You may have heard … Iceland isn’t doing so hot these days. They’ve still got their gorgeous ice caverns, geothermal baths, and vodka bars, but their economy apparently needs billions to stay afloat. Help it out by picking up one of innovator Sruli Recht’s latest designs – the Bound Skarf. At over nine feet long and made out of ivory cotton and black wool, this lengthy accessory is sure to keep you warm even if you aren’t using the oven to heat your home … yet.

Okay, easy questions: Do you like Absolut Vodka? What about masquerade balls? Well you are going to love this. Absolut is throwing one of their amazing parties for their new Masquerade product in London and we have a couple priority passes to give out for each day. As you can imagine, the demand for these first come first serve nights are high, but we’ve managed to scored some. The event is in East London October 24th through 27th (that’s Friday through Monday) and we can give away two pairs of passes (2 x 2) for each day.

In order to get your hands on the passes, we are going to make this simple. First one to comment the day they want to go (i.e. “Friday”) gets the passes for that day. Note, the party takes place in London, so if you aren’t in London this weekend don’t bother. The winner receives two passes to the event, no expenses. Details will be emailed to the winner. If you don’t win you can still get in, just show up early.

The House of Masquerade
68-72 Redchurch Street
Shoreditch, London E2 7DP
5-11pm, October 24th through 27th

Johannesburg’s Dokter and Misses is not exactly a store, but it’s not soley a studio either. A bit over half of the apparel and furniture outfitter’s wares are from their own cubism-influenced label of jewelry, lights, T-shirts, and vests. It’s a place “where dreams come to life and vodka slaying superheroes support and uplift South African design,” say the co-founders. A collaboration between furniture designer Adriaan Hugo and multidisciplinary designer Katy Taplin, Dokter and Misses featured an anti-Mugabe, pro-democracy poster series with Kudzanai Chiurai in the wake of the Zimbabwe presidential “elections” earlier this year. All this from a pair who met designing cardboard handbags at university. Even Tim Gunn’s producers didn’t think of that.

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Possibly the only time you ever contemplate a box of cereal is when there’s a really hard maze on the back, but TheDieline thinks about packaging all the time. From bottles to cans and boxes to bags, brand identification is as important to consumer marketing as Smuckers is to jam. See, you can’t get away from it! We bet that in two seconds you can think of about a dozen iconic packages, from Absolut vodka to Animal Crackers. The site blogs mostly about happenings in the food and beverage industry, but pretty much anything eye-catching on a retail shelf is fair game. We give credit to these marketing mavens. Anybody that can charge $8 for pomegranate juice in a eight ounce bubble bottle must be doing something right.

Art Directors Pier Madonia (UK) and Stuart Macmillan (Montreal) teamed up with photographer Roger Stayte and created a rather captivating print campaign for the International Red Cross. Prescribing the values of “awareness,” “compassion,” and “tolerance” was achieved through some pretty literal imagery. And, if you want more edge, check out what Pier and Stuart did for Blavod Black Vodka.

Each week, JoshSpear.com explores the latest projects by top creative professionals in the Behance Network and highlights a few that are pushing the edge of creative industry. Josh Spear also serves as an Advisor and Guest Curator for the Behance Network.

Last weekend at Mercado Mundo Mix, a market-slash-fair that brings together up-and-coming stores and designers from the underground fashion world mostly in Sao Paulo, I got egged into trying a new super-carbonated and fizzy shot of vodka called Orloff Gas, which is an extension of the Orloff vodka family being pushed by Pernod Ricard Brasil (the same group that has Jameson, Chivas and Courvoisier). After much research on the Brazilian liquor-loving public, this 5-times-distilled sparkling liquor was developed for their penchant for both carbonated drinks and vodka. Vodka is a huge industry here in Brazil; many clubbers often replace the sugar cane rum called cachaca in their capirinha cocktails with it instead. In my taste test I had trouble discerning the bubbles from the actual flavor of vodka, and even on an empty stomach I didn’t feel the usual buzz I usually get from a shot. Well, bottoms up; I found out later it has a low 15% alcohol content. I’ll be sticking with the harder stuff myself, but from the smiles of the eager drinkers around me, Brazilians are liking this new fuel to power their nights out.

Photo via CEFET Campos

Some months ago, somewhere in Las Vegas, a set of very lady-like, yet very intoxicated ladies leaned over a table whose surface responded to their touches. They put they’re fingers on it (pink!), they wrote their names in it (green!), they set their vodka sodas on it (a rainbow explosion!). If they had been allowed to dance on it, the resulting thrills might have been somewhat comparable to 1967’s Monterey Pop Festival, but with more clothing (well, not much; it was Vegas) and less acid. Not many months after pictures of the girls’ neon adventures posted on facebook, pictures of a similar concept were posted on this website. Now, much to everyone’s pleasure, the Las Vegas/Joshspear.com experience has been made commercially available via commercially produced pressure-sensitive panels-turned-tabletops, via Kloss International. With a price tag of 1200 British Pounds, the table may still be restrictive of even the most professionally dainty dance moves, but hope can be found in the following: The same panels used to form the table’s top will soon be available for use as an architectural component — or, in other words, a floor-to-ceiling color-blasting experience. Time for some updates, Sin City!

Via BornRich

Our boy Matthew Curry — Spear Collective member, Grammy Award nominee, artist, occasional ad man and one-time vodka bottle designer — has just updated his website, Ninja Cruise. Matthew’s no stranger to the pages here; we’ve written about him a bunch of times before, most recently to shout out his collaboration with Enjin Skateboards. He designed some pretty sweet (and reasonably priced) boards for enjin, which we just gave you a chance to buy.

