Tag Archives: Awards

This shapeshifting TV turns into a virtual fireplace when you’re not binge-watching Squid Games on Netflix

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A winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award, the 77W isn’t a television, but rather a versatile display that can alter itself based on need. For long, televisions have been just ugly black rectangles on walls when they’re switched off, making them rather unappealing to look at 90% of the time. LG’s attempted at solving this problem with their rollable TV, and even Samsung’s tried to address this with their Serif TVs as well as the ‘Ambient Mode’ on their QLED TVs that allowed the television to blend into the background. While the Ambient Mode was a fairly technical feature that required AI to be able to guess what the wall behind it looked like (and LG’s rollable display is just downright expensive), the folks at Skyworth have figured out a rather nifty way to turn the television into an ambient little decor-piece when not in use.

The 77W’s display unit sits on a stone-textured base, and comes with a wooden sleeve that can move up or down (as can the display itself). This allows the TV to assume 3 modes – a TV mode, a concealed mode, and a fireplace mode. The concealed mode allows the display to descend downwards into the wooden sleeve, hiding most of that black box behind a textured wooden panel… but the other two modes allow the 77W to truly shine… either as a high-definition television for watching news, videos, sports, and entertainment content, or as a fireplace that peeks from below the wooden panel, playing a looped high-definition video of burning logs and crackling flames.

What the 77W really does is turn the TV into less of an attention-commanding gadget and more into an ambient piece of technology that fits into homes – just like your smart speakers are designed to blend right into your interiors. The wood and stone aesthetic is relatively minimalist and works well with Scandinavian and Nordic-style of decor, and should really sit well around stone walls or wooden flooring. If you’ve got an inactive or faux fireplace in your apartment to begin with, putting the 77W TV right in front of it could really spruce your place up (and give you a reason to have your furniture facing the fireplace to begin with!)

The 77W Art Display Device is a winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award for the year 2021.

Designers: Shenzhen Chuangwei-RGB Electronics (Skyworth)

Celebrating over a century of design and creativity, the ADC Annual Awards return for their 101st edition

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Established in 1920, the ADC Annual Awards are touted as the world’s longest-running award initiative in the design and creative industry. Held every year as a part of The One Club of Creativity, the ADC Annual Awards are back for their 101st edition of the competition to scout and celebrate the very best in advertising, digital media, graphic and publication design, packaging and product design, motion, experiential and spatial design, photography, illustration, and fashion design all with a focus on artistry and craftsmanship.

Entry for the awards is open to creative professionals from all around the world, with a tiered entry-pricing structure that makes it easier for smaller agencies, studios, and freelancers to participate by paying a discounted entry fee, while larger agencies and brands pay the standard entry fee (read more about the tiered pricing structure here). The awards only accept design entries from industry professionals, and projects that have been created or printed/published/aired for the first time between January 1, 2021 – March 4, 2022. Outstanding entrants are selected by highly respected juries and honored with coveted Gold, Silver, and Bronze Cubes, presented at the Annual Awards Gala. Beyond these Cubes, however, ADC Annual Awards winners join a rich legacy of past honorees that include some of the most influential artists of the past century.

The 101st ADC Annual Awards are officially open for submissions across all their categories, with the regular deadline for entries on the 31st of January. Scroll below to take a look at some of our favorite 2021 Winners from the Product and Packaging categories.

Or Click Here to Enroll in the 2022 Edition of the ADC Annual Awards and stand a chance to be a part of history and win one of the most prestigious awards in the creative industry!

Winners of the 100th ADC Annual Awards

Smart Box by Peng Ren for Shenzhen explore home Industrial Design Co., Ltd (Product Design Gold Cube)

A clever way to introduce the concepts of mathematics through calculation, right at an early age, the Smart Box by Peng Ren is the kind of smart-toy a kid can play with from their early years right up to their early teens. The blocks in two formats – with numeric faces and symbolic faces. They attach magnetically to form a math equation with a solution block right at the end that displays the answer to the equation. By turning the act of pressing a bunch of keys together on a calculator and hitting the ‘equals’ button, the Smart Box set gamifies it in a way that makes mathematics playful!

