Haft2Know

What2Give No. 5: The Catalogue from the 12 Days of Christmas

Photo credit: Spoonflower.com

The Haft2Know What2Give 2011 continues with a bit of economic news. If you’re of the mind to purchase for your true love, all of the gifts from the song, The 12 Days of Christmas, it’ll cost you $101,149 this year, up 4.4% from last year, according to the PNC Wealth Management 2011 Christmas Price Index, (and above $100,000 for the first time). For 27 years, PNC has been calculating and releasing what they call the “cost of Christmas”, as an annual water line to gauge the cost of living.

The items driving the price increase apparently are partridges, pear trees and especially swans a-swimming, which are up 12.5 % this year over last to $6,300.

While the overall price is high, remember that each item is repeated a number of times, (except of course for the 12 drummers drumming, which is only sung once.) Your true love, therefore will end up with 12 drummers drumming, 22 pipers piping, 30 lords a-leaping, 36 ladies dancing, 40 maids a-milking, 42 swans a-swimming, 42 geese a-laying, 40 gold rings, 36 calling birds, 30 French hens, 22 turtle doves, and 12 partridges in pear trees, providing each partridge gets his or her own pear tree. Caveat: Pear tree installation and maintenance may or may not cost your true love extra.

Photo credit: PNC.com

This image is from a great interactive piece that PNC has put together to illustrate the cost of the 12 days of Christmas. See it here.

Jason Allen

By Jason Allen 13/12/2011 – 4:01 PM | Posted in Gift Guide | Comments (0)

What2Give No. 6: A colour

Photo credit: ownacolour.com, AkzoNobel

We’ve written about this great initiative before. With the dual purpose of naming 16.7 million colours AND raising money for UNICEF, how could we not? But it just seems to fit so easily into the Haft2Know What2Give Top Ten of 2011, that we’re happy to reintroduce it for holiday time.

Photo credit: ownacolour.com, AkzoNobel

OwnAColour.com comes to us out of the UK. Its original purpose was to name all of the 16.7 million RGB colours your computer can display. Each colour is offered at a price of £1, and your “buying” it, means you get to name it. (You’ll be in good company too. Sir Roger Moore bought a blue for his wife, Kristina and named it Swedish Blue. Ex Brit PM Gordon Brown bought a pink for his wife. He named it Majestic. Nice.)

Photo credit: ownacolour.com, AkzoNobel

OwnAColour recently released their new Facebook app, entitled Colour for Christmas, in which you can gift to your friends, the privilege to name a colour of their choice. There are millions of colours left up for grabs, and at a price of £1, their appeal is hard to deny. And then of course, all proceeds go to UNICEF. Need. We. Say. More?

Photo credit: ownacolour.com, AkzoNobel

ownacolour.com

Jason Allen

By Jason Allen 08/12/2011 – 4:54 PM | Posted in Gift Guide, Not for Profit | Comments (0)

What2Give No. 7: A gun (you’ll see)

Photo credit: fonderie47.com

As we continue the Haft2Know What2Give 2011, we come upon something that doesn’t sound very “us”. Nonetheless, no. 7 on our list is an AK-47.

A new initiative poses a provoking solution to a serious problem. The AK-47 was originally produced by the Soviet Union during the Cold War and has now found its way – by the hundreds of thousands – into conflict zones of Africa. The enterprise, called Fonderie 47 buys AK-47s in these war torn regions and with the help of jewellers, melts them down into expensive (and pretty good-looking) jewellery.

Photo credit: Fonderie47.com

The cufflinks pictured here cost $35,000 and their purchase removes 100 rifles from communities. There are also rings for sale, and earrings.

A further benefit to the purchase is that removing these weapons makes AK-47s rarer than they are currently, which drives up their price. The company so far has orchestrated the destruction of 6,000 rifles collected in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Fonderie47.com

Jason Allen

By Jason Allen 07/12/2011 – 5:38 PM | Posted in Design, Gift Guide | Comments (0)

What2Give No. 8: Holiday Dress-Up (“Priceless”)

Photo credit: reallycoolpix.com

Let’s suppose for a second that people had less to do to prepare for the holidays: fewer gifts to buy; less food to plan; shorter distances to travel. Now that the season is less stressful, do you think more people would dress in costume? Lots of the other lesser famous holidays have costumes involved: Halloween, obviously; people wear fuzzy green hats on St. Patrick’s Day and there are a few bunny ears here and there for Easter. So why not the Christmas season?

Photo credit: buycostumes.com

Presenting Haft2Know What2Give No. 8 – Christmas costumes! The good people at buycostumes.com wish you would extend your dress-up buying to this time of year and they offer an entire seasonal array of options to help you do so. Giant gingerbread men, all members of the Claus family, the Christmas tree itself with gift box shoes to boot, (sorry) – they’re all here. There’s even a costume for your crabby Uncle Pete, (below).

A Scrooge Costume for Crabby Uncle Pete?

Photo credit: buycostumes.com

On a slightly more serious note, I do think that if at least one of you at your holiday gathering dresses up in costume, it’ll be a year to remember for sure.

Photo credit: buycostumes.com

Here are more holiday costume suggestions.

Jason Allen

By Jason Allen 01/12/2011 – 4:39 PM | Posted in Gift Guide | Comments (0)

What2Give No. 9: An invisible Scandinavian treehouse

Photo credit: Treehotel AB

‘Haft2Know What2Give 2011′ continues today with number 9 on our top ten list of gifticious givings. ‘Mirrorcube‘ is a glass treehouse designed by Swedish architecture firm, Tham and Videgård for Scandinavian hoteliers, Treehotel. For approximately $400,000 USD, this beautiful, self-contained, mirror-clad wooden and aluminum box will be manufactured for, delivered to and installed at the behest of your beloved gift recipient.

