Chico Bicalho and his partner in life and design Isabella Torquato.
FutureLab’s Brian Ling, aka. The Design Translator, talks to Kikkerland Designer Chico Bicalho for an in-depth interview.
Discussed: Rio, metallic rats, RISD, 4500 Critters made by hand, Canal St., Quark Xpress, partnerships, planting 100,000 trees, advice to young designers.
http://blog.futurelab.net/2007/12/mechanical_critters_an_intervi.html
posted by graphic designer ellen zhou of BURO-GDS on blog.buro-gds.com.
“Kikkerland Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier. Imagine a whole series of these architectural toys mixing buildings with “creatures” by Chico Bicalho!”
We do Ellen, we do!
Download postcard here:
Jan van der Lande in the land of small design.
I was often asked by ICFF attendees what it was we did to be a part of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. Consider this. If you were to go home, sit on your favorite chair, and look around the room, what would you notice? All the small stuff. That’s what we do. We design the small things.
We have a calendar that will literally never be out of date. We have wind-up toys that are as fun for adults as for kids. We have a cuckoo clock that doesn’t cuckoo, a crow bar for opening bottles, a globe without a single country’s name on it. These are the kind of things we make.
It’s our hope that a Kikkerland product will someday end up in your home and that you’ll look at it, and use it, and come to think of it as a favorite thing…along with that chair you love.
(written with David Kucharsky, photo by Laura Kellner)
The ‘can’ booth as it affectionately came to be known by ICFF attendees and other exhibitors, designed by Jan Habraken. Built out of almost 3000 cans of Campbell’s Tomato, Cream of Mushroom, and Chicken Noodle Soup and donated to City Harvest after the show.
DesignNotes author Michael Surtees said, “…Pretty much the only stand out for me was from Kikkerland. I’ve seen can’s used to create stuff before but this was a nice evolution. Great use of an iconic brand, the booth had a lot of life and at the end of the show nothing will be wasted.” http://designnotes.info/?p=1782
People kept asking if we won the best booth award…we didn’t, I am curious who did…
Habraken and where all his designs come from. Also shown, Alissia Melka-Teichroew and Ilona Huvenaar’s Tree Trunk Stool, Pieter Woudt’s Pixel Puzzle. Billy Shelton of Chicago Architecture Foundation cameo.
Endangered Species erasers by Kikkerland Design. 2% of sales will be donated to helping endangered species through the Center of Biological Diversity.
Umbrellas for the Civil but Discontent Man by Materious (Bruce and Stephanie Tharp)
Mathew Bird, RISD prof and owner Curiosites in RI, designer Gaby Lewin, designer Chris Collicott, Top Design winner Nathan Thomas, lighting designer David Weeks, Kevin Brynan of MXYPLYZYK and Kikkerland’s Jan van der Land, designer Pieter Woudt, Materious’ umbrella designer Bruce Tharp, 1745 Flip Clock designer Michael Daniels and his wife, Kikkerland designer David Kucharsky, Kikkerland designer Jay Lee, and interested customer.
The Chicken Noodle low-table by Jan Habraken…and Habraken’s little yellow Duck Sponges.
Skidum - the new wind-up by Chico (Brazil), Tree Trunk Stool(Holland) and fan, floor mats by Group inc.(NYC/Berlin), Gun bag by Miriam van der Lubbe(Holland)
Jan Habraken from Holland being shot by David Kucharsky
the dismantle.
The new wind-up by Chico Bicalho called SKIDUM is making its exclusive debut tonight at the Museum of Modern Art - MoMA shop in Soho - NYC for their exhibit “Made in Brazil.”
The moves on this wind-up are like break-dancing to salsa music, it spins and stops and spins back the other way - pirouetting itself into a dizzy spell. It and me both! What’s also cool is the gears glow in the dark. I wonder if those break-dancers ever wore glow in the dark clothing?
May 16 - 19, 2009 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York City. Kikkerland Design makes a booth out of 2000 cans of soup and will donate them to New York’s hungry through City Harvest after the show.
New design from Alissia Melka-Teichroew and Ilona Huvenaars, Pieter Woudt, Materious, and Chico Bicalho - whose new wind up SKIDUM is debuting exclusively at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for their “Designed in Brazil” exhibition.
May 17-20, 2009 in New York City at the Stationery Show held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, Kikkerland Design will introduce a new line of notebooks, planners and accessories called LEUCHTTURM1917, manufactured by the German stationery company Leuchtturm. Producing high quality stationery for over 90 years this family owned business has become the world’s leading manufacturer of coin and stamp albums. This, their first line of notebooks and planners, are a blend of unique and practical features including newly designed archival bleed-proof paper, numbered pages and an index for organizing notes.
There are shops in the US that have picked up the introductory styles including the awesome MASTER SIZE book that measures 9 x 12″ - big enough to store large sheets of paper with out damaging the edges (I personally recommend the grid-version) - with new styles arriving in late July.
Here are a few stores offering LEUCHTTURM1917 now: MXYPLYZYK and McNally Robinson Bookstore in New York City; Powell’s Books in Portland; Arch, Heartfelt and Flax in San Francisco; HR Meininger in Denver; Boulder Books in Boulder; and the National Building Museum in Washington DC.
Congratulations to Anja Swoape, 12, who won the seven-county metro area regional Minnesota Scripps Spelling Bee on Saturday, March 14th by correctly spelling “gastralgia.”
How cool to search for “Kikkerland” on YOUTUBE.com to find…among other cool homemade Kikkerland videos, a growing collection of folks who made and recorded their own tunes on the ‘Mechanical Music Box Kits’ offered by Kikkerland Design. We found this product with the urging of experimental musician Bob Marsh, who runs the shop at Zeum in San Francisco, a non-profit multimedia arts and technology museum with a mission to foster creativity and innovation in young people. Bob stills comes by our booth when Kikkerland is in SF to see what other products we might make that he can make music with…for example the battery operated milk-frother makes cool sounds on a drum symbol.
The ‘kit’ includes a special size hole puncher, instruction booklet, crank box, 3 blank music paper strips plus one pre-punched example with the tune, “Happy Birthday”. Paper refills are available, well, they will be come January.
“The tone of a musical box is unlike that of any musical instrument.” - Alec Templeton, an avid collector of music boxes and a professional concert musician.
The earliest known mechanical musical devices were invented in Bagdad by The Banu Musa brothers in the 9th century who also invented the valve, mechanical trick devices and the gas mask. Their revolving cylinder with raised pins is the same mechanism watchmakers in the 18th century used to make musical snuff boxes which has since evolved into the mechanical music box we have today.
Other famous moments in music box lore:
- Bjork in the album “Vespertine” and the song “Frosti”
- Colleen made an album using only music boxes “Colleen et les Boites a Musique.”
- In 1974-75, German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen composed Tierkreis, a set of twelve pieces on the signs of the zodiac, for twelve musical boxes.
- In Japanese anime and manga films, music boxes are used to convey romantic feelings.
- A music box that induces eternal sleep when played in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
- Panic! At the Disco’s cover “This is Halloween” in the Nightmare before Christmas uses a music box for the open and close of the song.
See you soon Bob!
Hey, it’s Zeum’s 10th year anniversary, check out www.zeum.org or better yet, pack up the kids and head for San Francisco. The shop is located on the corner of Fourth Street and Howard near the Moscone Center.
