Hasta La Ideas

Product News: the Pebble smartwatch, the project that raised the most money ever on crowd-funding platform Kickstarter, has gone into mass production and is set to begin shipping on 23 January.

Pebble Technology CEO Eric Migicovsky made the announcement yesterday in a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which was broadcast to the project’s backers via a live stream that you can watch here.

“We’ll be manufacturing at the top rate of 15,000 Pebbles per week,” he said, meaning it will take six to eight weeks to ship products to the project’s backers, after which the company will begin fulfilling pre-orders placed via their website.

New features announced include a magnetometer for compass-like functions and ambient light sensors, plus an accelerometer so the back-light can be activated by tapping or flicking the wrist.

The Pebble smartwatch syncs with an iPhone or Android device, allowing users to wirelessly operate the phone and alerting them to incoming calls, text messages, emails and push notifications from apps. It can also tell the time.

The production version has a 32 millimeter LCD screen with a monochrome, back-lit e-paper display covered by a polycarbonate lens. The interface is controlled by buttons on the sides, with “up”, “select” and “down” functions on the right and the “back” button on the left.

It’s waterproof enough to wear swimming thanks to a magnetic charger that means there are no holes in the case and it runs for seven days on one charge. It comes in red, white, black, orange and grey, and the polyurethane strap can be interchanged with any standard watch strap.

In May 2012, Pebble became the most funded Kickstarter project of all time and raised $10,266,845 from 68,929 people in just over one month. The product was originally meant to ship in September 2012, but the company blamed the missed deadline on the unexpectedly high numbers they had to produce after the funding campaign’s runaway success.

Interest in watches that sync with phones has been growing, with rumours speculating that Apple may be working on a smartwatch and products like the LunaTik for converting an iPod into a watch already on the market. See all our stories about watches.

Another product launch that’s been attracting a lot of attention at the Consumer Electroncs Show, which continues until tomorrow, is a fork for dieters that vibrates when you eat too much or too fast.

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smartwatch goes into production appeared first on Dezeen.

Product News: these chairs with metal frames wrapped in continuous cords by Israeli designer Rami Tareef have gone into production with Israeli design brand Gaga & Design.

Rami Tareef’s COD chair prototypes were first featured by Dezeen in 2011, and Gaga & Design is preparing to launch a dining chair and an easy chair at the imm cologne trade fair next week.

The chairs’ geometric patterns are created by wrapping and weaving cord around steel frames.

Tareef created the chairs using techniques he learned from a wicker craftsman in Jerusalem.

We’ve previously featured crocheted furniture made with yarns of PVC, tape and washing lines as well as a tubular steel chair made with techniques for making bamboo furniture.

See all our stories about chairs »
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Photographs are by Gaga & Design and Ariel Caine.

Here’s some more information from the designer:

COD by Rami Tareef for Gaga & Design at the imm Cologne fair 2013

COD is furniture collection of two chairs made from tubular steel structure woven with synthetic sleeve. The collection comprises a dining chair and easy chair designed and developed by Rami Tareef during the last two years. When Gaga & Design showed an interest in the project, the designer and the brand collaborated to finish the development process and bring the collection to the market.

The design is based on traditional weaving techniques. One of the designer’s goals was to preserve the handmade and craft values to keep these traditions present in contemporary design. The geometric forms identified with the design language were created by deconstructing the technique while examining the relationship between the chair’s structure and the continuously woven sleeve. The chairs will be unveiled at the imm cologne fair in 2013 under the brand name Gaga & Design.

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for Gaga & Design appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: different modular elements stack up to make these pendant lamps by Croatian design studio Grupa (+ movie).

The mix and match lamps by Grupa are called ILI-ILI, which means “either-or”.

There are six modular elements to be combined in various ways.

Each module, made from powder-coated aluminium, is available in blue, green, yellow or grey,& in three shades of each colour.

Grupa was founded in Zagreb in 2006 by Filip Despot, Tihana Taraba and Ivana Pavic.

Similar products we’ve featured recently include stackable vessels made from marble, cut glass and 3D printed resin and a set of stackable lamps made from wood and recycled glass.

We’ve also featured lots of hanging lamps on Dezeen, such as a lamp made from ten metres of coiled electrical cord and another made from concrete and wood.

See all our stories about lamps »
See all our stories about design »

Here’s some more information from the designers:

The Studio Grupa is well-known Croatian design trio consisting of Tihana Taraba, Ivana Pavic and Filip Despot. They have presented several products over the last few years, presenting exceptionally good design with reasonable prices, thus creating original yet affordable designer products.

