Objekten EcoCushions designed by Alain Berteau

Spotted at Maison & Objet 2012, Objekten is a new line curated by Brussels-based designer and architect Alain Berteau. The range of everyday products debuted under the collection name New Basics and is cleverly divided by categories based on finishes like
Padded, Quilted, Matt and Fur. We especially liked designer Sylvain Willenz' Matt collection of desktop storage items and portable device cases made in soft plastisol and Claire Debien's Fur mobile device covers. As the designer explains, "Today, portable devices are like pets, we take care of of them and they follow us everywhere."

Mathieu Lehanneur's Strates Desk/Storage System for Objekten

Swing Lamp and Trays design by Alain Berteau. Wood Peppermill by Tamawa Workshops.

Marc Thorpe explains why the brand caught his eye, "Objekten, developed by Alain Berteau, is the perfect new design company of products for everyday. Simple, intelligent, modern, witty, quality and best of all affordable."

Image courtesy of iF Design Awards

We intentionally omitted one of our favorite iF Product Design Gold Award-Winners from Tuesday's roundup of a half-dozen notables because we had the opportunity to talk to two members of Motorola Solutions' design team. Scott Richards, a Senior Industrial Designer, and Mariah Levitt, a Human Factors Engineer for Motorola Solutions, made the trek from mild Florida to frigid Munich to accept the award on behalf of the telecommunications innovators last weekend. The two shared several insights into the premise and process of the APX™ XE Remote Speaker Microphone.

Image courtesy of Motorola Solutions

Core77: Let's start with a little bit of background about the device.

Scott Richards:It's a fire-specific microphone: it's called the XE RSM. "RSM" stands for "remote speaker microphone," which is a common phrase in the industry.

About four or five years ago, Motorola Solutions made a conscious decision to really invest in what is it that firefighters need that's unique from other public safety personnel. In a lot of research, a lot of times over the years, we had heard from firefighters, "The products that you're showing us and testing with us, really just seem to be adapted police devices. And we feel like we need products that are more specific for our needs.

In fact, that's really Mariah's specialty as a researcher... [her role is to] speak with literally hundreds of end users that are firefighters, and identify their needs when it comes to communications.

Mariah Levitt: [For our] research, we've done real fire training—gone in and understood what they deal with—and you come out and you have that emotional element of what you can and can't you do in that environment with current devices. You really realize what we need to work on, and [we've addressed] a number of those things in this device.

Some other things we did are in-person interviews and ride-alongs with firefighters. And we also used a lot of cognitive psychology techniques—predictive exercises and things like that—trying to get firefighters themselves to think about what would they ideally want.

All that stuff went into something like this, this speaker mic.

SR: Firefighters are all about wet, dirty... hot, and cold environments. And there's a condition that they have called situational disability, which simply means every user is disabled at one point or another, because of the protective clothing they're wearing, the noise in their environment, etc.

For example, when it comes to noise, this device is designed with an exclusive noise-cancelling system so that when the user is speaking into it, he's heard much more clearly on the other end. The team leader at the truck, or the dispatcher, is able to understand what they're saying, even with whirring fans and motors in the background, roaring fires and everything.

ML: And fire alarms in the building... It's 50% louder than our previous product.

This is the first microphone that has that. Before that, we had the radios that could [had noise-cancelling]... but as soon as you attach a speaker mic to it, [the signal is] only as good as what comes out of that speaker. So this is the first opportunity for us to actually make sure that the whole system has dual noise-cancelling.

This is probably my favorite example of product repurposing out of all of the ones I've seen, and I've seen a lot: The Derelicts, a fascinating series of one-off cars that is a side project for Jonathan Ward's Icon. I realize I may be somewhat biased in that while I prize both utility and aesthetics, given an ultimatum I'll always choose the former.

