Hasta La Ideas

Please Be Seated is a giant outdoor seating installation made of three concentric rings of wave-like forms made from scaffolding planks.

Created by British designer Paul Cocksedge, the communal bench has been built in Broadgate for the London Design Festival.

Built in Finsbury Avenue Square alongside Make‘s Number One Broadgate office block in the City of London, Please Be Seated is made of three rings of benches that rise and fall in a wave-like pattern.

Each of the undulating forms – which increase in size and height from the smallest central element – are made from a steel structure topped with scaffolding planks.

Where the waves meet the ground they form benches, with the rising waves forming access routes to the central seating areas.

“Every single aspect of this is tailored to its environment as well as the function it serves,” said Cocksedge.

“The curves raise up to create backrests and places to sit, as well as space for people to walk under, or pause and find some shade,” he continued.

Cocksedge created Please Be Seated to enhance London’s largest pedestrianised neighbourhood by being a installation which is also a useable piece of street furniture.

“It walks the line between a craft object and a design solution,” said Cocksedge. “It occupies the square without blocking it.”

Cocksedge established Paul Cocksedge Studio with Joana Pinho in 2004, with the studio creating numerous installations, including a floating illuminated telephone number that “had no explanation” also in London.

He has also designed many works of furniture including a series made from the floor of its own studio.

Please Be Seated is one of many public installations that have been created across the city as part of the 2019 London Design Festival, which runs from 14 to 22 September.

As part of the festival Sam Jacob has created a cartoon-style animation showing a watery scene filled with rubbish to highlight the threat plastic poses to the oceans, while Kengo Kuma has designed as installation made of reinforced bamboo.

Photography courtesy of Broadgate / Mark Cocksedge.

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Your product’s packaging is arguably the first thing the consumer sees, as a part of the product experience. It forms the first ever interaction between product and consumer, and a successful interaction means a consumer will pick the product up off the aisle and add it to their cart. Bad packaging design can adversely affect a product’s success or its performance, while a well packaged product allows it to stand out, prompting someone to pick it up and decide to purchase it. Packaging Design is more than just a box with artwork… it’s the product around the product, and deserves as much attention while designing as the item within it.

Packaging Design forms just one of the various categories of the A’ Design Award and Competition, which spans the popular categories like Architecture, Lighting, and Consumer Electronics, as well as the obscure, lesser known categories like Cybernetics, Prosumer Products, and Safety Apparel Design. The A’ Design Award’s ultimate goal is to be an umbrella that covers good design across all disciplines, which is why it has 100 different categories for submitting design projects, and over 200 jury members (comprising academics, design professionals and press members) from all around the world collectively judging the works. Winners of the A’ Design Award don’t just win a trophy and a certificate, but receive an entire PR Campaign dedicated towards pushing their career, clout, and even their projects to newer heights. A’ Design Award’s winners and even its participants are included in its annual award book and business network, while additionally contributing to their country’s overall design ranking that paints a holistic picture of how design-centric and design-forward each country is.

The A’ Design Award is currently accepting entries for the 2020 edition of the award program, so go ahead and give your work and career the push it deserves!

Here are some of our curated picks of Packaging Design winners from the A’ Design Award & Competition 2019. If you have a potential packaging design project that you think is worthy of an award, click here to register & participate in the A’ Design Awards 2020. Hurry! The regular deadline ends on 30th September!

01. Awanama Sake by Ryuta Ishikawa

With the kind of sheer finesse you’d expect from a handle on a samurai sword, the Awanama Sake bottle is just a canvas for its beautiful texture. Designed to stand out from the category of sake, Awanama wants to introduce its unpasteurized sake as a new brand of rice-wine that’s authentic and deserves universal recognition. The bottle comes with a heavily textured black exterior that catches the eye, while also remaining opaque so as to shield the sake inside from external light. Made from glass, Awanama’s bottle surely knows how to attract with just how intricately detailed the texture on it is, practically hypnotizing one into wanting to pick it up!

02. Eco Freshness Tag by Zeyuan Zhang

Designed so you never end up having stale poultry, the Eco Freshness Tag lets you know when your eggs have gone bad. Yes, you could submerge your egg in water to see if it sinks or floats (if it floats, throw it away), but then again, you could also just look at the color of the tag, which alters over a period of 10-14 days. A green tag indicates the egg is fresh and ready for consumption, a yellow tag probably means you should consume the egg right away instead of waiting, and when the tag turns red, just ditch them eggs!

03. Raimaijon Pasteurized Sugarcane Juice by Prompt Design and Cordesign

The ingenuity of the Raimaijon sugarcane juice bottle is that when stacked, it literally looks like a sugarcane stalk! The slightly warped cylindrical bottles nest one on top of another, while the label gives it its green color. When you stack 2 or more, the bottles begin looking like sugarcane stalks, complete with nodes between them! What a wonderful way to use the bottle to trace back the product’s origin story! This would make for a pretty eye-catching installation on a storefront, would it not?

