Fab made a splash in Milan with more than cushy Warhol Brillo boxes. The online retailer invited designers from around the world to pitch new products for the chance to have them produced and sold on Fab. More than 150 creative types from 30 countries turned out, and now it’s onto New York. In addition to showcasing its new private label alongside collaborations with the likes of the Albers Foundation and Blu Dot at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, which opens to the trade tomorrow, Fab is hosting another “Disrupting Design” competition.

The fearless leader of the judging panel will be Fab co-founder and chief design officer Bradford Shellhammer. “At Fab, we are constantly reinventing ourselves and rethinking what Fab can be,” he says. “By directly engaging with designers to find the best new work out there, we’re hoping to help even more of our members find things they love.” Today’s ever-changing offering ranges from a Louis Ghost Chair signed by Philippe Starck and vintage Kodak Brownies to a subscription to BirdWatching magazine and a pepperoni pizza t-shirt. Shellhammer paused in his booth preparations (find Fab at #1220 at ICFF) to answer our questions.

How did the Disrupting Design competition go in Milan last month?
We were overwhelmed by the response in Milan, which is why we’ve decided to do it again in New York during ICFF. We had so many great entries from all over the world when we did the call out in Milan. Initially we were planning on selecting three winning designs, but we couldn’t narrow it down so we ended up shortlisting twelve designs which we are working to put into production and sell on Fab–the revenue of which we of course share with the winning designers.

What advice would you give to those interested in presenting their designs to the Fab jury on Tuesday at ICFF?
Take a look at our site and keep the Fab viewpoint in mind when presenting. The winning designs from Milan all embody the Fab ethos–they tell great stories, utilize interesting materials, or have a sense of whimsy. We are looking for designs that will be appreciated by our global community of more than 12 million design lovers.

What are some qualities of a successful product on Fab?
Great products tell a story, elicit emotions, or solve problems. It’s that simple. It needs to check at least one of those boxes (hopefully all three). They can be in any category and at any price, as long as there’e something compelling.

What is a product that you’ve sold on Fab that has surprised you, in terms of expected versus actual interest from customers?
Yves Behar‘s medicine accessories for Sabi I thought may be targeted for a customer older than ours, but we sell a lot of them!
Read more

Famed literary critic Lionel Trilling once described Henry James as a “social twitterer.” Sure, he meant it as an insult, but it makes us feel better about having signed up to twitter ourselves. Look to the official UnBeige Twitter feed, for up-to-the-minute newsbites, event snippets, links of interest, design trivia, and free candy (OK, we’re still working on the physics of that last one). The mediabistro.com tech wizards have added to the sidebar at right a handful of our most recent word bursts (limited to 140 characters), but you can sign up to follow all of our twittering, and start twittering yourself at twitter.com.

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.

The idea of picking up an iPad to commune with nature sounds counterintuitive–until you’ve swiped and tapped through an issue of Nature Conservancy magazine, which mails to the environmental conservation organization’s 650,000 members on a bimonthly basis. “Our digital edition features the same engaging stories and stunning photography as our print magazine, plus exclusive photo galleries, videos, audio commentary, interactive maps, and more,” says creative director Christopher Johnson. “Readers get to experience the places we protect in a whole new way.” The high-tech twist on news from the natural world is a hit with readers. The free Nature Conservancy app, launched last year, has emerged at the top of the iTunes newsstand’s Outdoors and Nature category and is a finalist for best tablet app (interactive single or series) in the Society of Publication Designers annual design competition. Johnson made time to answer our seven questions before heading down to Cipriani Wall Street for tonight’s SPD gala.

What do you consider the most important ingredients in a successful tablet app?
For us, a successful tablet app combines beautiful design, intuitive navigation and engaging interactive features like video, audio and slideshows that allows us to bring readers into our stories in richer, more immersive ways. It’s allowed us to reach a whole new audience of potential supporters with our inspiring stories.

What is your publication design pet peeve?
It has to be design by committee. Inevitably it becomes more about pacifying the group than it does about meeting the original objective.

