Among the most well-known images in the history of photography is “The Open Door” (pictured), in which William Henry Fox Talbot used his pioneering calotype process to preserve forever the scene of a broom leaning at a jaunty angle on the threshold of Lacock Abbey. Talbot’s 1844 tableau is among the approximately 4,600 high-resolution digital images from the J. Paul Getty Museum that are now free use, modify, and publish for any purpose thanks to an open door policy announced today by The Getty.

“As of today, the Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds all the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose,” said Getty president and CEO Jim Cuno in a statement announcing the Open Content program, which aligns the institution with similar programs at the Walters Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, Yale University, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Harvard University. Images were previously available upon request, for a fee, and permissions were granted for specific uses only.
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The September issues are beginning to roll in, and Wallpaper* is celebrating the month that Candy Pratts Price describes as “the January in fashion” with a top-to-bottom redesign across its print and digital platforms. The layouts have “a new, fresh, sophisticated, modern elegance” according to editor-in-chief Tony Chambers, and the pages, now printed on higher-quality stock, are sprinkled with custom typefaces (type families “Portrait” and “Darby,” pictured above and designed by Berton Hasebe and Dan Milne, respectively) from Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz of Commercial Type. The magazine also has a new tagline–”The stuff that refines you”–and an overhauled iPad edition, reimagined by Nicolas Roope of Poke London and Marc Kremers, which ensures that the September features, on topics such as “the fashion world’s top ten go-to architects” (we’re looking at you, Pedro), the bags-to-riches story of Loewe, and Paul Smith, look just as vibrant on the screen as on the page.

When we learned that the “first purpose-built electric vehicle made primarily of carbon fiber” would make its global debut this week, we dispatched writer Nancy Lazarus to take the UnBeige hovercraft (powered by orange peels and recycled periodicals) downtown for the big reveal.

(Photos Courtesy BMW)

“BMW’s i3 has unique proportions for the urban environment and is being sold for the mega-city, but it’s not out of place on the freeway,” noted Adrian van Hooydonk, BMW Group’s global head of design during Monday’s New York launch. BMW simultaneously unveiled the car at events in London and Beijing. The brand is counting on stateside sales when the car becomes available next year, since The U.S. is the leading market for electric vehicles.

“From sketch to street, it’s innovative in every aspect, including the customer experience. The i3 was designed for sustainable mobility,” added BMW board member Norbert Reithofer. He said the car provides solutions for urban lifestyles, such as easy access, smaller turning radius and more interior space. BMW is also eager to overcome skepticism about driving electric cars, mainly charging issues.

Design of the i3 started from scratch five years ago, according to van Hooydonk. “We pushed the reset button on colors and materials. Our new aesthetic is called ‘next premium,’ and the design language maximizes the effect with fewer elements. We used some familiar features, like the kidney-shaped grille, but also many new elements.”
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Sure, Francois Nars‘s formulas are great, but Fabien Baron‘s rubbery matte black packaging and assured Helvetica Neue identity for the makeup artist’s eponymous line helped it zoom to enduring global glory (and eventually earn Nars a mega-payout from Shiseido, which acquired the brand in 2000). Marc Jacobs is going shiny.

The designer—and Nars buddy—is angling for a piece of the wildly competitive color cosmetics market with a 122-product line created in collaboration with Sephora, owned by longtime Jacobs-backer LVMH. On August 9, Marc Jacobs Beauty will arrive in Sephora stores and select Marc Jacobs emporiums in packaging designed by New York-based Established.
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• Clinton Smith, former editorial director of Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles, is moving to New York to become editor-in-chief at Veranda. He succeeds Dara Caponigro, who resigned from the Hearst mag in May.

• Curator and writer Zoë Ryan has been tapped to curate the second Istanbul Design Biennial, which will run from October 18 to December 14 of next year. Ryan is curator of architecture and design at the Art Institute of Chicago.

• Good news, design lovers: after testing the waters with a May issue, Departures has decided to increase the frequency of its Departures Home + Design spin-off to two times a year in 2014, with May/June and October issues that will arrive with the flagship magazine.

• Ralph Lauren is funding a restoration project at the Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. He also plans to stage a post-Paris Fashion Week runway show at the school in October.

• Oscar de la Renta weighed in on the Anthony Weiner scandal, part deux: “I think in life people do deserve a second chance,” said the designer during a recent appearance on CBS This Morning (de la Renta designed the wedding dress of Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin). “A third and a fourth? I doubt it.”

Up with upholstery! In a move that makes us want to recover all of our furniture in a hazy wool that is simultaneously ethereal and sweatshirtesque, Design Within Reach has launched a proprietary textile program. The nine textiles in 42 colorways, which debuted online and in DWR studios this week, range from a creamy cotton twill and a broad weave that plays well with saturated brights to a moody ducale wool and a textured, tiger lily-toned take on post-industrial recycled polyester. Seven of the fabrics, including a smart lama tweed, come from a family-run mill in Italy, while the aforementioned dreamy wool melange and eco-friendly textiles are all-American, made by Maharam, which was acquired by Herman Miller in April.

