Designed to resemble a fancy lighter or a case for your cigar-cutter, i-Blason’s Cosmo Airpods cover looks pretty goddamn fantastic. With its interplay of marble-inlay and gold, each case has the appearance of a literal jewel. The cases (available in black, green, and pink) are relatively easy to install, as they slip on with a pretty snug fit. They even come with a patterned PU leather strap, the ability to charge wirelessly if you’re using the 2nd generation AirPods, and a cutout for plugging in a lightning cable, making it compatible with both generations of AirPods.
It’s worth noting though that the cases don’t literally come made with marble (or gold), which would unnecessarily increase the weight and affect its ability to be wirelessly charged. The graphics on the cases do look absolutely convincing though, and with a shock-absorbing TPU bumper running around the edges, your AirPods remain protected from accidental drops too!
Perfect for quick indoor espresso brewing, Bialetti’s Mini Express is just adorable, the way it sits on a stovetop, mimicking a big fat coffee machine. It comes with a base that’s similar to the Moka Pot, but with a direct dispenser on top that pipes the freshly brewed (it doesn’t get fresher than this) espresso right into a tiny espresso cup.
With its retro-Italian design (complete with the Vespa-inspired colored variants and cups), the Mini Express is perfect for the lover of the rich black beverage that forms the bedrock of all good Italian coffees. The base is rather small and may require a stove-top-reducer to sit squarely on. Load the coffee grounds and water in and screw the top on (throw in a stick of cinnamon for that Christmassy flavor), before lighting the gas underneath. The coffee brews, bubbling up to the surface and out the two spouts on the top, right into the cups that rest on the Mini Express’s adorable platform! There’s a variant with a single-pipe dispenser too, if you’re the kind to savor your coffee alone!
Perhaps the best headset to wear after an hour or so of wearing a VR headset (or spending too much time in front of a screen), the iDream 5 gives you a relaxing head and eye massage to help you calm down after all that stressful work and blue-light exposure. The VR Headset-esque device sits cleanly on your head like a helmet, with three modules on the front, top, and back, respectively. With a wide variety of settings, you can select between routines, choosing to knead your scalp for better blood circulation, massage your eyes for relaxation and better sleep, or use a series of vibration and heat-pad routines for stress and pain relief. The iDream 5 packs a week’s worth of usage on a full charge and even comes with in-built speakers to play relaxing music for the full experience and can be entirely controlled via a panel on its side, or by a smartphone app… besides, if you’d like to use the iDream 5 while working, watching TV, or reading, the goggles unit is completely detachable, freeing up your eyes while giving you a full head massage.
Bringing aspects of design to the very tool you’d use for designing purposes, the Grovemade Task Knife is to cutters and scalpels what Moleskine is to notebooks, or Muji is to stationery. It transforms a humble design tool into a well-designed instrument that every creative worth their salt would absolutely love to own, use, and put on display on their Insta-worthy workspaces.
The Grovemade Task Knife comes with a pristine monolithic design that combines handle and blade into one perfect package. The handle features the Grovemade logo machined onto one end, as it seamlessly transitions into a sheepsfoot blade at the other end, perfect for cutting anything from paper to foam or even leather. Machined from a single metal billet, the Task Knife comes in stainless steel with a matte black ceramic coating, or regular stainless steel and brass variants that showcase the true colors of the respective metals, complete with the CNC machine lines for that extra bit of raw beauty. The knives are available as standalone instruments but are best paired with Grovemade’s distinctive wooden stands that showcase the Task Knife in all its glory, keeping the instrument mounted vertically in a way that’s both gorgeous to look at and also easy to grasp and use, so you’re never rifling through stationery kits or rummaging through cabinets for your tools. Each Task Knife is made to absolute perfection in Grovemade’s headquarters in Portland Oregon with the utmost respect for form, function, detail, and quality… by designers, for designers.
Back in a winter-themed seasonal avatar, the Nanopresso from Wacaco is perhaps one of the smallest, most portable espresso machines in the world. It compresses every element of a coffee-maker into a form-factor small enough to fit right into your bag, and pair it with either a Nespresso pod or your own coffee-powder (placed in the Nanopresso’s pod) and you’ve got yourself espresso on the go, anywhere, anytime.
