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Over the years many have come to expect material innovation alongside considered design from Outlier. And for their latest bag, the brand has delivered just that. The incredibly lightweight and aptly named ,…

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Movie: Swedish designers Front have created a whisky-serving set for whisky brand Ballantine’s 12 that can be stacked into a balancing tower. In this Dezeen movie, Front’s Sofia Lagerkvist explains how the project was informed by a visit to the Ballantine’s production facilities in Scotland.

Called Ballance, Front‘s sculpture for Ballantine’s 12 year-old blended whisky comprises an oak coaster, whisky glass, copper ice container, water jug and a copper spoon that fit together to create a seemingly precarious stack. The five individual pieces can be taken apart and used to serve whisky.

“We were invited by Ballantine’s to create an object that celebrates the ritual of drinking whisky,” explains Lagerkvist in the movie.

“We have made hand-crafted objects that we have balanced on top of each other in a seemingly magical way. We really wanted to create a magical element to our object because we wanted to wake people’s curiosity about the whisky.”

Lagerkvist goes on to explain that several elements of the sculpture are informed by the whisky-making process itself.

“We went to Scotland to see the intricate production of making whisky,” she says. “We made a coaster that is a reference to the oak barrels that they use in the production.”

She adds: “The copper container, which is for the ice, relates to the copper stills.”

The square water jug is a reference to the distinctive shape of the Ballantine’s 12 bottle, Lagerkvist says, while for the whisky glass itself Front sought the advice of Ballantine’s master blender Sandy Hyslop.

“We asked the master blender what kind of glass he would prefer, what would be the ultimate glass for him,” Lagerkvist explains.

“He described a glass with a rounded bottom that you can keep in your hand, which warms the whisky and contributes to the flavour. It also has a slightly tapered top, which keeps the aroma close to the nose.”

See all our stories about Front »

The post “We wanted to wake people’s
curiosity about whisky” appeared first on Dezeen.

“Disegno e creo tappetti accoglienti, singolari e di qualità eccezionale. I miei tappeti sono fatti a mano nella mia boutique e possono essere personalizzati per soddisfare i vostri desideri”. Questa è la descrizione che Laure Kasiers, designer belga, ci fornisce nella pagina iniziale del suo sito e devo dire che trovo difficile affermare il contrario. Il suo lavoro segue l’artigianato “moderno” e la ripetizione modulare di una o più forme, come si può vedere nei diversi modelli presenti nel catalogo della sua linea.
Con “Tipi”, però, ha compiuto il primo passo verso una produzione industriale dei suoi prodotti.

Tenendo conto che Tipi è tuttora un oggetto di produzione completamente artigianale, la sua morfologia e il suo concept lo inseriscono senza problemi nel panorama del disegno industriale. Come si vede nelle immagini sottostanti, il progetto punta a stimolare l’immaginazione delle persone e la loro capacità di manipolare le forme proposte (esagono, due triangoli di diverse dimensioni e quadrato) in qualcosa di nuovo ogni volta.

Queste immagini mostrano alcuni esempi che Laure propone per utilizzare al meglio le potenzialità di Tipi e creare combinazioni, ma fidatevi, se vi sembrano tante, se ne possono creare molte altre! Tipi, infatti, è ampliabile all’infinito unendo semplicemente nuove parti attraverso le piccole giunzioni a bottone .

Pur essendo un prodotto di grande valore progettuale, Tipi rimane ancora senza produttore: forse perché è costoso da produrre a livello industriale, oppure perché è destinato prevalentemente all’uso dei bambini o in spazi creativi, o addirittura perché, pur essendo fatto di materiali ipoallergenici e ignifughi, è, come tutti i tappeti, un ottimo “acchiappa-polvere”.
Malgrado alcuni difetti, Laure ha sicuramente aggiunto innovazione nel campo del design dei tappeti, e questo va riconosciuto.

News: the inventor of an anti-diarrhoea pack for the developing world has replaced its innovative, award-winning packaging design with a simple screw-top jar.

Kit Yamoyo, an “aidpod” that won plaudits for the way its packaging slotted into the gaps between bottles in a Coca-Cola crate, is being repackaged to reduce costs and increase the number of retailers that stock the product.

“For our supporters who find this move disappointing, I ask you please to keep focussed on the greater good,” said social entrepreneur Simon Berry, who announced the move in a blog post yesterday. “Our primary purpose is not to win awards.”

Berry, whose ColaLife organisation developed Kit Yamoyo, wrote: “We listen, we learn and we act. What our customers, in poor, remote rural communities are telling us is that many of them cannot afford the subsidised price tag.  So the pressure is really on to seek every means to reduce costs.”