Grupa has a new product, series of lamps named ILI-ILI (EITHER-OR) which brings a completely new concept of the DIY approach to the Croatian lighting-fixtures market, i.e. design hanging fixtures, considering that their project enables the buyer to mix and match both shapes and colors. The designers created a concept based on six fundamental modular elements, different dimensions and diameters that can be mutually paired and combined, thus providing unlimited possibilities.

As the designers explain in their own words: “It’s possible to assemble six different elements through the simple act of linking them together, hence creating various lighting fixtures. The forms are adjusted according to dimensions, so they fit each other, while the elements are mutually connected with carrying clasps.”

In addition to matching and pairing various elements it’s also possible to combine several colour modules. The designers selected a spectrum of blue, green, yellow, and grey, through three shades of each. As the very photos illustrate, the color shades and their mutual combinations, with the six abovementioned forms, offer solutions that can be applied and used in various situations. The final choice of the product’s elements can lean towards either one colour or be complemented in a multi-coloured combination, always varying in form and shape.

This innovative approach towards the flexibility of the product and one’s own choice, along with the constant possibility of upgrading or changing, already known to the international market, conceptually aims at a wide spectrum of application and provides the user with a product that’s all but run-of-the-mill and boring.

“With the help of a recognisable manufacturing technique of metallurgy grinding and the traditional manufacturing art, the product is handmade from aluminium and powder coated in twelve different matte shades. Combining the traditional production technique with contemporary design opens up the possibility for users to design their own ideal combination, the choices are extensive, and as the name of the product states, it’s possible to mix and match them EITHER this way OR that.”

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by Grupa appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: the first piece to be produced by Barcelona studio Lagranja Design is an armchair inspired by classic Danish design.

The Basic Armchair is described by Lagranja Design as a “gentle interpretation of the Danish archetype”, with a “Mediterranean touch” seen in its upward-flicking armrests.

It was originally made for the lobby of the Chic & Basic Hotel that the studio designed just off La Ramblas in Barcelona.

The armchair is made of solid beech, with a seat and back upholstered in fabric or leather selected by the client.

We recently featured a collection of colourful mix and match furniture created by Lagranja for Spanish brand Sistema Midi.

Other armchairs we’ve published on Dezeen include a curvy seat designed to look like an app and a pleated leather seat inspired by the puffed shoulders of Renaissance costumes.

See all our stories about chairs »
See all our stories about furniture »

Photographs are by Meritxell Arjalaguer and Fotodisenny.

Here’s some more information from Lagranja:

Basic Armchair

It is basic twice. Once because is been expressly designed for the Chic & Basic Hotel lobby, one of our latest interior design projects. Twice because it is the minimal yet acceptable image of an armchair. A gentle interpretation of the Danish archetype… of course with a Mediterranean touch.

The Basic Armchair is the very first object produced by lagranja. How did we get there? It is the purest expression of a need. While furnishing the hotel lobby we were fighting with a very tight budget, and we couldn’t find any armchair that fit the budget and that we liked, so we decided to design and produce the best piece we could within our budget constraint.

It is a solid beech wood structure armchair with matte water varnish finishing. The seat and back are upholstered in fabric or leather, with possibility of using fabric indicated by the client. The fabrics for this armchair have been selected among the best collections of the most exclusive firms.

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Lagranja Design appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: German designer Sebastian Scherer used sheets of coloured glass to create these tessellating tables.

Sebastian Scherer’s Isom tables consist of a hexagonal top resting on three upright pieces, and from certain angles look like an isometric drawing of a cube.

The sheets of blue, green, grey and bronze coloured glass are glued together with UV adhesive.

The translucent layers overlap to create varying colour intensities.

The tables are available in two heights, and the lower version is also available in an elongated shape.

Sebastian Scherer studied product design in Aachen before moving to Berlin, where he set up his studio in 2010.

Other glass tables we’ve featured on Dezeen include one with legs based on a Japanese puzzle and another that’s almost invisible.

See all our stories about tables »
See all our stories about furniture »

Here’s some more information from the designer:

Sebastian Scherer’s glass tables are design objects and pieces of art at the same time. They resemble cubistic objects and invite us to play with optical illusions. The tables are made from 10 mm strong coloured glass in blue, green, grey and bronze. The construction is as simple as ingenious. A hexagonal glass top lays on three vertical rectangles, that meet in the center.

The dark reflecting cut surfaces build rhombuses, which evoke the illusion of an isometric cube. This effect increases by the overlaying transparent colours varying in their intensity depending on your perspective. The table with multiple colours and the set impress most. Isom is available in two sizes, 60 cm in diameter, 25 cm high, and 120 cm in diameter, 35 cm high.

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Sebastian Scherer appeared first on Dezeen.