I was honoured to become one of the One Minute Wonders of Present Plus, the creative outlet of my good friend Nalden. One minute wonders is just that: a series of video portraits featuring wondrous people telling their personal story in 60 seconds flat. Artists, entrepreneurs, designers, and rain-makers offer insight into their individuality, their motivations, and what really makes them tick.
Introduced as ‘Eternally curious designer, editor, curator and creative director’, here’s 60 seconds of my vision – to make the world a little better by creating and sharing everything beautiful.

Enjoy more One Minute Wonders here, all made by Present Plus & Dough’nut.

I think the first time we’ve mentioned a big redesign of Another Something & Co was more than a year ago. Another Something & Co is still a side project. So while we were busy working on the Blue Jeans exhibition, a new Tenue de Nîmes store, the KLM inflight sales programme, the identity for Skins Cosmetics and much, much more, we collected some lost hours and worked on this big restyle.
The new site is build by my good friend Wilco of Drost & Co. It is the ultimate fusion between the blog, our social network, and the work we do with the company.

On the left you’ll see our daily inspiration, fed by Tumblr. This main column is reserved for everything we love. From our travel stories, favourite music, special art projects or amazing products, we’ll all feature it here. These are the ‘Notes on the Beauty of Culture’.
The Company part, the ‘Creative Direction in Elegant Creativity’ is our commercial work. With Another Something & Company we work on the creative direction, art direction and graphic design for the brands and companies we love. We create brands, products and spaces in the world of retail, art and fashion, on a strategic and creative level. In this section you’ll enjoy a small selection of projects we’ve worked on, and some of them still in progress.

We will add more functionalities over the coming months, and get rid of the bugs that will always pop up after launching something new. Please help us making it better by sharing your thoughts and ideas on facebook or twitter. Meanwhile subscribe to our not so frequent newsletter to stay updated.

We hope you’ll enjoy the new Another Something & Co.
Thank you,
Joachim Baan

We wish you all the love, magic and mystery in this new year! At Another Something & Co. it will be a little quiet the coming weeks since we’re working on a big update. But stay tuned, we won’t disappoint you!

Over the past year we’ve been working on an exhibition on denim which opened last week in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Putting together 350 years of denim history into a more than 100 meter long indigo timeline. A rich history including classic paintings from ‘The Master of the Blue Jeans’ and old sample books dating back to the 18th century, to the designs of Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Maison Martin Margiela, Marithé + François Girbaud and Yves Saint Laurent – and one of the oldest Levi’s and Lee jeans to Momotaro, Atelier Tossijn, Naked & Famous and Rapha – it’s all there.
We’ve created a more than 100 meters long cabinet, starting like a loom in an almost black indigo colour, morphing to slate blue and finally ending in a bright white workshop. A three-dimensional timeline showing the rich history of 350 years of Blue Jeans. The exhibition is accompanied with a book we’ve designed together with Studio wilfredtimo, which will be available at Tenue de Nîmes (a.o.) anytime soon.

Blue Jeans — 23 November 2012 until 10 March 2013,
Centraal Museum, Nicolaaskerkhof 10, Utrecht, the Netherlands, open Tue – Sun 11.00h – 17.00h

For more images click here >
And more on Blue Jeans at the Centraal Museum after the click >

An iconic street symbol that can be found in almost every wardrobe: the blue jeans. Worn for more than 150 years, the garment holds an even more longstanding tradition. Still it has repeatedly proven to be modern and innovative. The Centraal Museum presents the first large-scale exhibition in the Netherlands on this unique material. Across various themes, the exhibition shows new work by renowned artists, combined with national and international loan pieces – showcasing both craftsmanship and innovative technology.
The exhibition includes the traditional 19th century Levi’s for miners, Jurgen Bey’s window installation commissioned by Levi’s RED and Dutch design label Droog, as well as designs by Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Maison Martin Margiela and Marithé + François Girbaud and Yves Saint Laurent.
The exhibition is divided into a number of themes showing the experimental and creative side of jeans: from their origin as work wear in the 17th century, to high fashion in the 20th century, to modern-day jeans – including internationally renowned Dutch labels such as G-Star. Special attention is reserved for national and international subcultures, in which the jean is a product for the masses that expresses uniformity, but at the same time a most personal garment that reflects individuality.
The exhibition also looks at the DNA of jeans: the materials, buttons, labels and their typical indigo blue colour. The highly polluting production process and current innovative sustainable alternatives, such as ‘zero water waste’ and ‘ozone’ treatments, are also part of the exhibition.

