Philips Wins Red Dot Design Award for Jump LED Luminaire

Philips has received Red Dot for its Jump luminaire from Philips Ledalite. Jump is a high performance direct luminaire which combines architectural elements, integrated technologies and patented optics in a contemporary form with a innovative new luminous endcap. Featuring Philips Ledalite's unique LEDLOGIQ design approach, Jump uses MesoOptics holographic nanotechnology, which makes spaces more visually appealing by optimally blending light and color, controlling high angle glare and creating a precise batwing distribution.

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Philips Jump

In addition to innovative design and the integration of LEDs and MesoOptics technology, Jump offers state-of-the-art sustainable technologies such as Response, an integrated daylight harvesting sensor that can further help reduce energy use by 30-35 percent. Moreover, Jump offers Airwave technology, which is comprised of integrated wireless and battery-less controls. By using organic sources of solar and kinetic energy, Airwave provides wireless individual personal control, daylight harvesting, occupancy sensing and full range dimming for private offices, open plan areas, classrooms and other spaces where the ability to control energy and lighting are essential. When combined, these technologies not only help designers and architects achieve LEED points, they ensure that energy is used in a sustainable, responsible way, while delivering the right levels of light.

"Jump is a smart fixture that is indicative of Philips' leading-edge professional lighting solutions, which extend far beyond just offering LED as a light source, combining design, sustainability and controls," said Tim Berman, General Manager, Philips Ledalite. "Integration with other leading-edge technologies, including building management systems, ensure that Jump can easily help a building meet today's energy-efficiency requirements, while giving owners the security of knowing their investment is future-proof and can be extended as needed."

Reptilian Roadster

Long is right, vehicles are getting more and more lifelike! Check out the crocodilian face from the front view of the Reptile and you’ll see what I mean. This race car crosses over to the streets with it’s hybrid 4-pole electric induction/27000CC Wankel engine that develops more than 700HP at 9000 RPMs. Rawr.

Designer: Arturo Arino

Just Pure Water

Look at the irony in nature, the very same river that quenches your thirst turns into a toxic monster once it floods your city. The Health Light is a solar powered system that looks at alleviating such situations. You simply need to set up the purifier in bacteria contaminated water and let it do its work. Pretty soon it detoxifies a considerable amount of water through a filtration process and makes it fit enough to be consumed.

Designer: Liu Yun

30 Days of Simple, Win simplehuman Products!

There’s design and then there’s smart design. simplehuman falls into the latter. I’ve been a huge fan ever since I decided my daily menial tasks could be more efficient simply by getting “simple.” When objects take up too much space and design isn’t used to improve one’s quality of life, you end up with stressors. simplehuman “gets” it and they’ve launched a new campaign where all of you can get it too – 30 Days of Simple.

It’s an interactive and fun giveaway created to engage you with simplehuman products and have the chance to win prizes! Just watch any of the videos and submit your email address to be eligible. Every day, beginning April 1, someone will win. Don’t sleep on this people. Bookmark the site and tell your friends. Personally I want to win the Sensor Can below.

Learn & Win: 30 days of simple

Core77 Design Awards: 3 Days Left to get the Early Bird Discount...

Enter the Core77 Design Awards by Thursday March 31st and not only will you be putting your work in front of an exciting line-up of judges, you'll also be eligible for the nifty 20% Early Bird discount.

The awards are open to professionals, students and DIYers around the world. We've added several new features to the awards program, not the least of which is the 2.5 minute video testimonial. Since designers are great at showing and telling, the Awards provides them the opportunity to share their "real story"—beyond static jpegs and entry form text (which have been simplified and sharpened up, too). This is your chance to make a personal connection with the jury using a low-tech, honest, look-into-the-webcam piece of documentation. Watch samples of videos made by some of our friends in the industry and see for yourself just how straightforward the video testimonial can be.

So submit your entry and pay by Thursday March 31st for the Early Bird discount. Click here to get started.

