Welcome to the RetroFuture

January 29, 2010 5:10 PM

Redesigned notebooks, repurposed toys, grow-your-own breakfast, paper radios, parental pants, and more - all from the mind of design fiction enthusiast Matt Brown
posted by divabat (14 comments total)

"design fiction enthusiast," excellent phrase!
posted by mwhybark at 5:12 PM on January 29, 2010

These are all good but the pants are genius.
posted by DU at 5:37 PM on January 29, 2010

Oh my god, the names of all those horses. Kid Colorado "the romantic renegade"? Lakrits "the perverted prince"? Hoss Dixon "the forbidden negotiator"? Pure gold. I think I've found my next 15 usernames.
posted by mhum at 5:49 PM on January 29, 2010

As a lefty I am obliged to grumble that the suggested notebook redesign would be even worse to use than the standard.

But yeah, nice ideas.
posted by dinty_moore at 5:50 PM on January 29, 2010

Oh man, I want a night horse!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:57 PM on January 29, 2010

You don't have to rotate the notebook to write in it, but don't you have to rotate it to read it? And then you have those itty bitty lines at the top and the bottom.
posted by digsrus at 6:21 PM on January 29, 2010

The notebook is interesting, the eggs look gross, but the "Parent Pants" are awesome. In fact, I think I'm going to go put a pocket in the calf of my jeans right now!
posted by TooFewShoes at 6:36 PM on January 29, 2010

As a lefty I am obliged to grumble that the suggested notebook redesign would be even worse to use than the standard.

They could just make one that slants the other way.

When I first saw the notebook, I thought this was just going to be another chindogu collection. But there's some genuinely fun and potentially marketable ideas here, like the DEVO egg maker and the 2D alarm clock.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:46 PM on January 29, 2010

Matt Brown is a variety of paint. Brown paint, at that. How any parents could name their kid Matt Brown...?

Even Homer Simpson ran thru the possibilities. He vetoed calling his first born Louis because he would be dubbed Screwie Louie, IIRC.

Oh yeah, but he’s a cartoon person. I keep forgetting that.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 7:47 PM on January 29, 2010

that slant notebook would save me hours in accumulated arm twisting and book repositioning.
posted by The Whelk at 8:10 PM on January 29, 2010

I'm moved by the his gift to those forlorn and forgotten toy horses, transforming them from something the world had cast off (or never cared about) into potent and powerful creatures pounding across the dark horizon of our imaginations. I'm glad I lived to see the day that there was something called "design fiction" and that there is someone with the cunning, innocence and mental vitality to pull it off so appealingly.
posted by Faze at 4:20 AM on January 30, 2010

Yes, I would totally buy parental pants. They need a tug handle, a pocket, some rubbery thing to chew on, a nose wiper, and maybe a sippy cup holder. Sold!
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:44 AM on January 30, 2010

I know this is a risky thing to say here, but:

This is design-as-art, people.
posted by cmoj at 12:53 PM on January 30, 2010

Matt Brown is a variety of paint. Brown paint, at that. How any parents could name their kid Matt Brown...?

Is it? I doubt little kids know this, and they're pretty much the biggest take-advantage-of-poor-naming demographic.

(37.6 million google results for matt browns, only 600k relating to paint. This might just be you. Unless you were referring to matte brown, in which case, I really don't think many people would draw the connection.)

This guy has inspired me to draw logos for my family now. I feel like I'm 8 again!
posted by rubah at 11:39 PM on January 30, 2010