Lunar Eclipse

Check out these gorgeous pictures of last weekend's lunar eclipse.  They were taken by Hugh Denholm from his balcony in Jomtien, Thailand.

PROAESTHETICS

The Netherlands based designer, Damian O'Sullivan, has designed a range of medical aids aimed at giving the elderly back their dignity.  Instead of the traditional gray function based products, which the designer points out, highlights their difficulties rather than celebrating their capabilities, these products are all about adding a little joy and personality to medical aids.  The project includes 4 aids: a crutch, an arm cast, a neck-brace and an eye-patch.  Each is made of porcelain.  Damian chose porcelain because it's "fragile yet strong" encouraging the user to take care of their injury and "hygienic whilst elegant" fulfilling its medical nature while still remaining beautiful.

ProAestetics up for Index Award this year as well as featured on the cover of the March/April issue of I.D. Magazine.

Faerie's Aire And Death Waltz

This is pretty awesome.  It's a purposely unplayable piece of sheet music written by composer John Stump.  It is filled with little bits of entertainment including notations to light explosives now,  moon-walk, and release the penguins.  See the full composition here.  (Thanks Eric)

Found Magazine

I've gotten a few comments this week on my post about the Post Secret website.  This site is along the same lines.  It is called Found Magazine.  It is a website with daily postings of notes that people have found on the ground, on their windshields, on public transportation, and many other places.  Each note is accompanied by an explanation of where and how it was found, which often adds to the amusement.  This site offers a strange little glimpse into other people's lives.  (Thanks Heckman)

77 Water St

One of my favorite things about New York City is all of its little hidden gems.  This is one that I came across today.  It is a full size sculpture of a World War I Sopwith Camel, designed by Rudolph de Harak and sculpted by William Tarr.  The biplane sits on a green runway on the roof of 77 Water St in Manhattan's financial district.  What I love about this is that when it was built in 1969 no one other than the people in the surrounding taller buildings could see it.  Of course, now we can all see it care of Google Maps by searching for "77 water st, Manhattan, NY" and turning on the Satellite or Hybrid views.  (Found through Wooster Collective)

Breath Palette

Breath Palette is an interesting take on dental care.  It is a range of toothpaste and mouthwashes that come in 32 different crazy flavors including Kiwi, Green Tea, Pumpkin Pudding and Indian Curry.  The mouthwash comes in single serving cups numbered 1 to 31 so that you can enjoy a different mouthwash adventure every day.  (Found through NOTCOT).

RIDGID Lit Power Cords

This 7 1/4" wormdrive saw is just one of the many corded power tools by RIDGID to incorporate this nice design feature.  The power cord lights up when plugged in and displays an icon of the tool.  This shows that the tool  has power to it and allows you to easily see which cord to unplug when you are finished.

Antivirus

Antivirus is one of the many products nominated for this year's Index Award (see previous post for more information). Antivirus is aimed at the millions of people who are infected with HIV and Hepatitis B and C each year because of the reuse of needles.  According to the product's designer, Han Pham, "At least 50% of injections in developing countries are estimated to be unsafe. Used syringes are being picked up from trash by poor adults and children with re-sell intentions and circulate back into the health care system".

Antivirus is a cap that is placed on the top of beverage cans and is used to separate the needle from the rest of the syringe preventing reuse or accidental sticking.  I like this solution because it is very simple and takes advantage of readily available beverage cans to make the product as small as possible for transport.  To see full entry details click here.

Brooks Salzwedel Belt Buckles

These belt buckles by Brooks Salzwedel are not your traditional metal buckles.  They are really gorgeous pieces of artwork made from layered graphite and resin.  The layers create depth of field making the images very dynamic.  If only I could afford the $175 price tag.

Make your own Wee Planets

I've always really liked the little planet images that people have made out of panoramic photos.  They are very Little Prince.  I've seen this done by a few photographers now.  For a couple of examples check out Alexandre Duret-Lutz's flickr collection of Wee Planets.

I found a tutorial on Photojojo about how to make your own little planets.  You basically take a panoramic photo and stretch it into a square.  Then you apply a polar filter.  It sounds simple but I think it takes the right photo and some handy Photoshop clean-up work to make it look awesome.  I'm totally going to try it.

