reactions

MSLK’s sculptural statement, Watershed, catches the attention of visitors at the 13th annual D.U.M.B.O. Art Festival.

“Art Under the Bridge Festival”
New York Post, newspaper
September 30, 2009

We just produced a short video about our environmental commitment. You can see it above, or on our fresh, new site: www.mslk.com.

Let us know what you think!

This past weekend MSLK participated in a really great event: Brooklyn’s 13th annual DUMBO arts festival. Our own eco-art installation, Watershed, was a huge success, with a number of visitors telling us they came just to see our piece. That was a huge honor.

The event itself is described by the event planners as a showcase for: “touchable, accessible, and interactive art, on a scale that makes it the nation’s largest urban forum for experimental art.”

Sheri and I each had a chance to explore, as I took over 500 photos all weekend, and have finally sorted through the highlights…

Read More

Everybody wants a great looking website – one that’s unique and visually reflects your brand. One element that often gets overlooked is the usability of the site. No matter how great your site looks, if users can’t navigate through it and get the information they’re looking for, it’s doomed. Smashing Magazine recently published their research findings on how to design a website that people will use. What we’ve intuitively known through our process of web design finally gets some scientific cred. Get the scoop after the jump.

Read More

Monday night saw Watershed, MSLK’s eco-art installation, exhibited as the featured artwork at the “green-carpet” premiere of The Age of Stupid, a drama-documentary-animation hybrid about the last person alive in the year 2055, watching archive footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

This was a zero-emissions event, relying on solar panels and human energy from bicycles. The event was digitally broadcast to over 700 theaters all around the world, and featured guests such as Kofi Annan, Gillian Anderson, a live performance by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and satellite links to scientists working in the  Indonesian Rainforest and at the melting glaciers in the Himalayas. Earlier in the day, Moby performed his hit “Trouble So Hard” in front of Watershed along with a team of cyclists whose legs provided the power for the performance.

This premiere was timed to coincide with New York’s Climate Week, and to focus attention on the critical decisions which need to be made for the upcoming UN Climate talks in Copenhagen.

We were truly honored to have been part of this amazing event, especially as the director and producer made special mention of Watershed’s message: that the 1500 water bottles on display represented one second of U.S. consumption — a message which resonated well with the film’s cautionary tale of mindless over-consumption.

Click below for some picture highlights…

Read More

MSLK is back at it again with a great write up on the eco-blog Inhabitat. Besides covering our installation at the premiere of The Age of Stupid and the Dumbo Art Under Bridge Festival, Inhabitat writes

MSLK is known for previously inundating visitors with statistics on plastic bag use with its installation 2663 Urban Tumbleweeds. It’s trash as conscience, trash as guilt personified, trash as Army of Inanimate Eco Warriors. If MSLK were your mom, you’d be making egg crate caterpillars (with pipe cleaner antennae, remember?), and training them to crawl on people who don’t reuse and recycle. I wonder what being grounded would be like.

 But don’t worry, we aren’t grounding anyone. As I told Inhabitat, Mother Nature herself will take care of any punishments that need to be handed out.

MSLK’s eco-art installation, “Watershed, a visual representation of one second of US consumption (1500 water bottles), will be on tour again this month in New York City. Watershed was created to inform the public of the dangers of our current rate of consumption and challenge everyone to rethink the need for bottled water when we have the best quality drinking water coming right from our taps.

Read More

One of the challenges designers meet is how to get their message across without sounding righteous or didactic. This animation about water, commissioned by Good Magazine, does a good job of doing just that. Being a fan of almost anything harking back to bygone times, I like that it starts off with a 50s informational film (notice also how the old-movie aesthetic is carried throughout the video). Its optimistic tone works really well as a contrast to the rest of the animation.

Technically, the piece is skillfully executed with its seamless transitions and compelling imagery and illustrations. Even without any voiceover accompanying the rest of the video, the viewer remains engaged by the combination of sound, imagery and typography.

As Reactions continues to evolve, we are pleased to announce the addition of guest bloggers. This post features Bernice Herrera Sy, our water-conscious, retro-loving, intern.  

If you haven’t yet heard, Ikea has switched their corporate font, resulting in a huge public outrage the likes of which not seen in… well, months. These days, when you change your branding, the public has new ways of uprising and letting you know that they know what’s best for your brand. Oftentimes, they’re right.

In the case of the ill-conceived Tropicana debacle, a large-scale, expensive, major change to a corporate image was the center of the controversy. All Ikea did was change the font in their catalog (allegedly to save money). So what gives?

Read More

I have just found a new reason to visit Toronto. Sweet Flour bake shop located in High Park allows you to create your own cookie and bake it on the spot. First you select your mix: original, peanut butter, or oatmeal, then choose from 20 different mix-ins, like peanut butter pieces, dried cherries, toffee, etc., and watch it bake.  Your freshly-made cookie will be ready in 2 minutes. You can also get fancy and make cookie sandwiches, with ganache, jam, and creams.

Proving that the DIY, customize-your-own movement is still going strong, one custom-baked cookie at a time.