Guns + Umbrellas = Cool. It’s been a while since I saw something that I thought was just stupidly cool, but Alex Woolley has created two things that I’m dying to play with.

Firstly, he’s created a Musical Instrument/Ruler Desk, which is “an Instrument based on childhood boredom and the escape to music as a form of entertainment.” Basically, it’s a bunch of plastic rulers shoved in a desk at different lengths to produce different notes. If you never did this as a kid, you probably won’t get it – but if you did, you’re probably aching to hear that school days twanging ruler sound!

Secondly, Alex has created an Umbrella for Encouraging Adults to Play in the Rain – the “unique, funnel shaped umbrella harnesses the flow of rainwater down into its handle, a water pistol. The user can fire at will, maintaining a constant flow of water as long as rain continues to fall!” Turning dull days of crap weather into a water pistol fight is something to be applauded.

See more work by Alex Woolley.

The children! Won’t somebody think of the children? Industrial Designer, Alain Gilles has developed an exciting prospective playground concept for urban cities in 2015. He explains, “Young children acquire most of their social behaviors through playing with others. So, what they play with greatly matters. In large urban cities, the playground is often one of the few outside place children have free access to. Too often, playgrounds are seen as boring and are deserted after a while. Hence, the idea to have a solid structures allowing for different games to be rotated between playgrounds, or even within every playground itself.” The various different designed structures are intended to “foster the acquisition of some values needed to live in a community. So some of games will in a way highlight some social behaviors and encourage communication, independence, self-esteem, respect for other and for what belongs to the community, but also encourage the need to behave as the majority, as well as encourage young children to find their own path and venture out.” Check out the various designed elements and their intended influence on young mind:

Urban Jungle – Hanging or walking between rubber vines. Playing hide and seek with their peers. Young children need to learn to go beyond their fears, to step into unknown territories.

Antzzz – Open, closed or linked structures replicate everyday social behaviors. Encouraging communication and/or confinement, especially when passing over a bridge.
Antzzz – The piece follows a modular logic. Parts are made to be easily disassembled, transported and allow multiple configurations. The bubbles are made of two identical double-skin rotomolded elements.

Cosmosphere – sunlight can shine through tiny holes made into the sphere and give an inner image of a sky full of stars. Children, while still being accessible, can hide away from their parents thus learne to become more independent.

Culbuto – Leat all that positive energy out, as children need to unleash once in a while. Up to four kids can shake that tree like structure and reap the benefits of their effort.
Boulo Modulo – Big memory foam balls in whichchildren can leave their imprints for a little while. By leaving their marks
in, they will make the playground their, and be tempted to respect it a lot more.

Follow that Frog – Society is a lot about behaving like other, and in a way following other people in their footsteps. Children can jump on one green lotus after the other as they light up the path taken by a virtual frog. Computer controlled LEDs are lit via bluetooth sensors thus defining a random path.

See more work by Alain Gilles.

I’m hitting the street of Barcelona for a few days. So there won’t be any posts for a while, but I’ll be back with a Barcelona report on my return. Hopefully I’ll be checking out some of the best new hotels, restaurants and bars that the city has to offer – all in the name of ‘Things of Random Coolness’ of course. It’s a tough job, but somebody has got to do it!

The one year anniversary almost slipped by unnoticed! It looks like Things of Random Coolness has reached it’s first milestone – It’s now reached it’s first birthday! I’d just like to thank everyone who reads the blog, and an extra thanks to anyone who’s spread the word in some way through website links, email, etc. It’s very, very much appreciated!!!

I’ve got some special things planned for ‘Year Two’ of Things of Random Coolness, so hopefully it’ll keep going from strength to strength.

Thanks again to everyone for helping to make ‘Year One’ such a success!

Did you ever carved a message into the bark of a tree when you were a kid? Perhaps a subtle declaration of love for a teenage crush, or a profound statement of existence such as ‘I was here’? If you did, you’ll understand the beauty of Grafitti Tree Vases by Johanna Jansson which grew out of the equally beautiful Silver Birch Tree Sculpture.

Grafitti Tree Vases is a series of glass objects that resemble the angular typographic scratched out graffiti messages that you often see carved into the bark of trees. Only now that graffiti is transformed into the decorative touches for an item to decorate your home. It’s a thoroughly beautiful object to remind you of the nostalgia of teenage vandalism.

See more work by Johanna Jansson.

Flattened desktop objects. Here’s a cute little idea by Irish born designer Finn Magee; Flat Life consists of ‘Flat Light’ and ‘Flat Time’, both of them posters depicting ordinary desktop items but with the added benefit of them still having their functionality. So in the case of ‘Flat Life’ which depicts a table lamp, the poster uses LEDs to illuminate the printed lamp. You get “the productive atmosphere of a desk light without the bulk.” Similarly the ‘Flat Time’ poster depicts a radio alarm clock, but the poster houses a 7-segment LED display to tell the time.

See more work by Finn Magee.

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.