Hasta La Ideas

In an essay for Fusion, Jorge Ramos—host of Fusion’s America with Jorge Ramos and Univision’s Noticiero Univision and Al Punto—argued that a Hispanic journalist should moderate one of the presidential debates. Weird, right? Maybe even racist??? Like, what about white males? Someone call Fox News.

Ramos, himself beyond qualified to host a debate, pointed out the ridiculousness of excluding a Hispanic moderator.

“Hispanics are the fastest-growing electoral group in the United States — a bloc of about 27 million eligible voters,” wrote Ramos. “Their support is crucial in swing states like Colorado, Nevada and Florida, so I’m not exaggerating when I say that no candidate can take the White House without Hispanics’ support. Yet a Hispanic journalist has never moderated one of the presidential debates. Why?”

Ramos, of course, already knew the answer to his question.

“I get the sense that both major candidates are afraid of just what they might be asked,” continued Ramos. “These Hispanic journalists, and many more, are part of a community seldom discussed beyond the single focus on immigration. Their questions could prove quite unconventional.”

You better bookmark this page, cuz it’s filled with all kinds of awesomeness! We present to you a handpicked selection of winners of the A’ Design Award over the years. Go ahead and scroll down to inspire yourself. Who knows, we may be featuring your work here real soon! The A’ Design Awards pride themselves in absolute diversity, which means there’s something in it for everybody. You’ve got categories like Furniture Design, Electronic Devices Design, Transportation Design, Medical Devices Design, Social Design, and Home Appliances Design, just to name just a few. We’re sure you’ve got a design project that fits in somewhere…if you do, head over to A’ Design’s webpage to drop in your preliminary registration. With A’ Design, you don’t just get awarded, you get applauded too… Even a registration will get you registered in the World Design Index, and an absolutely wicked Design Business Calculator to help you work out your design charges!

Anyhoo! Here are the absolute best of the best, curated for our YD family.

01. SPH Smart Prosthetic Hand by Young Jo In

Prosthetics and electronics sure make an insane combo. Imagine having a computer INSIDE your palm instead of within it! And you know what, the fingers are optimized to work on capacitive touch screens. Nice!

02. EcoZip Rollercoaster zip line by Frederic Gallimard

It takes a great deal of talent to be able to swing from tree to tree like Tarzan. Either that, or it takes the EcoZip, an in-forest zipline rollercoaster that uses trees to create the coaster’s path. You know what the best part is? This isn’t a concept! The first attraction using the EcoZip has already been opened to the public in New South Wales, Australia.

03. Hair and Hand Dryer in one by Jaewan Choi

Combining products with the same function isn’t just economical. In most cases, it can set market trends too (Like an air purifier/conditioner). The Hair and Hand Dryer creates the ultimate washroom/dressing room appliance. Way to save energy and capture two unique markets with a single product!

04. Toss Multifunctional Laundry System by Toss Design Team

What’s the point of storing your clothes in one place, but washing them in a completely different place? The Toss integrates the washer dryer unit into your closet system, so your clothes laundering as well as storage are integrated into one solution. Doesn’t it make so much sense?

05. DigiLock Smart Bike Lock by Tong Jin (TJ) Kim

Biometric security is yet to become mainstream. It’s there on phones, but hasn’t permeated completely into all our security related products. The DigiLock brings that level of encryption to the bicycle lock. Eliminating the need for a separate key, the DigiLock is not just convenient, it’s super secure too!

06. Arrow Office Table for chief by Taras Horoduskyy

I wonder if there’s a Wild Design category in the A’ Design Awards, because the Arrow Office Table certainly fits that bill! With its edgy, radical, and absolutely in-your-face design, the table is built around the character of the workplace head honcho. Show them who’s the boss!

07. FLOvers Floor Lamp by Denis Orlenok

Marrying a tripod with a lighting device, the FLOvers Floor Lamp explores lamp design that’s more about being sculptural than functional. Three radially arrayed elements bound together create an environment light that one can interact with, either lighting up the floor, walls or ceiling. All of them with equal amounts of beauty!

08. y.O Zmart Chair by Rick Yestadt

Another contender for the Wild Design category, the y.O Zmart is a rather wacky chair. Designed to look like two chairs were accidentally fused together, the chair’s design is actually carefully planned. It can be used in two different orientations, as a vertical chair as well as a recliner. Eccentric, smart design!

09. wooden ebike Science meets Sustainability by Matthias Broda, ace team
Plywood is celebrated for its load-bearing strength rather than its beauty. The Wooden ebike however celebrates plywood using clever design that isn’t just sustainable in every sense of the word, it’s unusually pleasing to look at too! Wouldn’t you want this? I Wood!

10. Zenyth Hubless longboard by Nicholas Peril

What do you say when a Designer actually designs a functionally superior product just by virtue of good design? Challenging long-board design just for the sake of creating a design exercise, the Zenyth Hubless longboard turned out to be quite the new-age, tradition-shaking longboard design!

11. Nextbit Robin Smartphone by Nextbit

Why do phones upgrade their specs but never their storage? Even 32Gb doesn’t seem to cut it these days. The Nextbit Robin sets new standards by giving you unlimited cloud storage along with the phone. Store and recall as much data as you want on your phone! Plus, will you look at those yummy color schemes?!

12. Smarter Smart display USB adapter by inDare Design & Baseus Manufacture

Chargers are such an afterthought. Smarter wants you to know that a USB adapter can be as amazing as the phone it’s built for. Designed with a screen that displays relevant charging information, the adapter’s design can even dock your phone on it. And with its svelte matte metallic finish, you’ll never use traditional out-of-the-box chargers ever again!

