This award-winning portable camp-stove opens up with a single push

Posted on 16/07/2020 by Sarang Sheth

The Herbet Portable Stove’s interlocking tripod design HAS to be one of the most interesting takes on stoves I’ve seen in a while. All it takes to deploy the stovetop is to push the opposite ends together and watch the two tripods expand, creating a stable base as well as a stable stovetop to rest utensils. Made from laser-cut and sheet-folded stainless steel, the Herbet is all about championing portability, with a compact and lightweight design.

At just 40mm in diameter, the Herbet’s cylindrical closed-design is absolutely perfect for carrying along in your backpack (you could slide it into your bottle-holder too, if you wanted). Once you’re at the site, just push down on the two ends of the stove and it expands sideways (sort of like a car-jack but in 3 dimensions), making it ready to use. A pipe outlet at the base lets you connect the stove to any fuel source, while the stable tripod design lets you rest any sort of utensil above the Herbet. Once you’re done, wait for the Herbet to cool off (it’s made of metal, after all) before pulling on the two ends to make the stove’s legs collapse back into a compact, long cylinder that slides right back into your backpack or car’s glove box for another day!

The Herbet Portable Stove is a winner of the A’ Design Award for the year 2019.

Designer: Idan Herbet

Award-winning designs from the A’ Design Awards 2020 that give us hope of a better world

Posted on 16/05/2020 by Sarang Sheth

Bringing you a bit of positivity amidst these uncertain times, the A’ Design Awards 2020 announced their results for the year. Spanning literally a hundred categories, the A’ Design Awards look at creating a holistic list of the best designs internationally, across all disciplines. While the Coronavirus has definitely put a damper on awards who are looking to conduct exhibitions and gala nights for their winners, that hasn’t stopped the A’ Design Award from making sure their winners get their share of the international limelight!

The A’ Design Award and Competition is more than just an awards program. It actively seeks good design, markets it, brings value to the project as well as the designer in the form of a wide range of value-added services like a dedicated PR Campaign, an online exhibition, and even a platform to sell your design on… and these perks aren’t just limited to the design, they extend to the designers and creators too. Your participation entitles you to a proof-of-creation document, inclusion in A’ Design’s Business Network, and the Design Fee Calculator service that lets you accurately price your design services for clients.

Judged by a grand jury of 218 elite designers and educators, here are a select few of A’ Design Award and Competition 2020’s winners. We’ve hand-picked some of our favorites from this year’s list of winners spanning categories such as Product Design, Social Design, Tech, Furniture, Medical, and Installation Design. Scroll down below to have a look at what’s making the waves this year in the design circuit! And don’t forget to register below to participate in the competition for 2020-21 to make sure your work as well as you get the recognition you deserve!

Grab an Early-bird Registration for A’ Design Awards 2020 by clicking here!

Below: YD Handpicks Winning Designs from A’ Design Awards 2019-20

0.1 Butterfly Aircraft Seat by James Lee

It’s sheerly uncanny timing that the Butterfly Aircraft Seat, submitted last year, could nail the exact specifics of what’s needed in airline seats today! James Lee’s design uses partitions between seats to allow both passengers to enforce social distancing, and the seats are slightly offset too, with individual armrests so there’s really no situation where you could accidentally come in contact with the person behind you. Clever, eh??

02. Millo One Blender by Millo Appliances

Practically defying the laws of physics, the Millo is perhaps the most futuristic blender I’ve seen. For starters, it’s sleek, and is dominated by aesthetic, flat surfaces, with absolutely no exposed mechanical parts. The blender is divided into two units. The base, a pristine, flat dock with no control panel or even a driving socket and its second part, the glass, a stylish Nutribullet-esque container that connects to the base using wireless technology. Just load your smoothie ingredients into the Millo, screw the top on, and rest it inverted on the base… and just like a phone starts charging the moment you rest it on a wireless-charging surface, the Millo begins whirring and blitzing all your ingredients into a fine smoothie. You can control the Millo’s intensity by sliding your finger around the rim of the base, as lights under the surface come to life, letting you see what power you’re running the blender at. When you’re done, lift the blender up and the blade magically stops spinning. It’s a sight to absolutely admire!

