Yanko Design - Latest Posts

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• Getting Personal With The Designers – Part I
• Scrubbing Veggies to Scrubbing Shoes
• Cooking Right at The Table
• Yanko Claus: Win Herman Miller Select Tops!
• Another Impostor!
• Flower Pill
• Sit Deep on Nook
• Steampunk PC, Oh So Retro!
• If Those Little Lights Aren’t Cutting It
• Floatin’ on High Class

Getting Personal With The Designers – Part I Posted: 14 Dec 2009 04:19 AM PST It's the perfect setting to bring out the Sorapot, brew some tea, get comfy and interview designers. Easier said than done, establishing yourself in the cut-throat design industry takes a lot of grit and determination. Not everyone can accomplish a fan-base as fast as Joey Roth did; his Ceramic Speakers are a pre-booking hit! Alissia Melka-Teichroew of byAMT achievements are marked with her fluidity in design, especially her Tree Hooked Hanger & Meng-Hsiu Ho's design acumen is evident in his realistic iterations. In this two part series catch these young designers get candid and talk about their inspirations, work ethos, design perceptions and much more. Discover how diverse great minds can be! What one product in the history of design do you wish had your name on it? Alissia Melka-Teichroew: This is always hard, to only have 1 product to choose from. Especially since I am not very interested in the products that we use on a daily basis and more inspired by objects, situations, spaces, etc that make us feel something and make us think and wonder and hate or love, basically provoke us to go beyond our daily routine. Things that might change your perception of things. I am not per-se inspired by products that we use daily and are usually more amazed by fashion, art, music and in a way concepts that people have created. Thoughts that they have turned into something that others can experience and feel for themselves. Like the below “products” I admire: 1) Hussein Chalayan’s Afterwords Collection (2000) 2) Philip Starck’s Teddy Bear Band 3) Radi Designer’s Fabulation, lampe, Paris 1999. Also the Fabulation Lamps in an installation at Fondation Cartier in 1999 (it was incredible to see in real life!). Meng-Hsiu Ho: Moooi’s Dear Ingo Lamp designed by Ron Gilad. Designer Ron Gilad transformed an assemblage of conventional incandescent task lights into a retractable multilamp chandelier as an homage to Ingo Maurer. It is a very smart and modern chandelier. Joey Roth: Nothing- designs are such an intimate product of the designer’s personality that anyone else’s work would be an awkward fit with my name on it. In terms of the design I most admire: the Dia: Beacon by Robert Irwin. How have your design processes and the way in which you view design changed over the course of your career? Alissia Melka-Teichroew: Design started for me as a long process of flushing out a concept to slowly becoming a more tangible object or other form of tangible output. Over the years I have had to learn to shorten the conceptual part or perhaps speed it up and go into the tangible realm of the design sooner. Learning more about actually giving form (meaning: being more aware of shapes and proportions and how it affects a design and the clarity of the piece). In general I believe the process has to speed up, like a fast forward on a movie or a cassette tape. Learning how to think ahead more and faster. Meng-Hsiu Ho: At first, we just wanted to make designs which we have interests and passions in. We should not make a product which we think is good or interesting only. We neglected to take the consumers’ point of view into consideration. We didn't ask what the consumers want. After getting some experience and feedback from the market, we then acknowledged the importance of delivering a product that suits the market demand. We then adjusted our design process to combine our original ideas with the consumer demand. Joey Roth: I’ve always been interested in conga drumming, even before I got started with design. I wanted my first product to be a transparent conga made from an acrylic or polycarbonate shell with a clear polymer head. Now I want to design a conga made from the most distressed, dirty, craggy wood topped by an animal skin head with the fur still intact. Design makes me want to get away from design. Do you find it difficult balancing commercial awareness with your own inspiration? Alissia Melka-Teichroew: This is often difficult, but over the years has become easier in a way. I now understand quicker when something has commercial potential or when it should remain a more exclusive. This has been a balancing act since moving to the US more than seven years ago, which I have been trying to embrace as a learning experience over the years. Meng-Hsiu Ho: It is very hard to find a good balance between market and our own inspiration. However, we are a design house based on market orientation. We fully understand design is not just art. An artist can create artworks only for satisfying his own temptation, but not a designer. A product should be accepted by customers in all aspects. Design will carry out its value only when the customers start to use it. Therefore, we value the feedback from our distributors, retailers and end-consumers on the early stage of design process. We take their opinions into account and see if it can further enrich our designs. Joey Roth: The kind of products I’m interested in creating would actually be less commercially successful if I “sold out” and dumbed them down for a wider market. My products naturally interact with people who love design, and I would lose these people if I compromised my intentions. Selling the things I design, talking about them with other people, and building the frameworks that support their entry into the world are just as much a part of my design process as giving form to a new idea. There would be no inspiration without commerce. Summarize in three words your work ethos? Alissia Melka-Teichroew: Perception, playful, poetic (and graphic) (if we make it 4 words) Meng-Hsiu Ho: FUN, FUN, FUN Joey Roth: Think, work, work. Do you feel beautiful objects in the home can be continually inspiring or do they lose a sense of being precious the more they’re used? Alissia Melka-Teichroew: Yes, I believe beautiful objects in the home can be continually inspiring and continually make you happy. Obviously beauty is personal, so what one person finds a beautiful object another might hate. Usage of an object makes them more valuable at times. The usage shows a history, it shows memories in the form of a change to the object as it originally was purchased/received. Meng-Hsiu Ho: The definition of beauty will change from time to time. A design that might have seemed beautiful in the past might look horrible now. However, a classic design object will not be replaced when time changes. Classic so called classic is because it crosses the limit of time and space. In whatever circumstances it can relict the pureness of the design. Although our current design may not be classic, our goal is to provide different fun and interests from our life experiences and childlike ideas. We hope we can make our dull life become more interesting. Joey Roth: Well-designed objects should become more precious the more they’re used. Unfortunately, modern objects, specifically technology objects, tend to be made with glossy plastics and delicate controls: they look progressively worse each day that they’re used. These products are never as valuable as they were the moment they were removed from their packaging, and seem to be designed with a willful ignorance of dirt, scratches, and dust. This approach isn’t just sustainably irresponsible- it limits the depth of connection that the user can feel with the object. I work with materials like stainless steel and birch plywood because they wear in beautifully, like a good pair of shoes or jeans. Objects are born as identical siblings, but become individualized through their owners’ patterns of use. This one of the most beautiful, imperative interactions in the world of product design. Products that ignore inevitable patina are only half-designed. Alissia Melka-Teichroew of byAMT Meng-Hsiu Ho of 25togo Joey Roth of joeyroth.com

