Stuff that Looks good, Feels good and Works (sometimes)

Quick, which is better: Lucas or Spielberg? Star Wars or Star Trek? Kobe or LeBron? Internet Explorer or Chrome? You probably have an opinion on each of these questions that’s strongly held enough to make a choice in seconds. And there’s something undeniably fun and satisfying about making dopey this-or-that snap judgments. Designer Luke Wroblewski has built an entire app around this vacuous-yet-addictive experience called Polar: a work of mobile-design genius.

This should come as no surprise if you know Wroblewski’s pedigree. ”Everyone’s still in the laptop mindset–even [companies] that really have their shit together,” Wroblewski tells Co.Design. “We’ve done testing about how people actually use their phones, and we said, ‘Let’s design the product entirely around that.’” Wroblewski calls these native experiences “micro mobile interactions,”: a quick glance here, a flick or tap there, and done. The more of these interactions you can fit into your user experience, and the more seamlessly and delightfully you can serve them up, the more engagement you’ll build. Even if your app does nothing but ask whether kittens are cuter than babies.

The starting point of designing ‘HUHU’ is for encouraging people to get emotional compensation by using the object. Many people have their unconscious / fidgeting behaviour including chewing nails, shaking legs so on. ‘HUHU’ try to help people to be relaxed by pulling out strings from the inner surface of the cushion to play with them. The end results of unconscious behaviour make ‘HUHU’ beautiful. The name & metaphor ‘HUHU’ comes from the moment of people deep breathing when they relax.

Rolu is a minimal design created by Osaka-based designer Chiaki Murata of hers for Metaphys. Rolu functions as an on-the-go memo holder with a single brass bar holding down the paper. There are perforated edges along the length of the paper in increments of 10cm each, perfect for taking down directions, to-do lists, or grocery lists. The design is influenced by Metaphys’ popular Corda pen, and uses the same material and production process. The design comes in white, black, and orange.

I’m the type of person who still likes to use pen and paper for taking notes and checking off to-do lists. Rolu is an efficient and elegant solution to scribble down ideas and musings. Functionality aside, the design is beautifully minimal, yet uniquely sophisticated and mysterious. At first glance, it takes a second to figure out how Rolu functions, and then it all makes perfect sense.

This orange battery was built by photographer Caleb Charland as part of his ongoing alternative energy photographs using fruit, vegetables, and other objects to create light for his long-exposure photographs. The electricity powering the lightbulb inside the orange is generated through a chemical reaction between citric acid and the zinc nails inserted into each wedge. I think this is by far the most lovely piece he’s done in the series, but before you start work on a bunch of orange lights to keep on the nightstand, the light generated was so dim this particular photograph required a 14 hour exposure.

What is humanity made of? To each person, life has gifted unique talents, abilities and beauty. All of this is written in genetic code. Now DutchDNA enables people to express their uniqueness, to capture the most defining elements, through timeless forms.

The version of the glass-topped Darwin table pictured here was formed from the DNA of Giulia Wolthuis, a contemporary dancer and the daughter of Dutch DNA founder Eric Wolthuis. The process starts with a standard genetic profile. After being analyzed by a lab in Holland, a piece of software translates the individual’s unique genetic characteristics into personalized 3-D forms.

“Dutch DNA starts the creative process with a sample of a person’s life-code using a DNA profiling test and through the language of design plots the distinguishing genetic characteristics on a visual design map. Based on a unique design process, these beautiful and elegant forms capture the eloquent expression of life.”

Exactly how this happens isn’t entirely clear, but if you don’t like how it looks, well, sorry, but it’s really no one’s fault but your own. Or maybe your parents.

Milan 2013: Spanish designer Jaime Hayón presents aluminium and terracotta outdoor furniture designed for BD Barcelona Design in this movie. The collection went on show at Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan earlier today.

The new collection, entitled Gardenias, includes cast aluminium seating in muted colours and terracotta vessels with small hoods. Armchairs and benches in the collection have slatted backs, with some extending over to form canopies. The chairs have padded seats and backs, with aluminium tubes that loop around to form armrests and flick out to create feet. “We have worked with aluminium in the way you would work with wood,” adds Hayón.

The captivating Ion Two—the newest addition to Telgen’s line—looks like a bubble that has trapped a spirit like a luminescent ghost or a glowing genie.

The Ion Two is built around a central glass cylinder, which serves as the base for additional glowing glass rings. Every part of the lamp is filled with inert neon gas and, through a special process, the neon is turned into plasma so that the light looks more gentle and delicate than what shines through a regular neon tube. Plus, the plasma reacts to the presence of body heat, making the light more intense in the exact point where someone touches the glass. Plasma can also be manipulated by magnetic fields, so the different ionic charges illuminate when they come in contact with each other or become closer together. As a result, the user can create different intensities of light by adding, subtracting or moving the rings around.

There is something incredible about Architecture Photography, it can transform the most boring of buildings into an explosion of geometry and perfect symmetry.

And there is no one that does this best than Filip Dujardin, the Belgium photographer created his latest work “impossible architecture” by mixing different photographs of building around ghent, Belgium.

This photomontages seem like actual buildings at first glance but if you look at the details of each photograph long enough you will start seeing the different and impossible angles they take.  This collection of architectural photographs shows how the most believable things are those close enough to reality.

Headphones will do the trick when you’re streaming tunes for your ears only, but some tracks are just too good not to share. Ballo is a playful new design by the studio Bernhard | Burkard for OYO that looks like a mini-karaoke mic but functions like a quality speaker.

“For us the important point is the sphere as the shape of the device,” Thomas Burkard tells Co.Design. “A ball–let’s say a baseball–lays around most of the time in a nonspecific place: maybe on the floor or on a desk. Someone picks it up, holds it in his hand, puts it back.”

This speakers look simple, chic and easy to use for when you want to share your latest song obsession with everyone on the go. Get yours at the LFW Shop.

Time2Play is a Wall Clock simple and ironic, made ​​of lacquered wood. The clock shows the willingness to interpret in the ironic and playful passage of time, bringing a bit of fun at any time of day. The men clung to the hands show their performance as circus trapeze artists. 

The Sweet Pot by Jeong Kim is an innovative plant pot design where the bottom basin acts as a growth patch for extra grass. Essentially the design takes care of excessive watering and drainage at the same time. More like the extra water acts like a feed for the grass patch at the bottom, hence no drains required.

The Flexita is a simple kitchen tool that makes food grating a whole lot easier. It transforms from two to three dimensions and is efficient to clean and store. It simply flattens when not in use and molds into a handy grip when needed. Crafted from harmonic steel, the metal that has a ‘memory’ and returns to its original flat shape after bending.

The handles and thin edge trim are made with polyethylene injected in a silicon mould, and these parts are recyclable. The steel is incredibly thin, at just 0.2 millimetres. The use of harmonic steel makes it possible to save 50% of the materials used for typical graters. The ease of washing the flat shape can also lead to water savings of up to 80% in comparison to typical graters. The minimal weight of the grater and its flat shape allows for efficient transportation.

Flexita is a 2012 red dot award: design concept winning entry.