Tag Archives: European Product Design Award

This wireless speaker uses acousto-optic modulation to double as a light show

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Incloud is a smart, wireless speaker design with an integrated light fixture for acousto-optic modulation.

Depending on how you consume music, your speaker defines the listening experience. The speaker you bring to the beach will change in sound and appearance from the speaker you use for at-home listening. While durability is the main focus of the former, quality acoustics make the most of home speaker systems.

Designer: Zhipeng Huang

Designing a wireless speaker for the home environment, Zhipeng Huang conceptualized Incloud. Defined by its cylindrical shape and open center, Incloud is a smart speaker that doubles as a lamp, which users can program to coincide with their nightly routines and sleep schedules.

Inspired by the shape that a sheet of dough makes when draped around a rolling pin, Incloud keeps a cylindrical silhouette while maintaining an open center. Located in the center cavity, Huang equipped Incloud with an acousto-optics modulator that syncs the speaker’s soundwaves with its integrated light fixture. This intersection is what puts Incloud’s speaker design above current models.

The round shape of Incloud lends to an easily portable device that can cling onto any edge with its open center. While the overall structure of Incloud maintains a minimalist appeal, the speaker’s simplistic build gives way to intuitive usability.

The device’s central light piece immediately suggests its proper configuration, signaling to users that the speaker is located on the device’s outer shell. On one end of Incloud, users can find a simple control interface that hosts the volume and light dials.

Huang also developed an app to pair with Incloud for users to control the light’s strength as well as its projected color. From the same app, users can even program their sleep schedules so that Incloud will incrementally dim every hour, on the hour as bedtime grows closer.

The post This wireless speaker uses acousto-optic modulation to double as a light show first appeared on Yanko Design.

This indoor vertical garden is a bio-filter with smart technology designed to improve indoor air quality!

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Elpo is a biofilter that doubles as an indoor garden with integrated smart technology that improves indoor air quality and ensures healthy moisture levels.

Following the stay-at-home orders brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, new habits are hard to hit. Since then, we’ve been spending a lot of time indoors, renovating home offices, and bringing the gym to the family room. Getting back into the office, we’re all hyper-aware of the air we breathe and inevitably share with one another.

Inspired to provide an air filter for collaborative spaces, designers Kārlis Vītols, Lolita Epnere, Buka Bērziņa ushered Elpo into the office, a smart biofilter that doubles as a teeming, indoor garden.

Recognized by the European Product Design Awards, Elpo was a Top Design Winner in Flora and Fauna/Hydroponic Devices, nodding to its aesthetic and innovative design. Elpo aims to improve indoor air quality by combining technology and the power of nature.

By absorbing airborne toxins and gases into their leaves and sending them down to their roots, some plants are able to help purify the air we breathe. Equipped with a smart biofilter, it’s not only the plants that Elpo uses to improve indoor air quality.

Like many modern indoor gardens, Elpo comes stocked with automated, smart technology that lights, fans, and irrigates the potted greenery. In creating a smart biofilter that doubles as an indoor garden, Elpo improves indoor air quality while also functioning as a room divider in office settings.

The biofilter ensures healthy moisture levels, while the indoor garden boasts a stylish interior design element that opens up any room. Modular by design, buyers can even create a smart biofilter system that spans the entire width of any given room.

Designers: Kārlis Vītols, Lolita Epnere, and Buka Bērziņa

With an inconspicuous base design, the indoor garden takes the full spotlight.

Elpo looks right at home in any commercial or corporate setting.

The teeming garden feature works to brighten up every office space.

Elpo offers a cozy appeal to collaborative spaces and ensures clean air in the meantime.

The post This indoor vertical garden is a bio-filter with smart technology designed to improve indoor air quality! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This AI-enabled phone case has detachable display that prioritizes and manages your notifications!

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A smartphone case that lets you focus on work at hand without being worried about missing any important notifications.

Smartphones are like a second skin to us as they constantly keep beaming notifications (more than 100 in a day on average) that can adversely affect productivity and focus levels. It is like, we get sucked into using our phones even when we don’t intend to. More often than not users rarely toggle their phone notifications – to filter out the ones that are not important. This calls for a perfect opportunity to develop a gadget that can prioritize notifications on the phone and over time learn how the user interacts with these notifications to only beam the important ones on priority.

