Great products. Terrible website. If you can force yourself to put aside your hatred of the annoyingly bad website that Dark uses to promote itself on the web, you’ll find some fantastic products. I particularly like the delicate retro nature of the Franje light (link to PDF, so you don’t have to suffer their website). The light designed by Marcel Reulen is available in any colour as long as it’s black or white.
See more products from Dark.
Do birds believe in God? On the off chance that they do, at least they now have a place to worship thanks to Holy Homes designed for TuttoBeNe by Frederik Roijé. These two bird houses are made out of the best porcelain in the the shape of a cathedral and feature a golden branch. So if you fancy getting all the religious birds hanging around your garden, you had better invest in a Holy Home.
Find out more about Holy Homes.
Ceramics + Music = Design Beauty. I want a Phonofone by Science & Sons. The Phonofone is clever piece of applied science, a beautiful icon of nostalgia, and an ironic twist on the insular nature of personal listening devices. Through passive amplification alone, the Phonofone can instantly transform any personal music player + earbuds into a sculptural audio console. Without the use of external power or batteries, the Phonofone inventively exploits the virtues of horn acoustics to boost the audio output of standard earphones to up to 55 decibles (that’s roughly the maximum volume of laptop speakers). Upon connecting active earphones to the Phonofone their trebly buzzing is instantly and profoundly transformed into a warm, rich and resonant sound.
Find out more about the Phonofone by Science & Sons.
What is the ‘Six Letter Word’? Design? Six Letter Word is the amazingly talented designer Diogo Potes. The Six Letter Word website doesn’t offer up much more information, preferring to simply offer up a banquet of fantastically coloured illustrative designs instead.
Check out the work at Six Letter Word.
Sofa so good. I love the 50’s modernist stylings of Autoban’s Box Sofa, the latest offering from the Istanbul based design firm. I was happy to learn at the 100% Design exhibition that Autoban have teamed up with De La Espada to create Autoban De La Espada a furniture collaboration between design firms.
Find out more about the collaboration at Autoban De La Espada.
This is Tengu. He loves to be around people and he makes his home by your computer. Mr Jones’s Tengu is a small electronic character who connects to your computer’s USB port. Tengu responds to sound, so if you play music then he looks like he is singing along with it. It’s this generations version of the 80’s Dancing Flowers, but not as crap.
Designed by the talented Crispin Jones, I first saw Tengu at the London Designersblock, in which Crispin also showcased his great Watches which help you not only tell the time, but give you guidance on decisions or Mantras to live by.
Find out more information on Tengu and Mr Jones Watches.
Catwalk Fashion. Now available in wallpaper. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac is best known in fashion circles for his graphic heavy clothes collections. His coloured pop-art style patterns in the past have referenced Mikey Mouse, Princess Diana, Union Jacks and Jimi Hendrix. Now he’s bringing that style to the world of interiors with a collaboration with the wallpaper company Letuce. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac’s wallpaper debut features Zebras and the Eiffel Tower, supermarket receipts, Manga cartoons and the Taj Mahal.
They’re going to be priced at roughly £18/€25 per 10m roll, so call 00 33 1 55 34 10 10 for stockists if you’re interested.
Never again feel alone in the dark! I can’t say I’ve ever really felt the need to go out in the middle of the night and play on a swing, but then again, I didn’t know about the Swinglamp by BCXSY. I imagine it would be quite relaxing to swing in the darkness from your own lighted swing and creating “a comforting ambiance through lighting and movement.”
BCXSY is a cooperative between designers Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto.
Contemplate your ContemPlate. Another great product I saw at Designersblock 2007 is the intriguing set of 8 dinner plates by Freshwest Design. Each plate’s design has a different anonymous figure in silhouette. Over 200 images of anonymous figures were collected on various Pembrokeshire beaches throughout the year, some of which ended up on these plates. Each plate is based on an actual event, with the date, time and beach location printed onto the reverse.
See more great products by Freshwest Design.
Eroticism and sophistication for lovers. Barcelona based company, Bijoux Indiscrets have created a range of products designed to enhance the level of erotica in your love life. Deluxe product sets like ‘Poême’ include jasmine-scented aphrodisiac liquid chocolate, an Ostrich pen and satin mask and encourage you to “write the sweetest declaration of love over your lover’s skin.”
Find out more at Bijoux Indiscrets.