Have you ever run from a fire extinguisher? I haven’t. They don’t scare me. But they scare you.
They seem so important, so untouchable. Why is that? Get above the fright! Make it cool to extinguish fires. That’s what designer Sigrun Vik is all about. Keep deadly fire unfashionable with Vik’s “ACT” fire extinguisher.
Designer: Sigrun Vik
In 1991 the Apple we know so well today was totally different. Steve Jobs had not yet returned to the company. Apple’s new focus was to diversify its core technologies beyond the scope of computers and CEO John Sculley was not shy about sharing the company’s secrets unlike the iron curtain Apple hangs today. Let’s take a step back and check out some of these concepts from yesteryear.
Credit: Zacislost
Ah…the pleasure of a skateboard! A teen’s companion and a worrying mother’s bane, this piece of board has transformed form a plane plank to a glitzy glam doll with finesse. Right now lets take a look at another kind that markets itself as a Pumpboard. Rolling up like a licorice wheel, this board can be pumped up with compressed air to make it a taut steady ride.
Designer: Maciej Puzon
The inspiration for the 2009 collection of floor designs from Bolon comes from the world of magic, and the colors are reminiscent of dusk – the change from light to dark, shadowy and shimmering at the same time. Check out these flooring materials called Twilight. There’s no LED backing or some magical elf beneath it. It’s the result of a unique material woven to create plays of light and shadow. I wouldn’t mind have these in our office (hint hint Bolon).
Designer: Bolon
Keys here, keys there, keys everywhere, and then just when you need them, keys disappear. Funny how the universe works huh? The #8 KeyThing circumvents that fact of life by giving you one place to keep all your keys. The lady bug looking contraption is a simple piece of rubber with grippy port holes. As long as you remember where you mounted it, losing your keys should be a thing of the past.
Designers: Thomas Brinch-Møller & Jacob M. Lund
What have we got here? We’ve got one of the creators of the ever-so-popular inflatable bookmark, designer Rhea Jeong! What Jeong has for us today is the “Colorsonic”: an MP3 player that displays its playlist with color. Each color represents a music genre. When you want to play some songs n stuff, choose 1 (or more) color(s) from your wheel, and a list will be automatically picked for you made of songs from the genre colors you chose.
Designer: Rhea Jeong
Though the classic cross-city bike messanger method / character / lifestyle will never be trumped by a motorized vehicle, one can dream of a nicer* way to carry one’s briefcase to work. *Nicer, in this case, meaning, gosh, I have to go to work every day, but it’s only a short distance. I’d sure like a more eco-friendly ride, but I have too much to carry!
It’s time to stash!
Designer: Elliot Ortiz
Every month we take a look around and select some of the most interesting designs that was showcased here. Below you’ll find the most popular designs we’ve tracked over the last 30 days – an overview of designs you shouldn’t have missed in January 2009.
Designed for overworked Wallstreet traders, Allen Liu designed this home trading terminal to ease the infusion of work into home life. While an admirable effort, if you’re working, you’re working regardless of where you are and I don’t see this interface holding up well against an information-packed, 4 screen terminal. If that’s not enough, Allen completely failed to put in a “Private Browsing” button for those lonely, late-night trading sessions that last for hours.
Designer: Allen C. Liu
Tattoo chairs are pretty bare bones and minimal so the Ink Chair by Bjorn Fink makes total sense. The sand cast aluminum frame turns, pivots, and adjusts in every which way to keep the tattooee comfy while making it easier for the tattooer to do his/her job. There are no motorized parts and the entire frame can be made with just one mold. I don’t see any reason why this wouldn’t be a hit in tattoo parlors across the world if the price were right.
Designer: Bjorn Fink
I’m no Paula Deen or Betty Crocker but I do like to cook and on occasion that calls for a blender. The UMIX Cordless Blender may be the ticket since it combines advantages of handheld and tabletop blenders. Rechargeable cordless? Check. Powerful motor? Check. Programmable blend cycles? Check. Squishy silicon sack? Check, check, check. I love this feature. They even act as storage containers. Haven’t seen that on the market.
Designer: Andrew Bezzina
Doing away with the traditional norms of a bulky scanner is the svelte scanU. This pocket-sized gadget is inherently made up of three segments: the screen, the power unit and the storage. The display screen comprises of a three-layer roll out scanning bed, where the upper and bottom layers are OLED screens (providing illumination) and the central layer features capacitive and photo sensors that capture the scanned data.
Designer: Ashish Chaudhary
All this and more in the Spykee series designed by CR. This particular entry is about Spykee VOX, who obeys your commands by voice or remote. It can move around, play music (with a connected iPod), remotely control other electronics, show human emotion (or maybe just robot emotion) with it’s face-lights, and kill things (as shown by the picture with blood spatters all over it (?!))
Designer: Cedric Ragot
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