Despite winning multiple design awards in 2013 including the Design Museum’s Product Design of the Year Award and the Observer’s Ethical Product of the Year Award, Berry admitted that the novel strategy of distributing the life-saving product alongside Coca-Cola bottles wasn’t proving effective.

“Only 8% of retailers have ever put the kits in Coca-Cola crates to carry them to their shops,” he wrote. “This feature wasn’t the key enabler we thought it would be.”

The kit’s plastic blister packaging featured a removable film cover and a contoured container shaped to fit between cola bottles in a standard crate.

Referring to the numerous design accolades the product has garnered, Berry added: “I’d like to think we’d got these awards because of how the components of the Kit Yamoyo product and the packaging work so well together to meet the real needs of caregivers/mothers and children. The way the packaging is integral with the whole kit design, acting as a measure for the water needed to make up the ORS [oral rehydration salts], the mixing device, the storage device and cup.

“But deep down I suspect that it’s the fact that it fits into Coca-Cola crates that really gets the international community so excited. We totally understand this, that was our own starting point and that’s what got us really excited too. Initially.”

However Berry has concluded that putting the kit in a standard screw-top plastic jar would make it both cheaper to manufacture and more appealing to both retailers and consumers.

“At this point, the natural thing to do would be to relax and bask in the glory of all of this fabulous recognition of our work on something so meek as an anti-diarrhoea kit,” wrote Berry. “We are not designing sexy gadgets or cars after all.”

Kit Yamoyo also won this year’s Diamond Award at the DuPont Packaging Innovation Awards and an Innovation By Design award in the Social Good category.

The kit contains sachets of oral rehydration salts, zinc, soap and an instruction leaflet, with the packaging doubling as both a measuring device to mix the solution and a cup from which to drink it.

It provides effective treatment for diarrhoea, which kills more children in Africa than HIV, malaria and measles combined. The product has been trialled in poor villages in Zambia, where 25,000 kits have been sold.

Berry admitted in a radio interview last month that he was rethinking his distribution strategy and now feels that the reliance on Coca-Cola distribution has become a hindrance to adoption. “Interestingly, a move in this direction – away from the Coca-Cola crate – may help to make us more interesting to certain parts of the public health world who have seen the current Kit Yamoyo as a niche product that can ONLY be distributed in Coca-Cola crates,” he wrote on the ColaLife blog.

“This is not the case – the current Kit Yamoyo doesn’t have to go into Coca-Cola crates – but having a product format that does NOT fit into Coca-Cola crates may make the Kit Yamoyo more appealing to many in the public health sector.”

The new screw-top jar is made of preformed PET, which Colalife then adapt using their own mould. The product will continue to be distributed via crates in some markets.

The post Award-winning packaging ditched
in favour of jars appeared first on Dezeen.

News: London mayor Boris Johnson has declared that the city’s design schools will welcome Chinese students “with open arms”, following concerns that visa restrictions are putting off overseas talent.

Speaking at Beijing’s Peking University yesterday as part of a London trade mission to China, Johnson said: “I’m here to let students know that if they would like to study internationally, London’s world class higher education intuitions will welcome them with open arms.”

“Our creative hubs from Central Saint Martins to Royal College of Art are filled with a plethora of international artistic master minds shaping the designs of things to come,” he continued. “So I hope many young people take me up on the offer to expand their horizons and study in London.”

There is no cap on the number of international students that can study in the UK and 67,000 of the country’s current overseas students come from China, but recent changes to immigration rules have made it more difficult for them to remain in the UK after graduation.

This move has raised concerns amongst leading figures from London’s design institutions, who feel that part of the appeal to creative overseas students is the opportunity to stay in London upon completion of their studies.

In a Dezeen story earlier this month, leading figures on the London design scene raised concerns over new visa rules that make it harder for overseas students to stay in the city. “It would be a disaster for London,” said Nigel Coates, professor emeritus at the Royal College of Art. “It’s making it very, very difficult for AA students,” agreed Sadie Morgan, president of the Architectural Association school.

Johnson is understood to share the institutions’ concerns and convened a meeting with leading London arts schools this summer to discuss the issue, but the mayor has no influence over national immigration policy.

Last year writer and broadcaster Andrew Marr warned that the Royal College of Art will end up as a “Chinese finishing school” unless the UK government does more to encourage young people to study art and design.

Image of City Hall, Boris Johnson’s headquarters in London, is courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Mayor urges Chinese students
to study design in London appeared first on Dezeen.