Minimal Universe

Minimal Universe collect posts from our favorite minimal-related blogs listed on the right.
  • Calvin Klein fall campaign 2010

    With their Fall 2010 line, Calvin Klein has appeared once again on our minimalist radar, thanks to CK’s creative director Francisco Costa.

    In their ad campaign, Calvin Klein introduces Dutch supermodel Lara Stone as their new face. In a recent interview with WWD, Costa explains why:

    I conceived my fall 2010 collection with a self-aware and assured woman in mind. For me, Lara was the perfect choice [..] because she is a woman who epitomizes confidence and sensuality.

    I couldn’t agree more: nothing says sexy like confidence paired with minimalism.

    Photography by Mert & Marcus.

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  • Randy's Tech Buying Tips

    I wanted to wait until the whole series was up before posting about this one. My good friend Randy Murray has posted a weeks worth of Tech Buying Tips that I can get behind and are very much in the spirit of “what we believe in”. I urge you to read them all:

    Tech Buying Tip: Buy Refurb

    Tech Buying Tip: Adopt An Early Adopter

    Tech Buying Tip: Review the Accessories Before You Buy

    Tech Buying Tip: What To Do About Extended Warranties

    Tech Buying Tip: Buy Stock Before Buying The Gadget

  • TecARCHITECTURE HQ

    Constraints are good for design. Sustainable minimalism can be another set of constraints. Los Angeles and Switzerland-based tecARCHITECTURE firm, approach their projects with a strong green agenda. They have earned environmentally progressive credentials with their sustainable high-tech architectural practices.

    tecARCHITECTURE Headquarter is designed as both a house and office by and for tecARCHITECTURE. It has four levels: an open floor office, on the lowest level, two rental apartments and a house for TecArchitecture COO Heiko Ostmann, on the upper levels. Geothermal energy, solar-powered lighting, a concrete open loft in the lowest level, and floor to ceiling windows with an extravagant view of Lake Constance — One super green package.

    Environment and design. Apparently oh-so-difficult contradictions?

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  • Spock

    Spock, designed by & devos" href="http://couvreurdevos.com/" target="_self">Couvreur & Devos, is a light that is stylishly minimalistic yet highly versatile. Lighting designers always seem to push the limits of technology, and this beautiful LED is no different.

    The LED disc contained within Spock is only 12mm thin, which is impressive, but not nearly as captivating as its specialized hinging system. The disc is allowed to rotate within its enclosure practically 360 degrees without the presence of any wires or cables sticking out. The light can also be attached to a railing system, which means you can pretty much shine light in any direction you please.

    I don’t know what I like more about Spock: its clean aesthetic, or its diverse functionality; either way, this light truly stands out from the norm.

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  • Episode 16- Minimal Mac - The Bro Show - The Bro Show

    Episode 16- Minimal Mac - The Bro Show - The Bro Show:

    Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being asked to appear on one of my favorite up-and-coming podcasts, The Bro Show. The show is produced by two UK geeks about topics near and dear to my heart – Macs, Movies and Gadgets as wells as Gaming. Please take some time out of your day to subscribe and give it a listen. You will not be disappointed.

    In this episode, we discussed Flipboard, Inception, our Fave Five gadgets (I completely picked mine on the fly). Of course, they also allowed me to ramble on about myself and Minimal Mac for a bit as well. Serious nerd-love for these guys. I hope to appear again soon.

  • Compass is a stylish compact folding stand that lets you use...




    Compass is a stylish compact folding stand that lets you use your iPad in two different modes. First, as an easel, Compass displays iPad in both portrait and landscape modes. Second, flip open the secondary leg and Compass now holds your iPad at the perfect angle to let your fingers fly across iPad’s onscreen keyboard.

    TwelveSouth unveils its latest product and, just like the rest, it is a thing of beauty.



  • Beautiful mix of modern design and urban decay… Pat at...



    Beautiful mix of modern design and urban decay… Pat at Simple Desks is going to love this.



  • Magica and Magica2

    Magic!