What has been your best or most memorable design-related encounter?
Years ago, in order to graduate from the design program I attended, students were required to put together a portfolio and go on a mock interview. Our department chair organized interviews with a creative director from a local design firm. That experience had such an impact on me. It made me realize the importance of communicating and connecting with people, that it wasn’t just about the strength of your work. You had to be able to sell your ideas.
Read more

Admit it. Your seven-year-old nephew could out-HTML tag you any day and you think that a Cascading Style Sheet is something with a thread count. That’s where the Mediabistro mothership comes in. They’ve asked us to tell you about the upcoming online course in HTML5 and CSS. Over four fun-filled weeks, web design design guru Laura Galbraith will guide you through a variety of web page production techniques, from column-based layouts and search engine optimization to semantic markup and advanced CSS styles. The online learning fun begins May 28, and within a few weeks, you’ll have brought a pre-designed webpage to life through the magic of HTML. Preview the course syllabus and register here.

Design legend Saul Bass would have turned 93 today, and Google is celebrating his creative legacy with one of its most elaborate daily “doodles” yet. Visit the search giant’s homepage before midnight to see and watch the tribute, an animated riff on some of Bass’s most well-known film titles, including those for The Man With the Golden Arm, Anatomy of a Murder, and Around the World in 80 Days. And turn those speakers up, because this doodle is in stereo, set to Dave Brubeck‘s “Unsquare Dance.”

Adobe’s David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager of digital media, speaks at Adobe MAX on Monday in Los Angeles. (Photo: Adobe/David Zentz Photography/Novus Select)

Adobe is bidding adieu to packaged software, the company announced Monday at its Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles. As part of an expansion of the Creative Cloud subscription model launched in May 2012, Adobe will not release any further versions of its CS applications, although it will continue to sell and support CS6. Instead, it’s betting big on the cloud. “We believe that Creative Cloud will have a larger impact on the creative world than anything else we’ve done over the past three decades,” explained David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager of digital media, in a Monday keynote during which he unveiled a more integrated, collaboration-minded line of Adobe “CC” applications.

Many of the new features require access to Creative Cloud. “‘CC’ represents the next generation of Adobe apps,” he said. “Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, and all of the other apps will continue to run on your desktop, whether you’re connected to the Internet or not…but the apps will increasingly be part of a larger creative process centered on Creative Cloud.” The major update will be available in June. Adobe exited the first quarter of 2013 with 479,000 Creative Cloud subscribers and expects to reach 1.25 million by the end of the year.

Famed literary critic Lionel Trilling once described Henry James as a “social twitterer.” Sure, he meant it as an insult, but it makes us feel better about having jumped on the microblogging bandwagon. Look to the official UnBeige Twitter feed, for up-to-the-minute newsbites, event snippets, links of interest, design trivia, and free candy (OK, we’re still working on the physics of that last one). The Mediabistro tech wizards have added to the sidebar at right a handful of our most recent word bursts, but you can sign up to follow all of our twittering here.

Famed literary critic Lionel Trilling once described Henry James as a “social twitterer.” Sure, he meant it as an insult, but it makes us feel better about having signed up to twitter ourselves. Look to the UnBeige Twitter feed for up-to-the-minute newsbites, event snippets, links of interest, design trivia, and our exclusive photo of Rem Koolhaas in mid-ponder (it makes for smashing smartphone wallpaper). The mediabistro.com tech wizards have added to the sidebar at right a handful of our most recent word bursts, but you can sign up to follow all of our twittering, and start twittering yourself at twitter.com.

Crank up the LEED Zeppelin, design fans, because Twitter is abuzz with a most delightful hashtag: #ArchitectBandNames. Who wouldn’t want to listen to Edward Durell Stone Temple Pilots or jam out to Jeanne Gang Gang Dance? Enjoy some of our favorites from across the twitterverse:

Chaka Kahn #architectbandnames

— ARCHITECT magazine (@architectmag) April 23, 2013

Favorites so far: R.E.M. Koolhaas, Lana Del Ray Eames, The Holl Steady, Death CAD for Cutie. #ArchitectBandNames

— Gary Hustwit (@gary_hustwit) April 23, 2013

The McKim, Mead & White Stripes #architectbandnames

— Mpls Institute Arts (@artsmia) April 24, 2013

Skid Row, Owings & Merrill #ArchitectBandNames

— UnBeige (@UnBeige) April 24, 2013

Aha Hadid; Neutra Milk Hotel; Charles Rennie Macklemore; Adolph Loos Lobos; #ArchitectBandNames

— jimdatz (@jimdatz) April 24, 2013

Read more