We fell in love with Mmckenna the first time we laid eyes on the Designer Emulation Kits. The kits were an awesome little toy, both an appreciate of great design and a representation of a cool aesthetic in and of themselves.

I guess we should not be too surprised that Mmckenna has blown our mind with their latest product. The Betty Lou Lamp is the real deal. Not just a toy, but a lamp to be put up with the Tizio or Arco in beauty and cleverness. Represent it.

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New Products: Bar Stools!

We are very pleased to add the Jim and Arp barstools to our catalog. You may be thinking to yourself, "Wow, those are super awesome! Too bad it costs a million dollars to ship them." Not to worry, friend. Any order over $150 gets shipped free, including barstools.

The Jim: "After a hard day the JIM Stool is a welcome sight for the eyes with it's sensually formed chrome legs and a welcome feel for the body with it's brushed stainless press-molded seat."

The Arp: "The Arp Barstool is rad because it's organic flow begs for your attention, but the overall detail is subtle, enjoyable, brilliantly assembled."

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Check out DesignSpotter.com

Design Spotter is a pretty rad blog (I think 'blog' is the right term) focused on spreading the word for cool new designers. In fact, its probably the simplest, and most user-friendly way to get your designs out there.

Go to the site and download a small photoshop file (a basic layout that encourages uniformity). Insert your design and save it as jpeg. Email it to Design Spotter and they'll feature it on their site! Like I said, rad.

So thanks, Design Spotter, for keeping it real and representing for your lesser known homies.

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Swag is Good

By Jeff Benzenberg

I am incredibly grateful to have been a part of productdose’s December Wiki Contest (see post below). I don’t think I could have scripted a better weekend and I owe some folks a lot of gratitude.

For those who don’t already know, productdose held a contest sponsored by the premier high-end retailer for men, On The Fly. The winner (me!) would receive airfare for two to San Francisco, one night in a hotel, and an invitation to On The Fly’s “luxury tailgate” Super Bowl extravaganza.

Neither my girlfriend nor I had ever been to the SF, so we decided to make a weekend out of it. We flew in on Friday, crashed with a good friend Friday and Saturday, stayed at the remarkable Hotel Rex on Sunday, and flew out on Monday.

As for the Super Bowl party, well I can’t tell you what an incredible space Ami Arad (owner of On The Fly) has carved out for himself. He built his store in a reconstituted machine shop, complete with movable I-beam rafters and warehouse-sized windows stretched to the ceiling.

The set-up of the store reminded me of that scene in High Fidelity when the clerk is trying to guess the organizational technique employed by John Cusack on his record collection. Alphabetical? Chronological? No. Autobiographical.

Each section of the store is devoted to a general lifestyle, from hipster to sportsman to professor and so on (you can also browse by lifestyle through their website). This way, you can shop according to your own biographical allegiance.

On The Fly also gets bonus coolness points from the giant garage doors that open up to their neighbors, Club Sportiva. Sportiva is car club stocked with Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys, and you get the point. All members pay a (no doubt) small fee and are assigned a certain number of points. Taking out the Mercedes on a Tuesday in January is going to cost you less points than road tripping with the Lamborghini on a Saturday in July. If you live in San Francisco you should definitely join.

The Super Bowl party also served as a grand opening for the new space. It was so grand, in fact, that a television crew had been filming Ami for several days leading up to the opening. The film crew was at the party as well and if you want to catch the episode(s?) tune into “Ultimate Retail” on the Fine Living network in the U.S. and “Opening Soon: By Design” on HGTV in Canada.

When Beth and I first arrived at the party we had no idea what Ami even looked like. After briefly asking around, Ami came up to us with the camera crew in tow and a beautiful leather bag in his hands. I was presented with the bag and soon realized it was stuffed with gifts! I was pretty surprised and extremely thankful. You can check out all the awesome stuff below:

Gytha Mander Shmuel Tie (I actually received a different tie, but this one is so cool I had to share it. Fix it just right and the knot will be a different color than the body), Rosasen Polk Polo (wicked cool polo), Hlaska Pulse Wallet (We met the Hlaska vendor at the party. He was a super cool guy and told me to pick out a wallet I liked), Berge Designs Base Metal Cufflinks (clean and classy), Mullholand Brothers Messenger Bag (Wow!),

Anthony Logistics Body Spray, Truefitt & Hill Cologne, The Art of Shaving Full Size Kit (interesting sidenote: this kit came with a full-on DVD instructional video, still waiting to check it out).

So a big thanks to everyone at productdose and On The Fly. They definitely keep it real.

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ProductDose rules. Everyone should go there now.

ProductDose is a brilliant blog updating the world hourly with the coolest stuff money can buy (but remember: all you really need, with the exception of food and water, you can find here at FF!). Aimed at a GQ crowd, PD blogs about product launches and discoveries from the worlds of men's fashion, tech, modern design and the whatnot.

An exceptionally cool feature on the PD website is the WIKI section. Users upload their own articles in three categoies: How To, Buying Guides, and Brand Profiles. Follow Function has already uploaded brand profiles for MikroMan and The Design Can.

And the exceptionally cool thing about this exceptionally cool feature is the monthly prize. For the month of December, anyone who uploaded a WIKI was automatically entered into the running for a free trip to San Fransisco and tickets to a "Luxury Superbowl Tailgate".

A panel of judges awards the prize at the end of the month to the user who wrote the best WIKI, and guess what? Follow Function came through in the clutch! Click here to check out the announcement and click here to check out the award-winning wiki from yours truly, entitled "How to Let the Convo Flow". The article is all about keeping the conversation flowing at a party. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, but most of all it will make you think. Or maybe it's just a quick guide to buying some awesome conversation pieces for your home.

