November 5, 2007
The Dutch company Boynq has designed a new speaker called Wake Up for iPods (and apparently iPhones), which can be used as alarm clocks. The Wake Up can also recharge your iPod and iPhone. They claim to be “compatible with all new iPods and iPhones,” while the manual says “iPhones after January 1st” (no year mentioned). No price is mentioned and boy what a bunch of spelling mistakes in the manual. Sure looks pretty though.
(Link: gizmodo)
November 1, 2007
A popular meme has people ask of every new gadget they see: will it blend? (make good use of that iPhone!). Well, us Dutchies just aren’t into blending. Our meme is: will it levitate? Having started with the levitating frog, invented the levitating bed, and re-invented the levitating man, we have now gone on to the levitating lamp. All thanks to designer Angela Jansen, who created these lamps using Crealev technology. I have no idea if these computer rendered designs will ever translate to real, buyable products though. On her website Angela Jansen writes that several of these models were shown at the Dutch Design Week.
For the religiously inclined Jansen has also come up with the levitating buddha and the levitating chalice.
(Via Engadget.)
Tags: Dutch Design Week, lamps, levitating lamps
October 20, 2007
Hey, this looks just like the bookcases I have in a number of rooms, although mine lack the wooden casings. Sloom & Slordig (Lazy & Messy) came up with this one. BoingBoing shows a more recent design that looks just a little tidier, in case you want things lazy but not so messy. Apparently each box goes for 10 euro, and you can have them made to size.
October 13, 2007
Martijn Kamstra offers PDFs and JPEGs of a grim paper robot called Grumm. Print, cut, fold. There are two versions: a textured one (see photo) and a blank one that you can draw over yourself. Kamstra has also documented the design process of this papercraft project. BoingBoing mentions that “Kamstra wants photos of your own coloring jobs”.
Tags: cool things, paper robot, papercraft, robots, toys
October 2, 2007
This design for a tape dispenser by Derk Reilink (fourth year student Industrial Product Design at the Saxion Hogeschool in Enschede) won second place in this year’s HEMA Design Competition. First place was won by Annet Hennink, who came up with a disposable cake stand. I also like the pan lid with holes, making it easier to drain water after you’ve boiled your veggies.
HEMA, a large department chain store in the Netherlands and Belgium, organises a design competition each year. It then picks winning designs and puts these into production. The most famous of these was the winner of the first ever competition, the Lapin (French for rabbit), a tea kettle that looks just like a bunny rabbit.
Most of the products sold at HEMA are from the house brand. The chain seems to pride itself in its “staples”: in its advertising campaigns, it prominently advertises its underwear, clothes pegs, bicycle lights, pans and so on. Hence the theme of this year’s competition: the new HEMA staple.
Link (Dutch), link (French, PDF).
Edit: image replaced by one that contains the final design.
Tags: advertising, Dutch, Hema
September 25, 2007
The designers at Huh have come up with lamps in boxes with cut-outs that look like lamps. Think Jack-o-Lantern gone meta. In one design the light coming from the box paints a table top lamp with a long and bendy three-armed stand, and in another it paints the ceiling lamp that it is. BoingBoing, who wrote about this, call it “a witty little play on the IKEA-style flatpack world of fixtures and furniture.”
Interior Matters sell the Not A Lamp online for EUR 55. They also sell other Huh products. Unfortunately their site is only in Dutch.
(Orangemaster’s tip: These lamps have been adorning a newly opened clothing shop called Das Wella Warenhaus on the Keizersgracht corner Berenstraat in Amsterdam.)
August 20, 2007
Dutch designer and artist Dick Bruna will turn 80 this week, and in his honour the main office of the public library of Rotterdam is hosting an exhibition of his book covers called 2000× dick. Admission is free, and the exhibition runs from August 16 till September 16.
Outside the Netherlands, Dick Bruna is probably best known for his series of books for very young children, revolving around young bunny rabbit Miffy, but within the country, his book covers for series such as Maigret, James Bond and The Saint are probably as famous. Bruna was born to a long line of publishers, and his father wanted him to follow in those footsteps. However, Bruna had other plans, and went for a career in design and illustration.
His father had started a line of book shops at railway stations, where the publisher sold its own range of Zwarte Beertjes (black bears) books. They were pocket novels that went over well with travellers who wanted something easy to read while in the train. Bruna translated a number of these books, and typeset and illustrated thousands of them. Being a great fan of the minimalist De Stijl, both his children’s books and book covers are remarkable for their clean and simple look.
There are several anthologies of Bruna’s book covers, both printed and electronic. On the web you can find pictures of book covers at Retrobook.com as tiny thumbnails, and at De Boekenplank as bigger scans, but unfortunately not sorted by cover designer (google the site for “omslag Dick Bruna” or “omslagillustratie Dick Bruna”).
Tags: book covers, Dick Bruna, James Bond, Miffy, Nijntje
July 12, 2007
Yes, it was opened a month ago, but sometimes good news travels slowly. The Museum of Bags and Purses opened its doors on 9 June 2007 and features a collection ranging from the 16th century to the present. The museum’s collection is very diverse and consists of more than 3,500 bags, pouches, suitcases, purses and accessories. The museum is recognized as one of the eight most important fashion museums in the world, so they say.
(Link: Tassenmuseum, via LA Times)
June 20, 2007
Spotted in Vondelpark, Amsterdam in view of everyone yesterday, this odd bicycle attracted a lot of attention. The fact someone was filming could indicate that it is a rare breed of bike even by Dutch standards. It looks like someone took apart a bike and put it back in a completely different way. If anyone knows more, please tell us about it!
UPDATE: Thanks to Lola Granola (Heeey Bloom County, cool), I see that the man in the photo is the inventor, Michael Killian from Dublin.
Tags: Amsterdam, Vondelpark
June 8, 2007
Camp Silver is a new campsite right in the middle of the Dutch island of Texel. It combines the outdoors with the service of a luxury hotel. Picture eight silver Airstream caravans, brought over from the United States and specially designed for Camp Silver by Christopher Deam of San Francisco together with Airstream. The inside features designs and materials by designers such as Charles & Ray Eames and Frette. The big dome tent in the middle of the campsite acts as a lounge and breakfast place. Speaking of breakfast, they strive to make it with local and island biological products. Retro futuristic cool!
(Link: persberichten.nl)
