

I invited Christophe to the hotel where we proceeded to the top story walking down every floor and corridor, pausing to examine the wide range of smells from clean clothes, mahogany, incense, etc. We retreated to my room, where, to my surprise, he was able to guess the tablespoon of pecorino romano cheese I put in my sauce some eight hours earlier and that night the brief was born: sex, sweat, weed and ketchup.

What happened next was many trips to Christophe’s laboratory, 80+ formulas (some did not meet perfume regulations to which he exclaimed “It’s great; the Chelsea; wear at your own risk.”) and many friends and strangers approval of the captivating animalistic fragrance.

Last year, I started to source the manufacturer, Delbia Do Company. The bottles, however, have yet to meet my satisfaction with the limitations and designs of the current crop of stock bottles so thus I will begin my search again.

The current iteration of the Chelsea can be experienced at the Dillon Gallery along with nine other scent sculptures created by Christophe– run because it closes tomorrow! If you like what you smell, would like to find out more about the Chelsea or are interested in buying some, feel free to contact me.

#design thinking #wanted worldwide #david komurek #christophe laudamiel #perfume #fragrance #smell #chelsea hotel #package design

The Pirates Dilemma

Five years ago the author Matt Mason was promoting his book the Pirates Dilemma which portrayed the future where illegal downloads would extent outside of traditional media like music and movies and into actual objects. As a promotional stunt Matt asked me to create a sneaker which could theoretically be downloaded and printed at home. At the time 3D printers were not readily available and we would have to rely on traditional and costly rapid prototyping services, if memory serves me correct this sneaker would have cost around one thousand dollars.

If you are not familiar with 3D printing and in NYC check out 3DEA, a 3D pop-up shop at the Eventi Hotel, where you can print whatever you want for $6 a cubic inch.

Now that 3D printing is finally coming to masses has anyone created a 3D printable sneaker? If not who would like to?