Bicycle Film Festival Miami
Nora sent us some photos from the last Bicycle Film Festival of the year, held in Miami. Looks like everybody had an amazing time. Extra stoked on the photos by Lucas Brunelle and Joel Meinholz.
Hope to see everybody at next year’s BFF!
09 Holiday Shipping Schedule
Because of the holidays our warehouse hours will vary. Of course the Web site won’t close, so you can always place orders, but please keep the following shipping schedule in check:
Friday, December 18
Orders received by 10am PST, will leave our warehouse that day.
Orders received after 10am PST, will ship on Monday, December 21.
Thurday, December 24
Orders received by 10am PST, will leave our warehouse that day.
Orders received after 10am PST, will ship on Monday, December 28.
Thursday, December 25 – December 27
No Shipping.
Wednesday, December 30
Orders received by 2pm PST, will leave our warehouse that day.
Orders received after 2pm PST, will ship beginning Monday, January 4.
Thursday, December 31 – January 3
No Shipping.
Wednesday, January 6
Orders received by 2pm PST, will leave our warehouse that day.
Orders received after 2pm PST, will ship beginning Monday, January 11.
Thursday, January 7 – January 10
No Shipping.
Monday, January 11
We’re back in full force!
Art is in the Eye of the Beholder
Gallery hopping in Miami is a trip—dare we say a difficult endeavor when having to venture to all parts of the city while getting stuck in massive amounts of traffic in 85 degree weather. We made it to a few of the more worthwhile galleries to ooh and ahh (and sometimes ogle) the profound (and not so profound) pieces of artwork, contemplating the inspiration and meaning and sometimes questioning the value. ‘Art is in the eye of the beholder’, right?
The favored, as we’re sure many would agree, would be the Beg Borrow and Steal exhibition at the Rubell Family Collection, featuring 260 works by 74 renown artists including Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, Barbara Kruger and many others.
Here are some of our personal favs, including an edible Dunkin’ Donuts Old Fashioned donut installation—amazing!
Old P-Rod Polaroids
Jeff Landi over at The Skateboard Mag posted some old Polaroid photos of some skaters. Two of them include Paul Rodriguez sporting the cornrows. Good stuff Landi. More please.
The Process Behind the Perforation
Our friends at NOTCOT recently posted a feature about the design and development of our new Perforated Snap Case, so we thought we’d share the expanded version of the conversation with Joe (Chief Design Officer) and Markus (Vice President of Design) here. Visit NOTCOT to enter their giveaway of our Perforated Snap Cases, but don’t wait too long–they’re picking a winner on Friday, December 11.
What inspired you to create a perforated iPhone case?
The Snap Case (non-perforated) form factor is our lightest, most minimal case in our iPhone case product lineup. The inspiration for perforation stemmed from the idea to further minimize the case by reducing weight without taking away the functional aspect of it being a protective solution.
The first idea that came to mind was using a simple, geometric pattern. From there, we started exploring how to perforate our Snap Case with different shapes, scales and pattern densities, pushing the limits of what is possible to manufacture.
Describe the design and development process for the Perforated Snap Case.
At the start of any product development process, we begin with a team brainstorm session to generate as many ideas as possible. From there we narrow it down to the most promising concepts and refine them with sketching and rendering. Once an idea is committed to, the design team builds a 3D CAD model, which serves as a database to create Stereolithography models, a prototyping process that enables us to print a desired shape in 3D.
Next, we test the prototypes and further refine the geometry. A final design is then agreed upon and we analyze and study its geometry to determine manufacturing feasibility. Once a product passes this stage, the tooling process can commence.
To start the tooling process, we begin with large blocks of steel and machine out the negative shape of our case to make a hollow form that is later injected with polycarbonate material. Because of the all-over perforated design of the Perforated Snap Case, the tooling process is very intricate and takes a relatively long period of time to accomplish. Individual steel pins with varying degrees of curvature for each hole are needed to create the perforated design.
Once the tool is cut, it is then textured and finished. Following this stage of tooling, we shoot the first test shots in plastic, which help us to further debug and finalize the tool as well as the injection settings to create the perfect molded part for the production run.