Ward realized that when restoring his own personal cars, he often takes it too far—"Concours [d'Elegance], total geeked out—and then I don't want to use it, like I'm scared to use it," he explains. The solution is to take old beaters, starting with a '52 Chrysler Town & Country station wagon that looks like hell, and restore them to mechanical perfection. The exterior finish largely stays as-is, but the cars are transformed, performance-wise, into reliable—and fast—daily drivers.

"I want something I can beat on and use every day," says Ward. Which still didn't stop him from pulling off some kick-ass interiors, as you'll see around the 4:40 mark in the vid below:

The great thing about dumpster diving for materials is that you never know what you're going to find. And the bad thing about dumpster diving for materials is...you never know what you're going to find. For those seeking to repurpose materials, whether they're vinyl scraps, men's belts or even old cars, the dream is that you're able to find a consistent source of the stuff to steady up your supply chain.

Industrial designer, Pratt grad, and veteran dumpster diver Ben Gould's material of choice is the bike chain, and he's found his supply source. As old chains are discarded through repairs and new chains are shortened to fit specific bicycle configurations, Gould found that "The average bike shop produces 25-40 pounds of wasted chain PER MONTH!"

While all of that chain doesn't go into the garbage--it's typically shipped, with an associated cost, to a recycling facility to be melted down--Gould would prefer they be shipped to him, at his own cost, so he can turn them into jewelry. To do that Gould needs a network of bike shops across the country to get on board.

The attendant LifeCycle Bracelets project set up by Gould was successfully Kickstarted this week, meaning he's now got shipping funds and will be able to invest in the forging and electroplating equipment necessary to crank the bracelets out in volume.

Just when I thought the Japanese had the lock on prank-style variety shows, in swoops this group of Norwegians. What do you do if 1) you're concerned your soccer league's play is growing too dull, 2) you enjoy the excitement provided by flagrant fouling, but 3) you're still concerned with safety? The guys in this video purchased what are known as Bodyzorbys from Slovakian manufacturer Funway and recorded the spectacle seen below. (The photo above gives you a hint as to what will occur, but I didn't want to spoil the video.)

Associate Creative Director - Global Site Design
Dell, Inc.
Austin/Round Rock, Texas

Under the guidance of the Creative Director, the Associate Creative Director at Dell, Inc., will work across a wide range of interactive design projects that meet both user and business objectives while maintaining the Dell brand. In addition, he or she will work closely with information architects, account managers and business stakeholders to achieve the design objectives for each concept.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

More on utility vs. aesthetics: There's that certain breed of craftsperson, fabricator or designer who takes the time to ensure the back of something looks as good as the front. Steve Jobs famously made a fuss about how the inside of early Apple computers, parts that no one would ever see, looked beautiful. The left side of my brain says that approach is a waste of time and resources, while the right side of my brain says that speaks of a thoroughness and attention to detail that will ensure the product's excellence.

Samsung's apparently opting for the make-the-unseen-parts-beautiful approach with their new line of SD and Micro SD cards, announced this morning. The stamp-sized devices, which most of us only ever see when we're transferring files, have been sexed up with a brushed metal finish that looks positively snazzy (at least in the product renderings). And good news for those of you who've put an SD card through the wash before in a forgotten jeans pocket: They're waterproof and shockproof.

Earlier this week, we took a look at some of our favorites from the iF Design 2012 Gold Award-Winners in the Product Design category. Here we have a selection of a few standouts from the other three categories, communications, material and packaging.

Communications Design was the second largest category, though it garnered only about a third of the entries as the Product Design category (1,054 vs. 2,923), with 275 earning the coveted iF label, of which 30 were gold winners.

The Product Interface subcategory saw a predictable range of several touchscreen implementations. We liked OYSTAR's "One HMI" is a single touch-based Human-Machine Interface "control concept and software design for 12 technologies, 36 machine types and 3 monitor sizes."

Print Media ain't dead yet: 11 of the 30 gold winners fell into this subcategory. Nevertheless, decodeunicode had an obvious digital age appeal for those of us who nerd out over well-designed reference materials. (Viewable here; hopefully they'll translate it into English soon!)