More Great Concept Work from Mac Funamizu: The Zimmer Phone, the Peel Notifier

It still rankles me when I think of the ignorant blogger who months ago insisted Apple had "reached the limits of industrial design" with the iPhone 4, his idiotic assertion being that Cupertino's glass rectangle could sustain no further modifications.

What a tool.

Case in point, check out Mac Funamizu's latest concept phone, which manages to breathe life into a perfect little rectangle by the means of some subtle curves in all the right places. (For the record, Funamizu's design is not branded "iPhone-" anything, it's just a concept design of his called the Zimmer.)

I want to touch this thing so bad it pains me to watch the animation:

Mobile Phone Sketch: Zimmer from Mac Funamizu on Vimeo.

Japan-based Funamizu (who is fine post-earthquake, by the way, though in an area where goods are being rationed) never ceases to amaze us with his clever concept work. Another of his conceptual objects I'd like to own is his Peel Moving Notifier Concept.

It's a standalone clock that wirelessly syncs with your computer. When it's time to give you an alert, a screen on one of the faces peels backwards to reveal a message/e-mail alert/reminder, et cetera, with the amount of peeling it does correlating with the urgency of the message.

"30 Days of Simple" Promo: Win Free Simplehuman Products

I love the stuff put out by Simplehuman, that purveyor of useful stainless steel objects. And now they're running a promotional where 30 of you (or hopefully, 29 of you and one of me) can win some of their product.

The 30 Days of Simple website has a simple premise: Click on one of their objects, watch a micro-video about it, then enter your e-mail address to be entered in a drawing for that object. Get lucky and you can win like Charlie Sheen.

Anyone can enter (even lowly installation designers) and as the name implies, the promo will run for 30 days. They start picking winners—one each day—on Friday, but the site is live and waiting for entries right now. And in the best traditions of viral marketing, the campaign gives you a second chance to win if you can infect a friend.

Autism Connects Challenge: Get Your Entries In!!

Just a quick reminder to all students to get your entries in TODAY for ourAutism Connects student design challenge! Our distinguished panel of judges, which includes Yves Behar (fuseproject), Lisa Strausfeld (Pentagram), Richard Seymour (Seymourpowell) and our own Allan Chochinov, is eagerly awaiting your entries. Don't miss this opportunity to help individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) better connect with the world around them through a well-designed communication solution.

The jury will award a grand prize of $5,000 to one individual or team. In addition, Autism Speaks will award creators (or one representative in the case of a team entry) of the top three designs a $1,000 stipend and registration fees to attend the 2011 International Meeting for Autism Research, to be held May 12 to 14, 2011 in San Diego, CA, where they will be invited to present their design concept.

Popular Vote Prize (Community Prize)

$1,000 - First Place

$500 - Second Place

$250 - Third to Sixth Place

COMPETITION CLOSES TOMORROW, NOON EST—Wednesday, MARCH 30th!!

Book Review: Usefulness in Small Things, by Kim Colin and Sam Hecht

"Each Under a Fiver item is a testament to an un-global culture, a testament to local needs and interests. Communities around the world continue to require things that serve their local needs, and often design plays little to no part at all."

In Usefulness in Small Things, Industrial Facility's Kim Colin and Sam Hecht share their "Under a Fiver" collection, first presented at London's Design Museum alongside "Some Recent Projects," an exhibit of the firm's own work. The premise of the collection is simple. As Hecht puts it in his introduction, "As I continued to travel, I made sure to wander through any local hardware stores, pharmacies or supermarkets I came across, finding low-cost objects (all are under five pounds) that told me something about where I was." The resulting array is a delightful antidote to the image-based work so popular on the Internet, a real force in the decline of attention paid to the experiential elements of objects and spaces.