Partnering with artist Emma Tissier, Wacaco’s Nanopresso now comes in a bright red color, complete with seasonal artwork. Titled the Red Tattoo Pixie Edition, this Christmassy coffee maker is set up for a limited run, and comes with its own EVA foam case for you to carry around. Just add your coffee powder or pod and some hot water, let the pressure build up, and pour the freshest espresso right into Nanopresso’s cup. For a seasonal touch, top it off with a cinnamon stick and a spritz of Kahlúa!
September is rapidly getting over but the innovation is not! Here are the best designs from this month that are already turning heads, be it an attachment that allows you to connect 4 SIM cards to your phone to super slim wallets with fifteen layers and invisible stitching that are good for posture while being high on innovation. Just scroll down, have a look and get inspired to create your own innovative design.
This weird, zany attachment for your Samsung phone from SIMore gives your phone an additional 4 sim-slots, allowing you to be a walking-talking living example of someone living the open-market dream. The attachment fits into a dual-sim smartphone’s secondary sim-slot, much like a USB-Hub plugs into a spare USB port. Your primary SIM card still drives the phone, but Simore’s adapter gives you the power of having and using four extra SIM cards, allowing you to own and use up to 5 different numbers (possibly from 5 separate telecom providers!)
YeongKyu Yoo of cloudandco has designed two wallets that are extremely slim – WalletType1 and SlimWalletType1. The former is a bi-fold design with 6 pockets, and the latter is a card wallet with 2 pockets. The key to the form are the layers and the invisible stitches. Sporting a multi-layer construction with uniform thickness, the edges of the wallets are precisely painted for the ultimate seamless look. The wallets look like a solid sheet of beautiful leather and nothing more. To capture the beauty of quality leather, they focused on bringing its texture to the foreground. This meant keeping all unnecessary details invisible, including stitches. The multi-layer construction was carefully conceived so that once assembled, the form is completely uniform in thickness. To finish it off, the edges are precisely painted for the ultimate seamless look — just like a solid sheet of beautiful leather.
Treat your sofa as the beautiful and central part to your home that it should be with designs such as the Lawless Sofa by Evan Fay.
Unveiled at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show, the new Lamborghini Siánn explores a whole slew of fresh possibilities for the company. After the conceptual Terzo Millennio, the Sián is the first car from the Italian automotive company to venture into a hybrid drive, relying on a V12 engine as well as a unique 48 volt e-motor, delivering 34 hp to provide immediate response and an uplifted performance.
Having analyzed the shortcomings that current inhalers have, and identified that both the stigma that they carry and their “throwaway” nature are two of their main issues, Ryan Lee Sanderson, Justin Arsenault & Thrive Design created not one, not two, but four inhalers. As the name suggests, the Aria Youth is targeted towards youngsters; it features a rubberized body that will protect it from the inevitable drops that will be thrown it’s way. This, combined with the large paddle accusation makes this product a far more suitable alternative.
Long before planned obsolescence was a thing, products were built to last a lifetime. People would own, use, and reuse products for years, passionately maintaining them for future use, and fixing them if something ever broke. It’s rare to see that sort of passion in today’s products, and the Wingback Mechanical Pen by Alasdair MacLaine is a rare item that embraces that culture of design-for-perpetuity. Buy it now!
Titled the ProPilot, the golf-ball is inspired by Nissan’s ProPilot 2.0 driving technology and is the company’s way of showing how they can fit their incredible self-driving chops into something literally palm-sized. The golf ball obviously isn’t intended for professional use! As a way of demonstrating how small Nissan can go with its self-driving tech, the ball literally finds its way to the hole no matter where you hit it.
The Polaroid Lab is a novel product that lets you rest your smartphone on it, and turns the image on your smartphone screen into a Polaroid photo. The desktop device uses a close-proximity lens to literally take a photo of your screen, turning your high-end smartphone’s photo into a printed picture that you can then scribble a message under and pin to your wall. The Polaroid Lab’s biggest benefits are that you can choose the best photo from hundreds of clicks, edit it and add filters or stickers, and then place your phone with the image loaded on the screen onto the Lab to turn it into a Polaroid snap.
The Turning Chair is a creative take on seating relies on a form that can be flipped 90° to completely change its function! When in orientation A, the Turning Chair is a comfortable low-lying lounger with a reclining backrest, perfect for your living room… but thanks to its angular rear legs, the chair can be flipped back to turn it into a high-seated bar-stool that fits rather suitably in your kitchen. Plus, get this… the chair’s form is stackable too!