03. Superegg Installation by Jaco Roeloffs

The Superegg is an installation that vividly expresses our addiction for consumption and how it’s affecting nature. The installation comes in the shape of an egg, resembling nature, but step closer and you notice that the egg’s constructed from 3000 Nespresso and Keurig coffee pods. The pods, made of plastic and aluminum, are designed to be single-use and often find themselves becoming a major part of the waste that enters our ocean. Designer Jaco Roeloffs constructed the egg using 9 plywood wheels to provide the structure with shape, and 64 aluminum strips that he then mounted the coffee-pods onto. The installation looks beautiful during the day, but absolutely comes alive at night when lights inside it shine, causing the egg to glow and create absolutely mesmeric shadows against the sand, effectively turning waste into something beautiful.

04. Voronoi Bicycle Helmet by Zhecheng Xu and Yuefeng Zhou

Designed to maximise shock absorption while minimizing material used, the Voronoi Helmet employs generative design to create a helmet using a voronoi mesh. The mesh forms an outer impact-absorbing layer around a hard-hat, giving you extra cushioning in the event of an accident. It even allows air to flow through, keeping your head ventilated while you’re riding your bike!

05. Arc Guitar Stand by Hung Yuan Chang

The Arc Guitar Stand has an incredible sculptural quality to it, which is unusual for a product that’s usually designed to be really functional. A guitar stand is usually quite an unassuming product that fundamentally exists as a background element to the guitar, which sits atop it. With the Arc, the stand has an aesthetic appeal that makes it look beautiful even when there isn’t a guitar resting on it. Besides, its design does a pretty good job of propping up the instrument too!

06. Waving Multifunctional Speaker by RuiWang Xiang

Is it a speaker? Is it a stand? Is it a stationery-mat? How about all three? The Waving Multifunctional Speaker is just a really cleverly designed product that works as a speaker, but also uses its form and surfaces to provide additional functions. For starters, it comes with a slide-out element at the back that lets you wedge your phone into the speaker in landscape or portrait. If that wasn’t enough, the speaker’s wavy textured surface makes it great for resting pens and miscellaneous stationery on. Pretty neat, if you ask me.

07. Sada Hubless Foldable Bike by Gianluca Sada

The Sada Hubless Bike’s unique foldable design allows it to fold down to a form that’s barely larger than a beach umbrella. While currently in the prototype phase, future versions of the bike will be built in aluminum and carbon fiber, making it as light as it is compact, so you can quite literally ride the bike when you need, and carry it around like a skateboard when you don’t!

08. Zhiwen Wearable Thermometer by Wei Gu And Di Wu

The Zhiwen thermometer lets you constantly monitor the temperature of its wearer using wireless technology. Designed to be small enough to permanently sit on the skin without causing much discomfort, the thermometer beams its readings to a control unit that allows you to check the wearer’s temperature, as well as the thermometer’s overall battery. When the thermometer runs out of charge, just take it off and slide it into the charging hub located right within the control unit!

09. Black Hole Speaker by Arvin Maleki and Ayda Mohseni

Behold the Black Hole Speaker… designed to attract your attention the way a black hole attracts all mass. Based on the design of the Harman Kardon Aura, with a few tweaks and changes to give it intergalactic appeal, the Black Hole sports a warped torus design, with a hyperbolic base, and quite literally a black hole at the very center of the torus. The Black Hole speaker comes with a speckled design on its black base that resembles stars being pulled into the void, along with a concentric ripple texture that is symbolic of a black hole’s ability to create ripples in time and space. It’s all incredibly symbolic! The speaker runs on Bluetooth (because there are no wires in outer space), and if you dare to approach it, there’s a control panel around its event horizon.