Photography by Mimi Hui for Core77

What is more Scandinavian than white on white with some more white? Stockholm Design Week delivered the essence of Scandinavian design with...yes, white, and many references to nature and Scandinavian life. These served as foundational design elements on which different exhibitors layered a range of textures, colors, and modern day innovations.

Returning for its ninth year, Stockholm Furniture and Northern Light Fair offered 10,000 exhibitors covering everything we could ever imagine in furnishings, lighting, and accessories for home and office. This year the fair brought in 1.5 million visitors, primarily from Scandinavia. Stockholm Design Week offered an abundance of well hosted events in historical venues and notable showrooms across town.

Reporting by Ciara Taylor

"Since video games are designed with the primary purpose of entertainment, shouldn't they be able to make other non-game products more enjoyable?"

At Interaction12, Dustin DiTommaso, Experience Design Director of Mad*Pow, discussed this concept during his talk "Beyond Gamification: Architecting Engagement Through Game Design Thinking." DiTommaso shared his unique perspective with attendees and explained how gamification can be utilized as a tool in Interaction Design.

DiTommaso opened by giving attendees some insight into gamification and game design. But before diving in, he shared some common misconceptions of gamification and how it is currently being utilized. He mentioned a comment made by Jared Spool, principal of User Interface Engineering, which seemed to be a common theme throughout the conference. Spool said that gamification is "all that crap people are pushing because we have a generation of people who grew up on games." Now, that's not a surprising remark considering the amount of discourse around gamification. Both gamers and academics have expressed a similar response, as gamification has become a trend. DiTomasso moves forward in his discussion by indentifying the "usual suspects" of gamification as badges, points, leaderboards, and awards.

As Rick Grimes could tell you, a long day of shotgunning zombies makes your shoulder ache from the kickback. That's why pro shooters use recoil pads, little rubbery devices designed with collapsible air pockets inside of them, on the end of the stock to absorb the energy.

A company called BaseOneLabs reckons that the idea behind recoil pads could be used to protect something else: Cell phones.

The company's GunnerCase is not much bigger than the phone it encases, but its sides are lined with "Air Cell" pockets that passively act like little airbags when your phone takes a tumble. And the TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) the case is made from is anti-lint, so when you pull it out of your pocket it doesn't come out covered in grit.

It is perhaps only natural that we're inclined to see emoticon-like faces in otherwise inanimate objects—cars are a canonical example, as is this AmEx spot from a couple years back, and the emoticon itself is simply an Internet-Age variation of the same.

Wall-mounted coathooks must have struck Brooklyn-based designer David Barry (originally hailing from Ireland and of no relation to the Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist of the same name) as vaguely visage-like, at least enough to inspire a fun personal project: "Frank," a powdercoated steel wall hook that bears more than a passing resemblance to a woodland critter.

His story goes something like this:

Frank is a quiet sort of fellow, who simply likes to hang out. He's incredibly patient and diligent. If you ask him to hold something, he'll never let go. He is quite literally as strong as steel, though he's just three inches tall.

Growing up, Frank knew he wasn't like the other rabbits. Their ears were floppy and covered in fur; his were rigid and strong. As a young rabbit, Frank's life changed when he went to the circus. There, he saw a seal balancing a ball on his nose. Frank was inspired. He tried to balance things on his nose, without much success, until one day he decided to try balancing them on his ears. He was a natural, and was soon holding up all kinds of objects with his ears for hours, even days, at a time.

Find out what happens to Frank after the jump...

Rubber Chairs by Stealing the Deco

Industrial Designer Marc Thorpe identifies trends and interesting designs from the floors of this season's Maison & Objet in Paris.

