Hasta La Ideas

SDWorks is a commercial platform attached to Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design, with two professors from that school having set the operation up in 2007. Writes Bernat Cuni, a Mediterranean designer based in Hong Kong and affiliated with the school,

SDWorks looks for cool and nice ideas from students, refines them, put them into production and sells the products. Then, the benefits are shared among the student, tutor and university. It is good, a fair way to bring to life the product ideas that are being generated within the school.

…The design and development is done within the university facilities, enriched by its staff’s expertise, while the production and sales is powered by the University’s network of quality suppliers and professionals.

Their latest project chosen for production is third-year student Cheuk Kee Lai’s cool LED Mirror Watch, the surface of which is an ordinary mirror that reveals the time when the user presses a button. (The designer noticed that the need to wear a watch was diminishing, as everyone now carries time-telling cell phones, and thus came up with the additional functionality of a mirror.) Check it out:

The Mirror Watch recently took Silver in the 2009 Spark Awards and won a 2009 China’s Most Successful Design Award. Next up: It’s going on sale, to be launched next week at Detour, Hong Kong’s Business of Design Week outreach program.

thanks bernat!

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