Category Archives: Industrial Design

It is the tiniest of gestures in watch design – but it’s one that I’m loving. As a young kid without a watch I often had to steal glances off other people’s wrists to determine the time, and I’ve always appreciated people wearing watches with very legible faces. The “Sharing Watch” by Korean design studio maezm takes the concept a little further:

When someone asks what time is it, the wearer simply has to raise his arm: the watch face is rotated clockwise 90 degrees, making it easier for both parties to read the time.

And it’s all achieved by simply (though really, this is probably the difficult part requiring very sensitive observation) discovering and communicating this very natural habit; and the rest of the design was probably straightforward with no modifications (minus the watch face orientation).

Clever!

One of the key features of the MacLarenSport-Samsonite luggage is shown in the picture above – the wheels with suspension. The claim goes:

Apart from being lightweight and durable, the trademark of Samsonite’s collection, the new line of luggage presents a high-end wheel suspension system that absorbs the impact of bumpy ground to protect the valuables inside the bag, quite reminiscent of the trendy F1 racing cars, which protect the valuable driver inside.

I wonder how much of that is pure marketing and how much of that is true engineering…

[via bornrich]

I just came across these coverage of these furnitures from SaloneSatellite by Nathan Yong of Singapore-based Air Division – the 70cm High Bed and Every Sunday:

70cm High Bed

70 cm High Bed occupies a curious and unfamiliar height for beds. With the extra elevation, the bed becomes a mini levitating loft in the room, requiring one to perform the ritual of literally climbing into bed everyday. Here’s what he says:

I keep the height at 70cm because I find familiarity in this height. The height of a table is about 75 cm and I have always felt good standing and resting my bum on it to take a short rest while chatting with friends in the workplace or at home. And sometimes I sat at this table height and felt a sense of playfulness and casualness. Hence I think 70cm is a good height for getting “high”… so a height of 70cm is appropriately functional in this case.

Every Sunday

This was yet another intriguing furniture as familiar elements of the railing are stripped away and reattached onto this furniture – an island of simulated balcony –

Every Sunday was inspired by the balcony. I like the ideal of lazing around on a Sunday on a balcony. I remember when I was young, the balcony was the only place that was closest to the outdoors. As most houses in Singapore are flats, I had a good view of the city. There is a sense of liberation in that, and I used to throw paper planes down the storeys. This image stayed on, and when I wanted to design a sofa, I wanted to evoke a sense of openness when people sat on it. Most sofas kind of coop you inside…so my aim was to have an open sofa that encourages sitting, playing, sleeping, and working within the space of the sofa … so a balcony space sort of has those kinds of functions. Thus I do not think it will work on a smaller scale.

It is perhaps a reflection of Singapore’s life – the density, pace and general attitude that requires a borrowed metaphor on the furniture to restore just that bit much of spirituality into life itself; where designs (have to?) manifest themselves as tangible, transplanted cues to trigger off a certain familiarity.

It is perhaps also telling that these furniture are both little islands within the room. Within the boundaries of the rock-solid HDB flat walls where one can possibly seek to isolate oneself, and create/redefine his own island-space within the larger island (Singapore).

How lonely?

Full interview via moco loco

At the first sight of this ruler concept by designers Shay.Shafranek the thought of  ”this must be one of those ‘mesh-up-digital-and-physical-objects-experiment-again” sprang into my mind, almost in a knee-jerk reaction. But upon further consideration, it does have quite a lot of merit (if a little indulgent) in this combination.

This is a work done in conjunction with a PCB-manufacturing company. The most interesting bit, in my opinion, is the idea that with this digital-sensing modules lined up along the sides, you don’t have to line-up a “zero” point. You can start to pick and draw from anywhere, and the reading is automatically calculated from where your pencil first contacts the paper.

More advanced use of the idea also includes: adding distances (you can keep drawing and the ruler adds up the sum of the lengths); having units in different dimensions automatically (e.g. mm, inches);

Intuitive, simple, elegant solution that still retains the familiar analog ruler – you can be as advanced as you want with this ruler.

Great concept!

In the recent years there have been some attempts at bins that specifically addresses the usage of plastic bags. The ‘Urbano’ is another similar attempt – with the design thoughtfully being doubled up as a plastic-bag storage:

Another twist to make this design even more compelling: extra bags can be stored under the one in use, pushed down by the handles and tucked beneath them. Replacing the bags, then, is even easier than in a traditionally designed trash can – you just pull up the new bag after your remove the old one and hook its handles around the catches provided.

My little question is just – when the bin has some rubbish in it (but not full enough to throw it away yet), you can’t really store it (it’s too much of a mess to lift the rubbish-bag up, tuck the bag in, and put the rubbish bag in again). But overall, neat design!