COLOR AND TEXTURE

François Azambourg for R3iLab

"Panier Rug" by Stephen Burks for Chevalier Edition

Lamp prototypes at Wästberg

Ligne Roset display

Clara von Zweigbergk "Kaleido" Tray Set for HAY

Quartz Chair by Quinze & Milan in new colors

David Weeks and PieterJan Mattan at the Quinze & Milan booth

Forêt Illuminée designed by Ionna Vautrin for Super Ette

With all our recent talk of polypropylene composites, we thought we'd show you an interesting application of the stuff that you may recognize: Chris Kabel and Droog's Seam chair and bench, from way back in 2007, is made out of the Pure stuff produced by Lankhorst.

Kabel, in cooperation with Droog, stitched the material into chair and bench shapes, filled them with sand to give it some body, then baked the whole thing in an oven. Then the sand was removed, as the heat from the oven had "set" the polypropylene into a fixed position.

Just a reminder that SUNDAY is the last day you can submit entries to Round 3 PLAY of the Braun & Core77 Design in the Wild global photo challenge. Enter today for a chance to win the grand prize package of an industry leading notebook computer AND tablet not to mention your pick of Braun products for theme winners.

All you have to do is snap a picture of great design in everyday objects you encounter. Check out what entries we've seen so far and enter today! Voting opens up on Monday to pick a theme winner and our final theme starts by Friday. Before you relax into your weekend, snap a picture of something that helps you get through the WORK week, an object that lightens your WORK-load. Good design is all around, so take a moment to capture it, and enter today.

Design in the Wild is presented with the support of BraunPrize 2012. Established in 1968, the international BraunPrize competition is a triennial design competition aimed at promoting the work of young designers, highlighting the importance of industrial design and increasing the profile of innovative product ideas globally. This year's theme, "Genius design for a better everyday," emphasizes the importance of well-designed products that enhance the everyday lives of consumers around the world.
Visit the BraunPrize 2012.

Whether I listen to my brain, or my heart, I still
don't understand how these damn things work

When I told my Graphic Design professor that I wanted to transfer to a school offering Industrial Design, she warned me "Well, if you're going to study ID you're going to have to be able to flip things around in your head, you'll need a strong grasp of 3D." Luckily I had it, and after I made my transfer, orthographics became second nature.

That was years ago, and orthographics, of course, are not true 3D. And looking at things like cube gears makes me realize how mediocre my 3D processing abilities are.

Cube gears and heart gears, which first made a YouTube splash in 2008, have more recently been propagated by 3D-printing Thingiverse guys like emmett and faberdasher. And just when I think I'm getting my head around how they work, I come across "paradoxical gears:"

They're side by side, and yet they all turn in the same freaking direction. My brain almost broke looking at them. I figured that the guy who invented these surely used some sophisticated 3D software that artificially boosted his capabilities, like some engineering version of steroids. Then I found out it was patented way back in 1988 by a Renault engineer named Mercier. Not a lot of 3D workstations around back then (though it's possible).

This design by Ukrainian graphic designer Yurko Gutsulyak was a promotional piece for his eponymous studio for the last calendar year, but it's certainly worth another look. The "Trash Calendar" is essentially a 365-day calendar that's been reimagined as a roll of trash bags:

Every calendar day is a new trash bag. Every month is a roll of 31, 30 or 28 trash bags. The Calendar consists of 12 rolls and is divided into 4 quarterly sets with 3 months-rolls. The date is printed on every bag so that you can see it when the bag is placed into the trash bin.

We created this calendar like self-promotion of our studio. Main message is that design is worthwhile. Design should surround us every time and everywhere. And if design is based on a good idea, it really works and has power to influence people and their activity. Design defines modernity.

The text on the packaging reads:

All graphic design products ultimately end up in trash. And many more ideas remain just ideas. We believe that the design idea in each project should have the power to act and be effective during its short life. Only this way design really matters. Only when we create ideas that are able to change the world our life matters. Then, we do not regret a day, as we did not waste it.

