This form of task unification, presented by Danny Kuo, is sure to please those of us struggling with organization in small spaces.

Even though it’s a little early to be thinking about next year, you might want to…mark your calendar, and remember to buy this Bubble Calendar for 2009;

Based on the universal premise that everyone likes to pop bubbles, memories of Advent calendars, interesting ways of marking time’s progression and needing to know what day it is, Stephen came up with the Bubble Calendar. (via Cool Hunting)

This Attribute Dependency change (bubble wrap instead of paper) renders the tactile calendar a method of marking the passage of time, versus an apparatus for planning and scheduling. Given the increasing use of PDA, e-mail, and other digital planners, calendar makers should take note of this instance of inventive thinking.  In our opinion, not even Google Calendar can compete with bubble wrap.

Every good baker possesses the proper tools of the trade, but until now, one couldn’t actually bake tools of a trade.  Fortunately, metal goods manufacturer Hugo Bräuer has stepped in to address this matter, offering a series of six industrial themed aluminum baking pans.  The “tools you bake” are directly borrowed from the “hundreds of wooden moulds, used in the making of hubcaps, lids or shades“ produced throughout the 100 year history of the company.    

In addition to all of the obvious reasons, we love the idea of making a hubcap cake because it is the perfect instance of Function Follows Form.  It takes a special mind to translate an industrial wooden mould into a baking pan with MoMA credentials, but once it’s been done, its actually more shocking that no one thought of it before.  

(via IMEGADOZE)

In a follow up to our post on Attribute Dependency as the preferred mode of thinking for advertisers, check out this article from the Washington Post, excerpted below;

“Alan Andreasen, a marketing guru at Georgetown University, says the trend toward cutility is “an attempt by lots of people to individualize both themselves and their possessions.”

He equates the cuting-up of the commonplace with “tattoos, customized cellphones and ringtones as a way to step away from mass commoditization.”

Credit, he says, goes to the clever marketers who have found ways to breathe life into mundane commodity categories.”

The cutility trend fuses individualism with mass produced commodities.  The implied benefit for the customer is the expression of self through ownership of a “staple” item, that would most likely be purchased regardless of aesthetic appeal.  Joe Anybody may express his indviduality with a brass knuckles wine opener, rather than getting a painful tattoo, or body piercing.  Not only does he show the world how tough he is, he can get that bottle of Merlot open in no time.   

However, can clever marketing really be considered Inventive Thinking in the way we have been describing it?  Perhaps we should introduce a new pattern; Function Follows Frills.  Identify and understand the needs (frills) of a target segment, and slap those needs onto a functional product.  There’s no other way to explain a brass knuckle wine opener.