April 12, 2012

3D print your own iPhone case at Kees

Filed under: Design,Technology by Branko Collin @ 1:58 pm

Kees is a Dutch online company that lets you customize and 3D print iPhone cases based on a large number of presets.

You can even add your own lettering to the sides.

The cases cost around 40 euro, and take about 3 weeks to deliver.

The company is an initiative of brothers Jonas and Daaf Samson. The company name is a common Dutch given name (short for Cornelis), and is pronounced ‘case’. Unfortunately, you don’t seem to be able to opt out of the rather large company logo that is also printed on the side.

Anyway, the customization process is really simple, so I suggest you check it out to see what a Kees is all about.

(Link: Bright, Photo: Kees)

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March 13, 2012

Bill Cosby’s sweaters get their own blog

Filed under: Design,Fashion by Orangemaster @ 12:08 pm

An American woman named Kelly Tucker is keeping a blog called thecosbysweaterproject with drawings of the patterns of the famous sweaters worn by American television comedian Bill Cosby.

If you dig deeper and play ‘zoek de Nederlander’ (‘find the Dutch person’), you’ll learn that these famous sweaters were made by Dutch-born Koos Van Den Akker, a modern day Piet Mondriaan if you will.

(Link: www.bright.nl, Photo of Cosby sweater by Felix Jackson, Jr., some rights reserved)

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March 7, 2012

Headscarf for women’s football teams means game on

Filed under: Design,Fashion,Religion,Sports by Orangemaster @ 2:13 pm

As of this summer, female football players will again be allowed to wear headscarves during professional football matches. Thanks to a highly functional design from Cindy van den Bremen of capsters.com (see range of headscarves) headquartered in Eindhoven, football governing body FIFA has decided to drop its 2007 ban on the hijab aka headscarf and the girls can now hit the pitch and play.

Back then traditional headscarves were said to be dangerous, which they probably were, but a proper Dutch design has now helped to reverse the ban, allowing women from predominantly Muslim countries to play more football.

Van den Bremen felt the ban was a big fuss over not much and didn’t see the difference between a headscarf and having a pony tail in one’s hair. You can also pull really hard on the collar of a male player’s T-shirt too she explains.

“The sporting headscarf is not just a commercial success. It has won a Good Design Award in Japan and a place in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.”

(Links: www.rnw.nl, www.ad.nl, Photo by Wikimedia user Carolus Ludovicus, some rights reserved)

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February 13, 2012

Light tables keep dementia patients lively

Filed under: Design,Technology by Branko Collin @ 1:06 pm

Loek Canton graduated with honours as a design engineer in Delft last Friday with the design of a table that produces light. In cooperation with psychology students from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, he studied the effects of his table on dementia sufferers.

According to the Delft University of Technology, “fifteen elderly people took part. [Loek Canton] observed the effects of the light tables on the residents by interviewing participants and care staff. ‘The initial results provide a positive indication that the light tables have the desired effect on the activity and mood of participants’, says Canton. ‘When using the tables, residents sleep less, are more active and communicate more. The light tables were well received by participants, as they interacted with the objects.’”

(Link: De Pers. Video: Youtube / Loek Canton.)

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February 4, 2012

Temporary bench by Rogier Martens uses straps to attach to trees

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 10:54 pm

The Pop-Up City writes:

As part of his ‘Aandeboom’ series, which means something like ‘attached to trees’, the Utrecht-based spatial designer Rogier Martens has come up with a remarkable design for a pop-up bench for urban parks and landscapes. Invited by the Dutch city of Amersfoort to design a temporary bench for a local park, Martens created this Tree Bench. The bench is specifically suited for festivals and other temporary situations with urgent sitting needs. The Tree Benches are made of waterproof laminated beechwood and can be easily attached to the trees using a suspension system.

(Photo: Aandeboom.nl)

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December 30, 2011

Dutch astronaut André Kuipers wears Heerlen space watch

Filed under: Design,Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 6:06 pm

The watch Dutch astronaut André Kuipers is currently wearing in space was specially designed and made for him by watchmaker Roland Oostwegel from Heerlen, which is positive news from a city that has had to tear down an entire shopping mall right before Christmas for fear of collapse.