What types of engineering challenges did the Perforated Snap Case pose?
Injection molding makes it relatively easy to perforate a pattern in one direction, but for the Perforated Snap Case, we were challenged with wrapping a pattern evenly onto a surface that contains multiple directions and very thin wall sections. Our goal was to keep the perforated pattern aligned regardless of the angle from which it is viewed. Because of the curves of the case, it became rather challenging to determine the best way to mold it.
Our product development process is one of continual refinement—we go through many prototypes and trials in order to find the one that will work best for manufacturing.
Please describe the intricacies of the tool and the mold injection.
For the injection molding process, we use hardened steel tools that are the negative (or hollow) form of our case. These are necessary for the mold injection of plastic that creates the positive case form.
Thin steel pins within the tool create the intricate perforated pattern of the case. When in production, injection-molded plastic flows under high pressure and temperature in between the pins. The challenge is to find the perfect balance—the pins cannot be too small, since that would cause them to break under high pressure; and the spacing cannot be too dense, as material needs to flow through the mold easily and evenly.
Since the perforated pattern runs throughout the case, multiple complicated tool actions are required to achieve a consistent pattern.
How many holes are in the case?
Nearly 1000.
Are there benefits to using this case over another iPhone case? How does it differ from other cases on the market?
Our Snap Case is our most minimal case and provides just the slightest elevation around the bezel, which allows the iPhone widescreen to be raised above a surface while it lies on its front face. The design of the Perforated Snap Case gives a unique surface texture, resulting in a better grip because of the pattern. And of course, its perforated design adds visual interest as well.
Incase at Art Basel, Miami Beach
We partnered with Surface magazine to sponsor its VIP lounge for the duration of Miami Art Basel, one of the most anticipated and exciting art shows in the US.
Surface magazine, in association with the Gansevoort South Hotel, present the Surface Lounge at Gansevoort South, a three-day event during the famed Art Basel Miami Beach. Eighteen stories above the ocean, the hotel’s Plunge rooftop is a tropical playground featuring a 110-foot-long pool on a 26,000-square-foot, palm-fringed Brazilian Ipe deck. (Can it get any better?)
During the day on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the Surface Lounge will host a 5,000-square-foot VIP area illuminated and furnished by Gandia Blasco, offering respite and refreshment for Art Basel participants scurrying to events and galleries. We will be providing the WiFi-ready Media Lounge complimented by a montage of short films featuring the artists from our Curated by Arkitip series, including KRINK, Parra, Steven Harrington, HunterGatherer and André.
Interview magazine will also be setting up shop, but this year at the Mondrian Hotel. In celebration of the magazine’s 40th birthday, they’ve taken over the hotel’s luxury Semi-Automatic vending machine to feature their Anniversary Collection, a curated installment of fascinating items such as archive Interview issues signed by Andy Warhol, tickets to the Paris Couture shows, a private jet, commissioned artwork by emerging young artists Asher Penn, Megan Plunkett and Luke Barber Smith, and product from the most recent Curated by Arkitip installment featuring André, signed by the artist himself. All are available for purchase.
Fingers crossed the weather holds out and Miami lives up to its vibrant, showy and sunny reputation. We’ll have more to share straight from the shows and celebrations, South Beach style. Stay tuned.
Brother Reade vs. the Incase Backpack
Triumph Over Tragedy, Take One
For those of you familiar with the goincase blog’s music coverage, you’ll no doubt recognize the name Brother Reade, Los Angeles by way of North Carolina’s hardest working rapper/dj duo. While on tour this summer DJ Bobby Evans ran over his Incase backpack with the tour van. Prior to this the pack had looked rather nice, we’d just given it to him in Portland during MFNW. But more importantly, the pack had Evan’s MacBook Pro in it. You know— the computer with all the songs, beats, contacts, and contracts for their tour. Woof. Incredibly, Brother Reade’s Jams F. Kennedy claims this story has a happy ending. Read on:
On our recent tour with Girl Talk, we were lucky enough to have a short run of exhilarating shows that were all packed with wild and receptive crowds. We went through the Northwest, where each different city is beautiful and lush, and has its own distinct flavor. We felt on top of the world, able to treat ourselves to regional food and drink that we only hear about in legends down in Los Angeles, and we were extremely pumped for the crisp weather and copious amounts of roadside thrift shops teeming with secondhand wool. Our days were filled with excellent meals and good weather, and our nights were full of febrile dance parties. Everything was perfect. Except that time we ran over DJ Bobby Evans’ laptop with the tour vehicle.
