People still read paper books and it’s likely to stay that way for a while. Nostalgia and all that. So until then, why not store and display them in a visually (and organizationally) appealing manner?
“REK is a bookcase that grows with your book collection,” writes Reinier De Jong Design on its official website. “The more books the bigger the bookcase gets. The zigzag shaped parts slide in and out to accomodate books in the resulting voids. REK will always be full, regardless of the quantity of books. Also the books can be arranged according to their sizes. The narrow spaces are excellent for magazines.”
Sadly the REK bookcase is one of those items for which you have to ask the price. And we all know what this means.
The Overade cycling helmet was designed back in 2010, but it’s going to be made this year. Envisioned by Agency 360, this helmet simply folds into what appears to be half its size when not in use. Easier to store and allegedly has the same protective attributes as the regular non-folding stuff. Strangely, it looks more like a construction hat when unfolded…
Anyway, there’s no word on price or details of its construction.
We’re big fans of simple elegant design, whether its in consumer electronics or mundane everyday household items. Like the good old whisk. There’s nothing wrong with it, really, other than the fact that it takes up a bit of room in storage. So if you can keep things cheap and simple, why not improve on that? The preposterously named “Joseph Joseph Twist™ 2-in-1 Silicone Whisk” lays flat for easy storage, but becomes a regular balloon whisk when you turn the base of its handle. And it’s $10.
The above watch is a concept over at Tokyoflash, and like some previous such concepts, it might one day make it to market. This one however seems to one-up all of the Japanese company’s designs in terms of unreadability. See, to tell the time, you actually have to solve a Sudoku puzzle: each missing digit is the time. So by the time you’ve solved it, it won’t even be the time it was when you started trying. We’re not sure at this point how they plan to deal with this, or even how long it can take to solve a Sudoku puzzle because numbers scare us. But you can head over to their design blog and give you input as it might actually affect whether and how the watch is developed.
There may be occasions where you want to see what’s going on on both sides of the iPhone 4/4S’s camera. Say you’re filming a dialogue. One way you can accomplish this is with a simple device like the one you see above. Some plywood, strategic grooves, and a mirror and suddenly you have “the world’s first handmade video mixer.” This is about as low-tech a solution as you can get, though the result is elegant if not professional looking. Sadly, the asking price is $90 for something that really looks like it could have been made in shop class. There’s some kind of attempt at justifying the it, what with it being a limited edition of 100 units and also the fact that it was “Conceived in Paris whilst recording a documentary about love and love after love.” So yeah, cute little product there. $90.
Lexon’s MINITOTEM is meant for the office. In one efficient stack, you get a pen cup, storage for paper clips, a clock, tape dispenser (tape included), and a 4 USB plug hub. All these objects nestle into one another more efficiently than even your best game of Tetris and make for a cleaner, neater work environment.
Price unfortunately is not available, though the item appears to be in production. It looks like one of those things that should probably not cost a whole bunch, but you can contact them at contact at lexon-design dot com (trying to fool them spam scrapers) to find out, if you’re interested.
Back in September on 2010, our favorite watchmaker put a concept up on their design blog. Fast forward 16 months and here it is in the market. It’s called the Optical Illusion watch and is inspired of course by any of these illusions that you see in print or online from time to time. You can train your eyes to see the time in puzzle mode (I tried, it works, but it’s hard) or you can press one of the four hotzones on the touchscreen display to reveal what the time is. There’s also a mode that cycles between puzzle and time mode every 20 seconds. This is meant to attract attention and get conversations started; this has sort of always been the point of a Tokyoflash watch. This one, like the others, doesn’t disappoint.
It’s $179 and for the next 33 hours, shipping is free.
I guess you’d call this art, as the melting glasses themselves look like how you’re going to feel once you’ve drunk enough of what they contain. They’re all different and made to order, since they’re not cast in a mold but rather deformed by gravity while still hot enough to be pliable. And this uniqueness translates into a unique price: a set of 6 will cost you £65, or about $100US. You have to email them to find out if they’re even available, because everything is in limited quantity.
Related Tags: Design, Furniture
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