T H I E F I T

Turn Furn by Thiefit at Dwell show

2010-07-07T21:23:00.000-07:00

We had a great show the weekend of June 27-29 at the Dwell on Design show at the L.A convention center. Thanks to all that turned out and to those who stopped by to experience some of the pieces. We look forward to talking to all of those who were interested. All in all the show was well done. Compared to our experience last year with the Caboom show, this was definitely an improvement. We also scored the main pic on the Huffington Post blog site for the Dwell show, so thanks to those guys over there at HP.

Thiefit will be at the Dwell on Design Show at the Los Angeles convention center from June 25-27. It is open the the public Saturday and Sunday from 9-6 pm. We are in Booth 106. Come by and check it out. This is a show for modern design.

NEW DESIGN STUDIO AND SHOP

2010-06-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

We moved into our new design studio and production shop and are in full swing. Call or email to set up a time to come by and check out the new digs and products.

Worth

2009-09-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

What is my Value? Is Worth the same as Value? If I have money, do I exist? How did I get from a simple question of Value to the existential? The question should be how did WE get so far from it.

Value and Worth are more concepts than they are tangible. More of an experience. But experience requires a passage of time, you say? Does the attainment of value require time? If so, everything should be more valuable the older it is. Obviously, it is how you define and express value and worth. Maybe it is how we express these concepts? Think of all the choices we have to express Worth and value.

The time. The trouble. Living for. Dying for. Loving.They are all so juicy and full of promise. Funny how people choo$e the most benign one.

Products that you use every day in your life are no different. A GOOD design for a product or procedure is brought forth through careful and deliberate choices made on experience and research of beings. (Humans are not the only experience based species). The passage of time mentioned before may be applied in this discussion in this capacity, simply that adequate time is invested into the development of a product. When done so, a product is developed that focuses on establishing worth and value through the EXPERIENCE. It enriches your existence through enhancing an emotional connection. Financial cost is irrelevant.

BAD design can be produced when WORTH is defined only in terms of $. It may be in terms of cost of production. Or end cost to buyer. Or target wholesale price. I am not saying that when these factors are considered, that it always produces bad design. I am saying that when something is designed with these factors as GUIDES, bad design is often the outcome. Why? WORTH/VALUE are different than PRICE/COST.

Experience,(qualitative instead of quantitative) is the definition of value and worth. This happens when we define FREE things in our lives as priceless. Your child's smile. Swinging. What is strange is then we turn around and give credibility (illegal) to subjects that are considered highly valued in financial terms. Subjects may include people or organizations. Then we turn around and consider the most valuable moral council to be with those financially worth the least, or uncorrupted, say, Gandhi.

As long as we do this as a majority, (it has not ALWAYS been this way) we will continue to all feel the confusion whenever we are asked the question "So, what do you do?", or when someone comments on your new jeans, you feel the need to claim "they were on sale" Or to get a high when you pull up to valet in your expensive car to impress people you never met, then tell people you DO KNOW how cheap you got it.

2009-09-08T18:09:00.001-07:00

THIEF IN ARROYO MONTHLY! CLICK IMAGE TO READ ARTICLE.
Make sure to pick up the September issue to check out the article on THIEF! Turned out to be a pretty good article that describes what is going on over here pretty well. You can find the free mags at most book stores throughout the San Gabriel Valley. Also, thanks to Carl and everybody over at the Monthly.
READ ONLINE ARTICLE!

THIEF SHOWROOM IN OLD TOWN PASADENA!!
Thief has been working out of a space in old town pasadena for a couple of years, but we found a bigger place so we well be moving and setting up in a bigger production studio. Stay tuned for pics!

Turn Series Microsite.

2009-09-02T12:14:00.001-07:00

Visit the new Turn Series microsite for more information and prices for the Turn Series.

THIEFIT360 LAUNCH!

2009-08-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

We know the concept of recycling objects into something that is useful can be a little difficult, so THIEF figured we would try to do it for a year and post our little morsels on the web. Most of the objects will take 5 minutes or less, but maybe every once in a while we will take a little more time. If anybody wants to send us their own pic of something they THIEFED, shoot it to us and we might post it on the journal entry on our website.

Scrap house video

2009-07-29T14:22:00.001-07:00

Great video about building a house completely out of scrap and trash. We usually steer clear of these produced "reality" shows, but this one at least shows what can be done with a little ingenuity and a lot of scrap. It's unlikely that just an average Joe could go into a scrap yard and walk away with twenty thousand bucks worth of steel, but who knows, anything is possible when people just don't have the space.

QUESTION: When educational shows skip over the most important processes and just show the finished product, does it do more harm than good? When somebody actually tries to do this and they are hit with cost and fees that were not even mentioned in the “how to” video, does this discourage real implementation? Does it just amount to entertainment?

Cork or Screwtop?

2009-07-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

Why does wine with cork in it cost more than one with a screw top? Bottles with screw tops will never become corked, right? After a little research, I found out that there is really no significant advantage to a cork. Everything lies in the experience, which we are definitely fans of here at Thief, but only when it is not based in inherited customs and/or ignorance. Basically, the action and sound of a cork being pulled is just too much to give up, even if the only person generally experiencing it is the person opening the bottle. The use of plastic corks eliminates the problem of tainted wine, but brings with it the need to increase dramatically the numbers of consumers who will actually recycle them.

Why do you buy corked wine instead of screwtop?

- CABOOM SHOW WAS CA JOKE!!

2009-07-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

Thief finally decided to participate in a trade show after much debate, and boy did we get what we asked for. The CABOOM show in Beverly Hills was like licking a cactus. Yes, it was that bad. Either (1) the organizers of this year's event were completely distracted by missing a Shepard Fairy sighting in Los Feliz, or (2) they had no idea what they were doing. We think the latter. The choice to have a boutique style trade show the same weekend as a major trade show produced by a national brand such as DWELL is the first on the list. Spillover was the idea. Uh yeah. At $25 bucks a pop and a fifteen mile spin down the lovely 10 freeway in June, on a weekend. Strike one. Giving half of your booths away at next to nothing last minute without so much as an apology to the vendors that paid full, thinking they would not find out. Always the best way to build vendor trust. Strike 2. Not advertising the show in the LA Weekly the weekend of the show. Let's see, the paper is free and it hits newstands on Thursday mornings. Why pay to advertise an event when you can keep the money and hire F-bomb dropping 19 year old DJ's! Strike 3.

We should have stuck to our gut feeling and spent our money on building something. And if anybody reading this even gets a little bit of an idea to ever go to or participate in a CABOOM show, call us or come on down. We can smack you one and save you a ton of cash at the same time.