Category Archives: Industrial Design

[Greenhouse Effect] Concepts (Part 2)

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This is the second part of the the GreenHouse Effect concept series, showing and explaining some of the thoughts behind the design concepts. The GreenHouse Effect is an exhibition by Orcadesign as part of the Singapore Design Festival, exploring what it means to tackle sustainability through design.

black-out-lamp

This is the Black Out Lamp. In normal days, it sits pretty as per any normal table lamp, casting light through the efficient LED light bulbs. But it’s more than just a table lamp – if and when you need a torch, you can actually detach the ‘lamp’ portion and use it as a torch, as the internal circuit can be switched to run on battery mode instead. For the same function (of illumination), we don’t really need two separate products (lamp + torch). They could very well be the same thing – plus you can definitely find it much easier compared to ransacking your third drawer in the store room.

facade-vase

The question – what exactly is a vase? Do we need a real, whole (and pretty) object to place flowers in, or is a simple facade up to the mark? Made of industrial felt, the construction of the Facade Vase is absolutely simple – two flat pieces of felt sewn together. It then becomes a parasite onto a ‘partner’ as structure – the omnipresent PET bottle that we almost certainly can find around our house – and becomes a fully functional vase. It is a versatile design too – different silhouette gives rise to rather different visual outcome.

notepadpostit-pad

Post-It pads are almost exclusively used on one side only. We also often scribble only on one side of our notepads. So, we have two ‘one-sided’ products. In this concept Post-It Notepad, the second life usability is built into the design. You start off with the notepad (using one side, presumably). When you’re done, you can remove the cover, turn it over and you get a Post-It pad. A product’s reincarnation is straightforward and integrated within the design – turning two ‘one-sided’ products into a single ‘double-sided’ one.

[This post is a part of the series on the ‘GreenHouse Effect’ exhibition under the Singapore Design Festival].

Vii (Wii copycat) Disassembled

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vii-rip-off

Nintendo Wii’s been so successful, it’s still unable to fully satisfy demands despite running in peak production for over a year. So what do enterprising (and morally suspect) businesses do? Ride on the wave of rip off, of course. Many of you may have seen the ‘Vii’ – a Chinese copycat of the Wii. But it was the opening of the Vii’s innards that got me laughing rather hard.

They must’ve mastered the art of circuit miniaturizing, eh? I really wonder what that pathetic circuit board does. At about 12:17 you can also see an iron plate included within the case part to give it more weight. This is simply hilarious.

[Greenhouse Effect] Concepts (Part 1)

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cup-lasso

Cup Lasso might require some understanding of the Singaporean context. When you buy a take-away hot drink in a coffee shop, chances are you’d end up with a disposable plastic cup carrier (the green thing on the left photo). Cup Lasso (pictured on the right) is a permanent alternative to this item. Apart from reducing the usage of plastic carriers (which may occur on a daily basis – e.g. for your post-lunch coffee), it can also be an identity, a statement in support of being more sustainable – somewhat like the Live Strong bracelets.

bin-there-table

‘Bin There’ is a table with an in-built rubbish trapdoor. While eliminating an unnecessary extra rubbish bin, it also makes it more convenient for the users, who can simply sweep their tabletop wastes into a plastic bag below. Eco-design does not necessitate sacrifices – in some cases, they can even enhance the functions. The plastic bag can be hanged onto sliding hooks below the table, accommodating a wide variety of plastic bag sizes.

wax-pod

WaxPod brings a familiar eco-concept to a new area of application. Refillable shampoos, lotions, etc. have been around for a long time – they consume less resources as the refills are packed in less energy and resource intensive packagings. Why not hair wax then – as it is a product that one uses constantly? In WaxPod, the white external casing is permanent, while refills come in ‘pods’ (black parts). The slits you see at the bottom of the product are vents for an optional air-freshener module, which are frequently deployed within the same setting. This reduces the total packaging and housing materials required substantially.

Freitag Design Competition

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freitag

Designed a truck before? How about a bag? How about both (nearly, anyway)? FREITAG, known for making bags out of used truck tarpaulins, is organizing a design contest for the truck tarpaulin. The design would first be used on trucks for 5 years, until they get cut and harvested into limited edition bags.

Kind-of like a subversion of host-and-parasite, cause-and-effect, don’t you think? Bags that started off picking whatever waste was available is now in a strong enough economic position to try to alter it upstream. Fortunately in this case the tarpaulin do get used just as any others – so the core spirit isn’t that much off yet. Here’s FREITAG’s reason for this competition:

They still exist, the <undesigned> truck tarps. Colors, signals, stripes, circles and bars form words and messages. These <undesigned> truck-tarps form the basis for the production of FREITAG bags.

However, the truck-tarp <diversity of species> is endangered. Increasingly they are being used as moving advertising space, wallpapered with uniform advertising campaigns. With the <Design-A-Truck> contest FREITAG is making the first moves to preserve transit graphics.

Head over if you will!

Aptera Concept

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aptera

Looking for a new car? How about this one – at 230 miles per gallon, it’s got quite some good fuel economy (relative to most cars which range between 15-30mpg). Seats two and guarantees stares down the street as you drive it. For me it really looks like someone’s vision of the future came true – the overall look of it would quite closely match what some futurists have sketched out some time ago (except cars still can’t fly…).

