Hasta La Ideas

Industrial designers Adrienne McNicholas and Michelle Ivankovic have launched a range of silicone caps designed to preserve leftover fruit and vegetables (+ slideshow).

Named Food Huggers, the brightly coloured caps slip over half-eaten tomatos, lemons, apples or kiwi fruit to form a seal with the cut side, keeping the natural juice in so the food stays fresh for longer.

The upper edges wrap around the produce to keep the caps in place and the four different sizes overlap slightly to there’s a good fit for any item.

There’s also an Avocado Hugger with a bobble that fits over the stone if it’s protruding or presses inwards if the stone has been removed.

The soft caps nest neatly inside each other for storage and come in four different colour palettes.

The products are available through Kickstarter until Friday 13 July.

Other clever kitchenware on Dezeen includes an extendable egg tray, an espresso maker for the microwave and silicone dishes for steaming food.

See more stories about kitchenware »
Read our Food and Design report we produced with Scholtès »

The post Food Huggers by Adrienne McNicholas
and Michelle Ivankovic appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: colourful LED torches shaped like the handlebar grips of BMX bicycles by British designer Alexander Taylor have gone into production with Hong Kong brand Praxis.

“I had a BMX until I was about 14,” says Taylor. “I still have a certain nostalgia for its mushroom grip handlebars. It just made perfect sense to make a torch based around that.”

A circular funnel that directs the light from the LED is attached to the ribbed silicone handles that give the torches their name.

The red version of the torch was first launched at The Conran Shop during London Design Festival 2012.

Praxis is a new brand specialising in small silicone objects. It’s also producing a selection of small pots that can’t be left open by Slovakian designer Tomas Kral and bird-like containers by Swedish designers TAF.

See all our stories about silicone products »

Photographs are by Alexander Taylor Studio.

The post Grip Torch by Alexander Taylor
for Praxis appeared first on Dezeen.

Having made a playful name for itself with its ultra-thin Flat watches, Ops! Objects has most recently added to its silicone and jumbo gem family with the Rock collection. The oversized rocks point to the hyperbolic notion of “bling” with a light attitude and bright colors. Swapping out precious…

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Take tea in serene silence with this silicone set by Hong Kong studio Kitmen Keung.

Silicone Duo deadens the noise of putting down a cup or stirring in sugar, with a stirrer made of steel coated in silicone and a large rectangular silicone coaster.

The coaster slopes inwards at one end to prevent the stick rolling away.

See more work by Kitmen Keung here.

Photography is by Greg Lin.

Here are some more details from Kitmen Keung:

Designed To Be Silent

Design studio Kitmen Keung has developed a silicone-made coaster and stirrer set for quiet public working spaces like office and library. Drink packs are commonly seen in an office nowadays where people are regularly in need of a quick cup of tea, coffee, chocolate milk, etc. whether or not during snack time or more often, in the middle of a long-hour work.

Due to this, mugs, coasters and stirrers have become inevitable drinking utensils in office. However, the fact that mugs and stirrers usually generate noises inspires a review of the connection amongst the two in a quiet public working environment like office or library.

Starting from such a point, the duo set, then, is designed to be silent, which consists of a coaster and a stirring stick. The 5mm thick coaster is made purely from silicone in an ordinary 4:5 ratio rectangular shape, and the stick is made of a thin steel rod wrapped in a layer of 1.5mm thick silicone skin. The coaster provides a 3cm wide secondary corrugated surface in the form of an inwards sloping edge, which neatly pulls the round-shaped stick towards and in parallel with the carved slots much like a magnet.

The softness of silicone material absorbs sounds when mug, stirrer and coaster hitting each other, which enables the whole stirring process proceeds silently in the quiet working environment.

Made from 100% food grade silicone
Endurable temperature: -40°C ~ 230°C

These lamps are turned on when you pull their nipples.

The felt pieces by designer Naama Arbel have silicon covers over the switches and LED light source.

The switches must be pulled outwards to turn the lamps on and pushed inwards to turn them off.

Arbel designed the series while studying at Seminar Hakibbutzim in Israel.

Here’s some more information from the designer:

The series is composed of five different amorphous and geometries creatures.

The objects suggest different approach to the interaction of human with lighting. This new approach emphasises the human touch, the game and the sensual experience to intensify the general experience.

The product is handmade and produced using traditional felt techniques.

Those objects, which are made of felt, take us back to our childhood games and our basic needs. The light creatures awaken by touch. They are activated by stretching the silicon nipple which activates the lighting mechanism. Leaving the nipple will result turning it off.

The lightning mechanism which was developed for this project is built from combining “REVEL” LEDs and an electronic device that controls the lightning volume.

The device is connected by wire to the silicon nipple. When pulling the nipple the wire is stretched and activates the light volume control.

See also:

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Leone Series 01 by Lanzavecchia + Wai	Rhubarb by Emma Marga Blanche	Growing Vases by Nendo for Lasvit