It was about time that someone came up with the concept of a phone that was dedicated to social networking. YD’s resident designer Shane Crozier is on top things and has his finger on the pulse. 31337 (Elite) Phone connects to Facebook and Twitter and hooks up to the contacts to fill up the address book. Usual suspects like camera, speakerphone, music, video and internet functionality have been removed for the sake of functional transparency and ease of use. This minimal phone is good for inbound and outbound calls!

Details:

• All functions are controlled by the minimal 2 button, 2 dial interface, with a scrolling interface providing feedback.
• Height: 85.0mm
• Diameter: 15mm

Designer: Shane Crozier

Don’t tell me you didn’t get a tad bit influenced by the movie 2012 or seek out the 2012 phenomena? With dark notions like this looming ahead, it really makes me want to do good stuff now, this instant. Stuff like recycling paper and using it in many different forms. One such is the HangSavvy Eco-friendly Recycled Waste Paper Hangers. Stable enough to hold up to 10 kgs of weight and with the same lifespan as the normal steel or plastic hangers. Good quality, reasonable pricing and efficient packaging makes it a winner!

Designer: James Chu [ Buy it Here – Premium pack of 10 hangers available for $42 at the YD Store ]

HangSavvy pack of 10 hangers available for $42 at the YD Store.

All it takes is a hook-shaped carving in a paint brush to quantify it as an ingenious idea. Something that I’m willing to endorse! I may not be a house-painter but I can foresee the situation of someone getting this itch to scratch his nose (or butt). If he were using the Hanging Brush, then naturally he would just hang it by the rim of the paint can and scratch ….
Superb!

Designers: Bang Jun Mo & You In Sik

OK all you moms… OK all you dads…! Listen up! It’s time you knew about putting your baby in the trunk! The “Trunk Stroller,” that is. Made by design geniousness in Seoul, this stroller folds down to the space you’ve got left over! And when you need to put the baby in it, it comes back up in a jiffy! Now I’ve got a stroller to stroll my baby in, and when I need it back down, it fits in the trunk of my car with plenty of space left for holiday presents!

This stroller is weird at first glance. It’s weird to take basically anything out of a trunk, especially something you’ll be then putting your baby in. But maybe that’s the key! Because a baby is involved, it’s appropriately strange!

I’ve known a few parents in my day and my parents had kids too, so I know a little bit about parenthood and how hectic it can get. When you’re a parent and you hear “hey, I’ve got something to make that baby situation you’ve got there a lot lighter” – you jump on it!

The opportunity I mean, not the baby. The baby belongs in the stroller.

Designers: Park Jungmin and Go Jingwon

The Mac. He is back. He’s clear again. He is so clear this time, you’ll just want to get out the windex just to see if the glass is actually there. Two concepts. One is a phone, the other is a desktop computer. Made with the real intention of creating something straight out of a sci fi for the greater good of your eyeballs and future humanity.

Mac is one of those fellows who, for two main reasons (amongst quite a few others,) continues to hit hard on the online publishing circuit with his amazing designs. ONE: because his designs are so innovative, they’re on the verge of “you are a crazy person.” TWO: because not only does Mac do nice design, he does a LOT of it. This guy is a workaholic.

What have we got from Mac today? A phone and a desktop computer.

First, the computer. You’ll notice the clarity instantly, I’m sure. This computer is called “Zafiro” – it’s made of glass and has a round rim. It’s made to work as a home version of the giant Precrime computer seen in the film “Minority Report.” You’ll remember the glass I.D. cards slipped in the side of the monitor. In addition, the keys on the keyboard are made of “deformable metal” which flattens out when not in use.

And the phone. Look at that thing! It’s called the “Cobalto” and it’s also made with deformable metal. It has the option of forming keys or working flat like modern “smartphone” screens already do. This phone has the same ability to project 3D holograms from a 2D surface that at least one Mac design has had in the past.

NOTE: Cool beans! The phone, Mac informs us, is going to be on a Russian TV show that happened upon his designs through his website. I hope we can feature that feature right freaking here soon!

Designer: Mac Funamizu

Future Mobile Phone Concept from mac_fun on Vimeo.

Twitter-tweet-retweet! Words that can get you the world’s thinnest, lightest quad-core notebook PC FREE!

Step 1: Follow Yanko Design on Twitter and Tweet: Just entered to win a HP Envy 15. Just follow @yankodesign and retweet http://bit.ly/2j7spn
Step 2: Come back to YD and tell us how the The $1,800 HP Envy 15 Notebook will make a difference in your life.

This HP Envy 15 Notebook Can Be Yours….