SAGA Grand Gin by Paprika for Distillerie Grand Dérangement (Packaging Design Gold Cube)

A brilliantly quirky piece of packaging design, the SAGA Grand Gin bottle instantly makes you curious. With a vibrant yellow wax seal that covers almost half the bottle, the SAGA comes with a concealed label too. The label design showcases a face, with the eyes covered by the wax. You’re immediately intrigued to know more and see more – what’s the face behind the label? Is it a gin-maker, is it a clue, a game? Chances are you’ll pick up the bottle just for how visually engaging it is… and possibly come back more because of how great the gin is.

Nest Thermostat by Google LLC (Product Design Silver Cube)

Perhaps one of the foremost examples of a ‘smart home device’, the Nest thermostat returns in a new format that embraces the same classic design language of Nest the Alphabet company, along with Google’s hardware color-palette. The new Nest Thermostat sports a more clock-like proportion, with a relatively bezel-less display. It still comes with the numbers on the front (a design choice popularized by Honeywell and then Nest), although with the rest of the thermostat in muted, pastel shades that go incredibly well with home decor. Perhaps one of its most celebrated aspects is the Nest’s design, which came from Tony Fadell, who prioritized simplicity and sensibility over everything else. The new Nest thermostat still honors that tradition.

Your Taste, Your Way by Jones Knowles Ritchie for Burger King (Packaging Design Silver Cube)

What the Your Taste, Your Way campaign does for Burger King is turns its packaging into an eye-catching, tongue-tantalizing piece of art. The packaging helps prepare the consumer for what’s within, not only by telling them which burger sits behind the wrapper but also by describing its tastes and flavors… just to get those juices flowing!

XP Zero by Hugo Eccles for Untitled Motorcycles (Product Design Bronze Cube)

Untitled Motorcycles (UMC) turned a lot of heads when it unveiled its XP Zero design. Based on Zero Motorcycles’ SR/F naked sportbike, the XP Zero floored audiences with its classic lines, modern performance, and minimalist styling. Since its debut at the prestigious Goodwood Festival of Speed, the XP has exhibited in Milan, Italy and Portland, Oregon; won nine design awards; and been featured in hundreds of magazine articles. Now that alone is pretty impressive… aside from that bare-basic beautiful design!

Nongfu Wangtian Chili Sauce by Shenzhen Bob Design for Nonfunctional Wangtian Agricultural Technology (Packaging Design Bronze Cube)

Perhaps one of the most simple and creative pieces of food packaging I’ve seen in a while, the Nongfu Wangtian Chili Sauce quite literally embodies its origin, with a chili-inspired design! The sauce comes within a tube that has the graphic of a chili on it, while the cap is shaped like the curved stem of the chili. Depending on the type of chili used, the tubes come with green, yellow, or red chilis on the label. A star rating system on the bottom near the crimp also tells you how spicy the sauce inside is!

Click Here to Enroll in the 2022 Edition of the ADC Annual Awards and stand a chance to be a part of history and win one of the most prestigious awards in the creative industry!

Your Lighting Design Lookbook: Award-winning Lighting Projects from A’ Design 2021

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We’re here 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 have 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.

Lighting Design forms just one of the various categories of the A’ Design Award and Competition, which spans the popular categories like Architecture, Packaging, and Consumer Electronics, as well as the obscure, lesser-known categories like Cybernetics, Prosumer Products, and Safety Apparel Design. The A’ Design Award’s ultimate goal is to be an umbrella that covers good design across all disciplines, which is why it has 100 different categories for submitting design projects, and 211 jury members (comprising academics, design professionals, and press members) from all around the world collectively judging the works. Winners of the A’ Design Award don’t just secure a trophy and a certificate, but receive an entire PR Campaign dedicated towards pushing their career, clout, and even their projects to newer heights. A’ Design Award’s winners and even its participants are included in its annual award book and business network, while additionally contributing to their country’s overall design ranking that paints a holistic picture of how design-centric and design-forward each country is.

The A’ Design Award is currently accepting entries for the 2022 edition of the award program, so go ahead and give your work and career the push it deserves!

Here are some of our favorite Lighting Design winners from the A’ Design Award & Competition 2021. If you have a potential lighting design project that you think is worthy of an award, Click here to register & participate in the A’ Design Awards 2022.