10. Dengo Chocolate Bar by Brazil & Murgel Design Studio

Have you ever heard of chocolate so good it won an award? Well the Dengo Chocolate Bar didn’t win one for taste, but it surely did one for its innovative approach to segmentation! The 80g chocolate bar deviates from the basic grid system that most bars have, and opts for an organic texture that’s actually inspired by the cacao bean. You kinda have to agree that the result is just simply eye-catching and mouth-watering!

Grab an Early-bird Registration for A’ Design Awards 2020 by clicking here!

This no-screws Dougong Table assembles like Lego and looks like art

Posted on 16/02/2020 by Ruchi Thukral

Alright, who is ready for a table that looks like art and does not come with a frustrating IKEA assembly guide? Because Boston-based designer Mian Wei has created this beautiful piece of furniture that marries minimal aesthetic with cultural heritage. The Dougong blocks from ancient Chinese architecture play a central role in the build and concept of the grid table – think of it as an advanced Lego challenge! Mian Wei won the Silver A’Design Award for this grid table in the homeware and furniture category, showcasing his exceptional skills as a multimedia artist who brings to life ideas that blend industrial design and emotions seamlessly.

This is a no screws assembly – yes – there is no need to keep a track of the different screw sizes and the tiny anvil! The grid table relies on the ages-old Dougong method of interlocking blocks so effectively that it not only distributes weight evenly but also lays a strong foundation while experiencing history. The supporting structure (Dougong) is made of modular parts that can be easily disassembled and reassembled in need of storage and moving. The bracket connectors (Gong) slide easily into the beams (Dou) to form the weight-bearing structure and retain structural integrity when the table is being lifted. It is made of ash, maple, and plywood which brings tone and texture ‘to the table’ (I just had to take that opportunity!).

“This project, on the one hand, tries to go back to the root to reinvestigate the practicality and scalability and bring new life to the ancient tradition. On the other hand, the project seeks to explore new aesthetic possibilities of the structure with modern forms and production techniques” says Mian Wei. The grid table gives form to the visual of wisdom and can be a stand-alone accent piece in the room (while also holding your tea and books!) without being too bold. The table is minimal yet so intricate in what can only be described as ‘engineered art’. As the owner builds the table, the complexity fades away, and the sensible nature reveals itself – the complete opposite of what I have ever felt while assembling the simplest chest of drawers in my home.

Designer: Mian Wei

10 of our favorite Furniture Design Projects from the A’ Design Awards 2019

Posted on 15/02/2020 by Sarang Sheth

Here are a few of our favorite winners from the Furniture Design category at last year’s A’ Design Award and Competition. Now the purpose of this roundup is twofold. If you’re a fan of furniture design (either as a design lover, or as a furniture designer yourself), go ahead and bookmark this page for inspiration, or add these images to your Pinterest by clicking the Pin button at the top left of any image. The second purpose is to spark your imagination and get those creative juices flowing so that one day, you could design something worthy of a design award.

Now if you DO have a design that’s relatively new or gathering dust in your portfolio, leveraging its creative appeal to win a design award can actually do wonders for your career. You’re just in time to send your work over to the A’ Design Awards. The multidisciplinary design award program spans a whole variety of categories, ranging from the traditional design disciplines like furniture, interiors, architecture, lighting, consumer tech, to more niche areas like social design, differently-abled design, education design, and even jewelry design. The international award program is hosted every year, with a grand interdisciplinary jury of 209 experts from different fields. The awards program is currently on the last leg of its 2019-2020 run, and the deadline for submitting your work is less than two weeks away! So if you’ve got yourself a great design with a lot of potential, go ahead and let it boost your career and brand! If not, don’t worry! This showcase should provide enough creative fodder to motivate and inspire you!

Register to participate in the A’ Design Awards now! Hurry, this is your last chance to win an A’ Design Award in 2020! Deadline: February 28th, 2020.

01. Lollipop Armchair by Natalia Komarova

I couldn’t agree more with Natalia Komarova’s statement that inspiration can literally come from anywhere. The idea for the Lollipop Armchair came to her when she was visiting the Sweet Museum. The chupa-chups shape forms the basis of the armrests and the back and seat are made in the form of classic candies. The purpose of the chair is to add a splash of playfulness and color to interior spaces, and from the looks of how inviting (and delicious) it looks, I’d say it does a remarkably good job!

