Yanko Design - Form Beyond Function

We’ve seen so many concepts tackle the functionality of a fire-extinguisher, helping it perform better, be carried easily, save lives. However, BLEND tackles the fire extinguisher’s aesthetic itself. BLEND aims at giving fire extinguishers a completely new lease of life by integrating them into the home better. Avoiding the “use only in an emergency” image – Blend is a user-friendly extinguisher. Designed by Wooseok KIM, BLEND was made with the harmony of the daily living space in mind, and with the vision of being managed intuitively by any user. Made from a semi-translucent polycarbonate, the internal levels of the fire extinguisher are gauged from a quick glance at the body. BLEND also has the use of a mood light during inactivity – with this added functionality, one can find a fire extinguisher easier in a smoke-filled room.

Additionally, there is a smoke detection sensor enables the user to stay safe in any instance. Truly a funky reimagination of a traditionally seen object, BLEND is a prime example of how to sneak (what was once seen as) hideous safety objects into the house by re-thinking and redesigning for future living.

Designer: Wooseok Kim

Whether it’s at a desk, dinner table or TV room, the Hybrid Chair by Studio Lorier can transform to accommodate almost any situation. The versatile piece is as functional as it is comfortable thanks to its unique dynamic hinges and clever construction.

A super-strong textile band located at the back can be used to adjust the chair from mode to mode. With just a few simple movements, you can shift its positioning to match your purpose. Constructed from handsome raw wood and soft fabric, it’s simultaneously modern and natural, making it functionally and aesthetically adaptable to a variety of interior styles.

Designer: Studio Lorier

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The helmet, ever since its use by warriors in ancient civilizations, has always been a safety device. The materials have changed through thousands of years, going from metal to leather, to different blends of plastics that help create headgear that’s lightweight and impact resistant… but at its outset, the helmet has always been protective headgear, whether in combat or in sport.

Today, the helmet gets its first true perception makeover as we know it. It retains its properties as protective headgear, but becomes more than just a safety device. It becomes an experience device. The PLY by EcoCell is the world’s first smart helmet designed for the modern day biking experience. Not only is it a resilient and aerodynamic helmet that keeps your head safe, ventilated, and your vision clear, it also integrates into its design a HD dashcam with built in Wi-Fi, and a hands-free bluetooth speaker and microphone set that allows you to communicate with fellow riders.

Click here to Buy Now: $399.00 $570.00

The PLY comes with an HD dashcam built into its design that allows you to capture your ride without having to mount external recording devices. The camera records at a capture angle of 120° at 30fps to ensure you grab everything in your crosshairs. The camera is mounted on the chin, making it more stable than most external mounts that would cantilever a GoPro off the side of your head. The recordings are therefore crisp, steady, and centrally aligned, giving you a better Point-Of-View video. Designed explicitly for your biking needs, the camera outperforms most generic action cameras by also using a GPS to geotag your videos and outlining the route you take! Designed to be more than just a media capturing device, PLY’s on board camera takes a more holistic approach, time-stamping and location-stamping your videos.

Also within the PLY lies its hands-free comms system. A strategically placed microphone, designed to cancel out wind noise and stutter along with left and right speakers, allow bikers to communicate with each other while keeping their eyes on the road. A simple button allows you to take and disconnect incoming calls while you’re encouraged to talk freely as you drive, making sure your conversation doesn’t distract you from your ride. The wireless speakers aboard the PLY can even be used for audio navigation or music playback if you choose.

The design of the helmet cleverly integrates the dashcam, hands-free comms unit, card slot, control panel, and a battery into its construction. What you’re left with is a helmet that looks seamless but hides a lot of smart technology under its hood! The CE and DOT certified helmet also comes built with a fog, scratch and glare resistant sun visor and multiple vents located on the front, top, and back to give you an uninterrupted and comfortable ride experience while always giving safety paramount importance.

The PLY by EcoCell is designed to be greater than the sum of its parts. While most helmets are still perceived as strictly safety devices that require external mounts for action cameras that only capture media or auxiliary communication units, the PLY looks at modern day bike riding as one singular experience that intertwines the need to commute, stay safe, keep in touch, and capture memories. The PLY to the modern day biker is more than just a helmet, it’s a riding experience device!

Click here to Buy Now: $399.00 $570.00

Click here to Buy Now: $399.00 $570.00

Tree Story is a little forest of storage containers that artistically hold your favorite herbs and spices. The design’s inspiration comes from pure enjoyment of strolling through the woods, taking in the seasons and absorbing the variety of natural scents, colors, and shapes. Tree Story builds upon that experience, providing an assemblage of containers that are connected as a collection yet individually distinct with different canopies.