13. Bird Wearable input device by Prime.total product design

When they said that technology would put the world at the tip of your finger one day, they weren’t wrong. The Bird wearable is a tiny unobtrusive remote input device that just wraps around your finger. Once worn, your finger becomes a haptic-controller for all your smart devices. Pair this with voice control, and you, my friend, have got JARVIS!

14. Pin Clock by AliReza Asadi

There are just SO many ways to tell the time now. However, even in a saturated market, the Pin Clock manages to step aside as a fresh product that tells time in an elegant and novel way. Three hands have projectors on them that project hours, minutes, and seconds individually. However, these three hands also rotate, forming the time. So you don’t just have a textual representation of the time, the position of each text tells you the time too! Perfect for a guy like me who can then read the time without his spectacles!

15. Torsion Rocking chair by Natalie Musorina

Designed as a wonder of physics and manufacturing and a tribute to Mobius, the Torsion chair is literally just one strip of plywood with knit seating in between. The shape of the chair has a two-fold purpose. It relies on torsion stress to create a sturdy chair, but more importantly (from a design perspective), it creates something beautiful, memorable, and iconic!

16. 3bee Bicycle Frame by Tamás Túri

The 3bee bike frame kinda reminds me of the Tour de France logo. Its innovative shape encourages the forward-leaning sitting position, a feature found in all sporting bicycles. Plus, since it’s 3D printed, it can be tailor-made to suit your ergonomics or preferences.

17. Refugee Wearable Shelter by Dr Harriet Harriss & Graeme Brooker

Fashion and Social Design meet with the Refugee Wearable Shelter, a jacket that quickly transforms into not just a sleeping bag, but also a tent when you need it. Needless to say, the jacket is rather snug, and becomes quite spacious when opened out. The design gets full marks for not just meeting midway between fashion and function, but being a highly fashionable and even more functional product!

18. PeeFence Flexible Urinal by PeeFence I/S

Environmental art turned constructive solution, the PeeFence discourages using open expanses of land as your restroom. A simple poster curled inwards at the base, the art actually becomes a usable urinal! Talk about 3D Pee Graphiti!

19. A.F.A.-Powered Exo-Suit for Firefighter by Jiazhen (Ken) CHEN

Tony Stark may be a superhero, but Firefighters are real life superheroes. A.F.A. (Advanced Firefighting Apparatus) is an exosuit designed to enhance the abilities of the firefighter as well as give them additional protection. Designed to allow humans to carry up to 90 kilos with absolute ease (and break down doors efficiently), the AFA is functional and no less charismatic than any Iron man suit!

20. KickTrix Soccer training system by LA Design

With the KickTrix, you can literally bend it like Beckham! Designed to provide an indoor football training experience, the KickTrix helps one to sharpen and hone their ball control skills indoors. That too without breaking anything around the house!

Impressed? Inspired? Well then, go ahead and save your spot for this year’s A’ Design Award!

For attorneys Susan Estrich and Marc Mukasey, the best way to defend Roger Ailes is apparently to act exactly like Roger Ailes. Given that Ailes has been accused of sexually harassing more than 20 women and bragged about hiring people to physically hurt journalists, this is not a good thing.

Yet Estrich and Mukasey both emailed The Daily Beast to launch personal attacks against New York reporter Gabriel Sherman, who was responsible for breaking the sexual harassment allegations.

“Gabe Sherman has made clear that nothing will stand in the way of his vendetta against Roger Ailes, and he will use any woman he can find—no matter how clearly and deeply troubled she is—to try to concoct allegations against Mr. Ailes,” wrote Estrich. “Gabe is running out of women he can use and abuse. Ultimately, it will be clear that the real enemy of women is Gabe Sherman.”

Did you catch all that? Estrich blamed the victims and said Sherman abuses women. Amazing rhetoric. Must feel pretty weird to have no soul.

Not to be outdone, Mukasey explained that “Gabe Sherman is a virus, and is too small to exist on his own, and has obviously attached himself to the Ailes family to try to suck the life out of them.”

Smartly, Sherman told the Daily Beast that he doesn’t take the attacks personally. He understands that while shining a light on roaches makes them scatter, it doesn’t keep them from coming back.

Japanese studio CAPD has used large wooden boxes to created rooms and mezzanine floors within a house in Tokushima Prefecture (+ slideshow).

The local architects designed the 92-square-metre house to look like a “big box”, giving it simple grey corrugated metal walls and a flat roof.

Inside, the rectangular plan is divided up with plywood partitions to create rooms.

Three bedrooms, a bathroom and utility spaces arranged within this wooden framework on either side of an entrance corridor. Beyond them, the lounge and kitchen occupy the full width of the house at the rear.

The top of each box stops short of the ceiling, creating loft-like spaces that can take on different functions, such as a play room for the clients’ two children, a library and a storage area. CAPD named the residence Loft House to draw attention to these areas.

Seams in the plywood partitions are filled with putty but the surfaces are left rough and exposed.

Sliding wooden doors are intended to maximise the limited floor space and create a uniform appearance when closed.

The architects wanted to pair the elements with an unfinished appearance – like the wooden walls – with more polished surfaces to create a space that “combines a kind of elegance, yet is seemingly rough.”

White panels line the inner walls and ceilings of the bedrooms, bathroom and living space, while the floors are covered in light-toned floorboards.

The same boards cover an island that separates the kitchen from the dining and living space.

Sliding glazing opens out onto a small concrete terrace beside the living space, which is dressed with wooden furniture and pendant lamps.

Photography is by Daisuke Shima.

Project credits:

Design: CAPD
Architects: Kazuo Monnai, Hirokazu Ohara, Dai Tsunenobu
Construction: Nishino

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