jung-taek choi: gum flower.

How Asian is this? Combining their fight against the scourge that is gum-spitting (the government of Singapore will actually publically decapitate you for spitting gum out on the street. No, really. I’m not totally sure what they do with your severed head and other viscera, but at least you won’t be spitting gum out anymore…) with the ancient art of origami, Jung-Taek Choi has created the Gum Flower.

Though I’m doubtful you’ll be able to find a public garbage can as lovingly filled with white paper and bubble wrap as the one above, the idea is still interesting. Turn your gum wrapper into a nifty little work of origami. Once you’ve created your flower (this is where it gets weird) all you need to do is spit your gum in the middle of it. I guess it’s like pollination. Then you nestle it gently in a garbage can for the world to admire.

marti guixé: candy restaurant.

Only in Japan do things like this happen. You might remember Dutch artist Marti Guixé for his Gin and Tonic Fog Party. Well, Marti is my kinda guy; having given the world breathable cocktails, he’s now moved on to gourment dining… with gummies.

The Candy Restaurant opened in Tokyo in 2007. A lot like good sushi, you’ve got 4 different tasting menus to serve from. The candies come served quite artistically on a plate, with instructions on how to eat them (make sure you always eat a Fuzzy Peach with the the stem side facing your tongue…)

rafael morgan: light drop + indigestive plate.

Brazilian designer Rafael Morgan is one of my new faves. Not only does he have a modern aesthetic that I clearly enjoy, but his work explores the intersection of the organic and technological (another one of my weak spots) and social awareness. Forward-thinking design with a globally inclusive message – what more could you ask for?

First up is “Light Drop”. The tap is steel, the “water” is silicone, and the intensity of the LED light is controlled, intuitively, by the tap. Turn it higher, more light. Turn it doesn, less light. Morgan says ” the Light Drop is supposed to make people think about how we are
dealing with our natural resources, in this particular case, the water, which is the main source of energy for every living organism in this
fantastic world. Water is energy indeed.” I love this guy.

The 3rd place winner in designboom’s Bright LED design competition, “Light Drop” was originally a concept piece, but keep your eyes peeled as it’s going to be produced and up for sale some time in 2008 from Belgian design firm Dark.

On more of a social awareness tip, Morgan’s “Indigestive Plate” plates are deliciously subversive in how they deliver their message at the most opportune time. A collaboration between Morgan and Ben Collette, hard-to-swallow facts about world hunger are printed in Victorian script on porcelain plates. Created with heat-sensitive ink, the messages (like “Every day 16,000 children die from hunger related causes” – how ’bout them apples?) only appear once hot food is plated. That gives the message time to appear, so that just while the eater is finishing their meal they’ll discover what’s underneath.

Like Morgan himself suggests, it would be amazing to re-stock a restaurant with “Indigestive Plates” and then watch what goes down before dessert is served.

kouji iwasaki : to:ca wood LED clock

If you’re a regular reader then you know by now that I’ve got a fetish for anything combining the organic and technological. So it’s not a big surprise that this TO:CA wood LED clock, designed for Takumi by Kouji Iwasaki, gets me a little giddy.

adi meirtchak + adva noach: gum pile chair.

Ah, the ol’ gum under the chair. Brings back memories of high school: slouching down in some hard wooden seat mentally preparing yourself for the soul-sucking agony that is, say… physics. Or in my case physics, chemisty, algebra, calculus or any other left-brained pursuit. Except for biology – that was fun because it had animals.

But anyway, you’re in physics and you reach under to grab your backpack only to rub up against some nasty, calcified, Cretaceous-area wad of petrified gum. That’s gross.

Oddly, as in the work of Israeli industrial designers Adi Meirtchak and Adva Noach, if you stick several thousand pieces of gum to the bottom of a chair, it’s art. Don’t ask. It just is.

Via NOTCOT

gimme gimme: napkin.

There’s always an opportunity to take something boring and ghetto (wet wipes) and turn it into something irresistably chic. That’s just what Italian company Napkin has done with it’s range of freeze-dried goodies. Their line-up of hand and body towels (and even some tee shirts…) come suction-packed into little circular pills. All you need to do is add a little water and you’ve got your own personal hand towel, or tee shirt, no matter where you are. Ridiculously unnecessary… and I really want some.

imbroglio + jean-pierre vitrac = desk calendar.

This article also appeared on Josh Spear

It’s about this time every year, as you stumble back into the office post-holiday, where you begin to realize some very important things. Like that you need a new calendar. Luckily for the style-savvy, designers like Imbroglio have new takes on the standard cross-the-day, flip-the-month variety that your bank may have sent you… with pictures of puppies or infants eerily dressed up like vegetables.

Created by Jean-Pierre Vitrac and re-produced by London design shop twentytwentyone, the pleasingly modernist jumble turns into a perfectly acceptable calendar. As you slide the accompanying magnet along it focuses the eye and cleverly reveals the date from the previously muddled negative space.

Even better, it can be reused so that you won’t encounter the same design dilemma a year from now.

established & sons: font clock.

UK-based design and manufacturing firm Established & Sons has a mission to “build an exemplary representation of British creative excellence”. Stiff upper lip aside, their site is a feast of exquisitely simple, modern, handcrafted must-haves. A total standout, created by one of the site’s founders and directors, Sebastian Wrong, is the Font Clock.

12 different fonts are incorporated in the iconic (and, not at all surprisingly) Brit-invented old skool numeric-flip design. The different fonts appear randomly and create a constantly shape-shifting feeling to the normally run-of-the-mill act of glancing at a clock. The mechanisms inside are designed so that, during a full calendar year, every font will have been displayed with all it’s chronological compatriots for at least 5 minutes each.

nick foley: …and a partridge in a LED pear tree.

Wednesday. The universally-loathed bastard child of the week. And time for another edition of obsessed with… Wednesdays.

My obsession this week delves futher into my love for the collision of the organic and the modern. Equally cool is when the organic is re-created by the modern, like in this simply awesome Pear Light by American industrial designer Nick Foley.

The steel tree is hollow hand-forged steel (I don’t even want to think about how long that took) and bears three individual LED pear lights. Connected with rare earth magnets that enhance the realism of the tree, the pears can literally be “picked” and taken anywhere. They stay lit for about an hour on their own and can be recharged just by being magnetically reattached to the tree. Ah-may-zing. If any generous benefactors (or if you’re just stupid rich) are reading this and would like to buy me my very own Pear Light, please email me. I’ll totally put out.

Via enviro-friendly design site Inhabitat

mathmos thaw.

Designed by Mathew Jackson for legendary lighting innovators Mathmos – inventors of the lava lamp – the thaw is a little nature paradox brought to design life (insert fire and ice joke here…). You create the icy cylinder from the included mold. The tealight inside glows while the ice is thick and as it melts slats in the holder collect the water.