02. Lunule Chair by Arsalan Ghadimi

In South-Eastern countries, it is more common for people to sit cross-legged on the floor than to sit on chairs. Not only is this an integral part of their culture, but it is supposed to be quite good for the posture too! Drawing inspiration from the tradition of his country, Iranian designer Arsalan Ghadimi created the Lunule Chair. Featuring a wooden frame with leather-lined cushions, the chair incorporates the tradition of sitting cross-legged. Its circular form provides the perfect structure to place the lower half of our bodies onto, with sufficient space for our knees and legs as well! The doughnut-like seat evenly distributes the force exerted upon our body when we sit, enabling us to maintain a solid posture. A backrest with a soft foam cushion can be attached to the Lunule Chair, paired up with the already ergonomic form of the chair, this provides further support to our caudal vertebrae and waist.

03. Symphony Number 7 Art Chair by Ting-Hsian Chen

Similar in spirit to the Butterfly Chair by Eduardo Garcia Campos, the Symphony 7 Chair is inspired by the softness and sweetness of the 7th Symphony by Beethoven. The rocking chair is made from a pipe frame, and comes with leather cushioning, combining comfort, strength, and an incredibly organic skeletal design that makes for a great silhouette. The chair looks even beautiful when paired together with another of its kind, creating a beautiful symmetry!

04. Intermodality Desk by Attila Stromajer

Inspired by the prominent role and place of grand pianos in homes, the Intermodality desk is just as grand. With a design that follows the cues of the large instrument, the desk comes with a similar shape, size, and even features a large lid that opens sideways, like in a grand piano. Standing on three legs, like the musical instrument, the Intermodality desk is crafted from antiqued plywood, and features copper trimmings near the handles and at the base of the legs, adding a touch of finesse to the desk’s grand design.

05. Mountain Bench by Yi Feng

Crafted from individual mahogany slats, the Mountain Bench not only provides seating, but also adds an element of art to its space. Inspired by the high mountains of Chinese paintings, the bench’s undulating backrest actually does look like a mountain range. Individual layers of wood give the bench depth too, lending volume to the design while also giving it a tranquil, meditative spirit.

06. Oceania Couch by Simon Haeser

Designed to be what I’d describe as a modern-day take on the Eames Lounge Chair, the Oceania couch comes with a design featuring a molded plywood backrest and base, with cushions to provide comfort. Oceania’s clean lines and flowing curves are designed to embrace and comfort. The visual language of the couch tries to capture the designer’s interpretation of fluidity, inspired by Australia’s beaches.

07. Beel Seat Ware by Selami Gündüzeri

The Beel Chair’s unique biodynamic aesthetic literally takes inspiration from the part of your body that rests against it… the spine! Mimicking the shape of two vertebral bones, connected together by a spinal column, the Beel chair offers comfortable sitting and healthy posture, while being flexible, thanks to the backrest’s design. Designed by Selami Gündüzeri, the Beel is reminiscent of the design aesthetic championed by late German design stalwart Luigi Colani.

08. Koron Sofa by Reza Salianeh & Hamid Packseresht

The Koron Sofa isn’t one to shy away from its proud Persian heritage. Inspired by the Iranian instrument Taar, the Koron comes with a voluminous design that replicates the Taar’s hollow, bulbous body. The couch uses a combination of metal and leather to give it its distinct appearance that makes it look visually heavy, but also comfortable, making it a great addition to the very center of contemporary houses, retail spaces, and offices with semi-Persian styling.

