The Triangle Bamboo Trivet achieves the function of the trivet with very little material and joints. Tatsuoki Nakashima designed the trivet. And it is available at MOMA.

Kathleen Hills sent us a link to her website, and unbeknownst to me until now, she is the designer of one of my favorite Christmas presents – the Milkii. The Milkii is a double spouted milk jug, but I actually use it as a bud vase and it’s great! Kathleen has lots of lovely products, but my favorites are the Egg cube, which includes a place for your spoon, and a rolling pin with raised lettering marking everything that you bake as “made in England”.

I love the Herb-Savor by Prepara. It prolongs the life of fresh herbs up three weeks and looks hot to boot.

Helena Schepens is a silversmith by education, but has created a series of very interesting, wooden fruit bowls. Each bowl seems to be sized somewhat particularly to a certain kind of fruit, so I don’t know that they will work with fruit across the board, but I love the sculptural quality of the bowls, as well as the dynamic kinetic nature of each.

Via Bientôt Demain.

Sean and I put together today’s gift guide over at Notcot. It’s filled with (mostly) affordable picks from our favorite designers. We hope you will check it out, along with the rest of the gift guide that Jean has worked so hard to put together…

Left to right: Decanter N°2 by Etienne Meneau, Full Contact Spice Grinder by Mint, and Bubble necklace by Brevity (yes, me!).

Happy holidays!

plusminuszero is a Japanese company headed by designer Naoto Fukasawa. The website description of the company really sums up the work:

It means neither plus nor minus;
it is necessity and sufficiency;
it is something you have never seen but somehow feel at home with;
it is a shape that is very normal yet fascinating;
It is the moment you realize, for the first time, that this is exactly what you have wanted.

The objects above are from plusminuszero’s new collection: Coffee and Tea Maker, Toaster, Sliced Bread Dish, and Humidifier Ver.3.

I came across ECAL (the University of Art and Design Lausanne) when searching around for fly swatters for our ideas column. I was especially impressed by the Industrial Design department, who have a great collection of work up online. Here are a few selections from the Souvenirs of America collection (cynical students! but what design student isn’t, I guess?):

Clockwise from left: Fabien Cappello, LaChanh Nguyen, Gaële Girault and Valerian Gagnaire

Swedish design group LOTS created the conceptual Elektra line of domestic appliances. The image to the left is a toaster (coolest toaster I’ve ever seen)! The use of black glass provides a nice contrast to the translucent glass.

Normann Copenhagen recently released Serge Atallah’s Spaghetti Dozer. The tool features three different sizes for different portions of pasta, a la The Three Little Bears. I have always sized my pasta portions from the old standby – the 35mm film canister.

How’s this for multi-tasking – a cup that doubles as a ring while in use. By Floyd.

Via MocoLoco.