In honor of SpongeBob’s 10 year anniversary, my friends at Nooka teamed up with the SpongeBob brand to release three timepieces in 2009. This is the first, available now. Love it.

Wanna get your Nooka on? Swing by their super-fun pop-up shop at Den in New York from July 10th through August 16th. The entire line of products is for sale– all the watches, the new wallets, belts and Nooka fragrance. It’s a great space and very well done!

330 East 11th Street
Between 1st avenue and 2nd avenue
New York, NY 10018

We love to check out some of the local art galleries when traveling. Peel Gallery in Houston felt like a very obvious choice, based on some of the images from their website. When I arrived I was shown some absolutely amazing work in a small but very open space. Then I made it to the gallery shop. And by gallery shop what I mean is JoshSpear.com store! Tons of stuff from our site including some favorites like Nooka watches and I hate Perfume scents, plus a ton of amazing new prodcucts. Chatting it up with curator Steven Hempel was like meeting an old friend of the site. Definitely stop by and check it out if you are in Houston– and mention where you heard about it!

TSOVET: Read JS Review | Buy It ($435)
Great case designs and contrasting finishes paired with affordable prices make these watches the perfect gift.

Timex 80: Read JS Review | Buy It ($67)
It’s funny how things come full circle. I used to scoff at oversized G-Shock watches and now I find myself rocking one instead of the Omega or Sinnn. Timex has brought back a classic with the Timex 80’s. Add one to your wishlist up and it’ll be like having some New Old Stock (NOS). Nostalgic and intriguing at the same time.

Magrette Timepieces: Read JS Review | Buy It ($299)
This watch started quite a stir when we posted it. Homage aside, they are attractive, keep time, and are comfortable to wear all day. For the price, they offer excellent value and are not your “typical” watch.

Nooka: Read JS Review | Buy It ($250)
Specifically for the urban jungle (lions can sense fashion forwardness), Nooka takes the digital out of your Casio watch, stomps on it, kicks it a few times, and then puts it back into a sleek timepiece.

Bell & Ross: Read JS Review | Buy It
Everybody knows that the Swiss do two things better than anyone else: makes watches and remain neutral. And they’re also good at banking. So three … three things.

Chotovelli E Figli: Read JS Review | Buy It
Generations of watchmakers in this Italian family have preserved the Chotovelli tradition, but it was the last generation to take these classic chronographs to the next level.

TokyoFlash Negative: Read JS Review | Buy It ($175)
Japan is home to some seriously futuristic designs, but we find the TokyoFlash Negative watch to be the most straightforward of the space age lot. It’s kind of like time traveling to the distant year 2011.

Go to FUSSHop now. Aside from the Si Scott print we just blogged, MHI has a new line of clothing with a little help from Maharishi, London's premier Japanese fashion house (and the designers of my passport cover). Maharishi has come up a few times in the past for their camo infused clothes, this time around there isn't as much Army inspiration (maybe they got the message from our first Big Ticket Tuesday). Their street wear takes a twist by getting its cues from nature and its relationship with machines — as noted by the title of the collection Deus Ex Machina. Have a quick look at the new collection and don't forget last season is on sale. Then do yourself a favor and bookmark the FUSShop, because they aren't going to stop coming out with amazing art, clothes and books.

Just a quick reminder to get your submissions in for the Big Ticket Tuesday Nooka watch contest. If you’ve never won anything in your life, now is your chance to make those odds slightly better. The winner will be announced tomorrow afternoon, so hurry! Click here for the rules and details.

They said it couldn’t be done. They said it shouldn’t be done. But, we’re doing it anyway. After a few all-nighter meetings at JoshSpear.com HQ, the team came to two conclusions: 1) people like free things, 2) people like their free with a bit of value. Hence Big Ticket Tuesday. Each week we’ll submit an excellent, expensive item for your perusal and pick the winner Friday afternoon.

THE PRIZE: The first Big Ticket item up for grabs is Nooka’s ZenH COTN Camo Green watch. Stylish, modern, and practically invisible in dense brush, this would be the hotness on any reader’s wrist.

THIS WEEK’S RULES: Here you see an aesthetically pleasing use of camo. Suggest the tackiest, most awful camo style you can find (No trucker hats or bikinis. For an example, see here) and drop the link down in the comments section. We’ll be scoring based on originality, cringeability, and use of the theme ingredient.

Good luck!

I was browsing around the site reflecting on how far we’ve come and couldn’t help but notice the wealth of inspiration and content we’ve got in the SpearTalks archives. So, I figured I’d round them all up for easy consumption. Whether you like fashion, technology, art, or just about anything else– with nearly 40 incredible interviews, there’s something for everyone thanks to our very own Carmel Hagen. Go, dive in, it’s just a click away.

According to what we learned in kindergarten, a watch is a watch is a watch. However, according to Matthew Waldman, the free-thinking founder of New York's Nooka, a watch is just another opportunity to turn a washed-up concept into a fresh idea.

