Design News is your tiny dose of design, technology and other important news, curated monthly by Interwoven Design. In this series we share the latest on our favorite topics, including aerospace, fashion design, urban design, and biomaterials. In this issue: our view of the cosmos just got a gorgeous upgrade, Puma jumps into the Web3 market with digital products, 100 years of Schiaparelli’s artistic fashion designs are celebrated, and an urban installation in London reminds us to sit back and look up at the sky.
New views of the cosmos!
The new James Webb Space Telescope is the largest and most powerful observatory yet, with a mirror that is 6.5 meters in diameter to capture more light, and therefore to view farther into the past than ever before. The telescope also incorporates instruments sensitive to infrared light, allowing the telescope to capture images normally invisible to the human eye. The NASA team released a series of stunning images last week to show what this impressive telescope can do, and we were enchanted. To understand just how the Webb telescope will help astronomers better understand the universe, take a look at the Times Instagram feature explaining how it works. A wide range of scientific research is underway and soon to follow the unveiling of the superb instrument.
Puma in New Tokyo
Puma has announced a new metaverse project in collaboration with 10KFT, an NFT project that is a shop in a virtual Tokyo. The project will involve digital assets that align with physical products due to launch in the near future. Puma’s chief brand officer Adam Petrick explained, “We have to be thinking about engaging with people in the physical world and giving people the opportunity to bring physical products into the digital world.” The collaboration will include options to customize and personalize digital sneakers that can later be realized physically, and is Puma’s most serious foray into the Web3 space thus far.
via Vogue Business
The surreal world of Elsa Schiaparelli
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris is hosting an exhibition honoring the pioneering Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. ‘Shocking! The surreal world of Elsa Schiaparelli’ features 520 works by the historic fashion house, including hundreds of garments, sketches, and accessories by Schiaparelli. She was an intellectual and an artist with connections to the surrealist movement, and the exhibit celebrates the fusing of art and fashion that pervades her work. It also features ceramics, jewelry, perfume, paintings, and photography by Schiaparelli and her friends and colleagues to tell a comprehensive story of a brand over a hundred years.
via Vogue
Peter Newman’s Skystation
Canary Wharf in London now features Skystation, a futuristic, saucer-shaped bench designed by Peter Newman. Newman describes the installation as “an interactive public sculpture and seat,” and the form, designed to accommodate several people, encourages leaning back to look up at the sky. The aluminum-bronze form was inspired by the iconic LC4 chaise lounge, designed in 1928 by Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, and Pierre Jeanneret. Newman explained to Dezeen, “It creates an opportunity for pause, reflection and interaction within the public realm. Gravity puts the past beneath us, so looking up is akin to thinking about the future.”
via designboom
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