Buddy Table Light by Mona Sharma for Gantri

Modeled on the image of a friendly little ‘buddy’ that helps you by illuminating your workspace, the Buddy lamp sits obediently on your desk, with an adjustable ‘head’ that lets you ‘face’ the lamp anywhere. Designed by Mona Sharma for Gantri, the lamp is manufactured entirely using 3D printing techniques and Gantri’s proprietary Plant Polymers. The Buddy is “inspired by bold shapes and forms found in the Memphis design style, and the clean, minimal forms found in Scandinavian culture”, says Mona. “I wanted to create a companion for ‘thinking’ spaces, so quirky, playful cues in abstract photography and in nature gave it character.”

Translucence Pendant Light by Iestyn Davies


For context, Iestyn Davies is both a glassmaker and lighting designer… which explains the Translucence light’s origins, inspiration, and intricate design. The lamps are made entirely from scratch by hand using traditional hot glass techniques, which means each Translucence is completely bespoke and unique in its design. Davies wanted to create a lamp that had its roots in traditional techniques, instead of creating a form and slapping an LED bulb somewhere inside it. Instead, Translucence is a celebration of the relationship between light and refractive solids. The wavy design of the glass helps curve and guide the light, creating a shimmering halo that’s absolutely captivating and bordering on jewelry!

Linear Refraction Light by Ray Teng Pai

Yet another example of light and refractive solids, the Linear Refraction Floor Lamp uses a much more simplified design to achieve the same goal. The floor lamp literally consists of a vertical tube with a light source at its end, and a fluted glass sheet on the front of it, scattering light in different directions. The disc can be rotated by hand, and comes with a pearlescent coating that gives the light a shimmering rainbow effect too!

Cling Floor Lamp by Dabi Robert


“My lamp concepts involve a certain amount of interaction in order to modify the way light is perceived”, says designer Dabi Robert. “This should encourage curiosity and human interaction with the light source, instead of just putting it somewhere to rest. I strive for a deeper relationship to the interior product”, he adds when describing the Cling, a uniquely minimalist floor lamp that’s relatively invisible to the eye until you start engaging with it. The lamp comes with a halo-shaped light attached to a flexible gooseneck base, which bends and flexes when you adjust the light’s position. Almost looking like a gymnast or someone doing yoga, the lamp contorts in all directions, helping you not just adjust the lighting, but also create a different design each time!

Silhouettes Lamp by Alexey Danilin


Created as a visual metaphor of a lamp, the Silhouettes Lamp by Alexey Danilin relies on the iconic shape of the lamp and shade to give his lighting design its character. Alexei says, “The main source of inspiration was the National Russian toy – Matryoshka, however, to be more precise, it was the principle of its design. It consists of one form, but of different scales. They can all create a common object.” The lamp uses a metal wire-like structure to create the impression of a lamp. The different metal silhouettes/outlines are pivoted around the center, allowing you to open the lamp out from a flat 2D design to a 3D form, with the actual lamp – an illuminated frosted glass orb – inside it.

Weed Lamp by Jinying Cheng


Designed to look like a fast-growing weed among a tuft of grass, the Weed Lamp by Jinying Cheng can actually be ‘uprooted’! The lamp itself comes with a detachable design that lets you lift the weed out of its grassy base and carry it around like a handheld torch. It’s perhaps the most quirky little lamps I’ve seen in a while with an unusual interaction, but I’m really taken by how fun it looks and feels!

Time Lamp Timing Light by Peng Ren


There’s something very intuitive and interactive about the way the Time Machine Table Lamp is designed. Made to look like an hourglass, the lamp features a freely rotating shade with a central pivot and LEDs on both ends. Switch the lamp on and the LEDs on the upper half of the hourglass illuminate. Over time, the upper half of the hourglass dims down and the lower half begins illuminating, almost as if light particles are passing through the central channel, like grains of sand would. The Time Machine Table Lamp was designed to help provide an ambient bedside aura of soft light, while allowing you to intuitively gauge time as it passes by. It takes around 60 minutes for the light to transfer from one half of the hourglass to the other, and a simple flip helps reset the entire procedure. It’s a fun-yet-useful way of timing your nightly activities before going to bed… perhaps reading a bedtime story, or sharing stories about your day before hitting the sack.

Be Water Lamp by Fernando Correa (Platinum Award Winner)


A winner of the coveted Platinum A’ Design Award, the Be Water lamp uses refraction to make light look like water! The lamp features a set of LEDs in a linear strip, right below a tube of warped glass. As the glass tube rotates, it creates wonderful patterns of light that when placed against or near a wall, mimic the effect of watching light bounce off a pool of water. The lamp exists in four chromatic variations – Be Water, Be Fire, Be Air, and Be Earth. The variations can be achieved simply by changing the color of the light to go from water to the tongues of fire, the Aurora Borealis visible in the air, and the billowing fields of purple lavender on Earth in Provence, France. I really wish there was a video of this lamp at work!