Photo credit: Treehotel AB

Mirrorcube is a complete turnkey offering, fully furnished and decked out in lighting and textiles. The glass also comes with an infrared film on it, invisible to humans but highly visible to birds and animals to avoid unfortunate sylvanian run-ins. After all, depending on the setting, it may be nearly invisible.

Photo credit: Treehotel AB

Mirrorcube can be built on the tree of your choice, which will then be fortified with surrounding cables.

Photo credit: Treehotel AB

Mirrorcube

Treehotel

Jason Allen

Photo credit: Treehotel AB

By Jason Allen 30/11/2011 – 3:13 PM | Posted in Design, Gift Guide | Comments (0)

What2Give No. 10: Designy Temporary Tattoos

Photo credit: hamiltonjewelers.com

Depending on where in the world you are, you might not believe that holiday time is upon us and that within a matter of weeks we’ll be wrapping up our days at work to dig ourselves into Christmas and food-fuelled afternoon naps. To prepare for the season, we are very happy to present ‘Haft2Know What2Give 2011′, in which we’ll count down our top ten gift recommendations for this holiday season – some for real, some for wow factor, and some because they just feel good.

So let’s begin.

Photo credit: tatt.ly

Who doesn’t love a subscription to something? It’s the gift that keeps on giving, month after month for the entire year. And who wouldn’t love a subscription of these bad-boy tattoos from Tattly? Truth be told they’re temporary, and they’re more ‘saucy-hipster-boy’ than they are bad-boy, but who cares? Look at ‘em!

Photo credit: tatt.ly

When you give someone a gift subscription to Tattly, he or she will receive 8 tats per month for the next six months. This is the perfect gift to roll up your sleeve and show to your mother on Christmas morning.

Tattly

Welcome to the holiday season, everyone.

Haft2
Jason Allen

Photo credit: tatt.ly

By Jason Allen 29/11/2011 – 5:32 PM | Posted in Gift Guide | Comments (0)

The Haft2 Playlists – No. 7 – Autumn Gold

For our American friends who will be celebrating Thanksgiving this week, and for our Canadian friends who are starting to look ahead to holiday time, we couldn’t resist an extra holiday edition of Haft2Know this month to present our next playlist, ‘Autumn Gold’. DJ Brandi Whytas has selected a warm compilation of big band and jazz tunes, perfect for stirring the gravy, pulling your blanket a bit closer, or hugging your Mom.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Happy November.

Haft2

DJ Brandi Whytas
Jason Allen

By Jason Allen 21/11/2011 – 12:18 PM | Posted in Playlists | Comments (0)

Haft2Radio: Hues & Views Podcast #3

In this Episode:

Host Brandi Whytas speaks with Creative Director, Nanistya Martohardjono, graphic design authority and retail packaging aficionada. Martohardjono has long been a fixture in the world of Canadian retail graphics and offers her insight on how colour affects and informs consumer packaging.

Then another quirky episode of Haft2Know Live, hosted by Brandi Whytas and Jason Allen.

Thanks for listening. As always, please feel free to drop us a line to say hello.

Jason Allen

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By admin 21/11/2011 – 12:10 PM | Posted in Podcasts | Comments (0)

Where children sleep

Photographer James Mollison was born in Kenya and grew up in England before finally settling in Italy to work at Benetton’s creative lab, Fabrica. A storied bio makes for storied work so when Fabrica asked Mollison to creative something that would highlight children’s rights in the world, he chose to juxtapose portraits of children he’d photographed beside images of where each sleeps.

It’s a simple match with each child being shown in front of a neutral background. Mollison has said he didn’t want it be about only needy children, but rather kids from all social and economic background. The book was created for an audience of 9-13-year olds in the hopes of engaging them to consider how other children throughout the world live.

Just this morning I was thumbing my way through Restoration Hardware’s tony ‘baby & child’ catalogue and was amazed by the stark difference between reality and an offer of perceived luxury by a store chain.

A child's room featured at Restoration Hardware

Check out Mollison’s site and while you’re there, flip through some his other work. His series called ‘The Disciples’ depicts groups of fans of superstars, resembling both their idol, and each other. Awesome and hilarious.

jamesmollison.com

Jason Allen

By Jason Allen 14/11/2011 – 12:48 PM | Posted in Art, Culture | Comments (0)

Own a colour. Save a life.

Photo credit: ownacolour.com

It’s as if someone developed this site with us in mind. Ownacolour.com is a beautiful initiative that aims to name the 16.7 million colours that are viewable on your screen. When you select an available colour (and lots of them still are – there are millions to name after all) you’ll be asked for the name you wish to give it and the reason you love it, as well as what the colour means to you. To secure your choice, you may then buy the colour for £1. All proceeds from this site will then go to UNICEF, who are of course, dear friends of ours.

The site was developed by global paint and coatings manufacturer, Akzonobel and we think it’s simply fantastic.

ownacolour.com

Jason Allen

By Jason Allen 14/11/2011 – 11:25 AM | Posted in Colour, Not for Profit | Comments (0)

Visit Haft2

What2Give No. 5: The Catalogue from the 12 Days of Christmas

What2Give No. 6: A colour

What2Give No. 7: A gun (you’ll see)

What2Give No. 8: Holiday Dress-Up (“Priceless”)

What2Give No. 9: An invisible Scandinavian treehouse

What2Give No. 10: Designy Temporary Tattoos

The Haft2 Playlists – No. 7 – Autumn Gold

Haft2Radio: Hues & Views Podcast #3

Where children sleep

Own a colour. Save a life.

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