Meet the hug cup, an evolution of the traditional tableware that allows you to easily hold your warm mug on those chilly days!

Posted on 13/10/2021 by Shawn McNulty-Kowal

Hug Cup is an innovative reinterpretation of the traditional ceramic mug, replacing the conventional side handle with a central grip tunnel that serves as an internal handle for those living with joint pain or osteoarthritis.

Kitchen cups and mugs have been endlessly reimagined through design over the years. The cup’s simple form makes room for innovative design across industries, from ceramic to inclusive reinterpretations. Designer and ceramic artist, Eszter Imre offered their own take on the conventional ceramic mug, casting a center finger tunnel that makes holding the cup feel like you’re hugging warm tea and makes holding the mug easier for those who struggle with holding a mug’s traditional side handle.

Imre’s Hug Cup was created to drill home the designer’s belief that, “we give special attention to things we use in our everyday life. We like to have a personal relation to the objects we touch closely, such as a cup.”

The internal handle is a unique take on the mug’s traditional side handle, allowing users to securely grip Hug Cup while feeling the warmth of the liquid contents inside. Describing the mug in their own words, Imre states, “The whole cup creates an intimate tunnel through the cup itself for your finger, you may enjoy the heat of your beverage without burning your palm.”

While Hug Cup’s innovative handle is playful, it is also a solution-based design. For those living with joint pain, more specifically osteoarthritis, gripping mugs is a feat on its own. The central tunnel on Hug Cup allows users to hold onto the mug without altering the way their hands naturally fall. By simply sliding your thumb through the internal handle, half the battle is won. In creating Hug Cup, Imre notes, “It’s a fun, engaging object that wouldn’t make you feel like an outcast from society due to your special needs.”

Designer: Eszter Imre

This Dyson-inspired inclusive ticket machine adjusts its height, increasing convenience for its users!

Posted on 03/10/2021 by Shawn McNulty-Kowal

Coinvenience is an inclusive ticket machine design that incorporates adaptive light fixtures and a hydraulic rail system that adjusts the machine’s height to meet users where they are.

We don’t know how inconvenient ticket machines can be until we have to use one. In parking garages, when we don’t pull up close enough, ticket machines are impossibly out of reach and the glare of sunlight makes reading the screen on outdoor ticket machines hopeless. With a few random clicks, all we can do is hope we pressed the right buttons to avoid a ticket. Making it more convenient for everyone’s use, Coinvenience is a new ticket machine designed to adapt to changing daylight and heights to meet people where they are.

Inspired by the Dyson Tower Fan’s ingenious bladeless build, Coinvenience encases its ticket machine inside of a multifunctional metal shroud. Addressing the conventional ticket machine’s lack of adaptive lighting fixtures, Coinvenience is wrapped in a metal shroud that blocks sun glare from obstructing the machine’s main control display.

Additionally, the metal shroud features a toplight that turns on at night to ensure the ticket machine and display panel are always visible no matter the lack of daylight. Another key feature of Coinvenience is its adjustable height. The same metal shroud that protects the machine from sunlight glare keeps a hydraulic rail system that moves the ticket machine on a vertical plane to reach different heights.

Primarily designed as a project for Loughborough University, Coinvenience was designed by Harry Rigler, Katy Finch, Reuben Williams, Omar Alqasem, and Bianca Tartaglia who each shared the same vision of creating a ticket machine with its users at the heart of it. Following the university’s guidelines that required the design to operate on a strictly coin-based payment system and feature a non-touchscreen display panel, the team of student designers looked to inclusivity to give Coinvenience the edge it needed.

Designers: Harry Rigler, Katy Finch, Reuben Williams, Omar Alqasem, and Bianca Tartaglia

This inflatable stretcher designed for emergency missions decreases the chance of panic-induced injuries!

Posted on 24/09/2021 by Shawn McNulty-Kowal

The inflatable stretcher designed by Yu-Hsin Wu caters to impromptu emergency situations with the goal of lessening the effects of panic-induced injuries caused by medical personnel and/or the patient.

Life-threatening rescue situations can bring on panic in anyone, even first responders. When EMT personnel, nurses, and doctors are faced with life or death, the panic that comes with it can exacerbate preexisting injuries or worse yet, result in new injuries. In an attempt to avoid these sometimes fatal mistakes, Taiwan-based student designer Yu-Hsin Wu developed their own interpretation of an inflatable stretcher that comes equipped with medical tools and kits that ensure a successful rescue mission.

Wu’s inflatable stretcher features a similar build to everyday flotation devices like pool floats with additional fastening cushions that keep the patient in place. This inflatable stretcher also comes with integrated tools kits and medical accessories for rescuers to use on the patient before and during the ride to the hospital.

Since Wu’s inflatable stretcher comes with built-in rescue tools and clinical appliances, the medical aid given to the patient will feel intuitive and systematic. Ideal for high-traffic locations and community recreation zones, the inflatable stretcher comes packed with instructions so health professionals like lifeguards and on-site supervisors can use the stretcher with ease whenever necessary.

Lightweight and portable by design, the inflatable stretcher can be used across many different rescue circumstances, from water rescue missions to airlift emergency situations. Recognized by Golden Pin Design Awards for its innovation in the medical field, the inflatable stretcher already comes equipped with several medical tools for use during emergency crises, so no matter the location or form of transportation taken to the hospital, patients will receive preliminary care.