If you have a potential lighting design project that you think is worthy of an award, Click here to register & participate in the A’ Design Awards 2022.

The Michelin Challenge Design returns for its 22nd edition as the “Movin’On Challenge Design”

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The rebranded design challenge focuses on Movin’On to the next frontier of transportation design — Sustainable Mobility.

Ever since its first-ever design competition in 2001, Michelin Challenge Design has focused on welcoming a new generation of designers, thinkers, and transport enthusiasts into the automotive industry. Over the last two decades, the challenge issued a broad brief to designers, asking them to create concept electric vehicles, conceptual Le Mans race cars, and even its most recent brief — “Respect”, a call to end the mobility divide between people from different communities, walks of life, and with different abilities.

Michelin Challenge Design became Movin’On Challenge Design in 2020, reflecting its integration as a featured program of the Movin’On Summit, the world’s foremost gathering for sustainable mobility. Created and inspired by Michelin, the Summit brings together large companies, startups, public and academic authorities, NGOs, and international organizations, as well as a community of experts and professionals to move from ambition to action. “We are excited that Challenge Design has become an official pillar of the Movin’On ecosystem that engages the global design community through the development of sustainable mobility solutions,” said Mike Marchand, Michelin North America Director of Sustainable Development and Mobility.

In its fresh new avatar, the Movin’On Challenge Design retains certain aspects of its predecessor, but provides a unified vision towards a better future, through a more inclusive and sustainable approach to mobility. The challenge isn’t even a transportation-focused one anymore. It’s open to artists, designers, engineers, architects, city planners, creatives, or anyone with a strong vision to build a more equitable, sustainable future by considering mankind’s need for and relation to mobility.

The theme for 2020—2021’s edition of the challenge was RESPECT: Ending Isolation and Conquering the Mobility Divide, and saw 170 entries that sought to create inclusive mobility for those who are often overlooked when mobility solutions are being designed. “Age and disability can limit access to safe and affordable mobility for one of every four people in the world today, reducing joy and the ability to fully participate in, benefit from, and contribute to society—both socially and economically,” said Nick Mailhiot, chairman of the 2021 Movin’On Challenge Design competition. The top three winners brought a unique set of perspectives to the challenge, from individual mobility to mobility as a society. Scroll below for a detailed look at each of the 2021 Challenge’s winning designs that were announced in June this year.

Click Here to visit the Movin’On Challenge Design website to know more about the upcoming 2022 challenge.

Click Here to see all the winners from the 2021 challenge.

Winners of the 2021 Movin’On Challenge Design

1st Place: Crosswing by Drew Spahn (Industrial Designer, Kean University)

The Crosswing’s clever design turns a prosthetic leg into a skateboard that the prosthetic-wearer can use to skateboard – either for recreation or transportation. The prosthetic leg features a fold-out skateboard that when closed, provides the same walking experience as a prosthetic leg but when opened out, offers a riding experience that compares to a skateboard or pair of skates! The multipurpose artificial limb “turns a disadvantage into an advantage”, mentions Spahn, a fourth-year industrial design student at Kean University.

2nd Place: Tramo by Stefan Perriard (Industrial and Mobility Designer, Royal Danish Academy)

Tramo imagines transportation in a world without cars. Designed for the futuristic car-free city, Tramo offers an equitable mode of transport that’s safe, human-centric, and truly for everyone. The design adopts the shape of a pod-like platform that traverses across the city’s roadways. Its unique design makes space for people who want to stand or sit, as well as for wheelchairs and baby strollers. Designer Stefan Perriard describes Tramo as “a flexible solution with no need for stations — like a moving sidewalk” that you can hop onto or hop off from.

