Yanko Design - Form Beyond Function

A Wearable for Feels

Posted: 23 Feb 2018 10:30 AM PST

AURA is a twist on wearable tech that isn’t focused on your steps or trying to help you build muscle, rather, it’s aim is to help you master your mental fitness! Designed for anyone struggling with mental illness, depression or distress, it uses biometric sensors to detect stress, anger, sadness and happiness.

You can gain perspective of your current mental state by looking at the e-ink display that looks much like a simple watch face. Your overall data history can then be reviewed over time to track the moments you were experiencing different emotions in order to make informed behavioral or situational changes.

Designer: Pritika Sekar

A Camera I Could Get Behind

Posted: 23 Feb 2018 08:53 AM PST

There are two types of people: those who believe no true photography happens without using a camera… and those of us who think our smartphones will do the trick! Admittedly, I’m the latter. I think a big part of why I never got into cameras (even a point-and-shoot) is because of their mechanical, not-so-user-friendly look to be quite intimidating. The Lytro Lüm, however, looks like one I might actually be able to wrestle with… which is exactly what designer Michael Soleo was aiming for.

From the mode dial to the power button, its controls are oversized and intuitive to use. Its fluid form looks robust and less delicate, inspiring confidence in the user’s grip. Even the tactile finish (seen here in a stunning pure white) is designed to look soft and inviting to touch. No word on specs, but it was built around Lytro’s revolutionary Light Field platform that allows post-photo custom focusing, it’s more than enough for beginners!

Designer: Michael Soleo

A light that steals the show

Posted: 23 Feb 2018 05:56 AM PST

Designed with a truly extravagant personality, the Diva (aptly named, no?) looks like it has a chest filled with light/energy just ready to explode. The Diva, available in both floor-lamp and pendant-lamp variants, comes made from bent plywood in Walnut and Oak options, and is designed with an aesthetic that takes the center stage, even if kept in the corner. The light on the inside gets contained at places within the Diva, and shines out of the crevasses/slots, creating an alluring pattern on the ceiling or floor. The designers experimented with different curving patterns to create the softly strong, somewhat feminine character that emerged after rounds of iterations. Made from 32 individual strips of wood, the lamp is completely handmade using the tools and techniques of traditional Norwegian laminated wood craftsmanship. Whether illuminated at night or seen in the daylight, The Diva isn’t the kind of lamp to be overlooked!

Designers: Peter Natedal & Thomas Kalvatn Egset for Northern

Forget the Fidget Spinner, Meet the Fidget Pen

Posted: 23 Feb 2018 12:00 AM PST

The person who invented the fidget spinner must have been distracted with they were designing. After all, how is someone who struggles with focus supposed to remember to carry around an extra object with them just so they can focus?! Ok, maybe it’s not that serious of a problem… but it does only makes sense that fidget functionality is married into some of our existing devices! The Fidget Pen is a perfect example.

Integrated into the end of the pen, a finger fidget mechanism allows users to turn the wheels, press buttons and feel the intaglio to their subconscious heart’s content! Because it doubles as a writing utensil, it will have twice the chance of staying with the user. At your desk, it’s a perfect addition to your other utensils and a handy way to get your fidget fix!

Designer: Inyeop Baek

A camera and ‘touch-screen’ for the blind!

Posted: 22 Feb 2018 05:30 PM PST

What a remarkable product the 2C3D is (I’m in love with the name too!). This camera for the blind helps them get a tactile sense of visual data. Taking inspiration from pin art toys, the device is a depth-sensing camera that converts visual data into tactile data, representing forms like faces with a great deal of accuracy. Allowing the visually impaired to touch what they see without actually touching them, the 2C3D is a rather nifty tool to allow the visually impaired to recognize faces, objects, and even perform more nuanced functions like read expressions, lips, etc.

The 2C3D camera also allows the blind to capture images of subjects, saving visual data as a 3D file that can be felt again later, much like flicking through a photo album, but with the magic of depth! Such an incredible little device!