Fuso Eco-D Dump Truck

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fuso-eco-d-1

fuso-eco-d-2

Concept car shows are often reserved for stylish sports cars or next-generation hybrids, but Mitsubishi Fuso is showing all the love to a vehicle we commonly prefer not to see – the dump truck. Sleek, futuristic and dare I even say – glossy silver – are hardly the keywords one would associate with dump trucks, but Fuso’s Eco-D concept may just change your perception of what it could be.

Wacom Cintiq 12WX

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wacom-cintiq-12ux

Wacom is about to roll out is the Cintiq 12WX (seen above). Depending on whether you’re an optimist or pessimist (?!), you can either think of it as a younger brother of the earlier Cintiq (a gorgeous 21inch sketch-able monitor), or a Wacom Intuous with a screen. Either way, it plugs a gap in digital sketching product line-up – the Intuous and Graphire tablets can be rather difficult to learn/master, as users are forced to adapt by sketching on one surface while looking at the monitor. The Cintiq, however, can be heard to maneuver, not portable and expensive. As expressed in their website,

All over the world, creative professionals use sketchbooks to express their first ideas. This is why the Cintiq 12WX was developed as if it was a sketchbook: With a smooth, flat surface. And with a light weight that enables you to use it on your knees and to show it around to others. As you would do with paper – digital paper.

No matter whether the Cintiq 12WX is on your desk or in your lap – just plug in and visualize your thoughts immediately with Wacom′s patented pen technology on a high-resolution LCD monitor. Which can be part of a multi-monitor environment, too.

I think Wacom might find itself hard-pressed explaining their reference to a designer’s sketchbook and ‘digital paper’ bit though. Few would doubt Wacom’s expertise in being able to capture and sense the motion of the pen to a high degree – with great tilt, pressure and rotation sensors, Wacoms are recognized as the best in industry for digital sketching inputs.

However, to live up to being a ‘digital sketchbook’, it still has a long way to go, because no matter how you spin it, this is still an input device only. Spontaneity is one of the key requirements in a sketchbook – inspirations may come quickly, perhaps even while in transit – having to boot up a laptop (remember, this is an input device – it has no independent power, memory or sketch programs), connect it (yes, cables and ports!), and start sketching, you’d be wondering why you’d want this as compared to other tablet laptops instead. Add the hefty price tag (estimated at about S$2500 or 1700US) and the appeal starts to fade rapidly.

So if you think of it as an improved input device, you’d probably be delighted if you can spare the moolah. But it’s nowhere near being a digital sketchbook. As a product design though, I thought it was very well executed – it carries the sleek and ergonomic design language that distinguishes Wacom’s product as a professional tool. What’s your take?

Solar Power + Skylight in One

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suntech-solar-grids

light-thru-kowa

We have learned from iPod that an elegant (need not be novel) and well-executed solution could herald a revolution in how we perceive and subsequently expect products. To me, the solar panel above could very well be one of the examples too.

Traditionally solar power panels are often conceived as an additional layer in the architecture – they are added onto existing infrastructure (roofs, walls, etc.) in large pieces. While there are some exceptions, often these solar panels jar out compared to the rest of the aesthetics. In a way you trade aesthetics for eco credence.

The photovoltaic system above by Suntech, however, is an elegant exception. The photo-voltaic cells are integrated within the laminated glass panels. They are arranged in a grid of rounded squares, with spacing in between that allows sunlight to fall – so you get both sunlight and power in one go (and some shade too!). I could imagine many courtyards, balconies, high-rise green canopies, etc. that would benefit from this.

Troika Tape Dispenser

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troike-tape-dispenser

Beileger mit †bersetzungen ohne MC.eps

The Troika tape dispenser attempts to break away from the norm – we typically see either the big-bulky desk-bound types, or the disposable light ones that comes with the tape itself. Seemingly alluding to the musical tuning fork, the design is extremely neat and delightful, while shattering the previous stereotypes of tape dispensers. It has even won quite a series of design awards, including the Good Design Award from Japan in 2006.

But how well would it work?ROGER LiVE has a not-so-concise but certainly impassioned plea for its thoughtlessness:

Well, until you actually try and use this beautiful thingamajig: Firmly grip the handle with one hand, stick the roll of tape onto the rubber core with the other hand, place the poster with your company’s goals (or whatever) on the wall with your free hand, try and get it level, hold it firmly in place, realise you have no hand left to pull off a strip of tape, try and hold the poster with your little finger and your ring finger while pulling off the tape with the other fingers, drop the poster on the floor, swear a little bit, pick the poster up, place it on the wall and get it level again, hold it in place with your elbow, notice the poster slipping away, swear a bit more, decide to rip off four strips of tape first, stick them onto the cupboard next to you, put the adrollding aside, get the poster level AGAIN, pull the strips off the cupboard, remove half of the varnish while doing so, try and fix the poster with the bits that aren’t full of varnish, swear at the abrollding and decide to give it to some poor colleague when it’s time for Secret Santa.

What’s your verdict? Is it a good design (perhaps for shattering conventions with a fresh new form in return), or would you crucify it for its not-so-usable design? Or maybe you can actually do a better one! (This is probably another JuicySalif-like discussion). Sad to say though, this is now discontinued.