3rd Place: Nomada! by Elkin Alejandro Cruz Castro (Architect, Universidad Nacional de Colombia)

The Nomada! revisits the design of the city entirely. Instead of conventional buildings, Nomada! introduces nomadic spaces that can move around the city, benefiting everyone and making public utilities accessible to all the citizens. The Nomada! is a massive purpose-built vehicle that’s best described as architecture on wheels. Designed with two semi-spherical carriages that rotate and pivot, and a corridor in between, the Nomada! acts as a building in motion, providing space on the inside for various public utilities like libraries, coworking spaces, medical care centers, commercial units, etc. The idea is to have the Nomada! transport to an area where it’s needed and stay stationed there for a set amount of time (almost like a fair or circus that’s coming to visit, and departs after it’s done). By doing this, Nomada! aims at creating fragments of the ‘megacity’ and making aspects of those fragments nomadic, so every neighborhood gets access to them whenever needed.

Click Here to visit the Movin’On Challenge Design website to know more about the upcoming 2022 challenge.

Click Here to see all the winners from the 2021 challenge.

This tiny pod merges a sauna with an infrared design to become the world’s first climate cabin!

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Recognized by German Design Awards, Klimakabine is the world’s first climate-controlled micro-cabin built from OSB and stone pine with a loam and moss filter for cozy vibes and fresh air.

It’s hard to imagine being somewhere more calming than a log cabin in the woods–the snow falling outside while you’re warm and cozied up against the window. There’s something about the warmth of wood that brings peace. Similar to log cabins, the wooden build of saunas not only enhances their function but relaxes the mind too. Combining the coziness of a log cabin with the soothing nature of saunas, Italian carpentry company Declara designed Klimakabine, the world’s first climate-controlled micro-cabin.

Paneled in OSB, Klimakabine features a single wooden bench and is constructed from stone pine, a type of antibacterial wood. The build of Klimakabine resembles a sitting pod from the outside and keeps a sloping structure that encourages users to sit back and recline. Sloping in tandem with the glazed door opening, a loam and moss filter helps clean the air inside Klimakabine and regulates the climate to ensure a comfortable sitting period. Enhancing the soothing nature of Klimakabine, Declara glazed the front door to give it a translucent look that provides some privacy for the one sitting inside too.

Coming back to nature has always brought some peace and calm. Declara built Klimakabine so we’d always have space and time to welcome nature back into our lives. In designing Klimakabine, Declara artfully merged the coziness of a log cabin with the relaxation of a sauna to create a meditative space where users can unwind and disconnect from the busyness of the outside world.

Designer: Declara

Dyson Award-winning tower-cooler sports a monolithic design and cools rooms using evaporation

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Evaporative cooling isn’t new. We humans have been using a similar mechanism for millions of years to stay cool – perspiration. The way evaporative cooling works is pretty simple. Thermal energy in the air causes water to evaporate into vapor. That reaction consumes a certain amount of thermal energy, making the air around it cooler… just like you sweat to feel cooler. The VAYU is a tower-shaped evaporative cooler designed by Sumeet Singh and Jatin Bamane, relying on an energy-efficient way to keep rooms cool in the hot Indian summers.

The James Dyson National Award-winning VAYU cooler sports a slick, tower-shaped monolithic design (fitting well in with Dyson’s form language). The cooler comes with a water tank on the inside, and a fan that operates at 5-speed settings. It works much quieter than a traditional air-conditioner and consumes a fraction of the energy too. Water is poured into the tank using an inlet at the top, and an impeller and DC brushless motor help distribute the cool air throughout the room (while purifying it by passing it through a filter too). An angled air deflector rotates up to 250° to help distribute cool air all around the room, quite like the swinging vents on an air-conditioner would. Caster wheels on the base of the VAYU make it easy to wheel around the house too, giving it an element of in-house portability.

Even though the VAYU is currently just a concept, designers Sumeet and Jatin are working on building a functioning prototype, along with an app and a remote to control the cooler’s functions. The app will allow users to control the fan’s speed, switch between Eco and Night modes, toggle the deflector’s rotation, and even see the VAYU’s filter lifespan + order new filters when the old ones need replacing.

A National Winner of the James Dyson Award, VAYU now progresses to the international round of the award program, with the results being announced on October 13th.

Designers: Sumeet Singh & Jatin Bamane

10 hottest gadgets and consumer-tech products from the iF Design Award global community

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The iF Design Award has been consistently hand-picking the best, most innovative designs since 1953, honoring top-class achievements in categories spanning Product Design, Transportation Design, Communication Design, Packaging, Service Design, Architecture, Interior Architecture, Professional Concepts, and UI and UX for 67 years in a row. The entire iF Design Award program saw as many as 10,000 submissions this year, which were evaluated by 98 international design experts from 21 countries, on the iF Jury.

