Often overlooked by product designers, casual non-digital bar games like darts, billiards and foosball, have always been good for intellect avoidance, drunken challenges and ice breaking awkward dates. Sadly, most of these games have seriously lacked aesthetic presence and look like they were designed by retired auto salesmen living in log cabins.
Designer: Gro Design
As if foosball wasn’t demanding enough designer Elia Marinucci had to go make one that uses magnets, audio commentary, and electric shocks! On either end of the table is a button which activates magnets along the field changing the ball’s path. To top that off, corner pinball bumpers knock the ball around and the final uber move is the KICK IT! (also the game’s name) which generates an electric pulse if you manage to knick your ball hard across the field.
Designer: Elia Marinucci
So somewhere between perfecting your gnome’s damage spells and trolling for a “lucky lady” on myspace, you managed to win the national lottery. Yay for you! So what is the first item you purchase to commemorate your new adventures into nouveau riche displays of ostentation? Of course, this beautiful one-of-a-kind video game inspired chair by Fredrik Olsson.
Designer: Fredrik Olsson
Pool Table manufacturers are constantly having to find new ways to justify their huge expense and massive real-estate usage. They also need to compete for attention from the internet, Video On-Demand and social-centric video games like Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution and pretty much anything on Nintendo’s Wii. Given these massive challenges, the Billiard Industry has looked to innovative design to save their ever shrinking markets.
Product Page: FusionTables
When you put the words kids, bath, and entertainment together, the image of a rubber ducky might come up. That’s the inspiration behind the Vak-Vak. With a squish of your heel, water sucks into the duck. Another squish jettisons water in a stream of fun wetness.
Designer: Muzaffer Kocer
The garden is one place that seems to be designed for adults only. Contrary to belief, kids like the outdoors too so designer Simon Joyau created an origami inspired chair simply called the “Paper Chair”. Made entirely of recyclable plastics, the Paper Chair becomes a little rocker when tipped over – sort of an abstract horesy for your kids to enjoy. It’s just a concept but not anything far outside the realm of immediate possibility. I just hope an adult size version is made because I would love to have a few of them.
Designer: Simon Joyau
I suck at rolling dice. If the game requires it, I know I’ll come in last. It’s like some celestial power is inhibiting any positive chance I have in what’s supposed to be a random result. Although maybe it’s because I’m a person of the computer age and numeric dice are just so yesterday to me. That’s where Jaehyung Hong’s keyboard dice come in.
Designer: Jaehyung Hong
What if any table in your house could be transformed into a ping-pong table? Never mind its shape or size because all you need is a green table cloth and an adjustable net to hold everything down.
Designer: Tithi Kutchamuch & Luka Stepan
This is a phosphorescent lamp that glows in the dark, more for kids (or big kids…), this classical shade to hang is full of poetry. Behind the shade, you’ll find stickers showing shadowgraphs that will stay black once the lamp is turned off, and then it will start to glow in the dark…
Designer: Nathalie Dewez
Doors can be fun. No seriously they really can. The Ping Pong Door functions just like any ordinary door except there’s an inner panel that flips down to make a ping pong table. Pop the little plastic net on and get your paddles ready.
Designer: Tobias Franzel
LEGOS have come a long way from the simple building blocks I remember from my childhood. Today they can become a total engineering feat which is why I gave up on them. Designer Jin Woo Han wants to bring people back and he believes autonomous interactivity could be the next big thing.
Designer: Jin Woo Han
A chess game which offers the possibility to play in the dark. Light is provided by four LEDs situated in the corners of the board. The separation of respectively black and white is made clear by matte and transparent pieces. All pieces are derived from one basic shape.
Designer: Daan Van Tulder
In Platonic Chess, designer Patricia Tower was inspired by the chemical powers of the five platonic solids in correlation to traditional chess pieces. The queen, the most powerful piece, is represented by the “buckyball,” the structure for Carbon 60, essential in the discovery on nanotechnology.
Designer: Patricia Tower
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