09. Eget Desk by Adrian Soldado Cid & Paula Terra Bosch

Eget’s modern interpretation of the desk truly makes it award-worthy. The desk is more than a mere elevated surface on legs, and Eget’s ability to tie the desk to its user’s behavior allows it to truly be remarkable. The Eget comes with a minimal styling, sticking to simple surfaces and the use of wood, white, and grey. the desk’s ply wraps around the sides to provide storage space within, enough for books, stationery, and even chargers galore. On the top, the Eget has its own adjustable drafting table that lets you set your writing/drawing surface at an angle. Behind it is a panel of felt that acts as a visual partition that also dampens noise and lets you pin notes to it. Slots on the side of the desk allow you to store extra notes, pads, sheets, and pens for quick access, and here’s my favorite part. The desk even has its own dedicated wireless charging area built in, so you can juice your phone while you’re being productive!

10. Shell Sofa by Natalia Komarova

With a voluminous yet hollow frame, the Shell sofa is visible, yet visually light. It is, in a strictly physical sense, minimalist (because it’s mainly hollow), but visually, the Shell sofa is almost pillowy, spacious, and a treat to look at. The sofa is a frame that curves from the left to the back and to the right, with space in between for cushions, or even two side tables if you remove the cushions at the extreme ends. It’s visually imposing, but still manages to look light and airy, thanks to its wickerwork of metal rods. The interwoven rods also create this moire effect that creates a dynamic optical illusion, making the Shell sofa’s body incredibly interesting to look at… and while we’re on the subject of interesting, the sofa comes with two small openings at the beginning and end of its structure, making it perhaps the most entertaining play area for a domestic cat. Good luck getting it out though once it goes inside!

Register to participate in the A’ Design Awards now! Hurry, this is your last chance to win an A’ Design Award in 2020! Deadline: February 28th, 2020.

Our top 10 Lighting Design Projects from the A’ Design Awards 2019

Posted on 07/02/2020 by Sarang Sheth

We’re kicking off 2020 with inspirational lighting designs to help ‘spark’ your imagination! Perhaps the most ‘lit’ amongst the A’ Design Award’s multiple categories, this list looks at winning designs from the past year, celebrating good design from the year gone by. The Italy-based A’ Design Awards and Competition has always tried to be more than an award, by creating a multi-disciplinary program that rewards designers while also creating an environment that helps designers grow their products as well as careers… And yes, you also win a shiny trophy.

We look at the top Lighting Designs from last year, creating a compilation of what A’ Design’s stellar 209-member international jury panel is worthy of winning the A’ Design Award. While we’re at it, do check out what Winning an Award does for your Design Career, and don’t forget to head down to the A’ Design Award and Competition page to register to submit your design entries for the Award. The last date of submission is February 28th, 2020 and the awards will be announced here on YD on April 15th!

Register to participate in the A’ Design Awards now! Hurry, with the final date just 3 weeks away… You still have time to grab yourself an A’ Design Award in 2020!

01. Thorn Lighting by Yılmaz Dogan

Rather than taking on the traditional approach of symmetry, refraction, reflection, and classical design details, the Thorn is a chandelier that’s designed to have an aggressive, unburnished appeal. The chandelier comprises two different parts that interlock in a combination of ways letting you customize the shape of it. It also comes with a set of sockets for low-intensity bulbs. The Thorn takes inspiration from the hostile beauty of cacti or barbed wire. The form works exceptionally well in minimalist surroundings, becoming the very showpiece of the room, immediately drawing eyes to its “look-but-don’t-touch” form!

02. Click Shelf by Studio Knob

‘Click’ is the result of the action of magnetically joining the nylon ropes to the Click shelf, but it’s not the sound that is the dominant feature of the product… its the result of this sound. Quite unlike any cabinet/light you’ll ever see in your life, the Click Light by Studio Knob comes with a flat metallic plate that acts as a shelf. Along with the shelf come LED embedded Nylon woven ropes, with magnetic ends that conveniently snap to the metallic shelf. When they do, they light up with a beauty that’s pure and inspired, turning a flat, unassuming storage area into something much more. The nylon ropes can be arranged in any way, and even across different shelves, and they light up beautifully, creating a decor piece that’s difficult to describe without using the word ‘unique’.