Barcade

My geek status has been confirmed... again.I was just reading in Wired magazine that one of my favorite Brooklyn bars, Barcade, has been named one of "The Best Geek Bars in the US".

If you have never been to Barcade, it is basically, as the name suggests, a bar and an arcade combined.The walls are lined with all your favorite 80's arcade games like Tetris, Frogger, Ms Pac-man, Tapper, Donkey Kong and many more.Each game has a little ledge beside it to put your drink and quarters down on.Awesome geeky fun!

Trunki

This is the ultimate in fun luggage.Trunki is carry-on sized luggage created especially for kids.It is super cute with brightly colored hard plastic walls, large wheels, horns and a furry texture.The luggage is designed for kids to ride on it.It has a saddle area with handles and a shoulder strap that turns into a tow rope.It is perfect for young children to push themselves around on, or be pulled by parents.What more could a globetrotting tot ask for?You can purchase Trunkis in the US for $39.99 at www.trendykid.com.

Domino Magazine Flags

I was pleasantly surprised to find these page flags in the front of Domino magazine.  The flags peal out to be used as page markers.  They cover the categories of Decorate, Entertain, Garden, Renovate, and Gift.  It is a pretty effective way of adding value to a magazine.  The flags entice  readers to increase their interaction with the magazine.  It encourages people to not just flip through the pages but to actually take note of some ideas and come back to them.  This must be very appealing to potential advertisers and featured designers.

Post Secret

Post Secret is a website that displays people's secrets on 4"x6" cards.  Anyone can submit a secret as long as it is something that you have never told anyone and it fits on one side of a postcard (or at least mailable material).  New secrets are posted to the site every Sunday and then replaced the following week.

There is something really fascinating about reading other people's secrets.  They all seem so genuine.  I really like the idea of telling a secret anonymously.  It's like writing a message in a bottle and sending it out to sea... only we all get to read it.  Previous secrets have been turned into books.  Check them out on Amazon.

Don't Click

The Don't Click website is an experimental look into a world with no mouse clicking.  It explores our clicking habit by creating an interface where no clicking in necessary.  The site includes some games and activities to explain, explore and practice the different click-less selection techniques.  They collect and display statistics on how many accidental clicks were made on the site and whether or not visitors miss the mouse click.  (Found through Josh Spear)

Index Award

I came across this site for the Index Award the other day.  It is a design award given every two years to products or ideas that improve human life.  The aim of the competition is to increase public awareness about how design can help improve life on a global scale.  Five €100,000 prizes are given away in the categories of Body, Home, Work, Play and Community.  There are hundreds of nominations on the site.  I will write some postings on a few of the more interesting entries over the next few weeks.

Sweetskinz

Sweetskinz bicycle tires are featured in this month's Popular Science - What's New section.  Full color graphics and patterns are added to a thin skin of rubber which is then pressure melded to the tire itself.  The most interesting part is that the ink used to produce the artwork is reflective, making the tires visible at night, giving these over the top graphics a very safety conscious functionality.

Dole Fruit Containers

I was in the grocery store the other day and I saw these new Dole fruit containers.  They are such a freshing approach to the old tin can.  First of all, they look great.  The clear plastic shows off the natural beauty of the fruit and reinforces Dole's confidence in their fruit's quality.  Secondly, they are much more user friendly than cans because you can use what you need, put the lid back on and stick the whole thing in your fridge.  Thirdly the plastic containers are recyclable, like cans, but also reusable.

This is good marketing on Dole's part.  It caught my attention, make me buy more than I needed and gave me a great user experience that will make me a return customer.  Good job guys.

Monoface

The creative folks at Mono branding and advertising agency have put an admirable new twist on team photos.  They have created a section of their website called Monoface which combines features from different employee's faces together to produce some pretty entertaining portraits.  You can can shuffle the images to see random face combinations or click specific features (eyes, nose, mouth, head) to make your own creatures, I mean faces.  There are a total of 759 375 possible combinations and you can't help but make a few.  These guys are clearly brilliant advertisers.

Photos of the Human Heart

National Geographic's cover story this month is Healing the Heart.  It focuses on heart disease, which is still one of the number one killers of men and women worldwide.  The National Geographic website has some nice multimedia takes on this story including images of the human heart taken by photographer Robert Clark.