This Ninja Cruise update includes a good deal of hand-made content (ink on paper, rather than hue on screen) that, in an email, Curry called his “most successful paintings and drawings from the last 2 years.” Some of these canvases are for sale at The Beholder. When you go — and you will go — to Ninja Cruise to check out Matt’s latest and greatest, you’ll find his news in the middle of the page and those paintings and drawing we just talked about thumbnailed on the masthead. Ah, darkness.

Related: Matt Curry Archive

Branko Lukic, an industrial designer and author, has given us yet another reason to drink with his clean bottle design for the new Vertikal Vodka. Through the intentional use of simple lines and a wide mouth screw top (they say it’s the “World’s First Neckless Bottle”), Lukis designed the bottle while keeping in mind a life beyond it’s original purpose. He recommends using it as a vase, but I can think of plenty of other uses for something so pretty. No word yet on whether the actual contents of the bottle live up to the high standards of the outside– and no word on release dates or pricing (although we know it’s going to be released by V Vodka)– so if anyone’s managed to give Vertikal a taste test, let us know what you thought.

Via Mocoloco

On Saturday, March 31st from 6:30-9:00 PM at the Design Within Reach store in Boulder, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and DWR are putting on their second annual White Space event, White Space II. Josh was able to attend last year’s event, and really liked what he saw– it’s basically a live art event that puts 6 local artists to the test of creating something special in a short amount of time– their final work to be sold off to the highest bidder in a silent auction that will go on during the show; the proceeds will go toward future public art events presented by The Collection, a support group of the Boulder MoCA. This year, the Spear Collective’s own Chris Cox will fill some white space with artists Pattie Lee Becker, Paul Kraus, Markham Maes, Amanda Marie, and Jenna Wilson. Other sponsors of the event include Vodka 14 and Avery Brewery– which both happen to be the makers of some of my favorite boutique adult beverages. For those of you in or around Boulder, attendance at this event is mandatory!

Square One. It reminds me of a show I used to watch as a kid on PBS. It reminds Jamie of Coldplay. When you get down to it, Square One Organic Vodka is really like no other vodka you've had before. Square One Organic Vodka has very crisp notes with a subtle finish, making it a great base for a complex drink as well as superb stand-alone standard. Its overall pureness is the result of the organic process done right. Square One uses 100% certified organic American rye, water from the Teton Mountains and a unique process. The Square One process includes “proprietary organic fermentation techniques, four-column distillation and classic filtration methods” which makes me give a hip-hip-hooray for getting back to the basics. It's silky, it's smooth and should be a 007 co-star next time Hollywood decides to make a Bond Movie.

The first question I asked when we met the guys from Airforce Nutrisoda, was “why Airforce?” Then, we learned the story about how once upon a time, a very smart man got fed up with getting sick on planes, and developed their first product, Immune. The concept blossomed from there. What impressed me even more than the functional flavors (my favorite is Radiance, which includes pomegranate and blackberry) is all the great work Airforce Nutrisoda is doing for the world at large. In fact, we’ll be setting them up with some of our favorite charities we'll be working with in the next couple of months. Airforce Nutrisoda may have their claim as “The Original Health Spa in a Can” – but their sodas taste so good with your favorite vodka, that they can also be the cocktail that clears your conscience.

On new year’s eve, I chose to drink Vodka 14 martinis instead of champagne– all thanks to our friends Mitch and Matt Baris, the father-son duo behind Vodka 14 (and my friend Jenna who was mixing the drinks). I actually felt pretty reasonable on new year’s day. That was probably due to a combination of things; among them: not mixing alcohols, not drinking too much, and Vodka 14’s purity– it’s made with the freshest of ingredients, including USDA Certified Organic grain and water from a 200 foot deep Rocky Mountain well that is filtered and de-ionized. The vodka then undergoes a four column continuous distillation process including an activated carbon and crystal filtration system to achieve its high purity, quality, and taste. I am proud of Mitch and Matt Baris for bringing an eco-friendly, independently owned vodka brand to an otherwise saturated and conglomerated industry. Despite the fact that Vodka 14 is currently available only in stores in Colorado, Wyoming, and Tennessee, you all can enjoy it and support it’s philosophy by buying it online. Also check out their infusion recipes– they have some great ones.

The people over at Absolut Vodka have always been the design-consious types, but their holiday gift pack, called the ‘Absolute Bling Bling Gift Pack,’ ups the ante. Absolut’s bling website is chock full of everything bling– from a story book of the history of bling, to blinged-out drink recipes, to bling downloads, to the holy grail itself (the bling gift pack). When I inquired about where I can buy one of these kits, the website didn’t seem to list the United States as a purchase location. Seems weird that Absolut wouldn’t want to sell their bling-pack in the home of bling– so if anyone has the inside track on where I can find one of these, please let me know. Times I wrote the word ‘bling’ in this post: 11 … 12 including the title.

Via Core 77

In Chinese culture, the lychee is a symbol of romance and love– and is considered to be the king of all fruits. Taking cues from the old country, a team of liquor aficionados dreamt up Lichido, a new drink produced and bottled in Cognac, France. They mixed aged cognac, premium vodka and essences of lychees, guavas and a touch of white peach juice. While I’m not generally a fan of sweet drinks, this one passed the test– and the ladies in our office loved it. Check their dance-music pumping website for stores near you.