Scrubbing Veggies to Scrubbing Shoes Posted: 14 Dec 2009 03:44 AM PST I love this soon to be realized project called Plug-In. The designer, Fredrik Olsson worked within the current process of manufacturing vegetable brushes and extended production to produce these beautiful shoe brushes. The process actually uses skilled labor whom are visually impaired imparting a specialness to these already beautiful brushes. As I said before they’ll soon be available in Iris Hantverk stores this month so go get them and send me one! Designer: Fredrik Olsson

Cooking Right at The Table Posted: 14 Dec 2009 03:32 AM PST Designers keep sending me induction cooking table concepts so I figure I better feature one of them. This one uses the tech to bring family into the cooking experience – to create a new kind of domestic ritual. They say a family that cooks and eats together stays together. I love the idea of cooking together but there’s something to be said about cooking in a proper kitchen. Many families bond in there too. Designer: LDI Aramis Herrera

Yanko Claus: Win Herman Miller Select Tops! Posted: 14 Dec 2009 03:13 AM PST Charles Eames said toys and games are preludes to serious ideas. He is right. There is a link between problem solving, play and creativity. Designers should be having fun so we’re gifting a set of 3 Herman Miller Select tops made from exquisite wood to 2 lucky readers. All you have to do is tell me what the world’s 2nd best toy is and provide a link. Tops take the #1 spot, that’s a given. You have until 11:59 PM PST tonight to enter and remember, we’re gifting all this month so check back! Sponsor: Herman Miller Herman Miller Select is a collection of three wooden tops, each with an original sculptural profile, each crafted of walnut, inspired by Eames. Designed by KleinReid in New York City, the tops are both classic toys and kinetic art. It's an original set of spinning tops that are as sculptural and beautiful as they are fun. Be kind and become their Facebook Fan. They’re always doing something cool.

