Hasta La Ideas

Minimalist and stunning art prints of city maps. Designed by an architect Hubert Roguski this posters are perfect for home or office interior.

The shape of the ring collection is a geometric form with sharp edges and a smooth textured surface. It’s a jewelry sculpture developed from one..

Have you ever wanted to search for existing or expired design patents not only in your own country, but in the countries where you’d like to sell your designs? A website called DesignView has wrangled together the design patent databases of 45 countries, plus the ARIPO (African Regional Intellectual Property Organization), EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) and WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), and lets you search all of them at once with a single search box.

Even better, the service is completely free, and they claim the databases they have access to are updated daily.

Just out of curiosity, I typed in “waffle irons” and got 97 results from a host of countries. I then discovered that the 2003 patent on Philippe Starck’s waffle iron design has expired, meaning this is a prime time for me to swoop in and produce a too-close-for-comfort competing product.

Here’s a complete list of the countries and organizations covered:

Albania
ARIPO
Austria
Benelux
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
China
Colombia
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
EUIPO
Finland
France
FYROM
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Malta
Mexico
Morocco
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Republic of Korea
Romania
Russian Federation
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Tunisia
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States

WIPO

Get started here.

In Boston’s North End is a massive 65,000-square-foot facility known as the North Bennet Street School. Originally founded in 1879, today they offer programs in Bookbinding, Cabinet and Furniture Making, Carpentry, Jewelry Making and Repair, Locksmithing and Security Technology, Piano Technology, Preservation Carpentry and Violin Making and Repair. Anyone 18 or older can apply.

Intriguingly, they began incorporating the principles of Sloyd education all the way back in 1885, and still practice it today:

Pauline Agassiz Shaw, the school’s founder, was a visionary educator and proponent of the Swedish system of manual training known as “sloyd” which means “craft” or “hand skills.” The sloyd method focused on the development of character and intellectual capacity as well as technical skills. The method encourages students to systematically develop hand skills along with an understanding of tools, materials, processes and a sense of care and commitment to excellence. Shaw saw the school’s mission as teaching the “whole person” both how to make a living and how to live a fuller life.

Today, the philosophy of sloyd remains at the heart of the school. Full-time programs provide intensive, hands-on training in a structured framework with a focus on practical projects. Each project builds on previous learning and requires students to solve increasingly complex problems.

Here’s a look at the school and what they offer:

“Working at the bench,” the school writes, “remains the most important part of each program — providing a practical context for students to receive and apply information and advice from instructors who are masters of their craft.”

In addition to the full-time programs, NBSS also offers shorter courses and continuing education workshops; looking through the Woodworking classes alone makes me wish I lived closer to Boston. You can learn more here.

Are you sad? Tired? Dry and blotchy… emotionally? If you don’t live in a sauna-competent culture and do live in a dark place, winter can be grueling and depressing. Vitamin D and exercise only do so much, but the SAD lamps on offer aren’t much to cheer about. 

The last few years have seen building consensus that exposure to higher light levels can alleviate symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder and depression. The prescribed clinical plasticky blue and white lamps are easy to find in lighting shops and all over Amazon, as small or big or clock-radio equipped as you’d like. But nearly none look good enough to display. Maybe it’s universal schadenfreude, since artists and designers suffer at a slightly elevated rate, and women at almost double the rate of men. Or maybe it’s still a cultural blind spot since, like most accessibility design, depression isn’t fun to talk about and it’s not a pressing issue until it’s your issue. 

So here are three designers’ visions for a SAD lamp that would bring warmth to your brain and less embarrassing design to your home. It’s worth noting that NONE of these are in production, so maybe take a note and think of the cornered market…

Day and Night Light, Eleonore Delisse

The designiest of all is the Day and Night Light by Éleonore Delisse. This pair of lamps casts tones of blue in the morning, and shift to warm oranges and reds in the evening. The underlying concept is that our emotional sensitivity to color is an overlooked component in the effort to get as much light as possible. That said, the medical benefits alluded to in most of its copy and coverage are really only proven with full spectrum lights that emit ~10,000 lux. Maybe someday we’ll get a second edition with more power, or maybe someone should just take a more health-minded hint from its award winning form.

Day and Night Light, Eleonore Delisse

Next is the SOL lamp concept by Jeanett Madsen, which I voted ‘Most Likely to Succeed.’ And like most high school yearbook darlings I can’t really tell what happened to it. The SOL pays a good deal more lip service to the mechanics of light therapy, as well as how people use therapy lights in their real lives. Most solutions require sitting in front of a large stationary light, using a battery powered portable lamp, or wearing pretty nutty glasses. 

SOL takes the shape of a clean and attractive desk lamp with variable lux output, allowing it to function as a traditional lamp as well. The head can also be removed and propped up for portable use, using conductive charging. While the tech makes a lot of leaps, Madsen’s design address the physical and functional limitations of fixed lamps, as well as the inefficiency and low lux output of smaller options.

SOL Lamp, Jeanett Madsen

SOL Lamp, Jeanett Madsen

SOL Lamp, Jeanett Madsen

Last up is the subtly named Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) Treatment Light, by Colin Williams. This concept gets an honorable mention because SAD lamps at heart are pretty much a bunch of LEDs, but few manage to show it with visual cohesion or cleanliness. Instead of a bulky lightbox shaped like an iMac G3, this frosted tube leans toward contemporary industrial inspired lighting. 

The project additionally paired an app for controlling wake-up functions, adjusting color, and tracking mood. The cord is a bit unresolved, and permanent lighting in the SAD-beneficial spectrum might not work for most spaces, but the form and material choice are laudable. The suggested ability to shift spectrum and lux in sleek existing fixture would be great. 

Now if you need me I’ll be hunched over in the dark, sketching lamps.