Summing up the design in their own words, Wu describes, “When an accident occurs, the rescuer’s emotions and strains may not be able to properly rescue. The inflatable stretcher integrates ambulance supplies and fixed equipment, it is expected that when an incident occurs, it can be quickly taken in the form of a bag, and calmly follow the instructions on the stretcher to correctly rescue.”

Designer: Yu-Hsin Wu

These portable medical devices are designed be a completely incognito health monitoring setup

Posted on 21/09/2021 by Shawn McNulty-Kowal

Lunit is a collection of portable medical devices designed to be inconspicuous for comfortable use in public settings.

Portable medical devices are trusted by those of us with health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Recontextualizing the portable medical device to be more accessible and tactful, designers Dayeon Jang and Sungchae Park created Lunit, a collection of portable medical devices designed for use in public settings.

Lunit is comprised of four medical devices: an inhaler, blood glucose meter, insulin syringe, and a blood pressure oximeter. Jang and Park took on the portable medical device because they noticed a lack of ergonomics and comfort in the antiquated medical devices still on the market today. Each device of Lunit is inspired by the dark side of the moon to be inconspicuous at first glance, laced in smoky black and gray tones and wrapped in translucent coverings reminiscent of evening mist.

Lunit’s inhaler comes in the same familiar shape as traditional inhalers, but a tubelike build with rounded corners and edges gives it a smoother grip and more ergonomic handling shape. The translucent coverings on both ends of the inhaler also work to give it a more obscure look.

Jang and Park reinterpreted the blood glucose meter as a household product that could be taken on the go as easily as the inhaler. The insulin syringe also finds a bit of obscurity through translucent, foggy coverings that conceal the full function of the syringe, giving it a design as discreet as a pen’s. Finally, the blood pressure oximeter is small enough to fit inside your breast or back pocket and comes with all the functions of a traditional oximeter.

Designed to fit inside your pocket, portable medical devices like inhalers and insulin syringes allow users to take care of restricted airways and high blood sugar levels from anywhere, but sometimes the device’s aesthetic design is less user-friendly than their portability. In prioritizing a discreet look for Lunit, the designers hoped to dampen the staring eyes and stigma typically associated with portable medical devices.

Speaking to this, the designers suggest, “When using medical devices outside, users can [become] nervous or uncomfortable because they are worried about what people think about them or their actions. We want to solve [this] through design so that users with underlying diseases can no longer hide and take care of their health with confidence.”

Designers: Sungchae Park and Dayeon Jang

The ribbed, translucent covering of Lunit’s insulin syringe gives it inconspicuous concealment.

When covered, the insulting syringe from Lunit looks like a pen.

The blood pressure oximeters are adorned with yellow dots similar to a starry night.

Small enough to fit into any pocket, Lunit’s oximeter can be taken anywhere.

The household blood glucose meter looks just like a portable radio.

Equipped with their own carrying case, each device from Lunit is designed to make taking care of yourself look as good as it feels.

This redesign of the kitchen sink was built on a scheme of chamfers and angled edges for one-handed users to use as leverage!

Posted on 11/09/2021 by Shawn McNulty-Kowal

Moray is a statement kitchen sink built on a scheme of chamfers, angled surfaces, and curved edges designed for one-handed users like amputees, parents, and those with an injured upper limb to use as leverage when washing dishes.

Even those who claim to enjoy washing dishes put it off sometimes. And don’t hold your breath for the rest of us. While it can feel like a mindless chore for some of us–amputees, parents of young children, and people with injured upper limbs must consider their best approach when washing dishes because conventional sinks don’t cater to one-handed dishwashing techniques. Changing this, Natalia Baltazar, a Bay Area industrial design student developed a statement kitchen sink that’s designed to be universal.

Providing leverage for one-handed users, Moray is built with an assortment of chamfers, angled surfaces, and curved edges that hold dishes in one place while they’re getting washed. In refining her universal kitchen sink, Baltazar identified the obstacles faced in the kitchen for one-handed dishwashers and sought to solve them with Moray. Following a series of indirect observation and ideation periods, Baltazar learned that it’s less so about introducing new tools and more about redesigning the sink from the basin up.

Inspired by the traditional dual-basin sink, Moray features a deep soaking basin where dishes can soak before getting scrubbed down with a sponge and soap. Inspired by terrace farming, undulating chamfers, ridges, and angled edges are located beside the water basin where dishwashers can position the plates to remain in place while scrubbing them down. Baltazar even thought of a cavity in the design scheme where dishwashers can wedge sponges to wash utensils.

The curvilinear design of the dish racks are points of leverage for dishwashers and completely drain of water thanks to their rounded edges. The only difference between Moray and the traditional sink is the appearance. Users can even install Moray the same way they’d install a conventional kitchen sink, with the option of an overmount or under-mount installation.

Designer: Natalia Baltazar x Smll Design

Baltazar incorporated narrow cavities where users can wedge sponges to clean utensils.

Users would have the choice of an overmount or under-mount installation for Moray.

Inspired by the traditional kitchen sink, Moray has a sink basin and an area with chamfers for leverage.

After finalizing the functionality of Moray, Baltazar conceptualized it in different acrylic colors.

Users place dishes on the right side of Moray to hold them in place while they get washed.

Following an involved ideation and research period, Baltazar settled on a final form for Moray.

Deciding against the incorporation of new tools, Baltazar went ahead and redesigned the kitchen sink from the basin up.

The post This redesign of the kitchen sink was built on a scheme of chamfers and angled edges for one-handed users to use as leverage! first appeared on Yanko Design.