In the era of mass production, mass consumption, masses of stuff and shops that sells them there are some ways to differentiate oneself. Just focus on two simple colors: black and white, like this shop in the picture is doing. The shop is spotted from Arlanda airport.
From (eller från på svenska) Trollhättan I took a taxi to the Gothenburg airport very early in the morning yeasterday. I had a really cool taxi driver. I will name her Mrs. Volvo (Even though the taxi she was driving was a VolksWagen). This driver had an unique earring in her ear. It included letters VOLVO. I asked her where did she found that earring and she told me that she did it by herself by melting gold and then using little saw. She appeared to be a total VOLVO fan, she and showed me also something else: her VOLVO ring and a chain in her hand with the same letters. That piece of jewellery she also did by herself!! She told that people have asked her to do similar jewellery to themselves too but she refused. The most interesting thing of this lady was that she also had a Harley Davidson motorbike. You would think that she could have HD logos in her jewellery, but no; she believed in VOLVO.
At Trollhättan I stayed at hotel Scandic Swania that really seemed to emphasize being an environmentally friendly hotel. Some of those signals appeared in the form of wooden made items (symbolizing somehow environmentally friendly in people’s minds). Forks and knives for one time use were made of wood- even the keycard of the hotel rooms were made out of plywood. The true environmental friendliness of these items in the picture remais a question. Without life cycle analysis (LCA) it is really difficult to say anything about environmental friendliness. However, issues like energy saving and couraging customers to use towels more than one day hinted to the environmental friendly direction.
I am, as women usually, a fan of nice shoes. In WFSF conference I noticed wonderful pair of shoes that one Hungarian futurist lady was wearing. Here is the picture of these shoes (An a weak signal spotter I just take an image of everything):
The shoes were unique, “artistically” painted and if you would ask me- I think that you could even hang those shoes on the wall as a piece of art. The Hungarian futurist told me that these shoes are from New York and she happen to be happy to get those in affordable price.
Well, this posting is not only about shoes:I think that this is just one evidence more of a) increase of the trend of doing with your own hands , and b) customizing.
Today I have learned that AtiNegaar is a word that Iranian people use for future, more precisely for painting the future. For this piece of information I did not travel all the way to Iran but I learned as participating the conference of World Future Studies Federation in Sweden, Trollhättan. What I like in seminars and conferences is that you get connected to people that have shared interest with you. In this conference I have met a lots of interesting people from various parts of the world. I happened to meet also Vahid V. Motlagh and Ali Shammaee from Iran from AtiNegaar Think Thank. This Iranian think tank is considering also changes in the future from Iranian perspective. Mr Motlagh have also linked my blog to his blog. Vahid has some interesting ideas and I reccommend to follow his blog.