Tag: Inspiration

This two-compartment waste bin is by veteran British industrial designer Daniel Barnes, a/k/a Manufactured Design. It's intended for what Barnes' people call the loo:Store & Sort Recycler is an in-bathroom recycling solution designed to capture waste that is commonly missed by household recycling. Many recyclable items are either thrown into mixed bathroom waste or carried to the kitchen, creating friction that leads to landfill. Confusion around what can be recycled, combined with the lack of dedicated bathroom solutions, results in large volumes of recoverable material being lost.

Now that Dyson's HQ is in Singapore, perhaps the balmy climate inspired this product: Their new HushJet Mini Cool, a handheld fan. It adapts the "Air Multiplier" technology that powers their vacuums, but has been reversed to blow air outwards, without using a bladed fan. The device is remarkably powerful, despite its diminutive size: A ti

In the mid-20th-century, American car styling dominated the world. By the late 20th century and into the 21st, that styling mantle had been ceded to the Europeans, the Japanese and increasingly, the Koreans.But now we live in a world where China has developed a gigantic auto market, the world's largest; Chinese domestic auto sales last year were around 27 million cars, vs. 16 million in the U.S. And Chinese buyers have wildly different aesthetic tastes than the rest of the world. The country's economic history means their citizens never saw '50s Cadillacs, '60s Mustangs, '70s Mercedes, '80s BMWs, '90s Toyotas, et cetera, and their citizens are unburdened with automotive aesthetic history.Which means established brands must pivot towards Chinese tastes, if they want a piece of that market. Hyundai has thus unveiled two new IONIQ conce

Here's what we looked at this week:Hay's minimalist Host Portable Lamp. Elegant trestles enabled by welded steel tubes, by RCKA Architects and design/build firm Tim Denton.Object fetishization: The Unito X Toyo Coffee Box.

What is Erwan Bouroullec holding here in his hands, some ungodly monitor stand? Nope, it's a chair frame.

Before plastics, wall hooks were made of wood or metal. Their forms were dictated by the materials' properties.When plastic wall hooks came out, their forms often just emulated those of their wood or metal forebears. In contrast this

Joe Colombo's Multichair, designed in 1970, was an exploration of transformable furniture with a Pop aestheticView the full content here

The Tokyo College of Cycle Design that we looked at earlier, holds an annual award competition. The 2025 Grand Prize winner was student Masaichi Yamada, who designed and welded this crazy-looking ride together:This is a "minivelo road bike"—a compact road bicycle—characterized by a tubular steel space-frame structure in which slender chromoly tubes are assembled into a three-dimensional form, creating an exterior silhouette that shifts depending on the viewing angle.

In 1877, Englishman John Richard Dedicoat invented the world's first bicycle bell. For about a century and a half, cyclists could use their thumb to activate the chime, warning pedestrians.However, companies like Apple, Bose, Sony and others have defeated the bicycle bell with two small objects: Active noise-canceling earbuds. Now that cities are filled with people walking around with their ears plugged by ANC, annoyed cyclists worldwide have found their bells neutered, to everyone's peril.Czech car manufacturer Škoda Auto recently learned of this problem while studying road safety. Having started out as a bicycle company, they thus decided to develop a new type of bicycle bell.

In a display of technological might, China's Guangdong EHang Egret Media Technology Co. recently put on the world's largest drone show. The company programmed 22,600 drones to participate, and only 20 of them failed to take off; that's a staggering 99.9% success rate.