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.

The PURE Water Company is a Norwegian company, established in 1997 with its head-office in Norway. In addition to our business activities in Norway, we also provide our products and services in the UK and the rest of the Scandinavian countries.

PURE Water has developed a special system that utilises the municipal water supply network to give our customers drinking water of the highest quality.

The technology behind the PURE Water system was developed in close cooperation with global leading suppliers to the breweries and beverages industry.

Haagen Dazs invited Doshi Levien to design an ice-cream cake for Christmas 201, ICE MOON.

Your collaboration with Häagen-Dazs : why did you choose to work with Häagen-Dazs?

Nipa and I have a particular love for materials and processes, so the idea of working with moulded ice cream was irresistible. We love the ephemeral nature of ice cream and design to be eaten. It’s something that appeals to the senses. The proposal from Haagen Dazs to design an ice-cream cake immediately caught our imagination.

What were the difficulties? How did you work with them?

Our concept is almost spherical so the ice cream has to be moulded in two separate parts and then put together without seeing the join. This has never been attempted before by Haagen-Dazs. The second difficulty involves releasing the ice-cream from the moulds without handling or destroying the shape.

What did you keep in your mind? The funny moments:

We never had a design meeting before in which we ate the prototype.

Why did you choose this shape? Why did you choose a moon?

We imagined the shape and texture of an ice cream scoop being like the moon as in a famous childhood Bollywood song. We were reminded of the stop frame movie Le Voyage dans la Lune by Georges Méliès. We were inspired by Armenian surrealist Léon Tutundjian’s relief work of 1929. We found some early examples of the ‘Bombes’ ice-cream that are near spherical. The moon idea came from many different places and has elements of fantasy, adventure, imagination, it makes us dream and it’s delicious.

Have you ever had a meal so good, you wanted to lick your plate at the end? Well now you have your meal and eat the plate too.

Sure, we’ve all seen bread bowls but low-carb diets are all the rage and who wants to fill up on bread before dessert? That’s why we’re excited to discover that designers are making some gorgeous edible bowls, plates and even forks. And even if they’re not entirely edible like Diane Bisson and Vita Gionatan’s “Food Nests” made of tomatoes, they’re made of biodegradeable material like orange peels!  The only downside is that they’re a little too pretty to eat.

The Edible Container invites us to reflect upon overconsumption and its impact on global pollution. To establish a sound sustainable practice around edible plates – a practice that could permeate our everyday lives – the objective is to create a strong and successful variety of products for diverse usage contexts, and a new material typology of shapes, colors and flavours that meet with high nutritional standards and sustainability.

Premiering in Milan on April 13 at the Salone del Mobile 2011, this project is a collaboration between Diane Bisson and Vito Gionatan Lassandro. “Food Nests” is an exploration into edible container forms that use the tomato as principal food material in different forms – crunchy, soft, jelly-like and a range of tastes.

We’ve shown you how to turn a mason jar into a travel mug. Now, the ubiquitous glass container can help make a bit stiffer of a drink, with the Mason Shaker. Combining their love of “fine cocktails and classic Southern style,” the design duo of Josh and Eric came up with a prototype for a strainer, outer rim, and cap attachment.

So, what was once used as the go-to container for backwoods moonshine, can now help make your fancy drinks in the comfort of your home. After being successfully funded in its Kickstarter phase, The Mason Shaker has far surpassed its target goal. So, keep an eye out for it soon, and you’ll be drinking ironically in no time.

Ever wonder what an Olympian’s diet looks like? Olympics nutritionist Dan Benardot works with UK designer Sarah Parker and photographer Micheal Bodiam to show the common folk just that. Miniature foods dot clean, white plates, with each 2,000-calorie diet presented in a visually digestible fashion.

From the 2282-calorie diet for a 17-year-old gymnast including peanut butter and bagels to a male triathlete’s blueberries and chocolate milk, the nutritionist behind USA’s 1992 and 1996 gymnastic team, as well as marathoners in Athens 2004, shares the ideal eating regimes for sports stars looking to optimize their game.

“Many of these athletes have such enormous energy requirements and they’re so metabolically capable you could practically throw anything down the gullet and they’d be able to burn it,” says Benardot of the seemingly counterintuitive food choices.

Previously creating potent images for the likes of Mr Porter and GQ, set designer Sarah Parker used laser-cut MDF, card and paper to develop the place settings around the miniature-looking real food products. Says the creative: “I wanted people to be able to draw direct comparison between the diets, and to produce something quite playful that subtly hinted at the sport each athlete participated in.”

Check out this simple, yet beautiful one-piece egg packaging concept, something that should be produced right away.

“My goal was to design an innovative package using a small amount of material. It’s made of natural microwaved carton and consists of one piece. The eggs placed into ellipse-shaped cuts. The consumer can get the eggs by the turning of topside.”

For as long as I’ve been cooking spaghetti, I’ve been overestimating the amount I can actually eat. Product designers have come up with solutions for the portion-challenged like myself for doling out just the right amount of pasta. But if you’re like me, the last thing you need is another utensil to add to the collection of melon-ballers and apple-corers cluttering up your kitchen. Fortunately for us, there’s now the Spaghetti Tower–a storage container with a rooster-topped cap that doubles as a measuring tool.

Spaghetti tower not only stores your pasta, it also measures the ideal quantity for your meal.

How it works:
The cap can be opened to four different openings that determine the amount of spaghetti to be dispensed. Ranges from1 to 4 portions. Simply pour the perfect portion of spaghetti directly from the container.