Best known for its widely coveted modular shelving system designed by Dieter Rams, Vitsœ recently scored the exclusive worldwide license to Rams’ original furniture designs. First up on the relaunching pad for the London-based company is the designer’s 620 chair, which hits the market this month following a top-to-bottom reengineering. Every last purpose-designed stainless steel bolt in the chair, designed for Vitsœ in 1962 and later the subject of a legal scuffle that led to the design being copyrighted, has been given the once over, and the versatile seat–add castors for swivelling, connect a few together for a multi-seat sofa–emerged from the makeover with a reduced price ($3,340, sans casters) and a footstool.

So many collaborations, so little time. Last night in New York, Versace launched its Versus Versace J.W. Anderson capsule collection, for which the British designer mixed 90′s-infused androgyny (Body Glove brights, cropped and slashed black knitwear) with house signatures (gold lion heads, safety pins). Those not in the market for pricey unisex clubwear should mark their calendars for the ides of September, when Target will unveil its one-off line with Phillip Lim. The designer, who describes his aesthetic as “something between classic and that sense of madness,” set out to create something “cool and chic, but still very accessible.” For the range of women’s and men’s apparel and accessories, he kept the focus on autumnally appropriate neutral tones and prints in materials such as jersey, French terry, and leather. Prices for the approximately 100 items in the 3.1 Phillip Lim for Target collection will range from $19.99, for a travel pouch, to $299.99, for a leather moto jacket.

The Pantone licensing machine is chugging along nicely, even if Emerald and Tangerine Tango make for rather tough sells when it comes to cosmetics (Sephora remains undaunted). The latest focus for the company’s rainbow tour is the home. JCPenney is rolling out a Pantone Universe line of bed and bath items, from Peach Parfait sheet sets and Purple Magic pillows to Blue Aster shower curtains and Macaw Green toothbrush holders, that arrives in stores next month. That gives you a few weeks to colormatch your walls with Pantone paint. The new collection, a partnership with Valspar, offers color lovers a selection of 100 “on-trend hues” that runs the gamut from classic neutrals to eye-searing brights. The colors are available exclusively at Lowe’s for approximately $30 per gallon.

Sound works and art fairs are rarely compatible. There’s the impetus to keep moving (must…see…everything), the ambient murmur, and for exhibiting galleries, the difficulty of peeling off fairgoers to don headphones or enter a booth for a bit of aural stimulation. Frieze New York tackles these problems with the help of luxury cars and technology. The fair, which runs through today, partnered with BMW on Frieze Sounds, transforming a sleek fleet of VIP shuttles into sound cocoons for the duration of the commute to Randall’s Island–of course, it helps that the BMW 7 Series has a sound system that suggests a full orchestra is hiding in the trunk. Cecilia Alemani (pictured), curator of Frieze Projects, organized the program of three specially commissioned audio works by Trisha Baga, Charles Atlas and New Humans, and Haroon Mirza, which are also accessible at a listening station inside the fair. Not a VIP? Not in New York? Not to worry: the Frieze Sounds are now posted online for all to enjoy. So sit back, relax, and pretend you’re being chauffeured to an art-filled island inside a shiny new 740i.

Wisconsin’s Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum is the only museum dedicated to the preservation, study, production, and printing of wood type. Admission is free, thanks in part to the all-volunteer staff, and the collection includes 1.5 million pieces of wood type and more than 1,000 styles and sizes of patterns. In addition to a 145-foot wall of wood type–the world’s largest–the museum even has its own Matthew Carter-designed typeface, Carter Latin Wide. “I’m not a printer, least of all a letterpress printer,” the famed typographer has said of first foray into wood type. “But I tried to think like one and imagine a typeface that allowed me to print something in a way that I could not otherwise do.”

