Yanko Design - Form Beyond Function

Never did I think that I’d one day write about soap design, but you have to marvel the fact that someone spotted the problem all of humanity struggled with, but didn’t bother solving. The slippery soap.

Soaps are probably too organic shaped for their good. Anyone who’s even used something as non-slippery as a phone can say that the bar shape isn’t hand-friendly. Candybar shaped stuff have an inherent tendency to slip out of your grip, so the Tetra Soap is everything but that. Designed to be as grippy and ergonomic as possible, the soap comes in the shape of a wave-breaker, giving you a great amount of surface area to work up a lather, while making sure the soap is easy to hold onto even (especially) when wet. The shape even comes with ‘legs’ that let you rest the soap on a soapdish naturally. What’s more, the wave-breaker shape allows the soap to remain ergonomic even as it erodes away, letting it be easy to hold and useful until the very last day. Plus is it just me, or does the eroded form of the soap look just as eye-catching as its original shape??

Designer: Tetra Soap

From the designer of termite-enticing APOLLO 1 smartphone comes the 2.0 and it’s every bit as woody as the first! Like the original, it marries natural materials with modern tech, only this time it looks to be twice as thin. Instead of a dark ash, APOLLO version 2.0 is clad in a super-sleek black ebony that contrasts nicely with Tron-style aqua details. Its body sports the same circular bottom half that makes it rest comfortably in the palms and allows for the rotary menu to quickly navigate apps and settings. The blue’s a nice touch, but I’m kinda missing the silver detail of the original. Which do you like better?!

Designer: Varnicic BranislavVarnicic Branislav

Micro-living is only getting bigger… as it does, so does the need for space-saving furniture. Perfect for puny entryways, the Kuklovod series rethinks the classic coatrack with a design language of reduced footprints or none at all! In pedestal, wire frame and pendant varieties, there’s one for every personal taste or spatial requirement! In particular, the wire frame options allows room for a pair or two of shoes to be placed underneath your scarf, jacket or even jewelry so they’re handy the next time you need them. Most interesting of the set, however, is the pendant version which dangles directly from the ceiling without constraints due to limited floor space. In a selection of vibrant color options, you can mix and match them to suit your own unique interior style!

Designer: Vladimir Pashkov

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You know I’m going to come at you with the modular Phonebloks argument, but think about it… There’s so much in your phone you don’t use, or rather, so much you want from your phone but there’s just not enough demand. I for one would love for my phone to be able to pack great audio recording and playback capabilities, but phones are too camera-centric. As far as wearables go, it’s even more pressing that I have a wearable that does exactly what I need to. Some people need health tracking, others want their wearable to be an extension of their phone, there are also people who believe smartwatches should have an incredible battery life, like analog watches. The only way to make everyone happy? Modularity.

Blocks does a rather unique thing in which it recognizes that the watch strap is useful real-estate. It breaks the strap down into modules, allowing you to plug modules in that you need, letting you build the smartwatch of your dreams. The face of the watch forms what they call the “Core”, having all the essential features like Bluetooth and wifi connectivity as well as a touch-sensitive display, activity tracking, and a 1.5-day battery life. The modules that attach to it (forming the bad) are what make the Blocks interesting. You’ve got modules for everything you could possibly think of, from the usual Heart Rate Monitor, GPS, and an extra battery unit, to the unusual Camera, Fingerprint Reader, and NFC Payment module, to the absolutely bizarre ECG/Stress Level, Flashlight, and Bone Conduction Speaker Module. Based on your needs, you can pack up to 5 sensors into a single watch and they work using a proprietary plug-and-play connection that is beautifully flexible as any watch strap is, but gives the smartwatch powers that you’ve bestowed on it… making it an incredibly functional device, but also an incredibly functional device that’s unique to you and your needs. Rather fascinating I’d say…

Designer: Blocks

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The Y router begs the question WHY?! Specifically, WHY are all routers so dang ugly! Seriously, I just moved into a new apartment over the weekend… spent a ton of time making it look spectacular… only to kill my vibes when the internet company came to install my wireless router. YUCK. Lucky for me, I was able to hide the unsightly monster. However, we shouldn’t have to. That’s the idea behind the model Y.

Unlike the antiquated box/antenna form, Y’s triangular shape is at once minimalistic, sculptural and functional. Its internal parts have been reorganized in a more sensible way that keeps the antenna contained and protected. Better yet, one section of the triangle is dedicated to cable storage! You can actually tuck away any extra cord directly into the device. Until Mark Zuckerberg gets thats universal internet idea off the ground, I NEED this in my life!

Designer: Ninety Studio

If you’ve had your head in the clouds for the last few years, then you’re probably unaware that last year, when the DJI released the Spark Drone, it blew all of our minds. At a staggering .6 pounds in weight which was just nuts! Albeit the quality was never anywhere close to the Mavic Pro, sure, but it was hardly a burden to carry an extra .6 pounds around with you right? Well the good guys at DJI have gone another step into the future and provided us with the most dynamic three-axis gimbal assisted drone, the Mavic Air, weighing around 1 pound and has the ability to shoot videos in a stunning 4K.

The pictures of this are insane, its minuscule, how on earth can these be jam-packed full of goodness, capture insanely high-quality images and yet be about the same size as a pea. Not to mention it’s brilliantly smart – there are seven additional cameras on the Mavic Air that sense objects during flight, to the front and the rear of the drone, and work it’s own mapping around this to prevent a collision. Having trouble walking through the house without bumping into a door, it’s a shame I don’t have seven cameras. This little guy has a range of up to 2.5 miles and a 21 minute fly time, with a nifty remote to fit into the back pocket when it’s not being occupied by the Mavic Air.

Designer: DJI

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The irony of life is that as I wrote this article, I ended up burning my toast so bad my living room’s filled with a dense smoke… but that’s exactly what I’m talking about. No one has the time to watch water boil (although my toaster shouldn’t have gone rogue on me) and a lot of the time, you forget that you’ve got something on the stove and minutes later, you’ve overboiled your pasta, or you’ve boiled your water so much your saucepan has hard water stains on it.

That’s where the BoilingBeeper comes in. A small, innocuous, yet potentially life-saving device, the BoilingBeeper is a tea-bag sized blue, floating device you drop into your water pre-boiling. As the water temperature rises, the BoilingBeeper floats on the surface, monitoring temperature levels. The minute your water begins boiling (at 212°F or 100°C), the Beeper emits a loud beeping sound, akin to the whistling of a kettle, letting you know that it’s time to turn the stove off. Take it out of the boiling water and it turns off the minute its sensor is out of contact with the fluid. Ideal for the multi-tasker, or the forgetter (me, basically), or if you’ve got the telly running, the BoilingBeeper works for everything from pasta, to veggies, to even delivering on those perfectly boiled eggs.

A watched kettle never boils they say… Who says you need to watch it?! I say.

Designer: Boiling Beeper

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Buy It Here