Senior Industrial Designer
Y Studios LLC
San Francisco, California

Y Studios, an energetic and nimble multi-disciplinary design company, is seeking a highly motivated Senior Designer to join their growing team. The ideal candidate is highly motivated and outgoing. He or she is curious about the world around us and is passionate about making a difference. The designer possesses a keen intellect and use both sides of your brain to solve complex problems.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

By Jens Martin Skibsted and Bo Lindegaard

A new culinary movement has arrived to the world's top kitchens. Originating from Copenhagen, the style of cooking is called "New Nordic," as coined by René Redzepi, chef and owner of the "Best Restaurant in the World," Noma.

Last year global food stars like David Chang, Andoni Aduriz, Jordan Kahn and Michel Bras travelled to René Redzepi's MAD FoodCamp in Copenhagen, a public food festival and professional symposium.

The success of New Nordic cuisine in kitchens around the world is evidence in a list of fashionable ingredients like Icelandic skyr (a yogurt-like cultured milk product), truffles from Gotland, radish leaves, turnip tails, crispy cod skin, musk ox from Greenland, pickled elderberries and nasturtium. New Nordic explores the region's relatively overlooked fish, game and produce—from the Arctic tundra to the Norwegian fjords—as well as utilizing more contemporary approaches to cooking.

It is said that Nordic food culture is old, but the restaurant culture is new—dinner used to be home cooked. This is only partly true; there never was a Nordic food, but plenty of Nordic foods. These vernacular home cooking traditions are very different from the extravagant New Nordic movement and a part of Nordic cuisine actually has a fairly old restaurant culture.

Because New Nordic style did not exist before this movement, its food is as such designed.

The idea of food as a design product is not new. Pasta is an example of a designed food, manufactured in countless shapes, each one designed to interact with the sauce and ingredients differently. Philippe Starck and Giorgetto Giugiaro both designed new pasta shapes in the '80s.

We don't necessarily think of food as design, but we love it when celebrity chefs like Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal treat it as design. Food is curiously under-designed; it is an essentially conservative medium. Future food shortages are likely to push designers to rethink what we eat. For example, insects and in vitro meat might become commercially viable and will have to be designed into our kitchens.
Strangely New Nordic rarely revisits the tradition of "smørrebrød" and "smorgasbord." These open-faced sandwiches might be the main Scandinavian contribution to culinary excellence and has its roots in restaurants—not home cooking. Marcus Samuelsson, chef at President Obama's inaugural dinner, and more recently Adam Aamann-Christensen have been introducing these sandwiches to New Yorkers.

We believe the truly exportable part of Nordic cuisine lies in this tradition. It is a tradition that is surprisingly similar to that of sushi: It consists of a small square-ish carbohydrate base with raw fish and other meat and highly decorative toppings including horseradish. They are served in a multitude of versions and often in a sparse setting. Beer and aquavit (not Sake) is served with smørrebrød. Like with sushi chefs the smørrebrødsjomfruer are specialized and not ordinary chefs. It took most by surprise that Japanese raw fish could be a global export. It shouldn't be a surprise that smørrebrød could do the same.

Click for full-sized image

For a few years the two of us—a designer and a chef—have worked together to redesign smørrebrød. Our initial approach was to deconstruct the design to its base elements: Carbohydrates + meat + garnish = mouthful. Keywords were modular, aesthetic, innovative, fast and healthy.

Click for full-sized image

This is an example of how a piece can look:

I've used a flashlight for blackouts, a miner's headlamp on camping trips, a Clamplight for ceiling repairs, and a flexible LED penlight for machine repair. Light sources like these require you hold them in your hand, or affix them to an object or your head. But imagine if your entire body was itself a source of illumination.

London-based filmmaker and fashion photographer Jacob Sutton had designer John Spatcher rig up an LED jumpsuit, which he then wrapped pro snowboarder William Hughes in. Sutton, Hughes and crew then spent three nights in the French Alps recording this video below: