Via Cribcandy I came across this vintage nested suitcase installation. Cribcandy found it on Mocoloco and Mocoloco found it at Design*Sponge. It made me wonder what designers do nowady with this perfectly pratical idea. If you travel you can’t have enough suitcases, but at home those darn suitcases take a lot of space…what better than to nest them in storage?
I did a quick image search on Nested Suitcases, but couldn’t find any eye candy design. Did I overlook something or is the idea obsolete and am I only nostalgic?
I like to share this design by
Yu Hun Kim with you, because a cuppa java with something to read is an ultimate moment of luxury relaxation. With this tray you can have both pleasures at once, even in your hotel bed!
Amusing solution to an awkward situation.
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The seat diners dread the most is the uncomfortable center place, right where two tables join. Murphy’s Law comes into action and invariably one table is slightly taller than the other, causing an up-down situation! With the dedicated Plate For People Who Sit Between Two Tables, I’m sure we can tackle the awkward scene, and just for the novelty of eating off this cool plate, I’m willing to sit in the middle!
Designer: Shira Nahon
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Excellent!
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Design Miami/ presents Designer of the Year Award to Maarten Baas
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Maarten Baas is the youngest designer to receive the Design Miami/ Designer of the Year Award. New work commissioned for the award along with a theatrical retrospective will be presented in Miami later this year.
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No, this has nothing to do with a diaper- or hair pin, although it looks like it.
Helsinki, Finland, based designer Lincoln Kayiwa has designed the sterling silver Tukaani, a hand made connected set of chopsticks for the clumsy among us. A killer tool for the Sushi aficionado.
The loop is the key element: It holds and let you manipulate the chopsticks and can also be used to hang, store and display the Tukaani.
Lincoln Kayiwa was born in an architectural family in Kampala, Uganda in 1979. He graduated as a Master of Arts from the University of Art and Design Helsinki UIAH in 2008. Upon graduating he started his own brand product design company Kayiwa. He currently lives and works in Helsinki, Töölö.
Via Design Boom.
The Segway scooter was a cool idea, but it’s big downside was that people had to actually stand up on it—something fewer Americans are willing and/or able to do nowadays. This prototype of a new Segway vehicle, then, is much more promising. It’s the P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility) prototype, and it’s designed to provide efficient urban transport for people who don’t want their utter laziness compromised. (General Motors is also involved in the P.U.M.A., but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s doomed.) If Segway can convince people that these things are actually safe to drive, the company could reclaim its once-shining reputation as an innovator in transportation.
BrandFreak: Segway realizing most people are lazy and just want to sit down
March 17, 2009 · 9 comments
in Bed and Breakfast, Been There, Blogging, Design, Germany, Hip Hotels, Hotels, Inspiration, L-List, Luxury, T-List, UK, Web 2.0, Websites, Weekend Hotels
It is really refreshing when you are sitting at a conference with presentations and discussions of travel and hospitality and tech types who only seem interested in their good self or their own product or service and are not outgoing and not interested in the guest, their clientèle, or only maybe in the money of the guest, to get a presentation of a really passionate couple. James Lohan and Tamara Heber-Percy (see also my interview with Tamara) , the husband and wife who founded the Mr and Mrs Smith Collections under the caption: Luxury and Romance meet Technology.
Yes, I agree. It’s all about Respect!
They both come from a completely different background than travel and hospitality. Again their success shows that innovations in this industry frequently come from those outside the industry.
They started out with the production of the Mr & Mrs Smith guides. They described their difficulties with getting the guides published. Never before was a guide produced with one editor and one photographer for all properties. Eventually they decided to pyblish the guide all by themselves. The interesting thing is that added to the guides is a Mr and Mrs Smith membership card which gives the holder some extras as upgrades or a little present from their shop. That gives the brand a tremendous crowd to source from.
They are adamant about the properties being inspected by themselves or a member of their team of +40 in the meantime, because they strongly believe you cannot review a hotel properly without having experienced the look and feel of the place. In addition they sometimes team up with unusual partners for the hotel industry like lingerie brands. They also understand that you sometimes want to stay in a self catering accommodation or luxury chalet, rather than a hotel.
They seamlessly have merged their Blog (in the air since July 2005) into their main site. However Tamara was already out there scoring whatever was said about the brand in 2004: Shortly after I became aware of their guides via a post of my fellow editor Willem Vos at the Dutch language Weekend Hotel Blog she already commented there – note the date of the comment is not correct, as Willem had some problems in 2008 to migrate the blog to his new platform running on Ruby on Rail…whatever that may be, but I know I made the comment already in 2004-.
Here you see some footage of one of the rather unconventional and hilarious ad they presented at the keynote.
If even Gesa Noormann of Escapio says in a comment under Kevin’s Travolution coverage of the presentation:
Thanks Kevin for the fab article. Despite the fact that Mr and Mrs Smith are Escapio’s UK competitor, I can’t deny that their presentation was fantastic!
then you know your presentation was good even if you were dead tired.
Some personal notes:
I don’t understand jot from what Kevin’s caption means: “Corporate Barbarism does not begin at home say The Smiths”, but that could be my Dunglish.
If you are curious to see who the guy behind Escapio is look here. Even if I say it myself, I like the picture.
I think Willem should start talking with the two portfolios mentioned here, Mr & Mrs Smith and Escapio, or alternatively they should start talking with Willem, to see if there are possibilities to team up to cover The Netherlands and Belgium better than they do now separately.
Added March 24, 2009:
Via twitter I got the link of the same video on their site: Mr & Mrs Smith | Get a Room!. It has a bit better quality than the YouTube one
December 12, 2008 · 3 comments
in Amenities, Budget Hotels, Design, Dutch Design, Guests, Hip Hotels, Hoteliers, Hotels, Inspiration, Travel
From time to time images of this bookshelf with the 7 books of the world’s most important religions came along on my computer. It is a habit in many European hotels to have a Bible available.
I believe it is about time with the world shrinking and shrinking by all the traveling we do, to have the 7 religion books side to side available in every hotel room to enable us travelers to take notice of all these religions and to create more respect for each other.
Quote from Swell Future:
5,084,000,000 people, 5,360 pages, 3,700 years, 243 countries, 7 books, 1 shelf. For the first time, the world’s most influential religious texts are brought together and presented on the same level, their coexistence acknowledged and celebrated. JUXTAPOSED: Religion is the first in the Juxtaposed series of curated bookshelves.
Juxtaposed is an idea from the Dutch – American designers couple Mike and Maaike
What would you say?
