The star in Vitra Design Museum’s upcoming exhibition is the kind of design that might awe even Dieter Rams or Naoto Fukusawa: proven functionality, unfrivolous forms stripped to its basics--not easily improved and in such widespread use as to go unnoticed. Yet, take these things away, and we’d be lost.
The Bias Clock by New York cool-kid designers Rich, Brilliant, Willing is designed to be rotated and hung in any direction you like, according to your tastes or mood or politics. (Or, more functionally: You can tilt the face toward you, so that it's easy to read from your desk chair, for example.)
In the U.S., we take it for granted that starting a business should be quick and simple. But abroad, it can be mind-numbingly complex--and that's one reason why economists often use the number of days it takes to start a business to gauge a country's entrepreneurial competitiveness, its prevalence of red tape, and its straight-up corruption. (Since corruption often starts when there's more red tape--and more opportunities for bribes.)
Pedophiles are everywhere, and they want your child: Fashion, to the rescue! Introducing Safe Cuddling, a fluffy playsuit that keeps the bad men away.
Safe Cuddling sounds an alarm -- Flashlights! Bells! -- if touched for too long and/or in inappropriate places. At first, the suit blinks gently. But keep pawing away, and the alarm goes berserk, turning your precious little lamb into a wailing pervert klaxon. This thing’ll make your local Catholic Church sound like a tornado siren.
Francis Lam, of db-db-db, might be the goofiest designer making apps for the iPhone. For a long time, he has thought that there are too many naked chicks in the digital world. The designer’s solution: up the quotient of nekkid mens. Enter the Nudemen--sorry, Numen Camera.
The tax plan created under Bush will expire in January, meaning that a new plan will need to be in place before we head into the new year. Already the battle over whether to extend them or let them die has become a political knife fight.
My Space is a design-minded playhouse that folds up for easy storage, making it the rare toy both children and parents can agree on. Especially now.
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