Meet Noa, a detachable phone case that comes with an AI-enabled e-ink screen to learn the user’s response to particular notifications. What I find the most intuitive about Noa’s design is the fact that it can be detached right off the case whenever needed. This in a way physically segregates you from your phone’s inviting notifications to prevent any untimely disruptions without worrying about missing out on what matters to you the most. It can also be used as a kickstand to set up a notifications center and have the phone out of sight.

 

Noa has an e-ink display that is gentle on the eyes and it seamlessly slides into the phone case housing near the bottom courtesy of the strong magnets. The gadget connects to the phone’s OS and intelligently ascertains whether a notification requires immediate attention or can be kept aside to be checked later on. To be precise, Noa sends the right notifications at the right time. The smart software of this accessory constantly tracks user behavior to get better over time and determines the display position of notifications in the interface.

It can also send quick replies thanks to the Quick Reply AI, which comes with Summarization AI to organize longer notification messages and automatic scheduling based on the important times and dates in the user’s calendar. Noa is in a true sense a gadget that does the hard work for the user without missing out on vital notifications that matter the most.

Designer: Darren Wells

 

This self-sustaining planter + composter takes the work out of indoor gardening

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To reduce their environmental impact, my parents have started composting their food waste. Great idea, but there are two small problems with their set-up: one, my parents aren’t gardeners, so the resulting manure is usually scattered on empty soil beds (which the weeds appreciate), and two, the composter lives in the backyard, which means they keep a plastic container on the back porch for their discarded orange peels and wilted salad (not the prettiest sight). Overall, the composter is not living up to its full potential, because it doesn’t suit my parents’ lifestyle.

Segue to the Sustainable Family Farm, a miniature composter and planter that is best suited for indoor life. When I saw this design, my first thought was Ah-hah, the perfect Christmas gift for my parents … in theory, since it hasn’t entered the market yet. A mini-composter isn’t a novel idea; in fact, you can make your own with a plastic jug, soil, and some worms. However, the Sustainable Family Farm sets itself apart in two ways: first, by integrating seamlessly into the household regardless of the members’ gardening/composting experience, second, by making gardening into a fun experience for the family.

The product accomplishes this first point by utilizing all the food waste in the household without requiring a lot of additional effort. All you have to do is dump your compostable scraps into the plant incubator and monitor your veggies’ growth. The amount of maintenance that goes into the gardening depends on the seeds you choose — and there plenty of low maintenance options, like basil or cilantro. The Sustainable Family Farm accomplishes its second goal, making gardening a fun activity with the power of smartphones. The planter features a companion app, which treats gardening as a game, showing the stages of plant growth as “levels” for your real-life veggies. If you were a teen in the late 2000s, you might remember the popular Facebook game, Farmville? Imagine that concept but in real life. Or, you know … regular farming. (Jeez, I’ve exposed myself as a phone-addicted city-dweller.)

The Sustainable Family Farm, I think, is one of the most accessible urban planter concepts I’ve seen. Its low maintenance process makes it as easy as possible for anyone to grow herbs or small vegetables. You just need to buy the seeds and worms to get started – the circle of life takes care of the rest.

This concept won the European Product Design Award in “Home Interior Products/Household Appliances” and “Design for Society/Design for Sustainability.” An earlier version of this design was also featured on Yanko Design.

Designer: Chaozhi Lin

This Award-Winning Furniture’s transforming design stays with your child from birth to teenage!

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Tutti Bambini, a UK-based brand devoted to manufacturing products for children and babies of expectant parents, has officially outdone their 2017 CoZee Bedside Crib with the latest award-winning crib that lasts long after your toddler outgrows it. European Product Design Award recognized CoZee XL, designed by Michael Samuel, as 2020’s Top Design Winner for Children and Baby Products. CoZee XL is four pieces of furniture in one, growing alongside your toddler and providing everlasting comfort and familiarity for years to come.

CoZee XL initially functions as the beloved Bedside Crib, which allows your baby to sleep in their own separate bed right at your side so you can develop that special, physical bond early on in childhood. The Bedside Crib can be used for co-sleeping or as a stand-alone crib, thanks to a hinge mechanism that unlocks one side of your baby’s bed to position it next to yours for sound sleeping and ’round-the-clock monitoring. Once your baby outgrows the size of their crib, CoZee expands into a Cot. The Cot is specifically designed for babies and toddlers from 6 months to two years of age. Thanks to the Bedside Crib’s frame’s hinge features, the Cot also allows for easy access and reasonable supervision throughout the night.

