Scraptastic? Perhaps.

And in another bit of unconsumption news, Everyday Trash points to Made From Scrap, a San Francisco organization that does workshops on repurposing plastic bags into “wristlets,” old T shirts into pillows, and that sort of thing. I have slightly mixed feelings about this kind of thing, but they seem to have good intentions, and maybe it engages people in the underlying issues. Also, learning to do stuff like this is better than just buying the repurposed objects, I think.

“Pay as you throw”

I’ve been meaning to get back to posting on unconsumption topics again, and here’s a good one: Cities reducing garbage with “pay as you throw” schemes. IHT columnist Elisabeth Rosenthal explains:

The basic concept is this: The more you throw away, the more you pay…Economists and environmental scientists say that communities have long made it too cheap and easy to dispose of trash, giving consumers the wrong incentives. Why shouldn’t garbage disposal be billed like gas or electricity, related to usage?

“Somehow garbage became viewed as a right rather than being conducted under a user fee system – and that has had terrible consequences,” said Lisa Skumatz of Skumatz Economics Research in Colorado.

Studies have shown that “pay as you throw” programs achieve the desired effect brilliantly. In a recent study, the amount trash in 100 communities that adopted the concept immediately went down by about 16 percent, Skumatz said.

One-third of the savings come from increased recycling, one-third from more composting and one-third from people relying more on items that are reusable or have less packaging.

Maybe there’s some counter-argument that makes this a bad idea, but it sounds pretty smart to me. Then again, it’s a systematic response, not an individual-empowering one, so I’m not sure how easy it would be to get people excited about it.

Pleasing thing of the day: Paper dolls etc. by Wool and Water

This person’s work is pretty cool. Her name — I learn from Craft’s blog — is Amy Earle, a maker of paper dolls and other things. Here’s her blog, and here’s her “Wool and Water” Etsy store. Enjoyable.

Skullphabet #1

A free font, from Skull A Day. Via How.

Your cutting board is bourgeois. Here’s a more expressive one.

Another ideal canvas for expression: Remind yourself of your excellent taste while slicing onions with a $38 laser-engraved cutting board. Or maybe you better just order in and gaze at it while you dine, so you don’t mess the thing up.

Elsewares says: “The design actually interacts with the natural grain of the wood, creating a little scene. Each one is unique, not to mention really fun to look at.”

Marketing strategy: “extended nude scene” with Natalie Portman

So the WSJ has a story today about Wes Anderson’s short film, to be released via iTunes later this week, that’s sort of related to his next feature, opening this weekend. Amid all the implicationizing about technology and marketing and so on, I think it’s safe to say that the key phrase in the article is: “The short co-stars Natalie Portman, who appears in an extended nude scene.”

Okay, well, now, that’s probably going to get some attention.

Further research, conducted strictly on behalf of you, the Murketing reader, leads to this Time Out article, which describes the short film.

The WSJ piece says that the short will be distributed free on iTunes, and I guess I’m kind of wondering how they’re going to do that without getting some, you know, complaints from the various cultural voices who tend to oppose things like the widespread distribution of “extended nude scenes.”

[Update: I see now that Peter Kafka is ahead of me on the point about the soundness of the marketing strategy.]

Recall revisited

As you may recall, this very site wondered allowed in mid-August, when the blame-China response to the Mattel recalls was at its most mindlessly shrill, whether the magnet problem — which caused a much larger number of toys to be recalled than the lead paint problem — wasn’t a design issue, not a manufacturing issue.

Apparently Mattel says the answer to that question is yes.

Mattel has said repeatedly that its biggest recall had nothing to do with China or shoddy production.

That recall of more than 17 million doll accessories and cars — coming just after one lead-paint recall of Chinese-made products and in tandem with another — was because of high-powered magnets that could break loose and pose a serious danger if swallowed.

The problem, Mattel’s Eckert said again and again, was in design, not manufacturing.

Nevertheless, as this story indicates (via Wal Mart Watch), at least some politicians and other observers are determined to make this a demonize-China story. And maybe the speculation that Mattel is simply kissing ass to keep in China’s good side is correct. But next time read a hysterical assessment of the “China poison train,” at least keep in mind that the story might be more complicated than that.

Light Switch

In Consumed: Candela: How a niche product lit up consumers, and found its way to the mass market.

Vessel, a design company based in Boston, offers a surprisingly wide range of products for a small firm that’s been around for only six years — tableware, furniture, lighting and the occasional curiosity that fits none of those categories. But from early on, one product stood out: a lamp called the Candela.