Austin Maynard Architects have designed ‘king bill’ — a playful renovation and extension of a double-story terrace house and neighboring garden. the original house is among the oldest in the Australian suburb, built around 1850. after its 2018 update, it’s now also one of the most inventive.
Putting Pantone’s deliciously colorful swatches to a different use, Pantone: The Game replaces the drawing element of Pictionary with the ability to depict imagery through Pantone’s color-swatches. The game comes with a set of 60 Swatch Cards in 15 different colors, and as many as 132 character cards. The gameplay is simple. Read the card and build the character using Pantone’s swatches. You can use as many as you like, but be warned… more isn’t necessarily better! Overlap cards to create unique shapes and minimalist representations and have your team members guess the answers! There are hints provided too if you’re paired with people who lack a certain artistic and creative sense… there’s always one or two of them.
Pantone: The Game is a wonderful way of combining the joy of color with the joy of gameplay. The swatches are inspired by Pantone, the world’s leading color expert, while the question-cards feature characters from pop culture, with very distinct color palettes. For instance, below we have Donald Duck, Buzz Lightyear, Rick & Morty, and a bunch of Disney princesses!
Designer: Scott Rogers (Cryptozoic Entertainment) for Pantone
Allow me to describe the people who will love this collection. In the Venn diagram of life, these products are for those who love designer products and anything ever related to coffee! So if you are one of these (raises a jittery hand in air) or just happen to know someone who falls in this quirky category of people, this curation is sure to make them ecstatic!
The Kruve EQ with its double-walled construction that allows you to appreciate your caffeinated beverage without burning your fingers.
Handpresso, your own espresso maker that is literally the size of a deodorant can and can be carried everywhere you go by the Handpresso team
The Dot/Dot coffee pod machine concept takes on an aesthetic that caffeine cravers and space enthusiasts alike will appreciate with perfectly spherical unlike the common cup versions, and modeled after the planets designed by Younggyu Kwon
Tap and Drop comes with smooth curves used for the top of the device guide the coffee beans into the machine, eliminating the possibility of the beans from getting stuck by Jeonghyun Ahn, Donghong Seo & Jo Gwanghee
The Barisieur is an alarm clock that will wake you up with a bespoke cup of coffee by Joshua Renouf
The Espresso Veloce Royale 01 uses a V12 engine crafted from real 18-karat white gold, diamonds, thermoset gold leaf carbon fiber, and two stunning royal purple amethyst gems by Super Veloce
The Newton Espresso uses a Type 2 Lever to reduce the amount of effort needed to extract every single bit of goodness from your grounds by Hayden Maunsell
Our generation is so used to swiping at things that it only seems natural that something like the Nimble Cutter would exist! Cleverly named, the Nimble is a thimble that sits on your finger, but instead of preventing needle pricks, this little bad-boy comes with a blade that’s capable of being the best cutter you’ll ever own. Convenient in its design, the Nimble’s silicone cap shape allows it to comfortably rest on any finger. A tiny blade on the tip lets you simply slide across surfaces you want to cut, be it paper, tape, clingfilm, etc. The blade’s small enough to slice through packaging, but too small to actually cut skin, which means the most the Nimble will do is poke you a tiny bit.
Perfect for the upcoming festive season (what with all the unboxing you’ll have to do), the Nimble takes a natural gesture, something we pretty much do all day on our touchscreens, and converts it into something useful, so you can ditch those harmful boxcutters and deadly knives!
The fact that it’s mid-December already, means two things. The holidays, and the new year. It’s a time to get together with family, friends, and even co-workers to share the warm feeling of joy that beats the cold temperatures of wintertime. The YD Holiday Gift Guide is our way of spreading the joy too! We’ve got a selection of products we love (and that we know you’ll love too), to own or to gift to a loved one. They’re sure to enrich lives, bring about smiles, and make the season of giving truly a remarkable one! A very happy holiday season from the YD family! __ 01. Pantone Formula Guide (Color Of The Year 2019 Edition) by Pantone To normal people, you give calendars and planners around the new year. To designers, you give Pantone’s Formula Guide with the latest color of the year! With 2019 being all about happiness and optimism, Pantone’s Color of 2019 is Living Coral, a beautiful, heartwarming shade of, let’s say red. The Formula Guide comes in two booklets, with coated (glossy) and uncoated (matte) hues listed on each. Aside from the regular Formula series of 1,867 solid colors, the Color Of The Year edition even comes with the additional 112 colors of the new year, and even access to Pantone’s Color Manager Software that lets you have digital access to the hues for use in your work!