    The black Magica and his sister, the white Magica2, will make anyone look twice. Their designer, the Italian Davide Conti, replaced two legs with plexiglass to create the illusion of an impossible balance.

    The Magica’s are not in production yet, so manufacturers: give Davide a call!

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  • When was the last time you checked out your Utilities folder?...



    When was the last time you checked out your Utilities folder? Well, if your answer was “What’s that?” then let me explain. Inside of your Applications folder is another folder called Utilities that is filled with all sorts of wondrous things that most people either don’t know or completely forget are there. Even veteran Mac users are guilty of this. I know I am.

    DigitalColor Meter is one example of this. The other day, I wanted to find out the web safe color of a particular item on the screen of my Mac for a web design project I was working on. My first step was to go searching the Internet for such a tool (preferably free). Then, in the midst of said search, I was reminded that this little tool was not only already on my Mac, did exactly what I wanted, but also did it better than any of the tools I was able to find.

    The point is that, even the tools we think we know can always reveal a little something we don’t. The Mac is an incredibly deep and rich OS and there are few that know it all. I’m going to spend some time every day for the next little while spending some time getting to know some more of these built in tools I largely have ignored and see if I have any practical applications for using them. You will likely see more posts like this in the coming days.

    Update: Frijole dropped some mindblowing additional info about this app on the reblog.



  • Room for One Colour

    Room for One Colour by Berlin-based artist Olafur Eliasson is pretty much as minimal as installations get. (Unless you recount Yves Klein’s exhibition called The Void.)

    In this work, Eliasson is perhaps expressing his dissastisfaction with the materiality of art, and the notion that an exhibition is about putting art into a space. Instead, he seems to be interested in using a space as the actual artwork. In this instance, he reconfigures the space using mono-frequency lights to transform it into a room filled with a single colour. I find this quite a clean, minimal and slick method.

    Having seen this work in person earlier this year at the MCA, I can say from experience that it has a disorienting affect on people within and outside of the space. In the pictures, you can see how the lighting drains colour out of anything within the space.

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  • Minimal Goods


    Few days ago, we opened a small online shop, MInimal Goods

    Even though we have only two items(About Blank Notebook and Minimal Tee:M) right now, more products will be included in our collection soon.

    I designed/developed myself.

  • Frank Chimero

    Frank Chimero:

    I’m starting a club. It’s called the “Simple Things Done Well Society,” or STDWS, if you will. We believe that Vanilla is the best flavor of ice cream (so long as it is really good), Ringo Starr is wonderful drummer, and Hemmingway’s sentences are perfect, thank you very much.

    Sign me up.

  • Round Calendar

    I’m totally in love with this Round Calendar.

    In one view you see all the dates, year-round – literally. This makes it not only beautiful, but also a really practical and visual planner for the year ahead. Just jot down your notes in the white space surrounding the dates.

    The Round Calendar is a side-project of Petr Bykov from Russian design studio Saccade. You can purchase the calendar via their web shop (Russian).

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  • Greenman

    Practical, minimalist and with substance for its uses, say hello to the environmentally pleasant table mood lamp, Greenman.

    Italy based designer duo Valentina Del Ciotto & Simone Spalvieri desgined a lamp that combines several sustainable products such as energy saving LED bulb, storage batteries charged by a mini solar panel and a bio-plastic corn trimmed off with a bamboo – that makes Greenman’s design eco-friendly.

    This little lamp is cordless, waterproof and energy saving. What more to ask? I can almost see its nomad uses both indoor and outdoor back home!

    Greenman Lamp
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  • Marco.org - My iPhone 4 antenna-gap fix

    Marco.org - My iPhone 4 antenna-gap fix:

    It’s the tape trick, but with an excellent substitute for the tape: invisibleSHIELD film. It fits right over the gap and covers the entire left side, so when it’s held left-handed (as I always hold mine), there’s no electrical bridging.

    I actually was asking around the Twitter sphere about minimal case solutions and this was recommended by more than a few people. If I ever get an iPhone 4, unless any better solutions come along, this is exactly the solution I’m going with.