The museum recently moved into a new home in Two Rivers, and the race is on to reopening day, planned for this summer. According to director Jim Moran, Hamilton desperately needs funding–and an army of volunteers–to physically move millions of pieces of type, plates, presses, tools, and raw materials. Enter letterpress-loving Neenah Paper, which has launched a “Help Save Hamilton” campaign that will donate to the museum all money raised from a series of limited-edition prints. First up is “Form & Function” (above), designed by Two Paperdolls. “I scanned the back of some wood type to achieve an authentic texture,” says Jennifer James of the Philadelphia-based studio, “and adorned the letterforms with ornaments you might find in an ‘old school’ letterpress shop.”

Are you a graphic design junkie? A devotee of New Order? A fan of Henri Fantin-Latour? Or simply a lover of roses? If you answered yes to any (or all) of these questions, then Supreme has the sneakers for you. Among its freshly released spring covetables are three styles of Vans–the SK8-Hi, the Chukka, and the Era–splashed with original album artwork from New Order’s 1983 album Power, Corruption, & Lies, for which Peter Saville deftly selected Fantin-Latour’s 1890 “A Basket of Roses” (in the collection of the National Gallery in London) and appended the modern wink of a color code in the upper right corner.

“When I heard the title Power, Corruption, and Lies, the first thing that came to mind was the dark side of the Renaissance,” said Saville in a recent interview. His viewing of the 1981-82 BBC series The Borgias sent him on a hunt for sinister images. “I went to look for a Machiavellian prince in various museums, and I found some, but a corrupt despot was painfully literal when confronted with it.” On his way out of the National Gallery, Saville stopped to purchase some postcards, including one of Fantin-Latour’s drowsy bouquet. “There was a kind of elegant kitsch to it. I always liked that style and I still do–it’s my mother’s living room.” He later decided to deploy the image as “a foil to the literal meaning of the [album] title but a perfect cypher. It was charming, seductive, and apparently innocent, and in that sense, a more insidious evocation of corrupt strategies.”

(Photos courtesy the Luxe Project by moo.com)

We’re declaring March Stefan Sagmeister month! The designer’s “Happy Show” opens Wednesday in Los Angeles at MOCA Pacific Design Center (he’ll speak on “Design and Happiness” tomorrow evening in West Hollywood), and on the other side of the country, New York’s Jewish Museum offers up a room full of jaw-dropping, typographical whimsy in “Six Things: Sagmeister & Walsh,” the first exhibition of Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh‘s recently launched design firm. Between readying museum shows, the designing duo found time to whip up some new business cards for you–and all profits go to New York’s Coalition for the Homeless.

Now to muster the courage required to give the cards to others. True to their provocative nature, Sagmeister and Walsh have created something that is half graphic design, half social experiment. The seven sets of seven cards in their “Halftone Satisfaction” series are printed with bold sentiments that range from the flattering (“It’s a delight to be around someone who loves with they do.”) to the vicious (“You are a waste of time.”). Lest you vituperate someone (“Fuck you. Eat shit.”) you had meant to compliment (“Your eyes are lovely.”), the back of each card is printed with a mood-matched pattern, from solid white through gradations of dots and finally, solid black. “It’s a test of what kind of person you are and what kind of people you meet,” says Sagmeister, “what cards would you give out and why?” Sagmeister & Walsh’s motivations for creating the cards are easier to explain: they are a limited-edition collection for the Luxe Project, a moo.com initiative that gives 100% of net proceeds to the designer’s charity of choice.

A judge has nixed the NYC “soda ban”–due to take effect Tuesday, it would have banned 16-ounce containers of sugary drinks that have more than 25 calories per ounce–but an appeal is in the works, and Mayor Bloomberg isn’t the only one looking to change the way we look at fizzy beverages. SodaStream is shaking up the market with its DIY take (slogan: “If you love the bubbles, set them free”). Founded in 1903 with the introduction of “an apparatus for aerating liquids,” the Israel-based company recently teamed up with Yves Behar and his team at Fuseproject to design the Source, a sleek home soda maker. “The design of Source was a process of elimination,” says Behar, who also worked on the packaging, naming, and graphic design of the compostable soda pods. Yaron Kopel, SodaStream’s chief innovation and design officer, made time during his recent trip to NYC to answer our questions about soda, the Fuseproject collaboration, and what’s next for the company.