Another Impostor! Posted: 14 Dec 2009 01:45 AM PST A few posts ago we discussed how ID guys like to serenade one thing for the other, maybe it's their kick for getting things intriguing. Why else would you want hand grenades fashioned as Salt & Pepper Shakers, but for their Taste Explosion? Designer: Thabto [ Buy it Here – available for $16 at the YD Store ] Taste Explosion Salt & Pepper Shakers is available for $16 at the YD Store *Order by Dec 15 for US delivery by Dec 25.

Flower Pill Posted: 14 Dec 2009 01:15 AM PST On one hand we have tech marvels like the Medicine Management System for the Elderly that helps establish a routine in pills popping, ensuring you take the correct dosage at the right time. And on the other, we have a simple in-your-face kinda a reminder: The Medi Flower. It repackages the tablets into cute little stands that you can place at an obvious spot. A constant reminder that you need to take your tablet….soon. Designer: Moon Sun-Hee

Sit Deep on Nook Posted: 14 Dec 2009 01:00 AM PST An intrepid exploration into the lovely depths of knits and weaves. Designer Henry Sgourakis takes the patterns in weaves and knits of the Arts and Crafts period, past and present. My aunts live in a house filled with Arts and Crafts books, furniture, and nicks and nacks from all over the country, especially up in our corner of the United States – Midwest – Minnesota. And this lovely bit of furniture would be a wild, super addition to their world. Inspired in particular by those doilies commonly considered cheap and tacky. These pieces aim to take that tradition which went wayward and bring the gorgeousness of it into some nice furniture items. The unique flexible webbing molds to the body, moving back to it’s original form when not in use. That’s a nice comfort to sit, a unique furniture shape with noone relaxing. Designer: Henry Sgourakis

Steampunk PC, Oh So Retro! Posted: 14 Dec 2009 12:18 AM PST Did you notice the sudden retro wave that's hit most ID designers? It's like they've gone nostalgic and strung an emotional cord with gadgets from the past. The Philco PC here is a prime example of such inspirations, totally reminiscent of the 1954 design classic Philco Predicta! Indulge in it for the aesthetic value, as for the specs…yea it does host Windows 7. But then again we're here for the love of design, specs can take a hike for the moment! Designer: SchultzeWORKS designstudio Philco PC from Dave Schultze on Vimeo.

If Those Little Lights Aren’t Cutting It Posted: 14 Dec 2009 12:10 AM PST So you’re hearing impaired. And the telephone rings. But you aren’t looking at the phone, so you can’t see that little light flashing on it.* Or you’re looking for a new solution for waking up in the morning. Or the doorbell rings. What ever do you do? You come over here and check this right out, right now! It’s a wristband that informs about all of that at once, through sensations in the skin! *This is assuming you’ve got a land-line of course. Not all in the world have a mobile cell phone yet! Skin receptors are abundant on your wrist. That’s why the teacher SMACKS you on the wrist when you’re in trouble! (Or, at least, my auntie told me they used to do that in the school they went to.) So, instead of that, this device, the “Aria,” makes use of those skin receptors with patterns of touch in this fabulous band. Six audible events in the home communicate to the user of the band through different pressing patterns. Tactile! Designer: May Wilson

Floatin’ on High Class Posted: 14 Dec 2009 12:01 AM PST This is just the 50 feet flybridge motor yacht that you need. That’s what I’m about to stand by. This lovemobile has three decks of elegance. Like the yacht I just wrote about a few days ago, this is another fabulous automotive-inspired boat machine from Motion Code Blue. It’s called the SENTORI 50 R in all caps, and it’s so very visually powerful. Believe it. It looks to be a coupe! Gigantic windows in the greenhouse to actualize a melding of interior and exterior spaces. Large owners window in the hull for an excellent und unique view slightly above the water, shark fin level. Bar in back acts as skylight for salon underneath. Minimalistic keyboard-like design for the steering console. Sunbed and multifunctional dining area up in the back. Dining table ready for 8 can be raised for use or lowered for sun bathing area. Wet-bar, hot-plate, refrigerator with super awesome semi-transparent glass surface. Length: 15.3 m Beam: 5.0 m Displacement: 18 t Engines: 2 x 900 PS YANMAR Maximum Speed: 40 knots. Customer: albatross yachts and composite ltd, taiwan. Available in 2010. Designer: Motion Code Blue

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