Scared Cat

BMW aggressively takes on the biomimicmarketing of Jaguar. Peculiar image of the week.

Via Infozaragoza. Related: The Naturalness of traveling with a Jeep, Facing Your Car, Steam Horse. Thanks iPeg.

The naturalness of travelling with a Jeep

GPS is not the most easiest product to advertise. Jeep uses biomimicmarketing to bring the message across. In this advertising campaign an iconic arrow is comprised by images of animals herding. From birds flocking to elephants roaming. We lead you the way.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ecological Insecticide

Ecological insecticide allows you to extinguish-nature in a nature-friendly way.

It nicely illustrates the “I love nature, but not in my backyard” attitude, so popular nowadays. Peculiar paradoxical product of the week.

Related: Five Strategies of Biomimicmarketing, The biodiversity of green brands is increasing, Natural Condoms.

Fruit4Day

Fruit does wonders for your health. No doubt about it. It is recommended to consume two pieces of fruit each day. One.. Sorry, I’ve lost count?

How convenient to have the two pieces of fruit mixed together in one product! Hunting and gathering has become too easy nowadays. Of course, you pay a bit extra for the service, as the retail price of Fruit2Day equals the price of FOUR pieces of fruit in their original packaging.

Related: Image consumption, How to grow an Orangina Bottle, Lucky Fruits, Modernistic watermelon, Cubic Fruit, Hyper Fruit, Banana Juice box.  Thanks Hendrik-Jan.

Sunflowers – electric gardening

A retail lot in Austin, Texas recently sprouted a field of solar photovoltaic sunflowers that soak up the sun’s rays to provide shade while generating a steady stream of electricity.

Although the gigantic fake flowers are rather illustrative and slightly uncanny – are these supposed to be flowers from the Terminator? – the gardening metaphor is fascinating and promising. Just think about the comparison with food: Growing your own food is a deeply intuitive ancient human longing that can bring one a sense of independence, pleasure and bonding with the environment – not for nothing so many city people still have kitchen gardens. Perhaps in our electricity craving next nature, we should be gardening our own electricity.

The installation was designed by artists Harries/Heder and consists of 15 flower-like solar photovoltaic panels located on a pedestrian and bike path between the village of Mueller and Austin’s highway I-35.

Via Inhabitat. Related: Solar trees, Antenna tree mast safari, conductive bodypaint. Thanks: Stoffel Kuenen.

Tattooed goldfishes

If a tattooed pig is a bit too much for you, why not go for a tattooed goldfish? They bring you lost of luck and are available Chinese characters such as “Wealth, Dragon, Longevity, Happiness…” or flowery patterns that are inscribed onto the fishes’ skin with lasers.

Apparently the little fellows are so popular in China that the prices are shooting up. It is reported that the tattooed fish has been priced at about 20 yuan initially; but it is priced at 100 yuan now – price also depends on whether you buy a fish with a standard inscription or a bio-customized one with your personal markings. It still attracts many citizens to purchase. Pets have become more popular in China in recent years with the country’s increasing prosperity.

Via NRCNext. Related: Branded Butterfly Wings, Self catching fish, Hyperfish, Biopresence: human DNA translated to trees, Hybrid carp with a human face, Feelings translated to plants, Branded pigs.  Thanks: Martijn de Waal.

Freshness Label

Japanese design agency To-Genkyo proposes a dynamic freshness label for meat products. The hourglass-shaped label contains special ink that changes color based on the amount of ammonia emitted by the meat (the older the meat, the more ammonia it releases).

Hence you can easily read from the handy label if the meat is still fresh!! But wait.. could you not simple derive from the meat ITSELF if it is fresh? Well, some can perhaps, but nowadays most people can not ‘read meat’, so we need an authoritative label to tell us what we can and can’t consume.

Elegant detail: When the meat is no longer suitable for sale, the ink blocks the barcode at the bottom so that it cannot be scanned at the cash register.

Via Pinktentacle. Related: Forefather Ox cloned to revive delicious steak, Image consumption, Where it came from, Orthorexia Nervosa, The meat of tomorrow.

Antenna Tree Mast Safari

This picture was taken in Zambia by Sarah Los (NL) while on wildlife safari. Every fairly trained “NextNature spotter” should be able to distinguish the cellphone-tree masts from old-nature trees. But that’s odd; there are three of them in a row and all different species!? Does every cellular network provider plant its own tree family? It surely looks like a competition. Future designs are expected to look better, taller and greener.

Let us do a quick jungle safari ourselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Where cavemen live?

Rock 2007. Peculiar image of the week by Hans Wilschut. Made in Shanghai. If you know more about the orgins of the building: let us know.

Thanks to Vivid Gallery, Rotterdam, NL.

Corporate animal wallpaper (in real life)

Students of the Next Nature Theme at TU/e Industrial design in Eindhoven decided to jungle-up their working environment a bit with the corporate animal wallpaper.

Hand painted (!) by Jurrian Tjeenk Willink, Glenn Jacobs, Kevin Pfeil and Josien Rijswijk. Original pattern design by Karl Grandin, of whom the corporate animal sweater is still available.

See also: Corporate animal pattern laptop engraving, Five strategies of biomimicmarketing, A wood of logos, Nextnature@Volume magazine, Designing for Next Nature @ TU Eindhoven.