•DWR's bassinet from scott wilson at ooba: A beautiful, light design, but price remains a bit heavy ($500).
•The Falling Sand Game: Entrancing.
•Lumb–R–Grip™: "Amazing hooks grab onto any exposed timber and hold up to 200 lbs."
•Ink blot dinner plate series by Kathleen Walsh: "Japanese porcelain with lead-free certified glaze...for $180."
•Copycat Branding: Looks the same as Method but for far less.
•Aeron Chaise by Sietze Kalkwijk: Targeted at "Americans who watch up to 9 hours of TV a day."
•Sharp's porta-dishwashers: Super small and not cheap.
•The Ikea game: In which you try to guess what 10 Ikea names actually refer to. We scored 40%.
Writer's Almanac:
•It was on this day in 1964 that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr arrived in the United States for their first American tour.
•POEM: "Reading History a Year at a Time" by Joan McIntosh
my favorite ikea name is "FARTYG"
http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10103&storeId=12&langId=-1&productId=48286
re: DWR's bassinet from scott wilson at ooba--
I soooooo want to design a nursery around that! But at these prices, it would need to be for a couple with deep pockets!!!!
I clicked through to Design Observer's original post about the Method copycat product. Since the copycat is also biodegradable and is priced at 1/4 the cost of the Method product ($1 vs $4), I would opt for the copycat. I'm fairly brand-loyal and do like Method quite a bit: their philosophy, their design, and most of their product line. But if a competitor can deliver a similar product in equally attractive packaging, I'd be a fool not to pocket the savings as a consumer.
The bassinet is great, but does anyone know what the rug is made of? Or is it a Flor-type set-up, with individual tiles?
Warning: falling sand is totally addictive.
What Enrique is saying.
I don't know that I would buy the "Solutions" product without comparings its ingredient list against the Method products. Though the packaging is a copycat, it doesn't automatically follow suit that the item is. Ani Patel in the Core77 comments makes a relevant comparison between name brand and private label drugs. That said, if the copycat really is the same thing in a different bottle, I'll almost always choose it over the name brand item. This is one of those cases where the profit margin is small enough that the product that's $1 cheaper may not be inferior - it probably just doesn't advertise on TV.
Method stuff isn't always my fave; it's not outrageously effective for the price, though it works. I'm a fan of Simple Green, which has been nontoxic and biodegradable since way back, but isn't as pretty. It's meant to be decanted and diluted, though, so you can pretty much use whatever spray bottle you like. We have some old Method handsoap bottles that we refill with a soap that manages to be both cheaper AND less drying. You really shouldn't refill bottles from cleaners, but I'm sure reasonably attractive bottles are available at The Container Store or some similar place.
I think people are interested in this only because Method has such a distinct design identity - nobody cares that even the cheap brands now offer green-apple-scented dish soap, because nobody feels like SunLight is ripping off Dawn or Palmolive. And soap really pretty much *is* soap, and I wear rubber gloves when I'm washing dishes, so I'm all about buying the cheapest stuff that will do the job.
That bassinet is way cool, but it's the rocker that I'd get someone pregnant for. ;-)