Then, two years will go by before you know it and your youngster will feel ready for their first “big bed,” so CoZee XL’s Cot transforms into their Junior Bed. The Junior Bed is a simple bed frame with a cushioned headboard and base, perfect for a toddler between the ages of two and four. Finally, this toddler-style transformer assumes its final shape as a sofa, which makes for an exciting, first interior addition to your child’s bedroom and social space for friends during playdates. In addition to the multi-faceted, impressive changeability of CoZee XL, it is completely foldable and portable, coming with a traveling case, so you’ll never have to worry about sleeping arrangements for your baby, no matter the age or space available.

Purchasing reliable furniture for your children is preferable over cheaper options, but it can get expensive quickly. That’s what’s so exciting about CoZee XL – this single piece of furniture is long-lasting and provides a sense of familiarity for youngsters so that the growing pains that typically accompany adjustment periods regarding discomfort over new furniture can be diminished, but you and your child’s comfort will never be compromised.

Designer: Michael Samuel

This camping solar-light’s portable design can be used in 2 ways – wear it or stick it onto a tree!

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On the few occasions that I’ve gone camping, I was surprised by the darkness that washes over these lesser populated areas. When you live in a city, you never experience real darkness; there are always street lamps, neon signs, and car headlights to illuminate your path. On hiking trails or other natural environments, the lack of light pollution makes an impact — you wouldn’t even see your hand held up in front of your face. A portable light source is essential for every hiker or camper, especially during those dark hours. It can be a valuable protector, revealing dangerous/poisonous critters on the ground or sending an SOS signal if you are injured.

The designers behind this product seemed to understand this importance. The Solarpill is a pendant-sized solar-powered lighting device that can attach to your body or almost any surface in the wild. How? The white half of the pill has a hole where you can thread a rope through to make a keychain or necklace. That part is also a cap, that when removed, reveals a needle-like stake that can be embedded into trees or soft rocks along your path. Igneous isn’t it? This ability to poke the light into any surface comes especially handy when we need to work hands-free, be it to cut some rope or while relieving yourself while outdoors.

The adaptability and portability of this device make it invaluable for anyone traveling through remote areas at night, from causal hikers to search-and-rescue teams. It is such a convenient, useful product that I could even imagine it becoming a staple, not just in campers’ backpacks, but in every emergency preparedness kit.

Designer: Alican Faydali

A Single-Plate Food Press for the perfectly seared sandwich in half the cupboard space!

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As an apartment-dwelling millennial who never learned how to cook, I have only mastered a few recipes … most of them being sandwiches. One day, I hope to be the proud owner of a panini maker, because nothing elevates a grilled cheese like the fresh, hot-off-the-presses sear. The only problem is, most apartments don’t have the cabinet space to store such a large, non-essential kitchen appliance.

The Hot Bottom food press solved this problem and more, with one deviation from the standard design. Unlike most panini presses, which compress food between two heated plates, the Hot Bottom only uses one. This makes the product less bulky than other products and the smaller surface allows the appliance to heat up more quickly. The hot-plate is also detachable and comes in three different skillet forms, expanding your cooking options to grilling or searing meats, veggies, and more.

The Hot Bottom’s intentionally simple design makes it easy to use. What helps is that we’ve seen this design before, just with a different appliance: the clothing iron. The Hot Bottom’s handle even copies an iron’s flat side, which allows you to stand it upright while the plate heats up. The simplicity of the Hot Bottom food press offers accessibility. I can imagine users purchasing it solely for its sandwich-making power, then gradually branching into other recipes … because I would do the same thing. Novices would love this product because it uses a familiar shape to help get over the initial intimidation factor that comes with cooking. The Hot Bottom proves that, in the case of food presses, one hot-plate is better than two (not the other way around).

Designer: Cole Fungaroli

This hydrophonic aquarium + planter takes care of itself

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Do I wish I could take part in the mentally soothing, environmentally beneficial practice of gardening? Absolutely, but as a known plant killer, I can only admire my peers’ mini-gardens from afar. The Eva hydroponic fixture offers neglectful plant owners a no-effort solution in which the plant cares for itself – by merging an indoor garden with an aquarium!