Since it first appeared on store shelves in 2002, the Candela inspired a string of spinoffs and variations, and eventually these became popular enough that Vessel’s owners had to decide whether they were an industrial-design firm that happened to make some lighting products or whether they were a lighting-products company that made some other stuff, too. Lately, they have found a solution, which offers an interesting capsule story of how a niche product becomes a line, and then, step by step, reaches a mass market….

Continue reading at the NYT Magazine site.

Not enough Murketing in your life? Fast Company can help

Lately I’ve done some back-page columns for Fast Company, which is now edited by Robert Safian, who I’ve worked with in the past at American Lawyer, SmartMoney, Fortune, and Money. I guess I like working with him! And also with my editor on these columns, Denise Martin, with whom I’ve crossed paths at almost as many magazines.

If all that weren’t exciting enough (for me, I mean), they’re now giving my columns the rubric, “Murketing.” And the theme of the new one will be familiar to readers of this site, though perhaps expressed a little better than usual, thanks to being, you know, actually edited.

Nothing thrills advertising experts more these days than advertising made by…nonexperts. Clunky buzz phrases jostle for pole position to describe the trend — “user-generated content,” “citizen marketing,” “co-creation”–but the gist is always the same: The future of advertising belongs to consumers. Advertising Age even made “the consumer” its latest pick for ad agency of the year, arguing that “the most compelling content” is being made not by creative directors, but by “amateurs working with digital video cameras and Macs, and uploading onto YouTube.” …

Read the rest here, or in the October issue of Fast Company.

KAWS take on Darth Vader

New from the ever-astonishing KAWS. He did this for/with Lucas Films, and it’ll be on sale in his Japan boutique soon, if you’re in a position to do anything with that information. I was just talking to somebody about Star Wars fandom the other day. I was into it for the first three movies, but never could get interested in the more recent stuff. Still, I had way too many Star Wars action figures not to appreciate the coming-full-circle nature of this particular item.

To Do in NYC: Kate Bingaman-Burt at jen bekman

I’m late on this, not having realized until hours beforehand that the opening was last night. But if you’re in NYC, you should stop by the jen bekman gallery and enjoy the work of Kate Bingaman-Burt, through Oct. 27.

Knockoffs, copying, and creativity: Debated

Recently, The New Yorker argued that apparel knockoffs are not only no big deal, but a benefit to all, because they spur innovation.

There’s little evidence that knockoffs are damaging the business. Fashion sales have remained more than healthy—estimates value the global luxury-fashion sector at a hundred and thirty billion dollars— and the high-end firms that so often see their designs copied have become stronger. More striking, a recent paper by the law professors Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman suggests that weak intellectual-property rules, far from hurting the fashion industry, have instead been integral to its success.

Counterfeit Chic counters this argument in this recent Q&A:

The tired, old argument that copying is good for fashion has been around since at least the 1920s – and has been clearly false since at least since the 1960s, when fashion’s youthquake upset the previous hierarchies of creativity. The article is based on an outdated, pre-internet portrait of the industry – in other words, it’s “out.”

More here.

Music biz slump 2: Optimism or denial?

Edgar Bronfman, Jr., CEO of Warner Music Group, says:

Our business is poised to rebound because the demand for music is as strong as it has ever been and our determination to meet that demand has never been greater

While it may take some time for the rise in all the new revenue streams to overtake the short-term effect of the decline in the CD, there is no doubt in my mind that the mid-to-long-term future for Warner Music is very bright indeed.

There’s no particular argument advanced in this news brief about why this might be true.

The music biz slump: Good for indies?

Some of the reader comments to this Freakonomics “quorum” on the music business suggest that “indie” music is doing better as “big label” music does worse. One person writes: “My suspicion is that the internet and emusic services have led to a dramatic increase in consumption of and money spent on music from smaller independent labels as artists on smaller labels – who would have difficulty getting radio airplay otherwise – can use new methods to spread word of their music (blogs, myspace, etc).”

So you, wise Murketing reader, what do you know about this? Is there any real data that proves or disproves this theory?

Not anecdotal evidence, not suspicion, but actual data?

I had been under the impression that music sales are down across the board. If you know something, I beg you to share.

Design critic + hoops fan = protest T-shirt maker

A fan of the University of Kansas basketball team, and, more to the point, of the “curling, arc-serifed typeface” on the team’s uniforms, is upset about a redesign:

[In] an ill-conceived (and expensive) attempt to standardize the KU brand, university officials have replaced these famed letterforms with a typeface that only a corporate consultant could love. The new typeface– Trajan–cuts a lackluster profile unfit for the country’s premier program.

Or the T’s he’s selling more concisely put it: Trajan Sucks.

I’ve been a little out of the loop, so maybe Uni Watch has already covered this. But I heard about it here.