This imposing Jin Roh concept gives off those definitive Batmobile vibes

One look at this intimidating four-wheeled monster, and you’ll want to take it for an extended ride on the open freeways.

The rollercoaster ride in the Japanese movie Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade sees Kazuki Fuse (a member of a special police unit) and Kei Amemiya (who claims to be the sister of the terrorist who detonated herself) intermingle in an emotional connection. But things were not as true as they seemed to be with Kei. Well, that’s the plot of most of the movies to create an emotional and dramatic hook. Eventually, Fuse is ordered to kill Kei so that she is never recaptured by Public Security. Her words explaining him as a wolf disguised as a loved one resonate in the minds of those who watched the movie.

Designer: Timur Dautov

That rhetoric of Red Riding Hood’s wolves who disguise themselves in human clothes but never bother to disguise their eyes, teeth, or sharp claws. Especially those piercing red eyes that instill the fear of elimination among the police too. This crazy concept designed by Timur Dautov catches the dark spirit of the movie Jin Roh in an intimidating set of wheels meant for domination on the tarmac.

Those piercing red eyes are aptly replicated in the front headlights which instantly remind one of the Wolf Brigade. If the designer would not have made the Jin Roh reference, by instinct, I would have associated this mean machine with a future Batmobile. But it’s a vehicle in its own league, ready to take on the opposition in style. The headlights and the humungous wheel rims have that jet engine-type design that reflects inner power. Add to that the all-matte black look, and Matt Reeves would be so tempted to make the Batman craft this baby in his den.

The air intakes for the engine are another reminder of the cold drape that the killing wolves in disguise rely on. A machine that’s built for the kill – in a good sense of course!

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This eclectic candle transforms into a Japanese lantern the longer it burns

The product journey of the Chouchin Candle is one that serves as a constant reminder of why I love my job so much. Designed by James Kaoru Bury, the Chouchin Candle existed as just an exploratory concept… the kind you use to populate your portfolio to show potential employers that you have a creative mind and a diverse skill set. However, getting featured on the YD blog in 2018 led James to look at the concept with a fresh set of eyes. 4 years, one pandemic, and a significant chunk of his life savings later, James brought the Chouchin Candle to life, turning it from a pretty concept to a real product that lights up spaces and hearts.

The Chouchin is a pillar-shaped candle, styled to look like a traditional Japanese ‘chouchin’ lantern. The candle comes made from two different grades of waxes, one on the inside, which burns the way a normal candle would, and one on the outside, which serves as the candle’s exterior, mimicking the effects of a lantern by diffusing the light that passes through it. As the inner wax candle continues to burn, the flame glows right through the outer shell, getting diffused into a gentle, warm light in the process.

Designer: James Kaoru Bury

Click Here to Buy Now: $69.95

The candle was developed in partnership with Pegasus Candle Co. Ltd located in Kurashiki Japan. The outer shell uses a patented non-melting wax, which lends a beautiful subtle translucency to the candle as the wick burns downwards. This allows the wax to collect within the candle as it melts, eliminating the need for having a plate or tray below, and moreover, the candle can even be held while it’s burning, without any danger of having hot wax dripping onto your fingers. On the inside sits a more traditional candle, with a burning time of 70 hours – offering a few months’ worth of light with daily usage. The inner candle can even be periodically replaced with refill units, available on the Chouchin Candle website.

Each Chouchin Candle is carefully manufactured at Pegasus Candle Co.’s factory in Japan. The candle comes packaged in a gift-worthy black box, making it a great purchase either for oneself as a meditative little tabletop object, or as a thoughtful gift to a friend or family.  You can find the Chouchin Candle in our newly opened YD Select store – our one-stop destination for creative, well-designed stationery, gadgets, and objets d’art. Free shipping on orders above $200.

