Inspired by the unique aromas of cities across the globe, perfumer Gerald Ghislain and creative partner Magali Senequier present The Scent of Departure. Part perfume, part souvenir, the new collectible line hopes to bring back globetrotters’ memories through the “essence of a city put into a bottle”– such as the “floral and fruity scents of a sun-drenched summer day in Central Park” or the “the sun fruits and white florals surrounding The Duomo.” Currently, the brand has fourteen cities available: Paris (CDG), Milan (MIL), London (LHR), New York (NYC), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA), Dubai (DXB), Abu Dhabi (AUH), Doa ((DOH), Singapore (SIN), Tokyo (TYO), Hong Kong (HKG), Seoul (ICN), and Bali (DPS). And–perhaps our favorite part–TSOD’s packaging features sleek, skyscraper-shaped glass bottles that cleverly play on look of the traditional luggage tag.

The Scent of Departure will be available in airports and major retail stores; for more info, visit www.thescentofdeparture.com

*All images courtesy Marie Saeki PR.

A spirit of experimentation pervades everything Dutch designer Maarten Baas does. His smart, playful pieces—all unique and most handmade—are marked by elements of theater, film, and storytelling. And Baas’s latest project, the Plain Collection, picks up where his popular Clay furniture series–which featured metal furniture “skeletons” covered in hand-modeled, brightly colored synthetic clay–last left off. Like Clay, the new collection appears to been shaped by a child’s inexpert hands, as the finger prints of the hand-squeezed clay are still visible, making each piece a truly unique product. However, the Plain line’s materials are treated in such a way that the pieces don’t need to be lacquered like the original. All are made by hand in a barn-turned-workshop run by Maarten Baas and Bas den Herder in the south of Holland.

Describing his approach to me in late 2011 (while I was interviewing him for the book Design Voices), Bass told me, “It’s not that I strive to make something unexpected, but if it’s something that you already expected, then I don’t see the necessity of making it. I want to explore areas that are not explored yet. So in that way I definitely like to play with something unexpected.”

For more information, visit www.maartenbaas.com And to read our full Design Voices interview, along with conversations with several other great designers, check out the book on Amazon.

*All photos by Frank Tielemans. All images courtesy of Maarten Baas.

Now showing at New York’s Hasted Kraeutler gallery: Nick Brandt – On this Earth, A Shadow Falls

Photographer Nick Brandt first fell in love with Africa in 1995, when he visited Tanzania to direct Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” video. While there, Brandt was deeply moved by the beauty and spirit of the continent’s endangered animals, and felt compelled to capture and preserve what he saw.

So, over the past ten years, Brandt has photographed these animals, and sees this project as “my elegy to these beautiful creatures, to this wrenchingly beautiful world that is steadily, tragically, vanishing before our eyes.” Rather than using a telephoto lens, Brandt finds ways to get up close to his subjects, convinced that his proximity to the animals dramatically impacts his ability to reveal their personalities. As he writes, “You wouldn’t take a portrait of a human being from a hundred feet away and expect to capture their spirit; you’d move in close.” For this reason, it sometimes takes Brandt weeks of patience to get close enough to the subject to get a single photograph, often times just weeks before they are killed by poachers.

“What I am interested in is showing the animals simply in the state of Being,” Brandt explains. “In the state of Being before they ‘no longer are.’ Before, in the wild at least, they cease to exist. This world is under terrible threat, all of it caused by us. To me, every creature, human or nonhuman, has an equal right to live, and this feeling, this belief that every animal and I are equal, affects me every time I frame an animal in my camera.”

On this Earth, A Shadow Falls is on view at Hasted Kraeutler through May 19, 2012.
www.hastedkraeutler.com

*All images courtesy of Hasted Kraeutler.

A self-described “letterer, illustrator, [and] type nerd,” San Francisco and Brooklyn-based Jessica Hische has designed a fantastically charming series of covers for Barnes & Nobles’ classics series. Simultaneously whimsical and sophisticated, the box set includes Hische’s interpretations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The leather-bound books are foil stamped in two colors on the jacket and spine, and Hische calls the series “probably my favorite project of all time.”

The twenty-something Hische’s extensive client roster includes everyone from American Express to GQ Magazine and Tiffany & Co. She currently serves on the Type Directors Club board of directors, and has been named a Forbes Magazine “30 under 30” in art and design as well as an ADC Young Gun and one of Print Magazine’s “New Visual Artists.”

For more info, check out jessicahische.is.
To order, click here.

*All images courtesy the designer.

Describing her work, Dutch designer Rianne Koens says, “My products are simple and clear with a poetic touch.” Her Oturakast cabinet embodies this notion completely, playfully elevating our expectations for a simple cabinet into an opportunity for joy. Its multi-sized and colored drawers can be stacked in a variety of configurations, according to the user’s needs (or whims).

Koens, who graduated cum laude in 2011 from the Design Academy Eindhoven, says Oturakast was “inspired by the warm hospitality of my Turkish in-laws. . .The Turkish word for ‘sit’ is otur, and the word for ‘stool’ is oturak. This chest of drawers is intended for a Western interior that may not be furnished for receiving guests at short notice. It consists of a stack of separate storage components with legs that fold out, turning drawers into stools. When visitors leave, you fold up the legs, stack the stools-cum-drawers and have a complete cabinet again.”

She goes on: “Products have an impact on their environment. Therefore I continue to design products that through their use result in a positive effect. I think that I am, as a product designer, responsible for what I bring into the world.”

*All images courtesy of the designer.