First things first, what is your favorite beverage?
SodaStream Ginger Ale.

How do you describe SodaStream to someone who is unfamiliar with it?
SodaStream allows you to make carbonated water–which can become cola, fizzy juice, you name it–from home, in an instant. We have become so accustomed to the everyday consumption of bottled soda that its impact has been rendered mostly invisible. From an environmental perspective, when we consume and toss out plastic soda bottles, we’re doing damage. That plastic ends up forgotten, in landfills, in oceans. With SodaStream, consumers can enjoy their bubbles without any environmental impact. In essence, SodaStream takes what was once a passive, environmentally damaging practice–purchasing and enjoying soda–and has made it simple, active and environmentally sound.

What led you to seek out Yves Behar/Fuseproject, and what did you ask them to do?
Yves is among the finest industrial designers in the world. He is an innovator in sustainable design. Yves was tasked with reducing complexity and waste and creating a simple and beautiful object for the kitchen that keeps with 21st Century values. The result is SodaStream Source. Realizing that world-class design is a prerequisite to securing space on the countertop, SodaStream Source combines outstanding design with best-in-class engineering to improve functionality and ease-of-use. Its refined mechanics make the entire top surface responsive to touch. A new Snap-Lock mechanism makes the process quick, easy and intuitive, while an LED display provides instant visual feedback on the level of carbonation.

How was the process of working with Yves?
Yves and I worked together 24/7 for nine months to bring Source to fruition. It was a collaborative process. We shared a similar vision and joint desire to reduce and refine the user experience. Nothing about Yves’ work is redundant–every design attribute has a purpose. The finished product is a beautifully pared back design delivering the luxury of sparkling water, sodas, and bubbly beverages in one iconic minimal piece for the modern kitchen.
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It is both surreal and disturbing to watch people–Very Important People, no less–stagger around an art fair carrying unwieldy cardboard boxes, but such was the scene at yesterday’s Armory Show preview, where a rapidly shrinking tower of the colorful crates made famous by Andy Warhol was there for the taking. And take they did. The flurry of grabbing, folding, and foreign accents was apropos, as this was “Babel (Brillo Stockholm Type)” (2013) by Charles Lutz. The work was commissioned for the fair by Eric Shiner, director of the Andy Warhol Museum. He also curated the special “Armory Focus: USA” section of the fair, which includes Gagosian Gallery, making its Armory debut with a booth wallpapered in Warhol–the man, the myth, the camouflage.

This outbreak of Brillo Box fever is not an isolated incident. Belgian furniture brand Quinze & Milan has inked the appropriate licensing paperwork with the Andy Warhol Foundation to produce the Andy Warhol Brillo Box pouf (at left), a cushy foam cube screen-printed with the Brillo logo. The stool-sculptures will be unveiled next month at MOST in Milan, but the online retailer Fab is now taking pre-orders at $425 a pop.

Do you yearn to watch a documentary about the Chelsea Hotel (once home to the likes of William Burroughs, Dennis Hopper, and Patti Smith) in the shadow of the Chelsea Hotel? Learn about the history behind design classics such as the Harley Davidson and the London Underground map? Or just watch a strung-out David Bowie (circa 1974) discuss mime, costumes, and the invention of characters such as Ziggy Stardust? Well, you’re in luck, because all of that and more is on the agenda for the SVA BBC Design Documentary Film Festival on Sunday, March 17. Now in its second year, the day-long event offers up a slate of groundbreaking BBC films that have seen scant screen time in the United States. Curated by the all-seeing Steven Heller along with D-Crit faculty member Adam Harrison Levy, the festival includes post-film chats with veteran BBC creative director Alan Yentob. The $15 run-of-the-festival tickets are going fast, so grab one here.