Just this year alone, 1,744 designs received the iF Design Award for their creative accomplishments across various categories, while an additional 75 designs went on to win the highly-coveted iF Gold Award for their outstanding work. The iF Design Award always culminates in a grand ceremony in Berlin, although owing to the pandemic and global travel restrictions, award-winning products and projects this year are being celebrated digitally with an international content campaign encapsulated by the slogan “The CreatiFe Power of Design” in cooperation with popular design platforms and seven renowned design museums.

Over the course of the next few months, Yanko Design will be curating and featuring winning designs from this year’s program too – we’ve hand-picked ten award-winning designs from the ‘Consumer Technology & Entertainment’ category below (the list even features TWO iF Gold Award winners)! All the iF Design Award winners can also be viewed on the newly-launched iF Design App that gives you access to a grand database of award-winning design projects and their creators, right at your fingertips!

To view all these designs and many more, visit the website of the iF DESIGN AWARD.

Click Here to download the brand new iF Design App – a new experience in discovering outstanding designs

Award-Winning Consumer Technology & Entertainment Designs from the iF Design Award 2021

iPhone 12 Pro by Apple (iF Gold Award Winner)

Last year’s iPhone is this year’s winner of the iF Gold Award. A remarkable smartphone by even this year’s standards, the iPhone really holds up its own to other flagships. The phone debuted just in time to enter into this year’s award, and made the cut for introducing radical new features like the 5G chip, the Super Retina XDR display, the cutting edge A14 Bionic chip, state-of-the-art computational photography, and obviously, MagSafe!

Gravitation Smartphone Gaming Accessory by Compal Electronics

Designed for an era of gamers who are migrating towards the new echelon of cloud-based gaming, the Gravitation is a universal smartphone holder/controller that lets you game almost as if you were gaming on a console. Built out like a traditional ergonomic controller, the holder comes with 2 joysticks, a D-pad, four action buttons, and even 4 shoulder buttons. Its most interesting feature, however, is its ability to expand sideways (image at the top of the article) to turn into a makeshift steering wheel, allowing you to play A-list games across multiple genres… right on your smartphone!

PlayStation 5 by Sony Interactive Entertainment

As polarizing as its organic, alien-inspired design may be, the PlayStation 5’s incredible demand really cements its reputation as the most popular gaming console of all time. The whole structure is designed to look as if it were formed by floating components, accentuating its slim appearance. On the inside, haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and 3D Audio deliver deeper immersion, while the power of a custom CPU, GPU, and SSD is harnessed to rewrite the rules of what the PlayStation 5 console is really capable of. With a performance that’s out of this world, it helps that the PS5 looks otherworldly too!

Odyssey G9 Gaming Monitor by Samsung Electronics

Having debuted in 2020, the Odyssey G9 still remains unmatched in exactly how bonkers top-of-the-line it is. The display measures 49-inches diagonally, and comes with a 32:9 aspect ratio that’s so ridiculously wide that it covers your entire periphery, giving you the most immersive gaming/working/computing experience you could ask for. Oh, and the monitor is curved too (with a 1000R curvature), allowing it to offer more screen area while occupying less space horizontally on your table. The monitor also comes with an ultra-fast 240Hz refresh rate and a 1-millisecond response time… and while the Odyssey G9 isn’t really 4K, it is the world’s first Dual Quad High-Definition monitor (basically the equivalent of eight 720p screens arranged in a 4×2 layout).

U+ Slim VR Headset by LG Uplus

Designed to give you access to a VR experience no matter where you are, the U+ Slim is a slick little VR headset that was made to be carried around with you. It works off your smartphone (which docks into the headset) and comes with all the essential elements such as a face cushion, lenses, and headbands carefully positioned inside the headset in a way that makes it compact to carry around. When you want to use the U+ Slim, the face-cushion slides right out, and the headband (which remains hidden until you need it) pops out too, giving you the ability to enjoy immersive virtual reality content no matter where you are. Once you’re done, just fold down the U+ Slim into its compact clutch-shaped form and carry it around with you either in your hand or in your bag!

instax SQUARE SQ1 by Fujifilm

The instax SQUARE SQ1 balances itself between being a classy instant camera and a fun accessory to carry with you and capture your life. The instant camera’s design is a combination of muted minimal as well as eye-catching, and boasts of an easy user interface featuring a power button and a shutter button. Lanyard-holes on the side let you string the camera around your shoulder or neck, and a viewfinder + flash let you capture great photos no matter where you are!