Hecht writes, "The look is commanding too big a role. The limitation with this way of designing, if it continues, is that there is a whole world of situations, functions, and activities that gradually become forgotten." This book focuses on those situations, functions and activities as a driver for why an object was acquired in the first place. The collection is not about being ordinary, unlike Jasper Morrison's and Naoto Fukusawa's similar (and now outrageously expensive) publication Super Normal. Instead, it explicitly favors objects that are locally-specific, materially rich and formally sophisticated even in their simplicity. Hecht and Colin, in accompanying texts, reveal the many ways that these objects transcend function via function.

The book opens with a terracotta light switch found in Italy, striking in its close resemblance to a flower pot and its unconventional shape. Hecht explains that the material choice is "not born out of an aesthetic desire" but a practical one: ceramic is an effective insulator against electric current. Another terracotta object, a skin scrub found in the UK, becomes poetic by explanation: "It's wonderful when you see one material used uniformly throughout an object, which, in this case, is held by the skin of the hand, to remove the skin of the foot."

Items are divided into categories: Care, Modified, Duality, Straightforwards, and Situation. In "Care," the objects exhibit a high quality of materiality or construction. "Modified" items have been changed slightly from their original state to support a new function—a toothbrush head has been flipped on its side to make a tongue brush, most likely using existing tooling. "Duality" groups objects that combine multiple functions; a favorite is the not altogether effective spray bottle/watering can. "Straightforward" celebrates logic, with to-the-point packaging like a tomato juice can that is, more or less, also a tomato. Finally, "Situation" investigates products created for very specific uses, from pipe painting to falafel making.

Instead of aggregating designer work with a curatorial reach that is wide but shallow, a familiar tactic in design publishing, Usefulness in Small Things expresses the values, experience and sensibility of two celebrated practitioners who talk us through the objects that they learn from. It is the best sort of design book, a volume of original information and insight garnered from real world experiences. In this author's opinion, it's well worth the $29.95 (or $19.97 on beloved Amazon).

Finally, the review can't conclude without a nod to Rizzoli's apt choice of graphic designer: Graphic Thought Facility, who did an excellent job bringing clarity and beauty to the ideas and images of Industrial Facility.

Usefulness in Small Things will be released on April 19, 2011.

Find Your Bike

Have you ever paced up and down a rack of bicycles trying to remember where you locked yours up at? The Acousto Optical Lock is a steel ripe style cable lock that sends out an audio signal and lights up when you press a key fob. Great idea!

Designer: Liu Yu

More Than a Cyber Café

I’m embarrassed to admit it but I was one of the first people to criticize the concept of cyber cafés and even bet they wouldn’t last. To cut the story short, I had to swallow my words and I’m here to make amends. What we have here is the Biz Café – a concept targeted towards the jet-set workaholics who need gadget ready environments even while relaxing with a cup of coffee. Think about it, most restaurants and glitzy places in town have access to our social profile and instantly ping the world with a status update! So yes, in the future we will need a semi-office environment, even in cafés, so that we don’t lose out on work!

Designers: Youri Hong, Moonhwan Park & Hyoshin Kim [SADI]

Dear Diary on The Table

Remember the Watch Diary, yes the very one that pointed out your current chores with a bright red pointer and sheepishly reminded you of ones you missed, plus the upcoming ones? Well the hardbound diary has now been upped to a Whiteboard Cutout. You can plan your daily timetable on its face and maybe even attach pictures using the magnet. I prefer this use-and-rub version. What about you?

Designed by Wonjune Song for Connect Design

Inventive Design Concepts from Monocomplex

Here are some simple and neat concepts from South Korean design collective Monocomplex:

The Free Form Ruler is a measuring device that works like a pencil. The simple idea is that you'd drag the sensor tip along whatever curve or line you need the length of and the numbers are displayed via LED. Rotating the dial lets you choose the unit of measurement or reset it.

The Clip USB is a flash drive that you'll always have on hand and hopefully be less likely to lose, as it clips to your clothing.

The 2Face is a pair of eyeglasses whose color can quickly be changed by "flipping" the frames.

Dig their stuff? See more here.