Yanko Design - Form Beyond Function

Unfortunately, we live in a day and age when simple locks are no longer enough. Between lock-picking pros and clever criminals, an additional layer of security is not only a good idea but a necessity. The GuardPeanut is the peace of mind you’ve been looking for! Leave it to your lock to keep things contained, but in the event of a break in, this smart anti-theft alarm alerts you if your belongings actually move.

Simply stick the peanut size device discretely on your items and connect with the tablet/mobile app to leave your belongings in good hands. In the event there is a disturbance, GuardPeanut’s 90db alarm will ring and you’ll receiving instantaneous alerts to your phone!

It’s perfect for when you park your bike outside a store, leave your items in a gym locker, or are going out of town and want to monitor your front door. Not just for preventing theft, it’s also ideal for security and will let you know if your computer has been disturbed!

Designer: Rafi Haladjian

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We designers have a strange relation with messiness. We hate clutter, but at the same time our desks are the messiest things ever. No matter what you do to organize your life, it just takes hours to mess up your space again. It’s futile, honestly… but designer Jeff Sheldon says he has a solution to the problem. A desk organizer that adapts to everyone’s needs and can organize your space, whether you have more clutter or less, while keeping everything accessible, whether you’re left-handed or right-handed.

Gather cuts the clutter with sheer minimalism in a way that brings zen to your workplace. Everything has a dedicated spot and a purpose, and Gather allows you to arrange your desk according to your needs as well as your space-availability. The hub of the Gather is a wooden plate with running grooves. This acts as a grid-based dock for the different holders. Add or subtract holders based on your needs or slide them around so that your necessaries stay immediately accessible. The wooden slab comes with two additional accessories that snap to it. A coaster, for your beverages/bottles, and a headphone holder. The orientation varieties are endless and you choose where you want to place each and every individual module. The coaster and headphone holder snap to the sides of the central wooden dock using magnets, and the individual holders fit into the dock’s grooves and can slide around, giving you complete freedom to build your own storage space based on your own needs or idiosyncrasies.

Designer Jeff Sheldon set himself on a path to build an organizer that doesn’t impose its design on you. Its free-spirited nature allows you to make your own storage because everyone’s needs are different. The Gather’s visual language plays along perfectly with what it hopes to achieve. Organization and minimalism. Its form factor, in fact, encourages you to cut down the clutter and keep only your essentials around you. The Gather comes available in two different wood-types, a rich Walnut wood that plays wonderfully against light-colored tables, and a blonde Maple wood, that creates a wonderful contrast against darker settings. The base kit comes with the central wooden plate and its accessories, while the extension gives you the headphone holder and wood+cork coaster units.

The way the Gather is designed, everything you need and use stays in a dedicated space that you allocate for it. With holders and storage for almost all your essentials, clutter is impossible because things go back where they belong, while still being accessible… because in a way, the Gather enabled you to design your perfect storage.

Designer: Jeff Sheldon

BUY NOW: $109.00 $149.00

The grid system allows each of the pieces to be rotated or positioned anywhere along the base.

Gather can be configured in hundreds of ways to exactly the way you want to use it.

BUY NOW: $109.00 $149.00

Leave it to cutting-edge sports camera company turned electric mobility maker Nilox to make the smartest scooter ever! It’s called the Doc Pro 2 and it’s equipped with a system of sensors to provide the user with instantaneous feedback about their ride.

A 300 watt electric engine is integrated into the 8″ rear wheel, allowing users to ride almost 20 mph for up to 20 miles. For that last mile, it also folds effortlessly to a compact form that can easily be carried on the train and bus or stowed away conveniently once you reach your destination.

It also connects to a dedicated smartphone app via Bluetooth, the display shows battery status, riding mode, speed, and distance traveled. As an added bonus, you can rock while you roll by streaming your favorite tunes to the scooter’s built-in speakers!

Designer: Samuele Bosoni for Nilox

As you may already have figured out by now, I’m really crazy about phone camera photography. Yes, it’s nowhere near ideal, and the DSLR users are giving me proper dirts, but think about how small and powerful cameras have become! Phone aside, the camera module itself is barely the size of your fingernail yet it’s the most widespread piece of tech ever, responsible for creating more than 1.2 TRILLION photos per year that are uploaded online. Imagine pushing this camera’s capabilities. The very thought of that excites me!

Easy Macro is simple and does great things. Just a silicone band with a lens attached to it, it slips over your phone’s (any phone) existing camera and gives it a 4X Macro zoom… giving you an incredibly new perspective, ideal for nature photography and even for unusual textures. In fact, Easy Macro’s Instagram page should give you a good idea of how capable the macro band is and how much more it empowers your phone’s camera.

Designer: Easy Macro

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Admitted the Xanxan shelf isn’t for antiques, or trophies… but it’s a rather wonderful conversation-starting shelf for books, magazines, etc. Technically not a shelf, the Xanxan is a platform made of multiple cords/ropes tied at two ends. Their tightness can be adjusted so that you don’t have storage that sags at the middle.

Not just for resting products, the Xanxan can be used for hanging things too, from keys, to umbrellas, to anything else that’s small and may need hanging. The Xanxan, with its rope-based construction, is quite different from your ordinary shelf… but then again, why settle for an ordinary shelf?

Designer: Luis Herram (Smallgran)

Come October 2017 and we’ll have Google launch its second iteration of its flagship smartphone, the Pixel. Admitted it may not look anything like what we’re seeing right now, but Jonas Daehnert has an affinity for creating the most desirable phone concepts.

The Pixel 2017 concept boasts of a metal + sandstone makeover, with a vibe that reminds me of the Oneplus X. However, the Pixel comes with the dual camera, a dual flash, and no more fingerprint reader (I surmise the screen may be able to ultrasonically detect fingerprints). On the side of the phone however are 4 tiny lights that correspond to Google’s colors. I guess they work as dedicated notification lights, so you know that a red flash is for Mail, a Blue for Twitter or Facebook, Green for Messages, and Yellow for Instagram or something of that nature. It seems like a neat idea to play on the colors of Google’s brand and turn it into a functional element on a phone.

I personally love how the render lighting uses Google’s colors too, making the phone look Google-esque, rather than too metallic (which it would under white lighting). Come October and we’ll know what to expect, but until then, let’s make do with this!

Designer: Jonas Daehnert