Kitten lamps

Today is one of those rare occasions when I see something amazing and I feel a real urge to share it with the word (through a blog that no one reads according to this new stats section in blogger, ohh...)

Anyway these cute kitten lamps called MiCha are designed by Kuntzel & Deygas and are my recent find from the Mint Shop. They come in several very natural kitty poses like those below:

They look so playful and fun - a piece of everyday technology given character by a simple reference to a domestic animal. Obviously they do not look like they could be functional lamps considering a big nose and whiskers in the middle of the shade. However I think their main value and function is some sort of comforting quality. They are more like robot pets that engage with the "owner" (user) by starring at him (shedding light). The more I look at them they also seem really cheeky -  how they just shamelessly look at you, little torch heads or spy under your bed revealing all the dust. :)
Anyhow  I wouldn't mind having one of those in my room - I could always pull his tail out of the socket if I'm fed up of him starring :) And considering I am just decorating my new place and my birthday's coming... Oh hold on... they are only 1500 euro a piece... I better stick with my good old meowing, furry one.

tired of 'to do' lists?

So am I. Especially as they lost their power to motivate me. That's why I love this idea of this clock, designed  by Maria Bergson called "Shoulda Woulda Coulda". The little coloured magnetic tags represent tasks to do that you set for each hour - when the time comes the hands start pushing them along as they move. So you can visualise how much you're due. Ingenious.

 

here is the link to designers website

 

Irrational toys

Something I really appreciate about childhood is its irrationality - kids perceive the world according to what they see and experience. The rest is dictated by their imagination often stimulated by stories, tales and legends they hear or watch. As adults I don't think we can fully understand and appreciate the beauty of this imaginative and irrational thinking. Therefore I really value toys that are produced to satisfy children's abstract rationale.

One example of a irrational toy I have seen recently on Yankodesign.com and it's called Echo. It is a soft creature without face but with a big ears and a peculiar wooden trumpet instead of mouth. The ears are connected to the trumpet using the string-phone fashion so Echo responds when a child is whispering some secrets into its ear.

It was created by Emi Schenkelbach.

via Yankodesign

Another really nice design which stayed in my memory since I have first seen in in Mint Design shop in London a year ago. It is called Buba and it was produced by Alon Meron.

Buba is a guardian against dark matter and its magical power comes from children's fallen milk teeth. I think this is a beautiful story. And here again  Buba doesn't have face - he has two rows of sharp teeth that scare the ghosts and monsters of the night.

Degree Show

 In the last week of May (20-27) at Duncan Jordanstone College of Art and Design we were hosting the annual degree show. For my product design group it was the last rehearsal before we exhibit in London at New Designers. We decided to call our stand '15 - hundred ideas, designers, products' which we thought is the best honest description of our group.


In my personal opinion what we managed to put together as a group - the stand and the projects, were really impressive and made me very proud to be a part of it. It was also a great experience to show my product to the wider audience and listen to their commentary.

Pet plants

I have found those cute plant tamagotchi objects somewhere in the web. They are called Domsai and they are designed by Matteo Cibic. And of course they were displayed in Milan when I couldn't be there... ;(
For last weeks I have been spying on those amazing things I have just missed, because the final week of my project was at the same time as Salone del Mobile.

Flowless

I have finally finished the water project. This is the picture of the final product - a vessel pouring running tap water directly at the users table.

Ceramics

For the last month, as a part of my product design project, I have been experimenting with ceramics. Exciting as I was in the very beginning I never expected it to be such a time consuming and monotonic process. I was really keen to learn something new and 'real' - genuine craft, like in old good times... But I guess those times were not that stressing and the pace of life was much more relaxed - especially comparing to life pace of an product design student. Well, my point is, pottery doesn't accept rushing and impatience. It's also very uncontrollable. Hence, it gets me really frustrated.

Little kettle family

I just realised that, while prototyping, I produced quite a collection of miniature kettle-like objects that are recently kicking about my desk. Together they make a nice little family, so I decided to take a 'family picture' of them.

D&AD boards

The last couple of days everyone from Product Design (I wish I could say IPD) have been stressing out about the d&ad boards. What we actually have to do, is to design four A3 presentation boards explaining our ideas and referring them back to the brief.
Those recent days I have seen a lot of example boards, that are sort of guideline of what we are expected to deliver – like what are the correct layouts, fonts, colours and so on.

Looking at those boards, I realised how little they differ from each other. They are all following the same pattern - a big rendering on the rationale board, little drawings of hands on the interaction board, 3-4 pictures of insights on the research board… They are all telling same boring story. Well, the truth is, that the boards need to fit the criteria of d&ad, which sets limits for the content, but still, there must be a way to do something different and fresh. And I’m going to find it! We’re designers – creatives, which means we shouldn’t be encouraged to follow the same matrix. Well, yes – it is the content, that matters the most, but as we are asked to present it in the visual form, I reckon the presentation does play an important role.

Story of things

I was just looking through some designers websites and I found a website of a design group called Front. They are 4 girls from Sweden and they are doing amazing things. Very inspiring and clever. One of the projects they are running now, is about our homes and the objects that define the space we live in. They are doing very interesting research, collecting stories of the objects by writing them on the plastic moulds of those objects. It reminded me of the project that guys in Dundee are doing now about cultural probes. Are those not interesting examples?
For me those red plastic moulds are even more interesting than the originals. They tell the story about their owner and themselves, a bit like they were revealing some secret...