office

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Animation

A Stop-Motion Animation Full of Inappropriate Office Behavior Questions the Professional Impact of Motherhood

What poses the biggest threat to women’s careers? That’s the question behind a new animation by Swedish director Anna Mantzaris (previously) that follows a mischievous character through a series of wildly inappropriate misdeeds and poor office etiquette. Created collaboratively by Passion Pictures and Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand, the lighthearted-turned-sincere short film compares snipping off a coworker’s tie or wreaking workplace havoc to the unfair penalties of being a parent.

Coinciding with International Women’s Day, the stop-motion animation marks the launch of a new Global Women campaign that advocates for an end to the motherhood penalty, or the systemic setbacks women face in the workforce after having children. These disadvantages include everything from “earning an average of 12.5% less across a working lifetime despite working comparable hours to male and non-parent counterparts in their working lifetimes, through to being passed up for promotions and opportunities for advancement simply for being a mother,” the New Zealand-based organization says in a statement.

Mantzaris is known for her distinct style of humor and animations laden with office hijinks, which you can watch on her Vimeo and Instagram. (via Creative Boom)

Design

Vintage Vespa Parts Recontextualized as Sleek Modern Office Furniture

All images provided by Bel & Bel

The sleek build of Vespa scooters have been redesigned to remain stationary, dissected and rebuilt as office furniture. Fit for an Italian motorist, the Scooter Chair, is handmade by Spanish studio Bel & Bel in a numbered series with a large variety of color combinations to choose for your office or home. Although it may appear like a normal swivel chair from the front, when turned around you can see how the curves of the vintage Vespa parts match that of the faux leather chair to create a sleek and ergonomic design.

To further imitate their design inspiration, each chair also comes with functioning taillights. More than 200 of these up-cycled pieces have been sold around the world, and because each and every chair is built by hand, they are all certifiably unique. To understand the process of making one of Bel & Bel’s chairs, visit their blog. (My Modern Met)

Design

Rubber Bands with a Bow: The Art of Japanese Packaging Simplified

Japanese design is often focused on adding engaging design to unexpected places, subtly nudging the audience to look twice at everyday objects from erasers to lunch boxes. Designer Yu Aso has placed this idea into one of the most common packaging elements—rubber bands.

Aso has reimagined rubber bands with a mizuhiki twist, a Japanese art form using cords tied with decorative knots. The most common of these is the shoelace knot, which he has effortlessly worked into a rubber band that is appropriately named the mizuhikiband. The band was was originally created as part of the 2013 Kokuyo Design Awards with the theme of “happy x design,” but has since gone through two years of revisions to refine the design and make the product more foreigner-friendly.

It was also important to Aso that the band have a sense of repetition in its design, encouraging users to use the product over and over again to secure a variety of gifts.

Mizuhikibands will be available in four different colors and packaged in groups of 7 beginning in early October. (via Spoon & Tamago)

Update: Mizuhikibands are now available in the U.S. through the Spoon & Tamago Shop.

Design

Cubic Rubber Bands by Nendo

Earlier this year Tokyo and Milan-based design firm Nendo (previously) accepted the challenge of redesigning the rubber band, one of the most common desktop items that seems so ubiquitous that it’s disposable. After all, the cost of a few hundred more is just a few bucks. But what if a rubber band was interesting, functional, and you didn’t want to throw it away. This was the idea behind Nendo’s cubic rubber band, a completely different form factor resulting in a desktop object that isn’t meant to be stashed away in a drawer or tossed in the trash. A set of three retails for 1080 yen (about $10), though you’ll need to be able to navigate a Japanese retailer, Marks, to snap up a set. (via Spoon & Tamago)

Animation

A Girl Named Elastika: An Animated Adventure in Office Supplies

Animated by Guillaume Blanchet (who you might know from his hilarious The Man Who Lived on His Bike), this new stop-motion short called A Girl Named Elastica tells the brief story of a girl who leaves her home to adventures around the world. Probably the most notable aspect is the ingenious use of thumbtacks and rubber bands to create the majority of the animation which takes place entirely on a small bulletin board. A Girl Named Elastica has been winning awards at animation festivals all over the world since last year, and you can follow Blanchet over on Facebook.

Design

The Rubber Barber: Make a Mistake and Give Your Eraser a Fancy Haircut

Designed by Chen Lu Wei for Megawing, this fun set of four erasers lets you assume the role of barber while you work, all you have to do first is make a mistake. By using the eraser you slowly shave away the rubbery hair surface resulting in a funky new hairdo for your desktop pal, effectively turning an act of destruction into an act of creation every time you erase. Pretty sure my kid would just start with the face.