/ Real + Virtual /
I don't often have visceral reactions to products.
Unlike most consumers, I spent Black Friday taking migraine medication. I tossed my latest issue of Wired because half of it was holiday advertisements. I have even been known to mute commercials.
Yet I was intensely drawn to this singular messenger bag. (I hate to break the suspense but) you probably know the one I am talking about -- it's red and yellow, smells like polyethylene.
It was [commodity fetishism] at first sight.
The few weeks I spent mulling over the purchase were all a ruse to demonstrate false financial restraint when in fact I knew I was going to purchase the bag from the moment I saw it.
Beyond just the immediate emotional impact, the bag appealed to my intellect. FREITAG, the Swiss company behind my infatuation, specialize in products made entirely out of recycled goods. Not only was the product ecological (my messenger bag was a post-industrial Frankenstein built from a menagerie of truck tarps and bicycle inter tubes) but also entirely unique (a pre-industrial craft contingently based on pan-European truck tarp fashion).
I only mention all this as an excuse to post an image I found yesterday of their new headquarters in Zurich. Like all of their products, the building is made out of recycled materials. As they write: "The standard 20-foot shipping container was chosen as the basic building block for the construction of an asymmetric tower of 9 containers rising from a 4 x 2 base... The base is used as a sales outlet, while the tower has become a striking landmark between two main international transportation routes. The circle, from product to building to product, is complete."
How cool is that?
Unlike most consumers, I spent Black Friday taking migraine medication. I tossed my latest issue of Wired because half of it was holiday advertisements. I have even been known to mute commercials.
Yet I was intensely drawn to this singular messenger bag. (I hate to break the suspense but) you probably know the one I am talking about -- it's red and yellow, smells like polyethylene.
It was [commodity fetishism] at first sight.
The few weeks I spent mulling over the purchase were all a ruse to demonstrate false financial restraint when in fact I knew I was going to purchase the bag from the moment I saw it.
Beyond just the immediate emotional impact, the bag appealed to my intellect. FREITAG, the Swiss company behind my infatuation, specialize in products made entirely out of recycled goods. Not only was the product ecological (my messenger bag was a post-industrial Frankenstein built from a menagerie of truck tarps and bicycle inter tubes) but also entirely unique (a pre-industrial craft contingently based on pan-European truck tarp fashion).
I only mention all this as an excuse to post an image I found yesterday of their new headquarters in Zurich. Like all of their products, the building is made out of recycled materials. As they write: "The standard 20-foot shipping container was chosen as the basic building block for the construction of an asymmetric tower of 9 containers rising from a 4 x 2 base... The base is used as a sales outlet, while the tower has become a striking landmark between two main international transportation routes. The circle, from product to building to product, is complete."
How cool is that?
posted by d l wright at 11/25/2007 01:29:00 PM
1 Comments:
And I thought is was another ATT commerical for the quality of their service
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