Click Here to Buy Now: $69.95

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How Curve Magazine Fostered The Past and Future of Lesbian Culture

In 1990, Franco Stevens used the money she made from betting on horse races to found Curve Magazine (previously titled Deneuve), a publication intended to help queer women feel less alone. The publication would go on to become one of the most successful lesbian magazines in the world with its first issue selling out in six days. Since then Curve has expanded into a foundation that empowers women, transgender people and non-binary individuals, and released a documentary called Ahead of the Curve, which documents the journal’s impact in shaping lesbian culture—including the rising awareness of marginalization of queer women of color. From how difficult it was to find and connect with queer women before the internet to laws banning queer education in schools today, Stevens reflects on the past, present and future of lesbian culture in an interview published by them. Read more there.

Image courtesy of Barak Shrama

Unique bridge explores a complex structure made from individual pieces of timber wood

Located on the Gulou waterfront in the city of Jiangmen in China, this bridge by LUO Studio connects pedestrians to a resort located on the other side of the waterway underneath. The arched shape of the bridge allows boats to pass under it too, and the bridge itself boasts of a stunningly intricate construction that highlights the use of timber, revitalizing traditional rural culture.

The bridge’s unmistakable arched shape simultaneously allows boats to pass underneath while giving the structure itself a high load-bearing capacity. One of many bridges located on the Gulou waterfront, LUO Studio’s bridge sets itself apart with its uniquely eye-catching and rustic design. The studio employed materials like pinewood, concrete, glass, and aluminum to build the entire bridge.

Designer: LUO Studio

the bridge was commissioned by the Gulou Waterfront eco-tourism resort located across the stream, aiming to combine rural development with the cultural background of local villages on the premise of preserving the unique spatial fabrics featuring mounds and ponds. The resort maintains the form of the basic local water system while organically integrating nature education, parent-child recreation, and fishing & husbandry activities. Its design creates a beautiful facade that’s equally eye-catching during the day as well as at night, and the facade houses a shaded corridor underneath, protecting pedestrians from sun and rain.

“Constructing a covered corridor on bridges has been an old tradition that dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period”, says Luo Yujie, principal architect of LUO Studio. “The initial intention was to strengthen the bridge structure, resist rain and moisture, keep the wood dry and prevent it from corrosion.”

At the very base of the bridge lie 3 curved wooden beams that sit parallel to each other, 9 feet apart, providing the bridge with its structural integrity while keeping its arched portion 4m above the water level – enough for small boats carrying supplies or tourists to pass under. Fully considering the manufacturing and transportation costs, each main beam was divided into three sections at appropriate positions, connected and assembled by steel-strengthened bolts on the site, to form the complete wooden beam.

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This modular bench concept gives bikers a place to park and sit

There is no shortage of ideas on how to give everyone a seat, especially outdoors. Of course, space for benches and chairs will always be a problem, whether it’s at a park or some vacant area in the middle of towering buildings. That’s not even considering yet those “in-between” places where people come and go a lot, only stopping by for a brief breather. Such resting places for cyclists, for example, are far and few in between, and they aren’t exactly designed for this segment of the world’s active population. That’s the very specific need that this bench concept is trying to address, giving cyclists a place to rest while still offering the option to accommodate a bunch of people at the same time.

Designer: Alonso Bastos Durán

Of course, there are public and outdoor spaces that cater to those who regularly take their bikes out, either for work, leisure, or exercise. In most cases, however, there is a single parking space for these bikes that are often a good distance away from where they might want to sit down and chill. Sure, that does force them to work their legs a bit more, but it might introduce inconveniences as well as concerns over the security of their metal steeds.

The Pinajarro Bench is designed to address those concerns by allowing bikers to park where they sit or vice versa. In a nutshell, the slots between the metal bars of this triangular structure might be very familiar to cyclists as a place to rest their wheels and chain their bikes down. At the same time, however, the bench can accommodate wooden or metal seats that hang over the top of that triangle, allowing the same bench to be both a parking slot and chair for cyclists at the same time, letting them catch their breath while keeping an eye on their bike.

