Today I attended a press event celebrating 50 years in business for acoustic and speaker giant Bose Corporation. Held on the west side of Manhattan, the event centered around a timeline showcasing actual Bose products from their first loudspeaker (1966) to their just-introduced QuietComfort 25 headphones. An interesting fact: When Bose founder Dr. Amar Bose died last year, he left the majority of company stock to MIT. Here are some shots from the event.
You probably don’t spend too much time thinking about the design of your disposable coffee cup lid, but Viora would like that to change. Viora’s one-time-use lids, available wholesale to better coffee shops such as Astoria Cafe and Brooklyn Roasters in NYC and Go Get Em Tiger in Los Angeles, claims to offer a better drinking experience akin to sipping out of your favorite mug at home. We’ve become so accustomed to drinking differently from lidded cups that we don’t even realize how different we position our mouths in the process. The small opening of conventional lids means you need to be extra careful not to burn your mouth at first taste, and you can’t blow on the beverage without taking the lid completely off (a process that I usually regret once I’ve spilt hot tea on myself). With Viora the experience is a bit different — you drink your coffee or tea from a drink well in the lid that is designed specifically to prevent spills. The well also gives you a better chance …
What I found most interesting about this new bike storage solution by the Vancouver-based design firm Hurdler Studios is not the stripped-down design, but the fact that in addition to selling the product through traditional methods, the manufacturers are pursing a new digital sales model where customers can purchase Clug’s 3D printer-ready digital files to be used on a 3D printer like the Markerbot Replicator 2 that the designers used to design the product. The Hurdler team, currently raising funds for the product on Kickstarter, has been testing the product for several months to ensure it’s robust enough for everyday use. The Clug system encases two screws concealed within a push-fit cover that mounts to a wall or other surface to hold the bike upright without damaging the bike frame or rims. The small size has an added benefit for renters — you won’t have to worry about damaging walls and forfeiting your security deposit. And now that you can easily store your bike in your apartment, you won’t have to deal with the stress …
For his first collaboration with Adidas, British design icon Tom Dixon created a collection of clothing and accessories intended to double as a “survival kit” while you are traveling the road for business or pleasure. Called The Capsule, the unisex collection centers around two types of luggage (one hard and one soft) that each unzip to reveal layers of clothes and accessories for a seven day stay. Included are pants, shirts, jackets (including a parka that turns into a sleeping bag) and three types of shoes, all with lovely details such as copper shoelace tabs and bag zips. Good news for the shorties out there like me: hemlines on the pants and shirts can be cut to size and do not require further sewing or tailoring.
When the product designers at the New York City-based firm Tomorrow Lab discovered that the key fob for New York City’s Citi Bike share system could be cracked-open, they decided to transfer the key’s tiny RFID tag into a new container. Given the demands of the antenna position, the team could not stray too far from the original fob shape so, with design support from architectural journalist Laura Raskin, they came up with an elongated badge-like pendant shape that can be worn like a piece of jewelry. The on-demand 3D printing service, Shapeways.com, allowed Tomorrow Lab to create a gold-plated, stainless steel version of the product. Now if they could do something creative with all of those small plastic loyalty cards on my keychain.
The cargo box is one of those underserved product types. You know they are out there, but no one ever gets excited about them. Nendo‘s new symmetrick roof cargo box hopes to move things along a bit. Designed as part of the brand renewal for Terzo, a car carrier brand produced by Piaa, this new box is symmetrical front to back as well as from left to right. This dual symmetry allows the carrier to be loaded with either end at the front, for opening on either the left or right side. The underside of the cargo boxes needed to be textured to take the weight of the cargo, so Nendo used a dot pattern based on the brand logo. When viewed from some angles, the logo reflects onto the car roof “for a subtle added playfulness” according to the designers. It’s not revolutionary, but a clean, streamlined design that is a improvement in the category. Product photos by Hiroshi Iwasaki. Package photo by Akihiro Yoshida.