04. New Hope Seed Brand Gift Box by Yung-Li Chen – Fineherbsoap Co. Ltd.

When you buy one of Fine Herb’s soaps, you’re doing much more than just buying soap. You’re buying a plant too! The organic natural soaps come in white vessels with a small seed taped to the bottom. Take the soap out and water the seed and it eventually grows into a herb. You can then put some soil into the vessel, turning packaging into a planter for your Zinnia seedling! And don’t worry, the planter is made from mixed pulp of 100% recycle paper and lavender grass seeds, making it eco-friendly and biodegradable too!

05. Cedea Luxury Mineral Water Bottle by Nick Pitscheider and Sharon Hassan

Designed as an homage to Cedea, the goddess of water and life in the Dolomites’ Ladin Culture, the bottle pays homage to the Northern Italian culture and its lore, with two water bottles, one representing the ruby red of roses, and one capturing the stunning blue of the sky. What’s genuinely remarkable is the bottle’s construction, that’s designed to perfectly refract light in a clever way. The bottle’s bases are colored either red or blue, while the rest of the bottle is completely transparent. Look at the bottles head-on, and you see clear water in them, but look at the bottles when they’re below your line of sight, and the glass’s refractive property makes the entire bottle look either blue or yellow. Its lens-like effect aside, the bottle looks absolutely beautiful too, with its gently swirling form highlighted by the twisting vertical lines that give the bottle a delicate spiral asymmetric shape, resembling the natural shape of Cedea, the Goddess of Water and Life.

06. Dinosaur Ice Cream Box by Mengying Zhang & Zhicheng Chen

A fun way to make kids enjoy the experience of eating ice-cream (enjoy it even more, rather), the Dinosaur Ice Cream Box comes with an embossed dinosaur fossil shape at its base. Fill the tub with chocolate ice cream that represents the soil, and your kids turn into archaeologists who have to dig through the ground with their ice-cream spoons to hit the fossilized treasure at the bottom! When you reach the end of the box, the remnants of ice-cream look like stray pieces of soil near the dinosaur’s carefully preserved fossil. Now if only there was a way to use this box to get kids to eat more of their veggies!

07. Small Bag Candle Packaging by Liangfang Fang and Jinxi Chen

Just an elegant way of packaging a candle, Liangfang Fang and Jinxi Chen’s solution involves a small, flat piece of paper that’s pinched and folded, with a neat tape on top. What’s really worth appreciating is its simplicity and its minimal elegance… and the fact that it literally looks like packaging for a chocolate, because those candles look absolutely edible, don’t they?!

08. Ooops! Use Toilet Paper by 2Republic BTL Reklámügynökség Kft.

While the designer’s name may certainly be a handful, the Ooops! toilet paper is intentionally designed to be a handful too! Unlike most toilet papers that come packed in sets of multiple rolls, and require to be unpacked and mounted on a toilet-paper-holder, the Ooops! toilet paper comes in a pack of 3, and can literally be used inside the box! The packaging comes with a handle, allowing you to easily carry it around, within the shopping mall, and also inside your house, from the store room to the loo, where you can just place the package right beside your toilet. The package comes with an opening on the top, which you can use to pull out as much toilet-paper as you need. Designed to be used without a toilet-roll-holder, the packaging dispenses the paper directly from itself. The rolls inside the box are center-fed, which means there’s no cardboard tube at the center of the roll… it’s paper right from start to finish. That doesn’t just give you more toilet paper per roll, it also means you can pull the paper out like you would from a tissue-box. Easy peasy!
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Impressed? Inspired? Go ahead and grab a spot for your own designs at the A’ Design Award and Competition 2020! Click here to Register Now! Hurry! The regular deadline ends on 30th September!

Sukwoo Lee’s strainer/colander possesses a quality that elevates and anthropomorphizes it to something beautiful that you’d surely not want to stash in your kitchen drawer. The collapsing strainer takes the shape and form of a peacock when its handle is folded inwards. It surely takes a great deal of creativity to be able to look at a product and see the potential to redesign it with the character of something else, but Sukwoo Lee manages to pull it off wonderfully!

The strainer’s handle serves as the body and slender neck of the peacock, complete with a minimalist beak, while the strainer itself resembles the fanned plumage of a peacock, with the strainer’s holes laid out in a beautiful pattern that definitely reminds one of the majestic bird.

Designer: Sukwoo Lee (SWNA) for Nongshim

New York bedding company Buffy has used natural dye made from a mix of plants, spices and fruits to colour its eucalyptus fabric sheets.

The collection includes a duvet cover, fitted sheet, top sheet and pillowcases, available in two tones of grey made from a mix of pomegranate, eucalyptus, and tea. Another colour option is a blush tone created from turmeric, gardenia and walnut.

Buffy worked with natural dye experts Maria Elena Pombo and Kathy Hattori, founder of Botanical Colors in Seattle, to create the different dyes for its plant-based sheets, which are made from eucalyptus fibres.

The brand sought to find a way to dye the fabrics that would be more sustainable and environmentally friendly than typical methods. These use a large amount of energy, water and chemicals, and release toxic run-off water into the environment.

Instead the Buffy bedding is coloured with ultrasonic dyeing, which uses sound waves to penetrate textile fibres, thus colouring the material. The brand says the process, which was created in 1941, is also safer for staff.