The concept, however, goes beyond a single configuration. For example, the entire bench can be occupied by seats only, preventing anyone from parking their bikes. Conversely, it can have no seats at all and functions purely as a parking space. The orientation of the seats can very, letting people sit beside each other or back to back. Even the seats themselves can have variations in design. In one scenario, the back of the seat can have a flat flap that serves as a tray for drinks or other items for people sitting on that side.

The Pinajarro Bench can be made from a wide variety of materials, but the concept has a particular bias for sustainable options. The base itself will always be made from hard steel to give the structure balance and strength, but the seats can be made from wood or metal. The latter might be a better choice for benches that will be exposed to the elements 24/7. Regardless of the materials, the concept offers a sustainable and rather ingenious way to give bikers their own special space while still keeping the doors open for other seating configurations. It might even inspire other people to embrace a healthier lifestyle, knowing that there is a safe and comfortable place for them to rest when they need to.

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CHAI: Surprise

Japanese group CHAI have released the buoyant track “Surprise” along with an equally colorful and vibrant Yoshio Nakaiso-directed video. The clip is a nod to when the band’s trailer was stolen during their North American tour, “We were able to continue our shows because of the overwhelming support and love from all of you. We never forget how much we appreciate you, and we want to continue to give back to our fans through music, forever and ever. This music video was shot under the blue skies of Los Angeles, with gratitude,” they say in a statement. Carried by house-inflected piano, uplifting vocals and an overarching perky, uplifting energy, the song works as a useful antidote to doom and gloom. “We all have that precious ‘something’ that we can’t express in words,” the statement continues. “We want to feel and love that ‘surprise.’ Those become the surprises of our lives, and I become a brand new me. That’s what we had in mind when we wrote ‘Surprise.’”

This lightweight exoskeleton doesn’t need batteries to give you superhuman powers

We’ve seen our fair share of real-world exoskeletons that try to show how manual labor could be different in the future, even without the help of robots. True to the common image of these mechanical suits, these exoskeletons are often large, heavy armors that don’t trade comfort and flexibility for power, making them more tedious to use despite their advertised benefits. It doesn’t have to be like that, though, especially if you’re not aiming to lift heavy crates anyway. This exoskeleton, for example, doesn’t use batteries to move, making it better suited (no pun intended) for more recreational activities.

Designer: Skeletonics

Exoskeletons, at least those that aren’t works of fiction, are often designed to allow feeble humans to perform extraordinary feats. In most cases, it’s to enable work that would otherwise be impossible for a normal human being to perform, like lifting heavy objects. Sure, a robot arm or forklift could probably do that, too, but those would lack the finesse that comes naturally to humans. At the same time, there will be places where heavy machinery won’t be able to squeeze into to get the job done.

On the flip side, those suits, or sometimes just legs, aren’t exactly the most comfortable or the easiest to wear. In addition to the weight of the metal parts themselves, the exoskeletons are weighed down even more by batteries and electric motors that make the parts move. While they might be more agile than some industrial machines, they aren’t exactly more graceful than their purely mechanical counterparts.

Skeletonics is different in almost all aspects. It isn’t designed to be an industrial working tool, though it could help you carry and move some heavy objects, too. It is, instead, designed to augment the fluidity and precision of human movement, allowing humans to be stronger and reach farther than they normally could without turning them into a mechanical Hulk. It is also meant to be lightweight and easy to use, thanks to having no batteries or parts that need electricity to function.

Instead of electricity-powered motors, Skeletonics uses your body’s own kinetic energy to move its own limbs. In a way, it mirrors your arms’ and legs’ movement but also adds a bit of strength and length to it, but you are literally the one in the driver’s seat. It’s the difference between reaching for an object with your hand and using a joystick to move a robotic arm instead. The drawback is that Skeletonics can’t exactly be used as something like power armor for heavy lifting, but it can gracefully swing a baseball bat better than those.