The Eva planter creates an environment in which the plants can survive without human help. How? By creating a symbiotic relationship between the fish and fauna that live inside it. The fishes produce ammonia as a waste product, which can become toxic in large amounts. As it happens, ammonia contains nitrogen, which is necessary for photosynthesis and helps with plant growth. In the garden above, the roots break down the ammonia, and the resulting waste product, nitrites, then become food for the fish. Simply put, it’s the circle of life — with only two organisms.

Additionally, Eva includes light fixtures that mimic natural sunlight. This is not a new feature — we’ve seen it on similar planters — but it contributes to Eva’s mission: to sustain life in any indoor environment. It allows everyone to flex their green thumbs, even if their living spaces seem less than ideal for plant life.

Designer: François Hurtaud

 

This planter + lamp combo is an award-winning solution for the houseplant-obsessed millennial!

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Any millennial can tell you that when it comes to interior spaces, both houseplants and light fixtures have this way of making a bedroom or office space feel a little bit more complete. Lighting design and indoor plants can complement one another by shifting focus from one to the other, and so on. Or, in some cases, they merge into a single product that simultaneously brightens and breathes new air into different indoor spaces. That’s the case for the ceiling, pendant, and floor lamp called Ring, a European Product Design Award-winning interior light fixture designed by Jackie Luo and Wilfried Buelacher for Lampenwelt.

The lighting fixture is ultimately a simple design, thanks to its hybrid of design attributes from both integral parts of this product: the common houseplant and lighting accessory. The lamp itself can be hung as a pendant lamp, but can also function as a floor lamp when not suspended from the ceiling. If the pendant lamp is the decided lamp, then the pots for houseplants can either be positioned in the center of the lamp’s ring or entirely done without. A centerpiece for Ring provides the placeholder for plant pots to hang from but can be opted out for a straight, iron bar. Alternatively, users can insert a spotlight that works to enhance the light coming from Ring, which can be used for any variation of the lamp. Thanks to the subdued yet infinite nature of the lamp’s circular head, houseplants are free to drape and grow as naturally as they please. The fixture itself gently diffuses light throughout the room in a circular frame so that maximal reach is guaranteed. This product’s ambient, warm lighting, and rounded top bring a sense of adaptability to any space you choose to position it.

During the daytime, houseplants like String-of-Pearls or ivy can bask in the sunlight but come sunset, the Ring’s circle of light provides a gentle frame for leaf-filled pots. With today’s generation’s excitement over houseplant decor, it’s no wonder Ring’s final product design doesn’t present itself as a hybrid at all, but rather, a distinguishable household item deserving of its own light.

Designers: Jackie Luo, Wilfried Buelacher (of JWdesign) for Lampenwelt

Drummer or guitarist? You can be both with Drumstring!

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Anyone who has played a musical instrument has thought about combining it with another one at least once to get a creative kick out of “what would that sound like? and what would that look like?” and Designer Mohamad Montazeri started with just that. He was inspired to create the Drumstring by merging a percussion and a string instrument to create a completely unique sound and experience. Also, this is exactly what Captain America would be playing if he was in a band…and the band can also be called Agents of the S.H.I.E.L.D, a name that is totally based on the instrument and nothing else!

The shape of the award-winning Drumstring is inspired by a shield-like sign in areas where sound waves are being broadcasted. Apart from the completely new sound, this musical instrument gives us a chance to learn something like never before, see how it fits into songs, how the appearance makes us feel, what is the best way to hold it – it is an experience we can formulate from scratch. Musically speaking, the scales for drums are in D3, A3, B♭3, C4, D4, E4, F4, A4 system, and the string note scales are in the E-A-D-G-B-E system.

The user uses both hands to interact with the Drumstring, it is light in weight (5 lbs/2.4 kg) and has a strap that can be fastened over the shoulders and waist. The ergonomic build of the instrument is produced with gas nitridation which is used to harden the steel and the set is made of two nylon and four steel strings. Montazeri wanted to create an instrument that sparks the beginning of a new behavior from the world while keeping it modern, pure and emotional in its aesthetics and purpose. The Drumstring has also been awarded the European Product Design Award 2019 (Bronze) and the A’ Design Award and Competition 2017-18 (Silver).

Designer: Mohamad Montazeri