02. Ember Connected Copper Mug by Ember Nothing’s more magical than a mug that heats its contents on its own. The Ember Temperature Control Mug, a product that we love, now comes in Copper too! The mug lets you pick a temperature through the Ember app and then it maintains your beverage at that constant temperature. It cools down drinks if they’re too hot, and heats up the beverage you left around at room-temperature, so just like Goldilocks (or in this case, Copperilocks), your drink is just right, every time! The mug comes with a completely waterproof design (it can be washed under running water or placed in the dishwasher), and hosts no controls. Just set the temperature through the app and the mug heats up if it detects liquids inside it. Click below to preorder the upcoming Copper Edition, or click here to buy the original edition.
03. Yaktrax Summit by Yaktrax Designed to be snapped on to your trekking shoes when you need every bit of traction you can get, the Yaktrax Summit looks bold, rugged, and like it can do the job. The Summit straps to any shoe (you buy it according to your shoe size), and secures itself tightly. The chains provide traction, but not as much as the 3/8” curved sawtooth stainless steel spikes that dig right into the ice or snow, making sure you’ll never lose grip. The rugged design and blue/black combo play well with the rough, snowy conditions in which the Yaktrax would be absolutely ideal. When not in use, the Yaktrax Summit fit beautifully into a drawstring bag that’s easy to carry them around without hurting anyone or damaging anything.
04. Snowflake Multitool by HexFlex What’s a more perfect wintertime holiday gift (even if it’s for yourself) than a snowflake-shaped multitool?! Designed to get you out of any fix, this snowflake-shaped, winter-appropriate multitool fits 14 different tools into its small form factor. Originally designed to be a snowboard tool, the HexFlex Snowflake Multitool comes made in stainless steel and fastens right to your keychain, allowing you to carry it around wherever you go, giving you the power to open stuff from bottles to boxes, and tighten or loosen screws and bolts whenever needed!
05. Pet Holiday Keepsake Ornaments by Pearhead Remember in your childhood when you’d string together popped corn and wrap it around your tree? Or you’d make ornaments out of papier-mâché and revel in nostalgia as you took them out each year to place on your Christmas tree? The Pet Holiday Keepsake Ornaments are like the same thing, but they involve your pet too! Take the quick-drying putty and use your pet’s pay to make an imprint on it and once it dries, voila! You’ve got yourself a beautiful little Christmas ornament with your pet’s touch to it! The ornament lasts forever and is a great keepsake to have with you for life!
06. Stretch Expandable Trivet by Joseph Joseph The ‘Stretch’ Expandable Silicone Trivet by Joseph Joseph is by far the most ideal gift to grace this list. Made with heat-resistant silicone, and an expandable design, the trivet occupies a small amount of space in the drawer when not in use. However, take it out for a feast and spread it across the table, and you’ve got ample space to place hot utensils from large casseroles to elongated gravy boats, to even multiple pots and pans on it, protecting the table and tablecloth from the heat. A perfectly large trivet for feasts, potlucks, and get-togethers!
07. Porthole Infuser by Crucial Detail The Porthole Infuser does exactly what you think it does. It allows you to make everything from infused cocktails, to syrups, to oils, dressings, or even cold-brewed artisan teas and coffees. Inspired by a submarine or ship’s porthole style window, the Porthole Infuser is a circular vessel with transparent panels on both sides, literally offering a window into the liquid infusion process happening on the inside. Go ahead, make yourself some incredibly heartwarming and life-affirming mulled wine to sip in the chilly weather!
08. Zippo Hand Warmer by Zippo Zippo’s Hand Warmer literally puts the feeling of sitting near a bonfire, in your pocket! This flame-less catalytic heater fits on your palm, emanating heat for 6-12 hours (depending on the size). Hold it in your hand or stash it in your pocket to get the cozy warmth that’s comparable to placing your hands near the fire. The Hand Warmer uses lighter fluid and a carbon felt filter to burn without a flame, emanating just the right amount of heat to give your fingers the warmth it needs in the cold winters!
, the world’s leading color expert, while the question-cards feature characters from pop culture, with very distinct color palettes. For instance, below we have Donald Duck, Buzz Lightyear, Rick & Morty, and a bunch of Disney princesses!