03. Leaf Pendant Light by Daniel Mato

Bringing the tranquility of palm trees to the indoors, the Leaf Pendant Light mimics the shape of a palm leaf… but instead of casting shade, it casts light downwards on its subject. Its elongated, sculptural design is best suited for rooms with little decor, since this light is likely to become the visual centerpiece of any space!

04. Reverse Sunclock Walllamp by ADD Architecture Studio

Treading the fine line between lighting and installation, the Reverse Sunclock illuminates the room while also indicates the time through lighting. Its design features a rotating disc with a six-segment lighting unit on one half. The light segments gradually shut off each hour, before the disc rotates 180° and goes through the same process. Repeat this every 12 hours and you’ve got yourself a lamp that also functions as one of the most aesthetic clocks we’ve seen!

05. Foglia Photocatalytic Floorlamp by Kevin Chu

Designed to look like a massive fern growing from the floor, the Foglia is a designer’s representation of light, greenery, and photosynthesis. The Foglia’s design features multiple light-up panels which use light to cleanse the air… a process known as photocatalysis. Made to individually look and work like leaves (with their cellular design), these light-emitting panels can purify the air by killing bacteria, reducing CO2, as well as breaking up toxic and odor-carrying molecules, just the way sunlight naturally does.

06. Estelle Luminaire by Vanory

With three-dimensional light effects, Estelle creates a moving atmosphere in space that captures senses. Sitting within its glass outer body is a special inner that comes alive with RGB lighting that mimics light caustics seen on ocean floors. The lamp comes with customizable colors and patterns, and a smartphone app lets you infinitely control your lamp’s output. To see Estelle in action, watch the video below!

07. ELuminare Lamp by Hernan Gregorio

Boiling down the idea of a lamp to its simplest interpretation, Luminaire uses a bulb, two interlocking pieces of wood, and our ability to view 3D shapes in 2D forms. The Luminaire lamps come in a variety of shapes and don’t really need a shade covering the bulb, lest it would take away from the lamp’s raw beauty. Connect the two wood pieces and secure them with the electrical wire, pop an Edison bulb in, and voila! You have yourself a beautiful minimalist lamp!

08. ELeonardo 1482 Interactive Light by Maurice & Jordan Dery

A light designed for steampunk paradise, Leonardo 1482 looks like the kind of lamp Da Vinci would create. The lamp’s uniquely alluring mechanical design features three lights, magnifiers, and rotating mirrors that can be controlled via a pull-chain at the base of the lamp. Switch it on and adjust the angle of the mirrors to bounce the light beams around, creating what I can only describe as a Rennaissance-era disco ball.

09. EThe Imperial Palace Lighting by Lei Yu & Bingzhe Li

The Imperial Palace lamp pays homage to the palace within China’s Forbidden City. Designed entirely in wireframe, the lamp does a great job of highlighting the ‘forbidden’ element of the Palace by enclosing it in a spherical or cylindrical cage, while also playing on our ability to see shapes by connecting the dots, or in this case, lines. Switch the light on and the palace comes to life by lighting up, thanks to a powerful lamp right below the ‘architecture’!

10. Grain & Fire Portal Light Sculpture by Sunny Jackson

Unusual and unusually beautiful, the Grain and Fire Portal Light is inspired by the raw beauty of Earth’s materials. The lamp’s design only showcases the natural materials, hiding the lights and electronics from view. What you have left is a beautiful, raw lamp that shines through a Teak-wood ring, bouncing off multiple 280-million-year-old naturally occurring quartz crystals embedded within the teak’s inner bark. The result is something that’s uniquely appealing that immediately fills you with a sense of awe and wonder at the beauty of nature.

Register to participate in the A’ Design Awards now! Hurry, with the final date just 3 weeks away… You still have time to grab yourself an A’ Design Award in 2020!

This ergonomic chair brings traditional cross-legged sitting to the modern times!

Posted on 24/01/2020 by Srishti Mitra

Featuring a wooden frame with leather-lined cushions, the chair incorporates the tradition of sitting cross-legged. Its circular form provides the perfect structure to place the lower half of our bodies onto, with sufficient space for our knees and legs as well! The doughnut-like seat evenly distributes the force exerted upon our body when we sit, enabling us to maintain a solid posture. A backrest with a soft foam cushion can be attached to the Lunule Chair, paired up with the already ergonomic form of the chair, this provides further support to our caudal vertebrae and waist.

