product design

As the world mourns the death of Michael Jackson, we remember his design legacy—not his taste in clothing (dictator chic), accessories (a crystal-studded white glove, primates), or typefaces (up with script fonts, down with serifs), but his patented anti-gravity footwear. That's right, intellectual property fans, Jackson is listed as the first of three inventors on United States Patent 5,255,452, granted in 1993 for a "method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion." Translation: special loafers fitted with heels that can slot into the stage floor to allow the wearer to lean forward, Smooth Criminal style, at gravity-defying angles.

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Just give the giant green rabbit your garbage and nobody gets hurt. The five-foot-tall bunnies stationed through September at London's Covent Garden and Holland Park actually come in peace, bearing trash bags. Toss in your garbage and their ears light up. The bunny bins were designed by the multitalented Paul Smith as one of 15 projects commissioned for London by the city's Design Museum. "I tried to keep my idea simple and hopefully interesting. I am always amazed how bad people are about litter and how they are so thoughtless," said Smith. "My exhibit is hopefully a tiny step towards making people be better with their rubbish."

While Smith injected his trademark whimsy into rubbish bins, David Adjaye smartened up London's bus shelters, Thomas Heatherwick gathered up quotidian lampposts into a "chandelier" bouquet, and Zaha Hadid, well, she whipped up an entire vision for the city of London. Other top designers who answered the museum's call to give something back to London include Tom Dixon, Neville Brody, and Ron Arad. All 15 projects are on view through October 4 in the Design Museum's "Super Contemporary" exhibition, which is co-sponsored by Beefeater gin. You'll need to remember that last part when the guards give you trouble for drinking gin—make that Beefeater 24 "luxury gin"—in the museum. Just tell them the green bunnies made you do it.

After all the hubbub the last couple of years, we hadn't really heard much about the One Laptop Per Child project for a while (other than the many bus ads around town here in Chicago this winter). But now a key member of the OLPC team is heading back into the news with one of the heads of the project, designer Mary Lou Jepsen, announcing that she has been working to develop a new type of computer screen, hopefully jumping that last major production expense hurdle, resulting in even less building cost. Jepsen has come up with a kind of Kindle-like solution, using a model that seems almost e-paper-like (but definitely isn't, according to a disclaimer on Jepsen's Pixel Qi site) to keep the cost down and the power consumption low, while still being able to display everything a typical monitor would. Sounds like a really great development and even though it's a for-profit endeavor at the moment, maybe it might also benefit the OLPC down the line. Jepsen is currently touring the display at a few tech events here and there, with likely more to come as she drums up support, so if you're lucky enough to catch her, do so and get a sneak peek at the future.

Tel Aviv-born, Eindhoven-educated, and New York-based Dror Benshetrit is showing off his Isaac Mizrahi-style high/low range. After making a splash at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair with his crowd-pleasing crumpled felt peacock chair for Cappellini, the designer and founder of Studio Dror this month sees the launch of his line of affordable homegoods for Target. The limited-edition "Dror for Target" range includes bedding, decorative accessories, and stationery in a palette of brown, raspberry, plum, and aqua. Among the items that caught our eye? A modular shelving system (pictured above) that can be configured to fit a range of environments and functions. At $89.99 per set, it's the most expensive item in the 23-product collection, which also includes 99-cent mini-composition books and pillows that flip from abstract patterns to pixellated birds or butterflies, depending on your appetite for fauna and figuration. More Dror-designed Target merch is featured after the jump.

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Finally, a sink worthy of rinsing the years of dust from your Juicy Salif citrus-squeezer! That's right, Philippe Starck has designed his first kitchen sink—the "Starck K"—for Duravit, the 192-year-old bathroom products company that has collaborated with Starck since 1994. As with every kitchen sink we've ever seen, the Starck K boasts abundant right angles, "creating a sleek, simple rectangle with an all-around rim." Inside that rectangle is a deep sink cleverly connected to a recessed draining area and/or basin to prevent overflow, and the whole thing perfectly accommodates Starck-designed cutting boards and trays. An overhead shot suggests a life spent selecting superior produce and cheerfully preparing elaborate salads. The Starck K is available in various sizes and a selection of colors: white, anthracite, chestnut brown, or pergamon—which is Duravitspeak for a beige hue that smacks of ancient Greece.

Shoe design agrees with Zaha Hadid. Last year, Brazilian footwear company Melissa debuted strappy, space-age plastic wedges designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect. Now it's onward, to boots! Come September, Lacoste will launch a capsule collection of men's and women's footwear designed in collaboration with Hadid, the architect's office tells us. The final design prototypes (pictured below), which made a splash last fall at London's Frieze Art Fair, will soon go into production.

(Photos: Zaha Hadid Architects)

Digitizing patterned surfaces (crocodile skin, perhaps?) was the starting point for Hadid's design of the calf leather boots, which feature embossed and debossed wave patterns. "The design expression behind the collaboration with Lacoste footwear allows the evolution of dynamic fluid grids," says Hadid. "When wrapped around the shape of a foot, these expand and contract to negotiate and adapt to the body ergonomically. In doing so a landscape emerges, undulating and radiating as it merges seamlessly with the body."

