The 'Folding Plug' has won the product design category of the Brit Insurance Designs Awards, "the Oscars of the design world," which showcase the most innovative and forward thinking designs from around the world.
The UK Folding Plug transforms from a bulky three-pin plug into a portable, hassle-free plug ideal for people on the go. When not in use, the UK Folding Plug transforms into a 10 mm-thick flat object.
A product range built around this design will be launched in 2010.
The plug is exhibited from now until June 6th 2010.
Swedish producer Zero has launched this new wall lamp called 'Stitch' designed by Mattias Ståhlbom.
The construction and the appearance of the lamp are inspired by the construction principle of an embroidery frame. When attached on the wall or in the ceiling it is possible to adjust the frame in different angles.
Cambridge Consultants announced the launch of the ‘Syreen’ syringe, a new concept that demonstrates the cost benefit and supply chain disruptions made possible by sustainable product design.
Instead of glass, Syreen syringes are made with COP (cyclic olefin polymer) plastic, which has enabled Cambridge Consultants to shed the need for secondary packaging altogether, a first in this medical device arena.
The United States alone produces 6,600 tons of medical waste per day, equaling well over two million tons per year—approximately 85 percent of which goes to landfills throughout the country. The Syreen eliminates the need for wasteful fillers such as cardboard and styrofoam, reducing the packaging weight by 30 percent and volume by 50 percent from today’s standard packaging. After delivery, with a simple snap, the user ejects the needle into the sharps bin allowing the user to potentially recycle the plastic capsule.
Swedish designer Matti Klenell has designed two bird families for Iittala: the Harakka (Magpie) family and the Korpi (Deep Forest) family, both with two generations of members. Both families have five members – Mommy, Daddy, Brother, Little Sister, and Baby – each with their own distinctive character and their own story to tell.
Birds by Klenell collection is a celebration of glass technique and colour. The black-and-white Harakka family combines black, white, and clear glass, and depends on a range of moulds and traditional tools to make them possible. The Korpi family, in contrast, is very colourful, combining pink heads or beaks and dark blue bottom sections, or green, black, red, and white, with colour drawn on the surface in bands or blown into the body of the glass. In the process, he has given his glass birds a practical use alongside their aesthetic one – drawing on the varied skills of the glassblowers and craftsmen at Iittala’s Nuutajärvi glassworks.
Klenell’s birds comprise two or three parts, which adds to their sculptural qualities. They also include a functional feature that is unique in the Iittala Birds collection, as the hollow bottom sections of his birds can be used as handy little containers to keep treasures, such as jewellery, notes, and memories, just like the magpie.
Glass is a familiar material to Klenell and one in which he excels, as his exhibition of unique glass pieces in Stockholm in 2008 showed. Working with the craftsmen at Nuutajärvi gave Klenell the opportunity to continue his exploration of what glass can offer.
An extremely stable and easy to mount table designed by Roderick Fry for French producer Moaroom.
Pi is a flat-packing table, which helps minimizing carbon footprint during shipping. The table is simply assembled by inserting a tabletop, without any screws or Allen keys.
It is very easy to slide a wooden board in the superior angle (natural wood, plywood, old floorboards or even old wooden doors) and to block the board by repositioning the feet on the floor to insure a maximum stability.
Though dealing with being stuck inside a burning building is a very uncommon scenario, there is now an invention that could help you survive such an event. The Dang Jingwei Firescuba was conceived just for that very scary scenario. A fairly basic design using cardboard and carbon filter, it creates a pocket over your nose and mouth to allow easy breathing until emergency services arrive.
Though The Dang Jingwei Firescuba seems like nothing more than a French fry container, it is sure to give you those extra essential minutes of survival until the fire department comes.
Its strength is gained by cross laminating layers in the seat. The method makes possible a cantelivered surface and robust structure. A series of laminated ‘bridges’ complete the form. The chair is also stackable and without the additional two legs of conventional chairs it can be suspended on a table for easy cleaning.
StickSafe is an award-winning medical innovation that will significantly reduce the incidence of needlestick injuries, protecting healthcare workers from potentially life-threatening diseases. As well as reducing the associated costs of treating these injuries, it will simultaneously reduce the cost of sharps waste in hospitals.
Needlestick injuries are accidental skin puncture wounds caused by needles and other medical sharps, after they have already been used to treat patients. Such injuries are a daily risk to healthcare workers, occuring in the course of performing routine and frequent procedures using needles. Needlesticks carry the risk of infection of many potentially lethal diseases including HIV and Hepatitis, which can require a lengthy and expensive treatment process, including tracing the source of contact, blood tests, post-exposure drug prophylaxis and, in instances of proven infection, long term drug treatment. In the UK alone, needlesticks are the second biggest cause of injury in the NHS, affecting over 100,000 healthcare workers, and costing the NHS at least £300 million per year in prevention and treatment.
Michael Korn, an industrial design student at London's Royal College of Art, decided to look more closely into the issue as part of a healthcare design project. Through the College's Helen Hamlyn Centre, Korn was paired with medics from St Mary's Hospital, spending weeks observing ward practices. The result was a complete redesign of the paper-pulp trays used by nursing staff and a completely new way of using them. Korn's invention, called StickSafe, incorporates a special safely feature that allows one-handed safe use of needles.
StickSafe is a simple, environmentally friendly, low cost device that can significantly reduce needlestick injuries from hypodermic needles and vacutainers. Its innovative design intuitively encourages healthcare workers to adopt safer workplace practices. StickSafe is a redesigned medical tray, which incorporates a patented, easy-to-use clutch mechanism, that allows the healthcare worker to safely unsheath the needle from the cap, and once they have completed their procedure, then allows them to safely recap the needle. The risk of carrying an unsheathed needle around a busy ward is eliminated, and as needles can now be disposed of capped instead of uncapped, so too is the risk of needlesticks from incorrect disposal. StickSafe will also greatly reduce the amount of sharps waste, as the needle can now be disposed of without the syringe attached. In the UK, this means a potential cost saving for the NHS of £160 million.
This elementary lamp is meant to be as simple and solid as a nail or a push pin. As with traditional tool machine lighting, the mechanics are sturdy and long-lasting, with the aim of improving classical industrial elements: the clamp is inverted to offer a better way of using it.
The lamp mixes solidity and lightness: a thin beam joins the two
opposite pieces of the lamp: the heavy cast foot to a delicate shade.
The lamp, called Sempé features I. 8 W LED solution, hand spun aluminum shade and steel beam, clamp or base in cast iron.
The project was developed in collaboration with the Norwegian Design team, Norway Says and encompasses lighting and furniture elements from bollards to bicycle stands through to a bench. The formal concept is carried throughout the range and enables planners to create an esthetically coherent cityscape, something which also convinced the iF Award judging panel.
The judging criteria for the award included, amongst other things, the quality of the design, workmanship, choice of material, degree of innovation, environmental impact and functionality. ewo managed to convince the top-class judging panel composed of international experts with their product range 'Up'.
ewo is responsible for the development of the technology and Norway Says for the design of the product range.
The international expert judges for the iF Award judged 2,486 entries from 39 countries, 778 of which received the label for design excellence.
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