“This is more energy-efficient and yields a product that is potent in colour, durable, and free of artificial binders or chemicals,” Buffy said. “Standard dyeing methods are some of the largest contributors to pollution in
 textile manufacturing.”

Buffy claims it is “the first time any company, whether in home or fashion, has been able to create a naturally-dyed textile, free of any chemical colour or synthetic ingredients, on a large scale”.

The brand is set to launch blue hues formed from indigo, safflower and rose later this year.

Buffy is the brainchild of Leo Wang, whose family has been producing textiles in China for decades.

The natural dyes follow the environmentally friendly and sustainable efforts of the brand, which launched in 2017 with the Cloud comforter made recycled plastic bottles and eucalyptus fibre.

Earlier this year, Buffy updated its collection with the release of its first fully plant-based product, the Breeze comforter. Like the sheets, it is made entirely from eucalyptus pulp, which is spun and bound into yarn to make the exterior and thread for the comforter, while the fill is made from loose eucalyptus fibres.

“As the latest product to join Buffy’s lineup, our naturally-dyed Eucalyptus Sheets reaffirm our campaign to encourage more thoughtful and democratic innovation,” said Buffy founder Leo Wang.

“We strive to support a new generation of consumers that consciously choose to surround themselves with safe, earth-friendly materials.”

The brand claims the naturally-dyed eucalyptus sheets, as well as the comforter, are breathable and are more effective at wicking moisture than polyester or cotton. It adds that the sheets will maintain their colour through machine washing and contact with direct sunlight. They can also be tumble dried.

Belgian fashion designer Mandali Mendrilla is also trying to promote natural dyes as shown in her collection at Helsinki Fashion Week this year, and her show featured similarly-minded sustainable designs.

Other designs that use natural dye are a sleeping bag by Buro Belén, Kelly Gijsen’s cotton scarves and a tie-dye kimono by Nienke Hoogvliet.

Photography is courtesy of Buffy.

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German industrial designer Luigi Colani, renowned for his curvaceous product and transport designs, has died in his home country at the age of 91.

Colani was best known for the curved, organic forms of his designs, which he described as “biodynamic”, including the Pegasus grand piano for manufacturer Schimmel and numerous vehicles.

The designer passed away yesterday, Monday 16 September, in Karlsruhe, southwest Germany, his partner Yazhen Zha confirmed.

Influenced the next generation 

Colani’s pioneering use of organic forms is widely acknowledged to have influenced subsequent generations of architects and designers, including the late architect Zaha Hadid.

“His influence is felt from me to Zaha to Ross Lovegrove and so many others,” wrote designer Karim Rashid on Twitter. Rashid called him “my idol” and “my friend”.

“He was such an extremist, he was a pop star, controversial among the critics, he was prolific, he was a pluralist touching everything from shoes to pens to spaceships to monorails to bathrobes,” Rashid told Dezeen.

Describing the first time he came across Colani’s work as a teenager, Rashid said: “I came across a designer who was broader than Raymond Loewy in sweep, more utopian that Buckminster Fuller, more organic than Noguchi, more technological than Eames, more aerodynamic than Pininfarina, and much more human and passionate than Dieter Rams.”

Colani worked in many countries throughout his career, including the US, Russia and in China and Japan, where his Canon T90 camera would strongly influence the Japanese camera manufacturer’s designs thereafter.

Known for curved designs

During his varied career he designed cars, trucks, furniture, glasses, televisions, cameras and clothes, which often featured his signature smooth edges and reflective finishes.

Colani said that he had more than 4,000 design ideas that he put down on paper, according to the New York Times.

Reacting to the news of Colani’s death, experimental researcher and designer Gregorio Spini posted a picture on Facebook of a futuristic-looking urn that he wrote will hold Colani’s ashes.

The urn takes the form of a white egg on its side, with a diagonal cut through its middle. A gold latticed structure is fitted inside the white exterior.

Began designing cars and furniture

Colani was born as Lutz Colani in Berlin in 1928 and lived the latter part of his life in Shanghai, China.

He began his career designing cars in the 1950s, during which time he worked for Fiat, Alfa Romeo and BMW. It was during this time that he dropped his birth name Lutz, in favour of the moniker Luigi.

During the 1960s he moved into furniture design and by the next decade he began working in other areas of industrial design, creating items ranging from pens to entire kitchens.

Designed futuristic transport

By the late 1970s his streamlined, futuristic trucks, ships and other vehicles were regularly seen at exhibitions around the world.

He moved to Tokyo in the 1980s, where he exhibited a 60-metre shell and was well-respected for his industrial designs. In the 1990s he moved into designing entire structures, as well as being an early designer for desktop computing accessories, such as a mouse for Sicos completed in 1992.

His 2003 design for the Hamburg police force uniforms was adopted across all of Germany, while 140 sculptures he made of athletes were exhibited at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.

A retrospective exhibition of Colani’s work, titled Translating Nature, took place at London’s Design Museum in 2007, and included many of his cars, bikes, trains and aircraft designs.

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