VR Cap by Compal Electronics (iF Gold Award Winner)

The VR Cap fixes one nagging problem with VR headsets today – the head-mount. While most VR gear comes with a single strap that goes around the side of your head (or a T-shaped strap that also sits on top), they’re almost always fiddly, uncomfortable, and feel like they’re going to fall off. The VR Cap improves upon that detail by turning the headset into a golf cap-style piece of gear that physically wraps around your head like a cap would. “VR Cap is the world’s first head-mounted display (HMD) to join a crisp VR display with a detachable, woven head covering”, Compal Electronics mentions. Woven from stretchable fabric, one size fits most heads in comfort, and customizations can be made to accommodate users like ponytails without developing new injection molds. The detachable fabric cap is machine-washable too!

A7 Dual-Screen Smartphone by Hisense

Here’s a clever idea… while the world is figuring out the technology behind folding screens, and the use for folding screens, the Hisense A7 actually focuses on first getting users accustomed to the idea of having a split/extended screen experience. The A7 comes with 2 displays attached together (quite like Microsoft’s Duo tablet), offering you the ability to use multiple screens to multi-task as well as for power-use. One of the screens uses an electronic paper display, functioning as a keyboard + notification center (without the heavy power consumption), while the other screen serves as a primary display, allowing you to use the A7 as a makeshift laptop when you need. Cleverly enough, one screen’s actually narrower than the other, creating a notification ribbon when the A7 is closed. The ribbon (which forms a part of the always-on electronic paper display) gives you quick access to notifications, the time, alerts, etc… all without needing you to tap or wake up the phone!

SberPortal by notAnotherOne for SberDevices

Although the name “Portal” reminds me of Facebook’s failed attempt at building a domestic video-conferencing device, the SberPortal actually serves as a smart-hub for your smart-home… with video calling features too. The SberPortal’s unconventional design gives it an interesting appearance – with a screen attached to a sphere behind it in a very Memphisian fashion. The screen features a tiny-but-powerful 4K camera on the top, while the sphere at the back houses a Harman/Kardon 360° audio system with a Kevlar-coated passive radiator for incredible sound. The SberPortal also sports a specially designed 6-mic array, allowing you to deliver commands to it (as you would a smart hub or smart speaker) and even use it as a high-quality video-calling platform.

ASUS ZenBeam Latte L1 by ASUSTek Computer Inc.

Rather adorably named the Latte, this coffee-glass-shaped device is actually a portable projector, capable of delivering 720p content while also functioning as a speaker-system. The ZenBeam Latte blends 720p HD projection and Harman/Kardon audio performance into a compact, lightweight, and ultra-portable design that’s similar in size, shape, and weight to a grande cup of coffee. The tiny projector can project screens measuring up to 120-inches in size, and works seamlessly with iOS and Android devices. Go ahead and Netflix & Chill in style!

To view all these designs and many more, visit the website of the iF DESIGN AWARD.

This insane modular camera rig lets you mount hexagonal cameras for higher-resolution 3D video capture

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The RayShaper BeeHive works on principles of computational photography/videography… something your smartphone already does but on a much bigger, more powerful scale.

A winner of the Red Dot Product Design Award, the RayShaper BeeHive is trying to reinvent professional photography/cinematography by borrowing a clever trick from the most popular camera in the world – the one in your pocket. You see, as smartphones were struggling to compete over who could build a bigger, better camera, someone figured out that the secret to better photography was to just introduce multiple cameras. Famously, the iPhone X’s dual-lens setup kickstarted the trend of using two cameras to handle the workload of one single powerful camera. One lens captured color detail, the other focused on black and white detail, and working just like the rods and cones in your eyes do, both those photos were composited together to make one single image that was vastly better than what a single camera lens could do. In fact, two lenses could help the smartphone identify depth too, allowing the iPhone to click ‘Portrait Mode’ photos – a trend that really picked up back in 2017.

