Ugly Duckling

What an aptly named lamp! The materials really do transform into something different. It's still a bird, but a very different bird.
With all the DIY, recycling, raw industrial materials stuff around this one really hits the nail on the head. It's austere but still a little playful. You can just see the hands screwing the different bits together, pulling wiring through the pipes, and painting the lampshades a matching yellow. This one makes me wish I knew the next thing about electrical wiring so I could make it too.
Also, nice details! The switch, and the use of curves to turn flat pipes into a stable, three-dimensional frame are just elegant.
Unfortuantely the chopped-off bottle lampshade leaves a little something to be desired, but isn't the lampshade the easiest thing to replace on a lamp? I am sure other plastic refuse could do nicely here. Or even a 1st use, real-live fabric lampshade?
Designed by Hong Kong-based designer Kamric. oh yeah, yoinked from designboom, here. thanks!

Glow Zoo

This would be nice to have at home. Even though I am an "adult".

Imaginary Place

from here

LBRB - the imaginary store

The left brain items are the rational-order-reality-based products. Sensible, in one word. Like an affordable, lightweight, sturdy folding chair.

The right brain items are the emotional-intuitive-fantasy-based things. Like plates with intricate decorations or an ottoman covered in scraggly wool that looks like it might come to life.

And then there's some objects that are really difficult to categorize because they're a little of both. Like this one:

hooty hooooo....

Awesome owl macrame adjustable necklaces. At $13.80 (this includes shipping) it's a sweet deal! My sausage fingers could never dream to produce something like this. That's right, my fingers have dreams too.
Turns out, the two women who make these little friends live in Argentina, and are the top most active "hearters" of things on etsy: 2284 pages and counting. FYI.
You can buy their 3 species of owl here.

It's all about the materials

Better late than never from the ICFF:

Nice to meet you, Mr. Willenz

The path of research often turns into a fractal pattern of tangents that lead you in ever growing circles somewhere not entirely different. In this case, I was researching lamps in the two bastions of indexed design, stylepark (Germany) and architonic (Switzerland), where you can bask in the reassuring glow of well organized information. I kept stumbling over the name Sylvain Willenz, and this is because I am, as it turns out, a fan of his work. Here is why:

1. print lamp for established&sons. made from 1 piece of blown glass which has a "built in" diffuser.
2. lock for tamawa. ashwood & bakelite. nuff said. (well, no: I like bakelite. it also comes in red.)
3. torch lamp for established&sons, 2008. soft plastic shell. floor, table, or suspension.
Sylvain Willenz hails form and works in Brussels.
4. homerun chair. also nice.
5. stuff bag. seamless flat rubber. also nice. want.

Mitsura Koga

„From Stones, serendipitous finds I picked up on the seashore I make work pieces. (...) Whenever I come across stones, I ask them what processes they went through. (...) I add special care to natural objects with the hope that the artificial process counterpoints the naturalness more. Vice versa the process seems to me to search for the position of human beings in nature.“

- Mitsuru Koga about these Sea Stone Works

Electricity is Magical

It certainly seems that way when you look at these lamps, and that is why I love them. They were designed by Jeremy Pyles for Niche Modern.Just for fun, take a moment to imagine if you would be able to sufficiently explain electricity to an alien if the life of the human race depended on it. (You can omit the part with the murdering alien if you like.)

This reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd law of predicition, which is as sensible as it is beautiful and gives me great hope that marvelously mind-boggling things are in store:
"3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

And that reminds me of Nikola Tesla as portrayed by David Bowie in The Prestige which was very good right up to the very end. Unfortunately, from my experience, this is rare in the science fiction genre. Maybe this one is so good because it's barely science fiction. Anyway, this one is worth seeing if you like magic and electricity:

One of the Ugliest Things in Every Apartment

Aside from this fitting well into my accidental motto of late ("Tubular"), these cords by NUD are fantastic. Simple, beautiful, and much needed. And so many colors! And why not? After all, it's just a cable.

Which reminds me of something I almost bought on eBay recently. It was a vintage electrical cord, covered in a black fabric tube, with a brown Bakelite plug and a round light switch. I didn't buy it in the end, because it had Euro-plugs (I found it on the Austrian eBay site), but it reminded me how beautiful these parts can be. Those bits are the shameful shortcomings of many a lamp. Being a fan of plastics and especially the old ones, a sweet ol' Bakelite switch is something I wish I could use more often. Or a new one in seafoam by NUB.

Oh, lovely old junk on eBay. Unfortunately I don't have that picture anymore but I've found a few other things on there that convey the vibe.

Knitting and Noodling (Combination of the Previous Two Posts, In a Way)

Phat Knits by Bauke Knotternus from the Netherlands. I believe this was his final project at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Furniture for my imaginary Dream Palace.

Maine Lobster Mat

These doormats are just beautiful. All the different colors should probably be used simultaneously. Somehow. These are pretty definitive of recycling:

"Each innovative doormat is handwoven in Maine with authentic float-rope originally used by lobstermen to tether their lobster traps. Unfortunately, float-rope can entangle whales, so Maine lobstermen are now required to replace their float-rope with "sink-rope". The old float-rope is being turned in, and rather than being dumped into landfills, the rope is being recovered and recycled into these unique doormats."

$34.95 is within reason at greendepot.com

LBRB

Left Brain - Right Brain

Imagine, I had a store. Imagine I had a concept for this store.
Here you have it: left brain, right brain.

This idea has been cruising about my own cerebral hemispheres for a while now and I am still very fond of it. The basic premise is that there are two opposite and complenting parts, each one fullfilling a requirement in design summed up in the distinctin between the left and the right halves of the brain. (see diagram.) Make sense?

I came up with this differentiation based on a dichotomy that I often perceive in design (the design of objects being mostly what I look at). There are those objects that are highly functional and efficient, simple, clean, well-working. These objects provide lot of satisfaction in the way they work, because that is exacty what they do: they work. They do what they are supposed to do, they do it well, and it's rather easy to define what it is they are doing.

On the other hand there are objects that we like for reasons that are more difficult to put into words. They achieve a more emotional satisfaction, through their beauty, the memories they evoke or perhaps their bizzare nature. And we need them both.

It is a distinciton I appreciate because I think these two aspects of design can get into eachother's way, and also because there is no way to define good design or a good thing without taking into account that there are polar reasons for why we might covet an object.

Also, I must admit, categorizing gives me great pleaseure. What more would be a better catogorizing guideline than a list of vague tendencies based on the most complex and mysterious organ of the most complex and mysterious lifeform on our lovely planet? (human hubris? but please...)

I hope that LBRB will leave room for everything, or at least everything that triggers my personal little neurons from the most indispensibly clever tools and inexplicably intriguing whatsits. Or things that are both at the same time??? Incroyable! Wait a minute... am I just talking about function and beauty?