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The Power of Seating, I’m Queen Elizabeth

In an effort to transform the norm into the eccentric, the concept of power was explored through seating. This includes the power of mind, body and identity represented through three symbolic figures: Queen Elizabeth II, “The Thinker” by Rodin, and Superman. To express each character, a standard chair was transformed to personify each power and to explain their unique meanings individually. The final exhibition is called Power of Seating.

Designers: Sung-Hyun Kyung, Jesse Weser & Gesthimani Papadopoulou

See and Behold; God’s Skull of the Ocean

Given the amazing economic state that we’re in, and the fact that you’re certainly one of those lucky recipients of those six-figure holiday bonuses, you’re more than ready to hear the full details behind the “Oculus.” This yacht’s unique shape “is representative of the jaw and eye socket bone structure of large oceanic fish and mammals.” What does that tell you? It’s not quite [biomimicry], but it does really look at home in the sea.

Designer: E. Kevin Schopfer

The Pop-Up City

Golfstromen is an Amsterdam-based studio whose focus is conceptual interventions in the city. Their work is so casual, and so temporary, it’s almost not there. The littlest movie theater (one seat), and Space-Inn (two surreal hotel rooms in an abandoned building) show an interest in some of the performance architecture that grew out of the Situationist International group.

Designer: Golfstromen

Spring into City Action in Any Corner on the Street

Which piece of equipment allows you to play (or practice) basketball, racquetball, golf, and football anywhere you want? The MULTI’UZ, of course! Weird! Kévin Lecoutre’s designed a compact bit of sporting equipment that turns the city into [more of] a playground for multiple ball sports!

Get your balls out for heavy action!

Designer: Kévin Lecoutre

Trend Report: Too Late Watch

They’re a huge hit in Italy, over 10,000 watches sold in the first 10 days and half a million in the first year of distribution. The waterproof version was just released this past September. The Too Late Watch is the most simplistic of simple timepieces with nothing more than a monochrome digital readout. Hell, it doesn’t even have an alarm function but it does come in a bazillion colors.

Designer: Too Late [ Buy It Here ]

Anemona Brings Glowing Sealife To Any Room

Exhibited at the SaloneSatellite in Moscow, Anemona positions itself uniquely on any surface, making it infinitely configurable. Designed by Igor Pinigan, the lamp uses heavy glass balls in the bottom to stabilize it at any angle without affecting the light.  No word on how the sculpture is powered, but I’m hoping it’s kinetic based and you have to punch the thing like a blow-up clown to keep it going.

Designer: Igor Pinigin

New Mac Mini Concept, OMG It’s not Boxed Shaped!

With rumors of a new Mac Mini on the horizon, designer Sait Alanyali, a proud Mac Mini user, decided to throw in his 2 cents. One of his gripes with the current machine are the I/O ports. It’s a pain to plug things in/out and so the “V” shape brings the ports within reach while keeping cables at bay. The shape also improves cooling as air moves freely thru the heatsink now that it’s not sitting on a flat surface.

Designer: Sait Alanyali

Casting a Shadow on Old Wall Clocks

Mobile phones, cable boxes, alarm clocks, and microwaves are just a few examples of where time can be read at a glance. The need for a single centralized wall clock seems pointless unless you take its intrinsic design value to heart. For example, Definition of Time by Wooteik Lim (love the name) envisages a timepiece not really suited for easy time telling but the piece is quite sculptural easily making it a centerpiece in your home.

Designer: Wooteik Lim

Discover Your Victims and Enjoy Your Juice

Each degree of change is major. I’m certain! If Greenzo- I mean Al Gore- is right, global warming will have a giant impact on the weather of this planet Earth. Each of these cups gives a terrifying factoid based on tiny degrees of change in the global temperature, uncovering the victim of the truth with each horror-filed sip. Drink up!

Designer: Mina Kwag

90° Furniture Makes Your World Super Flat!

So you aren’t satisfied with your folding chairs, huh? You say that your sleeping bag isn’t cutting it anymore. You want true flatness. You want to be able to really fold your furniture up. Kaptein and Bolt will flatten it out for you. Here’s 90° Furniture for your paper-thin, flippy-floppy world.

Designers: Louwrien Kaptein & Menno Bolt

Yanko Welcomes the Age of Mobile Kawaii!

Next in a long line of contenders for the so-called “Smart Phone.” Featuring a very limited button selection, camera, color screen, and hiding feature, (and not much else,) here comes the “Cute Phone!” It requires only one more feature to be true to the culture: a hole to hang colorful keychains and blinky beads!

Designer: Joseph Liang

AMOLED Touchscreen Courtesy of Cowon S9

What started as a concept earlier this year is actually coming to fruition as a real retail product this December. The Cowon S9 will retain all the proposed specs; sleek body, curved back, 3.3″ AMOLED touchscreen display with 16 million colors, 500Mhz DUAL CORE CPU (hello!), T-DMB, bluetooth, FM radio, voice recorder, dictionary, USB 2.0, T.V. out, and tilt sensors. Hardware wise – it’s a win. Now lets see the interface. If it passes that, the only thing holding it back is price but knowing Cowon, it’ll be surprisingly affordable.

Designer: Cowon

This iPhone is “Touchier” Than Most

As wonderful as the iPhone is, it leaves out anyone visually impaired. This Silicon Touch iPhone case works in tandem with an app to allow special accessibility functions like text to speech and moon type tactile feedback. The case is engraved with modified bas-relief buttons each corresponding to a modified home screen on the iPhone. None of the phone’s functions are compromised. Multi-touch and finger flick scrolling are all intact. BRILLIANT!

Designer: Bruno Fosi