• It’s got immense power and offers maximum speed and mobility with the upcoming Intel® Core™ i7 Processor and up to 16GB of DDR3 1066 MHz system memory with four SODIMM memory slots.
• The versatile storage options include the ability to add two solid-state drives in a RAID-0 configuration to improve the overall speed of the ENVY 15 while providing ultimate disk performance.
• A choice of two 15.6” HP Brightview high-resolution LED backlit displays, including the Full High Definition LED HP Ultra BrightView Widescreen Display with up to 300 nit, provides the best display experience for a notebook in this class.
• The ENVY 15 has an optional Slim Fit Extended-Life Notebook Battery, giving users up to seven hours of battery life.

Follow Yanko Design on Twitter and tweet this post on your Twitter and you could be the one taking home this HP Envy 15 Notebook!

Contest Ends: November 23, 12:00am PST

Who’s up for some cabinet design? I am. Let’s do this. We’ve got some flatness, some whiteness, some mirroring, some rounding, and some televisions and speaker equipment placed in there. What do you know! Four objects, one post, one design group: the Art S=4pieR2 sphere, the Mystere Hyde, the Why Not, and of course, the Soul of Pop.

We start with the wildness. This “Art S=4pieR2″ is spelled a bit incorrectly, but you can see the correct characters below in the image. This bit of suspended-in-space furniture has two flat sides – one’s an LCD screen for television, the other’s a mirror. The rest is for where you’d put your decks of cards and Faberge eggs and such.

The second, the long one, aka the “Mystere Hyde” is a visual technology piece. Foremost it is a gigantic gal-darned mirror. It’s big enough to see Aunt Edna in. Then what do you know! The middle flips up to reveal a 42″ LCD screen tv again! I feel like I’m on “The Price is Right.” Also there’s shelves under the big mirrors also -flip them up as well.

The “Why Not” is the simplest of the bunch, with four panels: a mirror, a cabinet with a glass panel over it, a television, and some shelves with no cover. Very square.

And last we’ve got one magnificent magnitude of a proportion of modernism. This amalgamation goes by the name “Soul of Pop” and has lots of roundness to it. Several of the panels are mirrored in the back, the television in the center has a mirrored glass front, and look! Two of the shapes match – they’re symmetrically placed! Those are the speakers.

Base for your face.

Designer: Dalcans Design

Most of my friends get all awestruck and goofy when they lay their hands on the latest netbooks. For me it’s always been an affair with notebooks and paper; a case of old habits dying hard, because I grew up using portfolios and paper books. Stationery essentials like the Notefolio are just my types. It’s a gamut of things: a handy recycled chipboard cover with a note book inside, a folder with an envelope for business cards; plus a strong rubber band that holds it all together. Apt for an Executive Assistant like me!

Designer: Poketo [ Buy it Here - $16 @ the Yanko Design Store ]

Notefolio is available for $16 at the YD Store

Satin sheets symbolizing luxury are getting geeky by the day! Imagine integrating a radio alarm clock within the Sheet! That’s the Melted Clock for you: a haptic, touch sensitive alarm with speakers and controls all embedded within your sheet. The three control icons are embroidered on the sheet and relevant to the operating elements on the outside edge of the bed sheet. Use the two in combo to set your radio frequency, alarm time etc. Essentially, you just feel your way through this system; IN YOUR FACE!

The clock segments are thin and hidden underneath the fabric. They consist of silicone and give the emboss feel via a slat of EPS (electroactive polymer, used for artificial muscles). When activated by electricity, the slat expands and lifts up the silicon segment; giving us the embossed numbers of the clock.

Apparently you can even wash the sheet; the silicon segment and the EPS slat are fixed in a small case. The small cases are arranged on a platen. When you want to wash the sheet, you just remove the platen with the clock components.

Did I mention that you need to be a pro at bed-making.

Designer: Florian Schärfer

River Han winds its way through Seoul and poses a pretty picture. I’m sure a stroll along its banks will be pleasant and refreshing, but designer Kyung Kuk Kim (he’s a resident of Seoul) feels, Han can be beautified in a very inviting and eco-friendly way. He proposes the installation of Wind Lamps on the underbelly of the bridge, across the river. These vertical lamps are fitted with a specialized wind-harnessing generator that powers the LEDs within.

Besides powering the in-built LEDS, the generators collectively have enough capacity to source and power other street lamps and essentials on the bridge. I must say, it’s quite a neat idea that beautifies the city and doesn’t burden the resources.

Designer: Kyung Kuk Kim

So you’ve got a tiny apartment (like me!) and every inch counts. Every time you think about getting a new bit of furniture, you’re is scuffed! There’s no more room! But you’d like a small table for day-to-day mail-placement needs, a desk for working, and a large table for guests! You need to energize the size of the space you’ve got already – you need basically what’s going on right here in transformer form: “Stella,” the table that just does so many different things!