The exoskeletons are, after all, envisioned to be used for different applications, particularly what is being called “superhuman sports” or augmented sports. At the same time, however, it could also be an opportunity to give people with physical disabilities a chance to participate in those events because they could use their own bodies and the superhuman abilities they developed to drive these battery-free machines. Best of all, Skeletonics offers an alternative way to drive these exoskeletons, and hopefully, there will come a time when we won’t have to choose between that more sustainable technology and mechanical power.

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The Flatpack OO Stool, Designed to Minimize Off-Cuts

The OO stool, by Rotterdam-based industrial designer S Mate Olah, is a flatpack, user-assembled stool made from bamboo plywood. Olah designed the cutting pattern to minimize the waste.

This image below…

…is admittedly a little deceptive, because it doesn’t depict the waste from the corners of the board. And I’d say the mallet could be omitted from the design; it’s essentially a single-use item, no?

In any case, the concept certainly leans in the right direction. And Olah recently posted this OO Coffee Table version:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CclsuHLIUue

Additionally, Olah and artist Viki Nagy run a Rotterdam-based art collective called 56 Hours, and you can see their work here.

Spotify Jukebox boasting a curved display brings house parties to your desk

Spotify has a user base of more than 406 million active users with 180 million subscribers in 184 markets. There’s a reason for the popularity of the music streaming service that other platforms have not achieved yet. The on-point algorithm for suggested music and playlists, user interface and most of all the Spotify Connect feature. The ability to play music and switch from one device to the other seamlessly (without a convoluted Bluetooth connection) is one thing I personally love about Spotify thanks to the Connect function.

While Spotify rules the roost in the audio streaming service market, there’s a compelling reason for the Stockholm-based giant to foray into its own tangible product. A jukebox or a compact audio player is a custom fit for the Spotify interface. Match that with the sublime audio quality – preferably with spatial audio software – and there’s going to be a further increase in the subscriber base in the coming years.

Designer: Design met Pit

This cool jukebox concept dubbed the Spotify Jukebox (or as I like to call it – the Juketify) carries the familiar theme of the audio streaming service’s branding. The light green and black color to be precise. To pep-up things, there is optional light green and off-white color theme as well. The gadget has a modern infusion of the curved display element and the classic radio vibe in the form of the knobs and buttons on top.

The user interface on the Spotify Jukebox is focused on the artist’s album art and the playlist songs. The lyrics appear on the major portion of the screen, so you can sing the song along to satiate your karaoke cravings every now and then. The play/pause, shuffle and battery level indicators allow the user to quickly toggle the options or glance over at the estimated playback time.

The large screen and the round volume button are the irresistible bits of this concept gadget. And yes, of course, it comes with the Connect feature to play from any connected device in a jiffy without any fuzz. I would definitely want to keep it on my work desk, and get that satisfying feeling of working as it plays Lo-Fi playlists with those nostalgic album arts putting me in the zone!

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What is the Shop Chair Version of an Aeron?

Steelcase, Herman Miller, Humanscale et al. employ armies of designers to perfect seating for office workers. Who designs seating for folks who work on shop floors, rolling across concrete rather than carpet? What’s the Aeron for a guy or gal who works on cars for a living, and needs coasters beefy enough to roll over dropped fasteners without catching?

I couldn’t find any dominant manufacturer with the aforementioned companies’ level of design staff, but I did come across this Robust Steel Max chair with quick-height adjustment by Vyper Industrial. Started by two brothers who saw a gap in the market, the Wisconsin-based company produces made-in-the-USA shop chairs with beefy components. Priced at $580, the Robust is several quality tiers above what you’d pick up at a big box store.

These can be tricked out with Vyper’s powder-coated steel Sidekick accessory ($100) to hold fasteners, small parts or drinks in steel cups on one side, and tools or shop rags in a bracket on the other side.

An optional Tool Tray (also $100) can be fitted beneath the chair’s legs, which then act as dividers.

Vyper also makes an aluminum version, which rings in at $655.

Check out more of their offerings here.