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As thoroughly addicted passionate consumers of aspartame-laden Diet Coke, we were surprised to learn that sugarcane and molasses may soon be showing up in our beverage of choice—in the bottle, that is. Later this year, the Coca-Cola Company will begin piloting the "PlantBottle," a new plastic container that makes petroleum-based PET (polyethylene terephthalate, if you want to get technical) plastic bottles look like that ozone-destroying hairspray now available only in Mexico's more remote mini-marts.

The fully recyclable PlantBottle is made through a process that converts byproducts of sugar production—the aforementioned sugar cane and molasses—into a component for PET plastic. Researchers at Imperial College London found that the new bottle, which contains 30% plant-based material, reduces carbon emissions by up to 25%, compared with petroleum-based PET. It can also be processed through existing manufacturing and recycling facilities without contaminating traditional PET. The first Coca-Cola brands to be PlantBottled will be Dasani and vitaminwater. Look for "on-package messages and in-store point of sale displays" to debut later this year, or simply lick the bottle of any Coke product and see if you detect a hint of molasses.

It's the middle of May and our mailman is no longer speaking to us, which can only mean one thing: it's time for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair! The fair opens on Saturday at the Javits Center, and the jam-packed slate of satellite events is already in full swing. Among our first stops will be "400 Years Later - Cite Goes Dutch," an exhibition of new work by 23 emerging designers, 6 manufacturers, and 1 photographer—all of whom hail from the gray-skied design hotbed that is the Netherlands. The show is curated by industrial designers Alissia Melka-Teichroew and Jan Habraken, Eindhoven grads who each now helm their own New York-based design studios. Among the works on view will be Habraken's new "Shovel Birdhouse," perfect for the multitasking gardener. "As lighthearted as it seems, the design is a deliberate one," notes Habraken. "A bird's diet consists of seeds and worms. As children, we gather worms for fishing by wiggling a shovel in the ground. With this birdhouse, the bird can wiggle his own worms out of the ground by simply landing on the house and letting the subsequent momentum do the work." Not to put too fine a point on it, but we're guessing that this product is most effective when the birds are grossly obese.

With the economy as it is, we sort of figured the pop-up store, that is, a temporary structure that comes in for a couple of days, sells some specialty wares and closes up shop as quick as it came, was a thing of the boom era of, say, just a few months ago. But apparently the trend continues, as the retailer Target has decided to try its hand out here in the Midwest after some successful endeavors out in New York City, by opening a "Bullseye Bazaar" here in Chicago from May 7th to the 9th on the ground floor of the Tribune Tower right in the heart of Michigan Avenue. We're thinking it's a way of snagging some of the modern/design-hungry local and tourist traffic heading to the about-to-open Modern Wing at the Art Institute (we snagged a couple of tickets for Thursday's private opening party, so expect a full report Friday morning), but it also could have something to do with Chicago finally thawing out after seventeen long months of winter and everyone in the city desperate to get out and do something, anything, in the out of doors. Here's a bit about what you'll find there:

In addition to showcasing some items that are usually only sold on Target.com, the bazaar will feature more than a dozen Target designers including Sonia Kashuk, Mossimo, Thomas O’Brien and Michael Graves as well as some limited-time collaborations with Tracy Feith, Loomstate, Miss Trish of Capri and Erickson Beamon.

It's been too long since UnBeige was riding high in the spotlight of license plate design news, back in those glory days of 2008 when we were reporting on all of the excitement and appearing on things like the Plate Show. But finally we are able to return to form with the news that the state of Nebraska has decided to try and capture some of the same bizarre excitement that came out of Texas last year with their own "vote on your new license plate" contest. They've rolled out four new designs this week and have opened up voting through the state's motor vehicles division that will tally the top picks from now until the middle of the month, at which point a winner will be crowned and start appearing in 2011. Personally, although we have a special kinship with the state of Nebraska, even enjoying their cute unicameral government, we have to say that we're not a bit fan of any of the selections, so we apologize for any Nebraskans who read UnBeige and look to us to make their difficult decisions for them. Though we can at least slim down the selection process a little for you by saying how much we hate the truly terrible, black and white ramped, second pick (shown to the right), which we are not alone in hating, according to the Omaha World-Herald:

"I actually gagged when I saw it," said Omaha artist Scott Blake. "Man, that's just terrible." [printmaker Joey Lynch] didn't give it much love either. "It's very Photoshop from 1996," he said. What if this design wins and is the official plate from 2011 through 2017? "I'd have to move to Pottawattamie County and register my cars there," said Drew Davies, owner and design director of Omaha's Oxide Design Co.

We agree that it's terrible, but we think the people of Pottawattamie County need an apology for this thinly-veiled "my county is better than your county" insult.