• Shield your eyes and gird your loins from WeinSpitz, New York magazine’s latest coverbeast. The grimacing, ambitious creature-candidate is a composite of photographs of Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer by R. Umar Abbasi and Mary Altaffer/AP, respectively, and is sure to haunt your dreams well past Election Day.

• The summer of Warhol doesn’t end with pop Perrier and silkscreened strollers. The Andy Warhol Museum tapped Marc USA for a seasonal ad campaign that celebrates the darker charms of Pittsburgh.

• The Chinese mega-city of Chengdu is now home to the world’s largest building, complete with beach resort, cinemas, shops, and a replica Mediterranean village.

• Buildings such as One World Trade Center, the Space Needle, and Dubai’s Burj Khalifa are spending the summer in Palm Beach, where Dan Parker has recreated them out of Legos. “Block by Block: Inventing Amazing Architecture” is on view through October 20 at the Norton Museum of Art.

• Kanye West has teamed up with A.P.C.’s Jean Touitou for a capsule collection: A.P.C. Kanye.
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Magnum Photos has added to its esteemed ranks: Olivia Arthur and Peter van Agtmael were voted in as full members at last week’s general meeting in London. Both joined the agency as nominees in 2008. London-based Arthur has been photographing professionally since 2003 and has already racked up awards including the Royal Photographic Society’s Vic Odden Award and the OjodePez-PhotoEspana Award. Her first book, Jeddah Diary, about young women in Saudi Arabia, was published last year. Van Agtmael, a Yale grad with honors such as the ICP Infinity Award and a W. Eugene Smith grant under his belt, has focused his work in recent years on the Middle East, covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their effects on life in America. A collection of his combat photography, 2nd Tour Hope I Don’t Die, was published in 2009.

Magnum has also welcomed a new nominee member in Michael Christopher Brown. The Washington native, who often uses his camera phone in the field, got a close-up of his own in the recent HBO documentary Witness: Libya, about his experiences during the 2011 Libyan Revolution. His latest project examines resource conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Ambra Medda‘s name is familiar to design lovers from her tenure as director Design Miami, which she founded in 2005 with Craig Robins. Three years after leaving the fair, she is back in a big way with L’ArcoBaleno (“the rainbow” in Italian). The new site is devoted to collectible design—from top galleries including Galerie Kreo, Carpenters Workshop, and Demisch Danant—that visitors can learn about, browse, and buy. “Creating the ultimate marketplace for design as well as a platform for the design community to congregate (virtually), share, and push design discourse forward is what stimulates me,” said Medda, who co-founded the site with eBay veteran Oliver Weyergraf. “After the incredible experience with fair it seemed natural to scout the best design pieces and creative talent and promote all the incredible quality and stories surrounding them.” Here she discusses rainbows, covetable objects, and words to live by.

“Fuzz 2010″ by Study O Portable, available from Gallery Fumi on L’ArcoBaleno.

How did you decide on the name L’ArcoBaleno?
Coming up with a name was fun and torturous at the same time. I love language, and there were so many great options but we either couldn’t own the .com or it wasn’t this enough or that enough. When I thought of what gives me the most electrifying feeling. I thought about love at first, but i couldn’t call it love.com, because that’s just silly. So then the next thought was rainbow! Looking up at the sky and seeing a rainbow is an extraordinary sensation, the most powerful natural experience. Add to that we wanted to present the whole spectrum of design from limited-edition design, technology, food, science, fashion. “L’ArcoBaleno” sounds beautiful and stands for a jolt of energy, which i believe the design world needed at this point in time.

What are a few of your favorite limited-edition products available on the site?
I love the Sedimentation Urn by Hilda Hellstrom, Fuzz 2010 by Study O Portable, and Peter Marigold‘s Calendula Cabinet. If I had the cash in the bank that’s what I would buy right now.
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(Courtesy United Nude)

This just in: Zaha Hadid collaborates with Rem Koolhaas! No, not that Rem Koolhaas—his nephew, Rem D. Koolhaas. Also a trained architect, this Koolhaas is the creative director of United Nude, the futuristic shoe company he founded in 2003 with Galahad Clark (of the Clark’s shoemaking Clarks). United Nude’s Möbius strip-inspired heels, angular wedges, and carbon-fiber construction have always had a distinctly Hadidian vibe, and so their latest collaboration seems both entirely appopriate and a long time in coming. Behold the Nova, a striated, cantlivered creation launched this week at L’Eclaireur in Paris.

“Our collaboration with United Nude reinterprets the classic shoe typology,” said Hadid in a statement issued today, “pushing the boundaries of what is possible without compromising integrity.” With a 6.25-inch heel (or heel-shaped void, as they case may be), the shoes are a feat of injection molding, hand molding, and rotation molding. The upper part involves metallic chromed vinyl rubber (in black, rose gold, or silver) and, lest the word vinyl make you twitchy, is lined with luxe nappa leather. Then there’s the hidden platform and heel (fiberglass) and the outsole (rubber again). Ready to buy? United Nude is accepting pre-orders via e-mail, but act fast: only 300 pairs—100 per color—are being made. The bad news: they’re $2,000 a pair. The good news: your Christmas shopping for Daphne Guinness is as good as done.

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