We encourage you to visit ProductDose immidiately and do not forget to upload your own WIKI (this month's prize is a wicked-nice NOOKA watch). Thanks!

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Rad New Feature from ThisNext.com

If you haven't ventured over to thisnext yet, you need to do so immidiately. It is another site with completely user-uploaded content. Are you shopping on the web and see something you would like to receive as a gift? Add it to thisnext. Do you want to create a wishlist for a wedding, birthday, or just in general? Do you want that wishlist to be able to span from Follow Function to Amazon to Threadless.com? (Instead of building the same lame registry at Bed, Bath & Beyond like everyone else?). Then venture on over to thisnext.

Their newest feature is called the BlogIt button. If you're looking at another user's list and you want to blog about it, all you do is click the BlogIt button (literally one click), and it will either post it to your blog, or if you want, just give you the html text so you can load it to your myspace page or wherever. The result is a totally clickable, completely interactive blog post that lets you share your favorite stuff.

Take this for an example:

These are products with an interesting story behind their deisgn (or their designers).
If you know the story, then it becomes a conversation piece in your home.
Or as we like to say: a functional work of art.

See more of my Designs With A Story list at ThisNext.

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The New York International Gift Fair Should Start on a Saturday

By Jeff Benzenberg

NEW YORK, New York- According to NYIGF.com the August version of this semiannual explosion of handmade tutus and ashtrays sprinkled with a dash of delightful modern design did start this past Saturday.

You guessed it, dear reader: one half of Follow Function drove all day Friday to meet the other half of Follow Function in New York to attend the prestigious New York International Gift Fair on Saturday. We'll be attending next year on a Sunday.

To be fair, the Fair was slightly open on Saturday and gave us enough booths to peruse for a few minutes before heading back home. I had my trusty camera in hand so I decided to snap a few pics of the more interesting vendors. This decision immediately resulted in this reporter getting yelled at by a grown woman- in a tutu.

You would think a grown woman in a tutu would have a healthy sense of humor about herself; or at the very least remember the fact that she was wearing a tutu. You, however, would be wrong. Of course it was my fault and I exposed myself as a total rookie. I apologize, lady in a tutu, wherever you are.

When the main part of the Fair opened on Sunday (including the “Accent on Design” section- the only one we really cared about) Follow Function made a B-line for one of our best selling brands: MINT. We were hoping to see some familiar faces and maybe hear some suggestions of what they considered to be their top competition. MINT was very gracious, as always, and was happy to point us in the direction of some of their favorite vendors, even if might not exactly be in their best interests. Maybe that’s why we like them so much.

[The Vin-Eau Carafe (pronouced vino) and its designers: Scott Henderson and Anthony Baxter of MINT. Alberto is not pictured, but still a cool guy]

Their first suggestions were brands we already carried, Vessel and Mio (more on them later). But the next suggestion surprised us: Suck UK. Follow Function marched on over to the Suck booth and was not disappointed.

The outstanding researchers that we are, Follow Function did recognize a few of the objects on display. Gun Vase was an object we had fallen in love with about a year ago, only to have it pushed out of our memory by some useless fact (or more likely, an article on ESPN.com about why the Buckeyes will win the National Championship this year- not considered a useless fact by this reporter). Well we were struck with Cupid’s Arrow again fell immediately back in love with Gun Vase. Who wouldn’t?

[SuckUK's Gun Vase, the possible inspiration behind the Gun Vase, and the incredibly awesome Villain Chair, coming soon to Follow Function - alledgedly]

Next we stopped by and chatted with Vessel, a company born of two incredible minds belonging to Duane Smith and Stefane Barbeau. And we’ve got great news. Firstly, the fantastic Candella lamps, available in a variety of fantastic colors, will now be offered individually. This is a great idea. If you don’t want to pay for a set of four, just buy a base of two and mix and match what colors you want. We’ll definitely keep you posted as soon as we can include this in our catalog.

[Stefane Barbeau of Vessel, looking cool as a cucumber in front of a display for the Tempo Time Tag]

Secondly, we were finally able to see the LUAU portable lamp up close. As we suspected, it is totally sweet and will be coming to a virtual shelf near you very soon. By virtual shelf we mean Follow Function. In cyberspace. Got it. They even included an interesting glimpse into the design process by showing the evolution of the LUAU from “day 1” sketch to “day 30” blue foam mock-up to “day 270” working prototype.

We visited several dozen more booths over the next few hours, each displaying a varying degree of cool stuff. The coolest stuff was at the OFFI and The Future Perfect booths. This is because the former exudes Eric Pfeiffer's genius and because the latter sells The Design Can products.

We concluded our tour with a visit to brothers Jaime and Isaac Salm of Mio. I was super pumped to finally see two products I had only known as prototypes: a new and improved (if that is possible) version of the 3D Wallpaper and a modular-type lamp that can be short and smooth or bigger and smooth and ridged. It is called the L – XL Lamp and it is basically two parts: the top part can operate independently of the bottom, or it can all be combined to form a larger sculptural work.

[Isaac and Jaime Salm of Mio, keeping it real]

[Mio's L - XL Lamp. For another amazing Mio lamp, click here]

And PS… Mikro Man is expanding! Woohoo! There will be two additions, a helicopter (well, actually it is an Autogiro) and a dude working out, which is funny since he is only a few microns thick. Images coming soon.

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We Like You, Too

We of course love every product in our catalog, and it’s quite nice when others agree. The following blogs have featured our products and included a link to the appropriate product page. Not only have these writers demonstrated superior taste and intellect, they are all fantastic people. Thanks.

Decor8

DesignBot

FunFurde

Luxist

Weddingbee

Fabulist

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