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Subtle Contribution

You either need celebrity endorsements or hook the real philanthropist to raise charity funds for worthy causes. A third alternative is thru subtle donations. Situations where you don’t even realize that you are parting with some money, yet making a difference in a needy person’s life. This coz the amount is so little that it doesn’t make a dent as a singular person, but when many people contribute, it makes a big impact. This is the premise of the ½ Bottle Project

Designers: Sungjoon Kim & Jiwon Park

Cool Catty Eyes Are Better Than Designer Shades

Imagine the soccer ball aiming straight for your eyes instead of the net. It sure is not the best day to show-off your new Armani shades. Crash, Bam and broken shards of designer glasses! Easy remedy anyone? Safer and wiser to use: The Optimal Vision Color Contact Lens that are NOT COSMETIC, but act like sunglasses. Shades of green, yellow, red and grey prim your eyes up and offer sunglasses protection without the risk of injury. Oh, n keep the volume low when you watch that video; I got nothing for torn eardrums right now!

Designers: Jin-young Yoon, Jun-kyo Lee & Young-ho Lee

No Longer Color Blind!

Touch Color is the combination of a Thermal digital tablet and a Rainbow Color picking ring that allows a blind person to paint colorful pictures with his fingers on the tablet. The 24 colors on the ring are differentiated by Braille dots and varied temperature generated by the embedded LED bulbs. Artistically inclined or not, this concept of “Blind Color Painting” sure sounds like technology is heading in the right direction.

Designers: Yun Li, Guopeng Liang & Ke Zhao

Best of July 2009

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 July 2009.

Biomimetics Gone Bad In A Good Way

M.S.Q.T.O. is a quad bike inspired by the irreverent blood sucking mosquito. The rider sits higher than other all-terrain vehicles for a better vantage point to pick out your next prey. The entire package is very compact with an aggressive stance. Even the placement of the legs and wheels invoke an image that gets me to swatting.

Designer: Vipin George

Touch Feely Navigation

Touch & Go is a navigation system for the blind folks to make them autonomous in the “outside world”. A combo of a hand gadget with earpiece, the system is a wearable navigator with a tactile display that shows the directions as a relief map. The scale used is 1:1000 and plum in the center of it is the user’s position. An arrow indicates the direction the user has to move in and auditory support is provided via the earphone (fitted with an ultrasonic transmitter-receiver). The main device fastens to the back of the hand, it’s quite convenient to carry it around.

Designer: Natalia Ponomareva

Share Life’s Memories In Digital And Analogue

Old fading photographs and analogue memories have no place in this hard cold digital world. “Life Amplifier” is the answer to upgrade your nostalgia to the modern sensibilities of digital displays. It comes with features that are user friendly and functional. The main function is to magnify the old analogue photographs in your albums and then digitalize them. You can capture certain portions of the pics and view a blown-up version on the hand-held display. This ones for the older generation, so young-guns keep your acid comment to the minimal.

Designer: Wei Chung Lee

Newspaper Is No Longer In Paper

E-book readers, emails and other such digital facilities are making paper redundant to an extent. But the one area that I’m not ready to compromise is the Newspaper. My morning ritual of fixing my coffee and curling up with the papers is under threat from the In Newspaper. Yeah, yeah, it does have the perks of an inbuilt alarm clock and fresh content from a choice of global papers, but imagine carrying the flexible display to the loo, where many of us read it while we take a crap!

Designers: Seon-Keun Park & Byung-Min Woo

Can A Tiny Company Compete With A Huge One?

I spent the first sixteen years of my career working for Polaroid Corporation starting out as a design engineer. It was one of the most progressive and technology-aware companies of the time. It was a wonderful place to develop a strong foundation, working with smart people, strong support and plenty of money to do things right. I had access to designers, quality and manufacturing experts, patent attorneys, model shops and market research, not to mention a great brand name and the excellent benefits that provided lots of stability.

Editorial: Phil Baker

Fresh Orange Juice Anyone?

You will agree with me, when I say that a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice tastes better than the packaged one. Altho I do understand that we get lazy to do manual stuff! However, take a look at the Zest; a practical solution for an everyday squeeze. It’s not an electrical one, but the use of a wooden lid (which also doubles up as cutting board) for covering the juicer when not in use, is clever.

Designer: Pierre Schwenke

Time Your Light

Timer To Light is this really cute LED light concept that is based on mechanical energy. Rotate the timer base to crank up the mechanism inside, and as it slowly unwinds, the stored energy powers the lamp. I can foresee it becoming a hit with people who adore lighting candles, coz this seems to have a similar ambient effect. It would be safer and economical too. Awesome colors too!

Designer: Jasper Hou