Hasta La Ideas

Any art/design student worth their salt has already purchased an ArtBin Essentials Two-Tray Box from us at Hand-Eye Supply. Right? And if you lost it you bought another one from us because you love us and want to support us.

But maybe just one or two of you are looking for something different to tote your art supplies around in, or maybe you’ve already purchased so much stuff from our well-curated Design Supplies collection that you want to give someone else a chance. In that case, check out the LockMed, a toteable lockbox designed for people who consume lots of medication (or illicit drugs) and want to keep them away from their children.

The LockMed doesn’t have any interior trays to neatly sort your art supplies, but it has other benefits. It’s a great way, in a shared studio space, to publicly express distrust of your deskmates: Before going to the bathroom make a big show of locking up your pencils, then unlock them when you return just two minutes later.

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Similar in minimalist philosophy (if not in form) to JRuiter + Studio’s city bike is this Gravity Bike by Jeff Tiedeken, a.k.a. Monkey Likes Shiny.

As you can see there’s no drivetrain and the crank has been locked, with the pedals replaced with mere foot peg holders. In testing, Tiedeken has reportedly done 60 m.p.h. plus on this thing. Someone get this man a GoPro camera.

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Making business cards out of wood isn’t new, and you can see a massive roundup of them here, but we like Wisconsin design student Staci Paul’s mahogany-stained plywood take on them, below:

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I used to drive an ambulance, and even though we wore latex gloves, after particularly gory calls we’d scrub our hands pretty good in the hospital sink. In order to completely disinfect your mitts you were supposed to wash for a predetermined amount of time: Believe it or not, the rule was to play “Yankee Doodle Dandy” in your head and you stopped lathering only when the tune ended. (Now every time I hear that song I picture blood, vomit and less pleasant bodily fluids.)

Dave Hakkens’ Break Soap concept made me think of this. Hakkens’ idea is that you only break off a small piece at a time, to avoid “contaminating” the rest of the soap. But I think this could also be applied in a healthcare setting where caregivers could be required to use precise dosages of soap, ending the washing only when the entire piece had dissolved.

Then again, no hospital I’ve ever been in had bar soap, as there’s a danger of contaminating the rest of the bar while initiating your wash. Oh well. Maybe a Pez-type dispenser is required, but Hakkens, I think you’re onto something here.

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The Double-Dip Bench, by Toronto-based design firm Fishtnk, features a felt cushion woven through slats in the frame to provide hanging storage. The pouches have a measure of adjustability, though of course the overall collective depth is fixed; lengthen one pouch and another grows shorter.

We also dig some earlier Fishtnk pieces…

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