Ghadimi managed to integrate a unique habit from his culture into an aesthetic piece of furniture, a design that finds functionality not only in his home country but around the world! Not to mention, it’s a healthy break for our bodies from the uptight and non-ergonomic chair designs found today…your body and posture will thank you!

The Lunule Chair is a winner of the Silver A’ Design Award for the year 2019.

Designer: Arsalan Ghadimi

This ergonomic chair brings traditional cross-legged sitting to the modern times!

Posted on 24/01/2020 by Srishti Mitra

The Lunule Chair is a winner of the Silver A’ Design Award for the year 2019.

Designer: Arsalan Ghadimi

This ergonomic chair brings traditional cross-legged sitting to the modern times!

Posted on 24/01/2020 by Srishti Mitra

The Lunule Chair is a winner of the Silver A’ Design Award for the year 2019.

Designer: Arsalan Ghadimi

China leads the World Design Rankings in 2020: A look at a few A’ Design Awardees from the country

Posted on 19/01/2020 by Sarang Sheth

We’re kicking off 2020 with the World Design Rankings as they stand, and it seems like China has steadily found its way to the number 1 position, with a stunning 1538 A’ Design Awards over the years. The World Design Rankings provide a window into which country is the most progressive when it comes to design thinking and more accurately, which country houses the world’s best designers. As of the beginning of this decade, China, USA, Japan, Italy, and the UK sit at the top five positions of the global design rankings.

The list, created by the A’ Design Awards and Competition organization aims at capturing the year on year design progress of each country. With as many as 106 nations on the list, the World Design Rankings are an ever-changing, ever-evolving set of rankings that wholly encapsulate design progress through their awards program. With the 2019-2020 edition still accepting submissions, it’ll be interesting to see how the rankings change this year. If you want to see your country on the top (along with showcase your best work to the world) take a look atour piece on what Design Awards can do for your Career.

We’ve meticulously compiled a few of the 1538 designs from China that shone at the A’ Design Award. Scroll below to see our selection and if you do want to help your country rise higher up the design rankings, the A’ Design Awards are still accepting submissions till the 28th of February! Every entry you submit raises your country’s score (even more if it wins an award!).

01. Flexpai Flexible Smartphone by Royole

Flexpai sits at the top of our list for being the very first folding smartphone to ever be released to the public. Beating the likes of Huawei, Samsung, and Motorola to the race, Royole managed to debut the Flexpai back in 2018, long before anyone really knew what flexible smartphones would look like. Kudos to them, right?!

02. Nike+ Run Club Pop-up Gym by Coordination Asia

Designed to grab attention in Nike’s signature style, this pop-up gym sits on the streets, beckoning passersby to take a look inside. The hexagonal gym comes with an eye-catching exterior and a 6-part pod system on the inside with a treadmill in each pod. Dynamic media surfaces are used throughout the kaleidoscopic interior and exterior, wrapping participants in a temple-like setting devoted to the running experience, in the heart of Shanghai’s Times Square.

03. Ultratime 001 Watch by Bob Lei, Fever Chu and Jay Chan

A platinum award-winning design, the Ultratime 001 Watch comes with rotating discs and a silver line that helps point at the time corresponding to the position of the discs below it. Its angular placement, along with the clean design of the watch gives it minimalism with a touch of chaos. The watch’s crown sits at an offset too, making the timepiece rather interesting to look at!

04. Floh Travel Luggage by Rohan Siebel

Perfect for the urban dweller who wants to effortlessly weave through the crowded streets and pathways, Floh is travel luggage that comes with wheels and a handle, but it isn’t like most travel luggage. The luggage-holder doubles up into a scooter that one can use to ride around either an airport (provided it isn’t heavily carpeted) or even the streets while heading to work or back home. You could, however, also detach the wheels and wear the Floh as a conventional dual-strapped backpack too. It’s all up to you!