A little back story: Bobby Evans is the DJ/Producer for Brother Reade. I should also mention that for one reason or another, he’d had the same record bag for far too long. So you can imagine, that when Incase contacted us and wanted to furnish us with some pieces of theirs he was elated and couldn’t wait to use their products to organize his road gear and dispense with the (let’s be honest, somewhat tattered) bags he had been using to date. We picked up the Incase shipment at our show at MusicFest Northwest (MFNW) and were truly psyched to get it (very infrequently do the right pairings happen in the world of artist gifting/sponsorship, but those guys over there seem to be on to something).
Now, after MFNW our next show was at the Showbox SoDo in Seattle, where Mr. Evans finally got around to switching out his gear into the new bags. We somewhat ceremoniously trashed the old bags, packed up the rest of our things, and pulled out of the parking lot. And we heard a dragging sound. Everyone’s first thought in the car was that we were dragging the old bags. The old bags had been left outside, not thrown in the dumpster, and were being dragged by the car. We all believed this. So we pulled further out of the parking lot, when it hit us. Oh snap. We’re driving with one of the NEW bags under the tire of the car. The one with the laptop in it. The laptop with all the songs for our set, that we can’t play without. In the middle, not the end of the tour. Uh oh.
So we did the obvious thing, stopping the car, retrieving the laptop, assessing the damage, and something like a small miracle happened. I can’t stretch the truth to say that the laptop or the bag weren’t at all damaged, but I can say that they weren’t damaged beyond repair, and we were able to link the laptop to another computer and retrieve all of the songs we needed to off of it. AND after minor repairs the computer is fine, still in working order, due in no small part to the design of the bookbag, which we can now firmly endorse and attest to, in a true and completely sincere way, devoid of any of the usual cheesiness/self interest that normally lurks behind such sentiments. Now if you come see Brother Reade play a show, it’s likely you’re watching Bobby Evans DJ off of a laptop that HAS BEEN RUN OVER BY A CAR AND STILL WORKS. You might also see him carrying it around in a bookbag with roadrash and the tags still on it. We got lucky, don’t try this at home.
Love,
Jimmy Jams of Brother Reade
Texture and Style: Perforated Snap Case for iPhone 3GS/3G
Instantly add visual interest to your iPhone without adding weight with the new Perforated Snap Case. The Snap Case is the newest in our lineup of cases for iPhone 3GS/3G and is a low profile, one-piece protective solution for your iPhone. The Perforated Snap Case takes the style to the next level with its all-over perforated design for an ultra-minimalist case with maximum visual impact.
Precision-engineered to be the lightest weight case in our iPhone product offering, the Perforated Snap Case attaches easily and securely, providing device coverage, scratch protection and direct access to all iPhone features.
The Perforated Snap Case is available now for $29.95 in White, Black and Magenta in our webstore. (Also be sure to check out the Perforated Snap Case for iPod nano.)
UPDATE: Perforated Snap Case is now available at Apple Retail Stores in the US and online.
Stay in control with new Gaming Covers for iPod touch
Whether you’re white-knuckling your way through the latest FPS or adopting and caring for a virtual furry friend, our new Gaming Covers for iPod touch keep you on your A-game.
Constructed of durable injection-molded rubber, the Gaming Covers feature a custom back panel that has been sculpted specifically for added grip. The custom molded design provides ergonomic support when the iPod touch is held in widescreen position, giving gamers extra stability and control while providing device protection and direct access to all device features.
The Topo Gaming Cover and Orb Gaming Cover are available now for $34.95 in a range of colors including Royal Blue, Orange, Turquoise and Acid Green. They make perfect stocking stuffers for the gamer in your life, so check them out in our webstore.