The watch bears the name R.O.1 SPACE Special Edition (pics) and will stay five months in space at the ISS on Kuipers’ wrist. It is the first-ever Dutch watch to go into space. I love how the second watch has a number four that looks like the capital Russian letter ‘d’ (Д).

When Kuipers met Oostwegel he told him about how astronauts lose their sense of time. Oostwegel then decided to create a watch for astronauts to solve this problem, with a mission counter that displays the elapsed mission time in days and weeks, and an extra sub dial for when the space ship has made one full lap around planet Earth in 91 minutes and 59 seconds.

Price for the stainless steel limited edition starts at 4900 euro.

(Link: limburger.nl, www.fratellowatches.com, Photo of a telescope at the Brunssummerheide (‘Brunssum heather’) in Heerlen)

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December 18, 2011

The teenage watchmaker

Filed under: Design,Dutch first by Branko Collin @ 3:48 pm

In a way Mick Mooren is a typical teenager. He has a got a typical teenager’s room at his parents’ house with the highsleeper bed and the posters adorning the wall.

But the posters hint that there is more to Mick. They are posters of watches, and Mick is a 19-year-old watchmaker from Venray in the North of Limburg. And this year he became a watch manufacturer as well.

The first watch that Mooren is producing himself is the New Vintage and is available in black/orange and white/orange. It will set you back a cool 840 euro.

Mick’s back story is worth reading in itself. His watchmaking career was propelled earlier this year when he took on the restoration of a classic 1973 Zenith El Primero chronograph, a watch that doubles as a stopwatch. He wrote about the restoration process in detail over at Watchuseek.com. Although the son of a goldsmith and nephew of a watchmaker, Mick did not take up watchmaking until two years ago.

(Via BNR. Photo: moorenwatch.com)

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December 9, 2011

Picture the Eiffel Tower full of green plants

Filed under: Design,Nature,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 5:54 pm

Dutch engineering consultancy Grontmij, the third largest in Europe, has come up with a plan to help Paris establish itself as one of the greenest cities in the world. It involves filling the Eiffel Tower with some 600,000 plants.

The Eiffel Tower would look like it had a green carpet, which would block the view of the tower being light up in the evening. The plants are able to absorb some 87 tonnes of CO2.

The entire plan is to cost a whopping 72 million euro, and some major companies have already agreed to contribute to the project. If they get the green light, the plants will be placed from summer 2012 until January 2013 and stay there until 2016. A system of hoses will water the plants, which will weigh about 375,000 kilos.

(Link: www.depers.nl)

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November 7, 2011

Mobile restaurant modelled after apple crates

Filed under: Design,Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 8:42 am

One of this year’s Eindhoven Design Academy’s graduation projects was Ardie van Bommel’s Pure Nature.

The project consists of a group of tables, chairs and kitchen islands that were all made to look like they were made out of apple crates. Van Bommel originally wanted to use actual apple crates, but that approach did not lead to the desired results, Man and Public Space Magazine wrote.

Van Bommel even made, it seems, a diorama of her apple crate restaurant inside—you guessed it—an apple crate. Her website suggests that this restaurant was made for the Philips Fruittuin (a former job creation project initiated by the local electronics giant), although it’s not clear to me whether the set-up has ever been in actual use.

Via the Pop-Up City which has been running a series showcasing “ten great designs spotted at the Design Academy’s graduation show“.

See also: Mirrors that look like holes in the wall and other Eindhoven Design Academy graduation projects.

(Photo: ontwerpstudiobomm.nl)

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October 31, 2011

Mirrors that look like holes in the wall and other Eindhoven Design Academy graduation projects

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 3:27 pm

Yesterday was the last day of the Dutch Design Week. Part of the event was the graduation show of the Eindhoven Design Academy, which was visited by Trendbeheer (we already mentioned Michael Kluver’s chairs).

Latvian Germans Ermics graduated with these mirrors that look like holes in the wall.

Other projects included cat videos from show cats by Thalia de Jong, a meltable dinner table by Tom Gottelier (complete with built-in heater to help you melt it back into shape), a self-photographing room by Monique Habraken, a leather holster for kids instead of guns by Elise Metekohy, a cargo bike that can roll like a regular bicycle by Alexander van Diggele, and much more.

Trendbeheer visited the exhibition and took lots of pictures.

(Photo by Trendbeheer / Jeroen Bosch, some rights reserved)

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