Stitch-Up Your Chair

Liked this concept for ‘stitch your own furniture’ by designer Oscar Nunez. Apart from being a low-cost option, this could also be developed into an eco-friendly product. A really potent idea…..

The Clock Clock

I love this clock made from 24 analogue clocks to act as a single digital display by making use of the clock hands to read the time. Its designed by Swedish designers Humans Since 1982 and is called – ‘The Clock Clock’.

Can Deer Antlers Hold your Phone??

The Socket Deer designed by nendo made me smile…..These electrical outlet covers let you put your mobile phone on the wall as it recharges. The antlers are already the perfect shape to hold things, so the designers hardly had to modify the forms at all. The handsets are held tightly by the covers made of tough urethane rubber, which also protects the antlers from breakage should you bump into them. Socket-deer could also be used as a cover for light switches, and the antlers make an excellent hook for keys or accessories.

Fold Away your Bicycle!

I liked this bicycle – Grasshopper – designed by David Gonçalves for the 12th International Bicycle Design Competition. The bike consists of a foldable electric city bike, which could be carried around as a trolley and recharged when at rest. Great idea, attractive solution.

How Flat is That??

Flat Bulb designed by Korean designer Joonhuyn Kim,  has a volume that is 1/3 smaller than ordinary bulbs. Its unique the flat shape takes care of the problem of rolling away, faced by ordinary bulbs (consequently preventing breakage). But what really makes this bulb special is that it reduces the cost of packing and transport and its unique shape allows it an easy storage. Wow!

Recycle – A ‘Soap’ Story…..

Soso Designers from France designed these packaging concepts for Designboom’s Reinvent competition and incidentally won the first place in the packaging category. Cleaning products generate lot of wastes. In this concept, MR CLEAN becomes a company which actively takes care of environment. The designers enhanced the shape of classical liquid multipurpose cleaner, spray multipurpose cleaner, and dish washing detergent bottles, in order to invite consumers to keep and fill them at home. After the bottle purchase, the client will only buy concentrate refill pack to dilute it with water, and throw it after use in the recycle bin. These thin refill refer to the formal shape of cleanings products, instead of real bottles clients will buy images as a memory of them. I liked this concept because it offers a message to recycle while not compromising on the punch required to attract customers. Plus, while the idea of refills is not new, the idea of shaping the refills in the exact form of the original packaging is, and that ads that extra charm.

Recycling A Pot of Honey – How Sweet is That??

I love the packaging designed by The Partners for Stanley Honey that promotes the re-use of the clay plant pot to encourage more honey making in the future! It is eco-friendly without compromising on  the graphic aesthetic and is not just about selling the product, but an attempt to make it sustainable.

via Dieline

Meaningful Dinnerware

Mexican industrial designer Joel Escalona has designed this simple, yet forceful product called ‘Cultural Diversity’. The product is a set of dinnerware, designed to stack in a specific manner, producing a beautiful and meaningful pattern. The designer says, ‘This is a statement about cultural diversity, sowing that despite cultual distinctions, all men are created equal, and must be treated equal in all aspects of their daily lives – at school, at work, on the street and of course at dinner time.’ A wonderful thought indeed!

LifeStraw – A Lifeline for Many…..

Half of the world’s poor suffer from waterborne disease, and nearly 6,000 people – mainly children – die each day by consuming unsafe drinking water. My earlier post – Clean Drinking Water for All….. Is that a Viable Dream? talked about the issue of potable water for all, but from an urbanite’s point of view……about a nightmare coming true. But what most of us forget is that a major part of the world is living that nightmare ‘right now’! And that’s why I really appreciate attempts by companies to address the problem and come out with sustainable, viable solutions.

One such attempt is the LifeStraw® developed by Vestergaard Frandsen. The two products LifeStraw® Personal and LifeStraw® Family are complimentary point-of-use water filters – truly unique offerings that will help people obtain safe drinking water at home and outside – paving the way for swiftly and effectively accomplishing the VF and MDGs. LifeStraw® water purifiers have been developed as a practical way of preventing disease and saving lives, as well as achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe water by the year 2015.

A Star-struck Watch

The TIWE watch designed by Chinese designer Lv Zhongfang was inspired from the impressionistic memories of his childhood, “The Starry Starry Night, It’s fantastic and supernatural”. The digital watch uses an OLED display to imitate the universe and celestial body to recreate the way time is interpreted through playing with the spatial watch arrangement. The white round dots run randomly in space when not in use. When you want to know what’s the time, just shake it or hit the glass surface slightly and the time will show.

I love the starry sky myself, so no doubt, I love this watch as well……a wonderful concept where the user has to interact with the product for a result.