Designer: Oren Geva

The perfect iPhone’s imperfect geometry

Posted: 22 Feb 2018 02:50 PM PST

I’ll admit, I hate the notch. I see it as a necessity, and I acknowledge its presence (with red-hot hatred), and I’m sure you do too, but I promise you from this moment onward, you’ll look at it differently. Very differently.

What’s the notch? Or even the screen for that matter? A couple of straight lines meeting at right angles which are then rounded off, or beveled to look aesthetic. That’s what your eyes will have you believe, and honestly, as an industrial designer, that’s the most obvious solution. But when has Apple ever been the company to do the ‘obvious’? Interaction Designer Brad Ellis (and a few designers before him) picked up on a certain detail while closely analyzing Apple’s official design resources. Not a single radius was a true radius, and the notch you look at was in fact, an inverted trapezoid.

That right there above you, is the screen schematic for the iPhone X. Below you is the screen schematic placed beside its most simplified form, aka, the form you’d build before applying radii. Let’s move on.

Look closely at the image below and the gif below. There is a difference in curvature, and Apple moves very far from simple fillets/radii. What you’re looking at is a Squircle, a shape that Apple has increasingly begun adopting as an alternative to basic fillets. They do this not only because they’re a company devoted to the art of aesthetic beauty, but also to stand out from the rest. The Squircle, unlike two lines with a curved corner, is much easier on the eyes. “A ‘secret’ of Apple’s physical products is that they avoid tangency (where a radius meets a line at a single point) and craft their surfaces with what’s called curvature continuity.”, says Industrial Designer, Mark Stanton. Squircles can be found on most of Apple’s products today, from the corners of their Macbooks, to the iPad, to the iPhone, to even the Apple Watch. It made its digital debut in iOS7, when icons started employing the Squircle instead of the rounded rectangle. You’ll find some images below to show you the subtle yet rather important difference.

Now onto the notch. Inverted trapezoid, as I called it earlier. The notch on the iPhone X employs zero vertical lines. In fact, the line you think is vertical, is actually at a 3.3° tilt (so if you’re a UX designer, make sure you watch out! P.S. be sure to use only Apple’s official design resources for your work!), thanks to Apple’s need to be visually pleasing. Because of the curve falloff, one curve doesn’t complete before the next one starts — they blend seamlessly into each other. As a result, no tangent line on this edge actually hits a perfect vertical.

The Squircle, it can be argued, is probably the reason why Apple’s products look so visually pleasing. The highlights on the corner of the iPhone’s Piano Black variant follow through beautifully with visual continuity that one takes for granted, but is actually the result of a lot of sweating at Apple’s design labs. While I admit that the notch on the iPhone X is far from ideal, Apple’s work with geometry and details is definitely worth taking a page from. It has consistently pushed out products that embody a certain ethos of being a class apart, and has streamlined that approach to reflect in not just the hardware, but also the software. The result? Products that look subconsciously simple and beautiful but are often far from it… and now you know why!

Image Credits: Brad Ellis & Mark Stanton
You can read the original piece by Brad on Medium and Mark’s breakdown on Hackernoon

Drink the tea… not the tea-bag!

Posted: 22 Feb 2018 12:15 PM PST

The advantage of the tea-bag is its disposable-bag nature… The bad thing about tea-bags is also its disposable-bag nature. Let me explain what I mean. You use tea bags in places where traditional brewing isn’t possible. At a kiosk, at your work-desk, at the dining table of a restaurant or your home. However, there are two processes to tea-bag prepared tea. One, the brewing, and two, the disposing of the tea-bag. Unlike coffee that dissolves in water/milk, tea leaves don’t, and having to haplessly hold your cup in one hand and a soggy tea-bag in the other while you look for a waste bin is far from ideal.

So the Creative Ceramic Tea Mug takes care of that problem for you. Its innovative handle comes with a small space for the tea-bag to retract into. Not just that, it even squeezes the bag (something I shamelessly do, because I hate the idea of wasting tea), allowing every bit of flavor out of the leaves, and leaving you with a brew that’s ready to drink, while the tea-bag patiently hides in its corner, waiting to be disposed AFTER you’ve enjoyed your beverage. Drinking tea shouldn’t be so complicated, after all!

Designer: Samir Sufi

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