05. Changyu CS Brandy by Tiger Pan

Tiger Pan’s bottle design for Changyu CS Brandy aims at showcasing exactly how precious Changyu’s famed brandy is. Operational for 120 years now, Changyu is a prestigious winery brand in China, and the bottle helps reinforce the company’s brand value. It comes with a textured exterior that acts as a great tactile pattern for gripping while pouring, while also setting the bottle apart from regular alcohol bottles that rely mostly on print to differentiate from the competition. The CS Brandy’s eyecatching 3D pattern is further complemented by the bottle’s gradient that goes from dark on top, to transparent at the base, creating a sense of awe and mystery.

06. Meditation Seat Ware by Gao Fenglin

Gao Fenglin’s Meditation Seat can only be sat on in a certain way, directing the user’s behavior and encouraging a seating position that keeps your back upright, and your legs folded inward. The seat comes with an unusual design that naturally gets you to sit with your legs crossed in a meditative pose, allowing your posture to be corrected, spine kept straight and making sure you’re physically as well as mentally healthy.

07. Tai Chi Sales Center by Kris Lin

Kris Lin’s Tai Chi Sales Center aims at creating a healthy and inviting environment for the building’s customers by relying on forms that evoke a sense of beauty. The building’s facade, although seemingly chaotic, has a sense of stability and balance in it, and actually comes with a dark and light set of blocks denoting the Yin and the Yang in Chinese culture.

08. Hangzhou Zhongshuge Bookstore by Xiang Li

This bookstore is literally what heaven looks like to bookworms. What seems like an endless tsunami of books is in fact Xiang Li’s imagination of what a ‘forest of books’ would look like, with an undulating landscape wooden flooring, and lighting leaking from within bookshelves, just like you’d find in a forest with how sunlight leaks through branches. Of course, Xiang Li’s interpretation isn’t completely literal, but the Hangzhou Zhongshuge Bookstore is literally every book lover’s dream come true. An endless landscape just filled with knowledge to tap into and wisdom to be gained.

09. YOGA 900s Convertible laptop by Lenovo (Beijing) Ltd.

There’s sheer beauty in Lenovo’s Yoga 900s hinge. Comparable to that of the Microsoft Surface Book, this laptop’s hinge looks beautiful, efficient, and unbeatable. It also ties two sleek laptop bits together, i.e., the screen and the keyboard. Designed using a combination of rose gold, matte black, and just hints of metallic grey near the flexible joint, the Yoga 900s is more than a machine, it’s art and technology combined.

10. Guilin Yanshan Wanda Exhibition Center by Tengyuan Design

The Guilin Yanshan Wanda Exhibition Center is quite a work of art, considering it’s a space to display or exhibit work. One’s eye immediately goes to the ceiling, which seems like staring into either a kaleidoscope or a mandala, thanks to its beautiful radial design that draws on local culture and humanistic characteristics such as Guilin landscapes, Guangxi bronze drums, cliff stone carvings, and therefore integrates regional characteristics into its design, bringing in a local cultural flavor that inspires awe as well as casts a beautiful diffused light into the space for exhibitions.

The Vanke City Garden’s architecture has an eco-industrial-chic vibe

Posted on 17/01/2020 by Sarang Sheth

Trust me to use the words eco, industrial, and chic together in the sentence, but there’s no denying that these words, as unrelated as they are, well describe the architectural style of the Vanke City Garden main building. Located in Foshan, China, the architecture was handled by Percept Design who believed in channeling European architectural styles but also using a combination of glass, brick, iron, and greenery to create a distinct vibe on the outside. Step into the building and it literally looks like a modern version of a cathedral combined with a greenhouse, in an attempt to design a building that resembles and evokes everyone’s inner Monet’s Garden. The building serves as an exhibition center for various events and causes. The project began in February 2018 and was completed in the same year in June.

The Vanke City Garden is a winner of the A’ Design Award for the year 2019.

Designer: Percept Design