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More stories on Denim +

For CitizenMag of the Citizen M Hotel I wrote a little piece ‘On Why I Travel’. Here’s a little excerpt: “Spruce magazine once had the legendary payoff. “Turn heads. Set the tone. Be informed. Have it first.” It inspired me in my work, in my private life — basically in everything I do. It also helped me in my way of travelling, exploring new cities and places.
When people ask me how I plan my travels, how I find those nice products, those sweet places to dine and those perfect spots to shop, the secret lies in this quote. It is the hunger, the craving need and the faith to find those unique and special places. But more important it feeds the fear of missing anything. And last but not least, it fixes the problem of feeling ‘naked’ when visiting unknown places.
Although I like that little embarrassed feeling when hitting town — just don’t know what to do, where to start, what to say — I’m sure it will never disappear completely when planning a trip more carefully.” Continue reading on CitizenMag >
Above some pictures of my last trip to Toronot with Holt Renfrew.
More travel stories here >

A short online summer brake to get some work done. We’ll be back soon! (& stay tuned at Facebook — Twitter — Instagram)

The first Curated gift I made was send out this week. A first gift, dedicated to my love to travel. The love for the unknown, of putting everything together you can’t mis and hit the road. Whether it’s from Utrecht to Amsterdam or Amsterdam to London, Los Angeles or Lisbon.
The only thing with traveling is that it doesn’t go really well with my need for structure. In a bag, or a suitcase, things move around, because you have to open up your luggage at the customs, or need that one particular item at the bottom of your suitcase and everything will move upside-down. I needed something to solve this problem. Something special.
Together with Royal Republiq, the Copenhagen and Amsterdam based brand who’s building up a portfolio of some really nice leather accessories, bags, belts and shoes, I have created this first Curated gift, a travel-kit. Three little bags in three different sizes to store all the things you can’t mis when on the road. All hand made in Portugal, in a small factory just above Lisbon.
While it was cold and rainy here in the Netherlands we traveled to Portugal to put the last hand to the ‘Another & Royal Republiq’ Travel Kit. The kit was made in a very small quantity and was only available for my first-time subscribers at Curated.
A big thank you to all my first-time subscribers at Curated, and to Royal Republiq for the great support to create this beautiful gift.
More images here >

mb!, the online magazine of Mercedes-Benz about design, lifestyle, fashion and music, just launched their Dutch edition. With the first video in a row, ‘The Art of Style’ featuring the photographic duo Maurice Scheltens and Liesbeth Abbenes, a feature on DUS Architects and their lovely projects and a little talk with Petrovsky & Ramone, I feel honored I was interviewed as well.
Enjoy a little (dutch) read to get an idea what keeps me away from boredom…

The good thing is, that I’m extremely busy working on 4 huge projects: An exhibition in Centraal Museum (Utrecht, NL) on Jeans opening this November, the complete communication and branding of Joolz strollers, advising KLM on what to sell in their airplanes and the always ongoing and growing Tenue de Nîmes, something next level…
The bad thing is, that I have not enough time to update Another Something & Co. But I will try to update it regularly… I will try my best! Stay tuned.

While planning my trip to Lisbon in a few weeks, I was asked by Álvaro Tavares Ramos from the beautiful blog ‘O Editorial’ for a little interview (in Portuguese).
O Editorial is a Portuguese blog featuring design, be it a Charles & Ray Eames chair or a simple product package, notes on Lisbon, travel and undiscovered places, small businesses and people that have something to say and are positive. Basically everything we love at Another Something & Co. Thank you Álvaro for the nice interview!
We’re very much looking forward to Lisbon, to Mi Casa En Lisboa, to Pavilhão Chinês, The Decadente, Vida Portuguesa, Cantinho do Avillez  and all the other lovely places!
(Image by Jordan Cox from the Cantina LX)

Tomorrow we’re flying to LA again, for a well deserved week… of business. I’m looking forward to meet Mr Freedom, Rising Sun and all the others again, and very much looking forward to the Rose Bowl Flea Market on Sunday. Expect random updates here, and a little more on twitter. See you on the other side of the pool!

Last year was amazing! We traveled a lot, saw beautiful places, met inspiring people and and were fortunate enough to share some lovely stories thru Another Something. We hope you’ve enjoyed it. We did!
The year is coming to an end and we are having a little focus time on some clients to finish the business for this year, and start some new for the coming year. So no updates here until the end of the year…
Happy holidays and a wonderful new year! We’ll be back in 2012.