Users also interact with each container in a manner reminiscent of a tree – for instance: herbs and spices “fall” (by shaking them) from the glass canopy. Lead-free cast glass offers a pleasant view to the contents inside each container while the bases are culled from leftover, solid wood offcuts of varying species from around the world, giving each tree a story with its own unique origins!

Designer: Kokili Projects

We generally think of a flashlight as something we hide between uses… either in the closet, a kitchen drawer, or tucked away with your other camping gear. But why shouldn’t a flashlight double as a beautiful home luminaire? Valo is one that gives you the glow you need whether it’s as a flashlight or a table lamp.

It’s distinctly flashlight-like with its elongated handle and conical end. However, it looks right at home on any desk top or side table with its 360 degree glow emanating from the handle. With rechargeable li-on batteries and an easy-to-read battery status indicator, you can leave it charging in your work or living area and just grab it and go when you need the flashlight!

Designer: Zeeshan Vervatwala

Standing out wonderfully against the otherwise traditional neighborhood of Noisy-le-Sec is the bright green building of the Conservatoire, a Music, Dance, and Drama school in an eastern suburb of Paris. Designers Jakob and Macfarlane created a building that embodied the fluid movement of a dancer, but retained the polygonal structural element to represent structure in the arts.

The building has two divisions, namely the school, and the performance area/auditorium. While the insides of the building have a gray color scheme allowing the architecture to take the background, on the outside, powder coated apple green metal panels help attract attention to the building that is supposed to be the beacon of art and culture. The panels come in a bright, vibrant green, with hints of orange, gold and yellow mixed into it, allowing the color to mildly change at different times of the day when viewed from different angles, creating a building that in itself not only resembles and embodies uniqueness and change, but even changes in its appearance ever so slightly to create architecture that is as wonderfully dynamic as the performing arts!

Designer: Jakob + Macfarlane

Image Credits: Judith Bormand

Any coffee enthusiast will agree that 50% of coffee’s uplifting experience is in being able to smell its aroma wafting in the air. The aroma forms a major part of a coffee drinker’s experience, allowing both taste and smell senses actively participate in the consumption process, creating a wholesome caffeinated experience.

Scenty Presso is a coffee maker that knows how important the aroma of coffee is to the entire experience, and therefore is the only coffee machine actively dedicated to giving you not only a great brew but also filling your surroundings with the fresh bittersweet scent of coffee. The coffee machine works on a principle that’s a cross between a french press and a drip-over brewer. You place your coffee grounds in one receptacle and pour your water in, allowing the coffee to brew. Once done, you place the glass container on the top to create an hourglass shaped contraption and flip the Scenty Presso over. The brew drains out into the transparent receptacle now at the base, leaving the grounds on top.

Now most normal coffee machines would require you to empty the coffee ground remains into the trash, but not the Scenty Presso! The Scenty Presso uses the coffee grounds and their strong aroma to fill your room with the smell of caffeine! At the press of a button (with 3 degrees of intensity), the Scenty Presso lets the coffee grounds mix with air that gets pushed out of the top of the device, diffusing the nutty, delightful coffee fragrance into the air, while also turning what would previously be discarded as trash into something that absolutely uplifts one’s coffee experience… therefore giving your tongue as well as nose something to crave for!

The Scenty Presso is a winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award for the year 2017.

Designers: Byun Seulki, Gwak Younyoung, Hwang Jinhyeong, Kim Taewoo & Kim Taeyeon.

Named after Oskar Barnack, the man who developed Leica’s first and also the world’s first handheld camera, the Leica CL Oskar’s Legacy pays tribute to the one man who changed our world by making cameras portable devices.

Designed to stand at the crux of Leica’s rich heritage and technological prowess, the Leica CL is the best of all worlds. The mirrorless camera comes with a 24-megapixel APS-C sensor as well as Leica’s Maestro II processor that delivers beautifully crisp ultra-HD images as well as 4K video at 30fps. The CL also sports a massive EyeRes viewfinder with 2.36 million dots making it possibly the largest viewfinder to date. On the top, right behind the shutter button sits an LCD that displays settings, battery, and exposure, keeping you on top of your shot with all the information you need right where your eye can see it. On either side of the LCD lie two programmable rings and secondary-function buttons that you can customize to your own requirement.

The aesthetic of Leica’s cameras haven’t seen much of a change ever since Oskar’s UR (Liliputkamera) model developed in 1914, and a good thing too, because that very aesthetic from 1914 went on to define Leica’s visual language. Slender, elegant geometric bodies that compressed the camera’s design to its essentials, making it a pure representation of what cameras should look like, even down to their hand-friendly dimensions. Leica still embraces that heritage, more so with the Leica CL Oskar’s Legacy, creating a camera that echoes everything that was good and groundbreaking in the early days, while making sure the camera itself performed to a superior standard that has kept Leica at the very pinnacle of the camera world for over a century!

Designer: Leica