Hasta La Ideas

A presentation of flea market treasures as part of the quest to identify Balkan design.

El Turco Digital is a fresh creative company based in Istanbul, Turkey that develops and creates digital ideas (viral campains, online documentaries, etc.). The collective explains that they’re “analogue people in a digital world, bringing zeros+ones and textures close together.”

One of the many details exposed in the Apartament during the “Balkan Design Wedding”—the Turkish lucky eye or “nazar,” a charm that is meant to protect against the “evil eye.”

For Sofia Design Week, the team relocated their creative base to the Apartament—literally working out of an apartment that has served, for several decades, as a very popular hang out place for the creative minds in Sofia. A follow-up to last year’s project, “Balkan Design is Still Virgin,” sets out on “a quest to identify Balkan design.”

One of the rooms of the Apartament.

Apart from many discussions and the presentations of ETD’s findings of what they found on their quest to identify Balkan design, the main installation in the Apartament was a staged wedding party—with hopes to finally “deflower” Balkan design. As the invite proclaimed, “We marry tradition off to innovation!” Check out more images of the party after the jump as well as an awesome video for the project!

(more…)

Nice multifunctional designs—some production, some concepts—from the Belgian design studio of ID’er Alain Monnens, Idam Bvba:

The FlipTable (above) is simple, stackable, and flippable, tipping from desk height to side-table height.

The ServiceBin (manufactured by Wild Spirit) is a stool, or a wastebasket, or a storage bin, or a planter, and the top pops off to become a service tray.

(more…)

A strange source of inspiration: Belgian designer Danny Venlet’s Google Desk has a shape that was apparently inspired by the Google search window in the top right of your browser.

Venlet reportedly designed it for Italian manufacturer Babini Office, though at press time there was no mention of the product on either of their websites. And as far as we can tell, despite the desk’s name and provenance there’s been no official tie-in with Google.

Microsoft being Microsoft, there’s surely going to be talk of a competing Bing desk; perhaps theirs will somehow be shaped like a blinking cursor.

(more…)

Incase is one of our favorite bag & case companies, and now they’re getting into the audio game. This September, the Incase Soundesign line of headphones will hit store shelves, offering four levels of product from earbuds for gym-goers to DJ-worthy over-ear headphones. (Product shots and specs after the jump.)

Chris Robinette, Incase’s Vice-President of Product, gave us the scoop:

Core77: What made Incase decide to get into the headphones game?

Chris: We saw that more and more people are using headphones with their personal technology, and thought that there were clear needs in the headphone market that weren’t being addressed well by others. Incase is in the business of creating better experiences with similar technologies, so we applied our same fundamental principles of simplicity, innovation and enhanced mobility to headphone design.

Basically, we envision how people live, zero in to extract the essence of the problem, and work to provide product experiences that simplify and enhance their lives. In this case, bulky headphone designs that fit poorly, often coupled with limited audio response. Our solution was to produce a truly unique line of headphones that stand apart from the rest of the market, focusing on clean aesthetics, natural sound and excellent fit.

(more…)

Remember the portable record players we showed you back in April? The design innovation was that the normally-enclosed record platter would be largely exposed, with just the “reader” element, the needle, enclosed in the body.

Our favorite semi-finalist in the Electrolux Design Lab 2011 competition takes this same design principle and applies it to that most New York of breakfasts, the bagel. Behold the Salvé Bagel Toaster, designed by Kent Madden of Carleton University:

The new portable bagel toaster is especially convenient for those who can’t find time to eat breakfast in the morning. Place a bagel in the toaster and it will automatically start rotating. When happy with the color of the freshly toasted bagel, simply remove and enjoy. The toaster is very energy efficient being run on sugar crystal batteries or recharged on a ceramic dock using induction. Now there are no excuses for missing the most important meal of the day!

You can check out more of Madden’s stuff on Coroflot.

(more…)