Now in its sixth year, what began as a grade school flashback has grown into an entirely new way of telling time. Intellectually alluring, visually impelling, and incredibly functional, Nooka's unusual materials and playful methodology have reinterpreted the traditional method of watching the hours fly, and trendsetting time-tellers (us and so forth) are snapping them up like Vampire Weekend remixes (not to imply we have any strong feelings, positive or otherwise, for turbo-hyped indie bands).

We've been watching Nooka for a few years now, and each new season brings us more reasons to keep on keepin' on. Join us as we chat with Matthew about the past, present, and future of our favorite non-watchlike watch company.

JoshSpear.com: Nooka was born from a first grade flashback – Can you tell us more about that, and give us a brief history of the company?

Matthew Waldman: I was a creative director of an interactive design studio in the late 1990s when I began to explore information architecture over aesthetic design for my clients. When I try to figure something out, it’s in my head 24/7, running like a program until it figures things out. The rule for intuitive design is simple: If you need instruction, it’s not intuitive. Seeing a big wall clock gave me a flashback to first grade where we learned how to tell time… and if someone had to teach it, how intuitive is it really? This was my inspiration to explore alternative systems. READ MORE…

As a child, my brother and I spent many hours transforming our basement into a small mid-western Lego city complete with a law enforcement squad capable of patrolling the high seas. Unfortunately, we never were able to see the artistic capabilities of these building blocks of art and architecture beyond what the instructions for the Lego Police Station and Airport told us to do..and fortunately, our work isn't on display at Peace of Piece Tokyo. The Lego-sponsored art event to raise money and awareness for Unesco opened on February 1st and runs through February 25th at the Parco Art Gallery in Shibuya, Japan. Much of the works on display consist of refashioned world heritage sites and two-dimensional works that give a nod to world peace in all their Lego glory. One of the featured artists is Nooka Inc's principle Matthew Waldman, whose piece, Peace Memorial for Great Buildings Lost is inspired by the loss of great buildings and monuments destroyed by war and unrest. If you find yourself in the Japan area, we recommend checking out this great exhibit for a great cause.

It was on the early side of our grade school days when we learned how to tell time by what the little and the big hand said. Soon enough after that, we got our first digital watch and thought we'd never have difficulty reading the time again. However, upon first glance at the Nooka Creatures-of-The-Night collection watches from Matthew Waldman, we reverted to a childlike state. These (like all Nookas) aren't your run of the mill digital watches. These titillating timepieces with mineral crystal glass, stainless steel back, PU wristband along and a mind-bending LCD display are covered in camouflage with a striking design inspired by animals found in urban atmospheres. Rather than advertising the hours with a numeric flourish, the face provides dashes and lines to tell you just what time it is. We’ve also heard the rainbow camo one is great for “fighting the mistic [sic] unicorns of rainbow land!“

Mathew Waldman’s Nooka, the alternative line of time-keepers that we consistently preach about, is offering some new wrist candy for the holiday season. Profound Blue and Cool gray have made their way into Nooka’s color palate, giving the increasingly attention grabbing watches a nicely chilly vibe, while still keeping the NY company’s fun interpretation of time at front and center. I think I’d like the new blue face with a white band (you can buy extra bands in any color for some of the styles now! Awesome.). Browse the newbies here.

New York’s alternative watch maker Nooka is known for both their abstract approach to time keeping and their creatively free approach to designing those watches. What better form of collaboration, then, would there be other than to pair up with Shin Tanaka, paper artist extraordinaire, to produce a very fun (and very different) salute to two of the best things the brand is known for?

The Nooka x Shin Tanaka collab takes the form of a downloadable Nooka boxboy template, which can then be personalized to one’s liking and resubmitted online. Unlike Nooka’s prior collaborations (which we always get pretty worked up about), the union with Tanaka is available in wonderfully unlimited quantities. So, if you’re feeling creatively inclined today, grab some crayons, warm up your printer, and head over here and get to work on your very own paper watch monster.

Our survey is in full swing and more than 350 folks have taken 5 minutes out of their day to tell us a little bit about themselves and why they read JoshSpear.com. They’ve also automatically all been entered to win a set of Star Wars Mimobots, Vaja iPod cases or the new super-fresh Nooka Zub watches. Well? What are you waiting for? Join in on the fun and go fill it out already!

It’s been more than a year since our last survey– and traffic has basically tripled since that time. While we think we have some idea about who you (our readers) are, we’re all sort of scratching our heads in bewilderment wondering what the truth is. Please, dear readers, fill out the survey. It should take you around 5 minutes and your input is extremely valuable– all we’re asking is for 5 minutes of your time in exchange for another year of superb content. As an incentive, filling out this survey automatically enters you to win a Vaja iPod Case, a Nooka Zub Watch or a set of Star Wars Mimobots! Go, Survey Go!