RayShaper’s cameras follow the same principle. Their unique hexagonal shape allows you to create a ‘honeycomb’ of multiple cameras snapped together. This array has two main benefits – firstly, the slightly offset cameras allow you to capture a wider shot without using a wider lens, and while provide spatial resolutions of over 1 billion pixels at 120fps. Secondly, the offset cameras allow you to capture depth information too, and even perform spatial recordings with 6 degrees-of-freedom (6 DoF) that are necessary for VR headsets. “Compared with ultra-high-resolution and light field camera systems currently on the market that use legacy architectures, BeeHive provides higher performance at a much cheaper cost”, say the folks at RayShaper. The modules allow you to add or subtract lenses on the fly, and give you the power to build up your camera setup without necessarily needing to upgrade by buying the newest cameras. Just add a few more modules and you’ve got a camera rig that’s much more powerful!

The RayShaper BeeHive is a winner of the Red Dot Product Design Award for the year 2020.

The Nefer perfume comes in a hauntingly beautiful skeletal bottle created through 3D printing

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Getting its name from the Egyptian word for beauty, the Nefer perfume bottle embodies sheer elegance on the inside and out. The bottle’s design is derived from the curved lines of the female figure (possibly as an ode to the ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti), and comes with an organic skeletal design that could only be fabricated using 3D printing. In fact, Nefer’s design reminds me of Ross Lovegrove’s 3D printed line of fragrances, created in collaboration with Formula 1.

The bottle’s intricate design comes with a sculptural exterior and an interior that contains the liquid fragrance. Given that 3D printing isn’t a conventional form of mass manufacturing (and also removes various design constraints), it made sense for the Nefer to showcase a luxurious bottle design that used 3D printing in a bid to look eye-catching but also exclusively limited.

As large as the bottle may look visually, it holds a mere 90ml (3 fl.oz.) of liquid in its inner chamber. While under most circumstances I’d call that wasteful, the more fitting characteristic term here would be opulence.

The Nefer perfume bottle comes in a decorative box that uses a combination of black and rose-gold to create an eye-catching visual contrast. Open the lid and it reveals the highly alluring bottle on the inside, set within a specially formed inner chamber with the bottle’s negative form, allowing the bottle to snugly fit inside it. Ultimately the bottle doesn’t come with any branding of its own, although designer Amr Ibrahim Mousa believes that the bottle’s iconic design is enough to serve as its visual branding.

The Nefer perfume bottle is a Silver Winner of the A’ Design Award for the year 2021.

Your next climbing shoe could be completely 3D-printed according to this Dyson Award-winning footwear company

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Now I’m not much of a climber (I just about take the stairs), so I’ll defer to the experts at Athos who highlight how problematic current climbing shoes are. Designed specifically for being able to grip onto rocks, ledges, and the tiniest of cracks in a very vertical surface, climbing shoes are made for traction, not comfort, which is why a lot of climbers end up with foot aches and injuries after wearing climbing shoes for too long. When climbers buy shoes, they always look for the tightest fit (for better performance), often wearing shoes that are up to 2 or even sometimes 4 sizes smaller than their actual size, resulting in bruised or sometimes even disfigured feet in the long run… Athos’ solution to this? 3D printing shoes that are designed to perfectly fit your feet.

Started as a project at Spain’s ELISAVA institute, the designers were searching for innovative applications of additive manufacturing. Being avid climbers, their eureka moment came when they realized that additive manufacturing (or AM for short) could easily help create the perfect climbing shoe. By using AM technology, the designers were able to custom-build out each shoe considering inputs like the wearer’s foot shape, needs, and type of performance.

The Athos shoes are made from two broad materials – a flexible, foot-hugging body made from 3D-printed TPU, and a two-part outsole crafted from vulcanized rubber. The TPU acts almost as a second skin, flexing with your foot’s movements while staying breathable (thanks to a unique perforated design), while the vulcanized rubber gives the shoes their signature traction and grip, allowing you to easily hold onto small ledges and rocks while you climb. Each shoe is custom-made to fit the wearer, making them unique. The additive manufacturing technique also helps dramatically reduce the number of processes and materials by more than 50%.

The Athos workflow has 4 steps: 1. Feetscan of the user, done within the Athos app. 2. Personalization and customization: type of shape, style of climbing, color, name, etc. 3. Printing out the shoe’s body, post-processing, and assembling parts. 4. Delivery to the user.

The shoes are on track to be prototyped and tested out by 10 professional climbers in January 2022. If everything goes according to plan, Athos hopes to secure SEED funding by March and start building climbing shoes for regular consumers across Spain by the end of next year.

A National Winner of the James Dyson Award, Athos now progresses to the international round of the award program, with the results being announced on October 13th.

Designers: Team Athos