What designer Cecilia Olsson has done here is make this table not only expandable, but transformable. Have the need for a tiny table? Done. Need to work at a desk that’s just a little lower than the table? Check. Having a few guests over for fine-china dining? Got it.

There are several parts to this design, the table and the inserts being all of them, basically. The entire thing is made of metal bars, a couple screws, painted oak, and laminate.

Designer: Cecilia Olsson

It takes a weirdo or Prince to use the letter “U” as “you” correctly. You decide. What you’re looking at here also is a retro object that would have been useful way back in time when books were still printed on paper! Can you believe it!? This product, called “magnify,” assisted the user in finding the book they needed by providing a search, a map, then a lens through which the book can be quickly identified. Win!

This quaint little thing was made before books came with dust-repellant covers. Really though, what a gem. First you get the ability to search without computer or Dewey Decimal, then you get an overhead birds-eye-view map, then you get a lens. Lens for what? Lens to point you not only in the right direction, but directly right at the book in question!

How wormish!

Designer: Ben Peterson

Old Theory : Use paper cup and then dispose.

New Theory : Use RIP-cUP, rip out the top layer where you sipped from, rinse and reuse for a couple of more drinks.

Your Theory : ????

Designers: Yoo-Jin Kim & Hyesun Lee

Someone must design everything. Everything I tell you! One of my favorite stickers of all time is one I saw at my alma mater design school: this sticker said “Someone Designed This.” T’was stuck on everything! T’would be stuck on this if it were appropriate – but it’s not! Know why? It’s a UAV control station for the government. Or rogue groups with UAV’s on their hands.

UAV = Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. There’s no man in there and there’s no woman in there either. It’s robots. And this is the control station you control it with. You’d better watch the video to see the animation which makes this design at least 5x more awesome.

Nice plugs, too.

Designer: Amichai Rosolio

Carrying a purse or bag while riding a bicycle has been restrictive thus far. What I mean is that either you end up carrying a backpack or have those geeky baskets in front of the handlebars. Revolutionizing the way we carry our stuff is this absolutely fashionable set, simply called the Handlebar Bag & Bike Rack Bag. What I love is the way it hooks onto the bike, and then simply comes off as an elegant bag; loops, extra straps, and attachment clips detach and can be hidden.

Designer: Po Campo [ Buy Handlebar Bag & Bike Rack Bag ]

The Bike Rack Bag is available for $160 at the Yanko Design Store

The Handlebar Bag is available for $92 at the Yanko Design Store

UPDATE: 4 weeks left!

Is publishing your contents on online design communities or hosting your own portfolio site enough for creative satisfaction? Don’t you want evaluation or recognition for your efforts? Much like how a post is done on YD, where we hear scores of you either trashing or praising a design, forcing the designers to re-think his strategy or go-ahead with his convictions. The Bombardier YouRail Design Contest by HYVE gives you instant feedback, allowing you to re-think your contribution or simply refining it.

The contest is really simple, you only need to register, get inspired and submit your design ideas. The contest is about the creation of new and innovative interior designs for trains. Questions like how a modern train interior should look like and what kind of innovative features should be integrated need to be solved. It is irrelevant if participants have great experience in interior design or not, the contest is addressed to professionals, students, hobby designers and everyone who is interested into the topic. The designs can be submitted drawn freehand or computer generated, by using the configuration tool or just by explaining the interior idea. Participants may either design a seat upholstery with the configuration tool or freely create an interior design to the following three topics:

• The Leisure Passenger
• The Business Traveler
• The Everyday Passenger

Like I mentioned to participate you need to simply join the community and submit your own vision for interior design in trains. Or you can create your own seat cover with the 3D – configuration tool. Anyway, you can discuss and evaluate the designs of the community and win great prizes: The members with the three best freely created designs amongst all three topics win cash prizes up to 2.000 Euros. The members with the three best configured designs also win cash prizes up to 600 Euros. Plus: The members with the 4th to the 10th best freely created designs win netbooks. Hurrah!

The winning design will be built as a prototype and will be exposed on the InnoTrans 2010 in Berlin which is the leading trade fair in transportation. Besides, the designer of that winning design will be invited by Bombardier to visit the InnoTrans 2010. In addition, the most active member as well as the best freely created and configured designs according to the community evaluation are rewarded with a netbook, too. Finally, one idea will also win a netbook (and a signature book about Bombardier) by the “president’s pick” where the jury select the most unconventional idea.

The jury has an impressive line-up with high-level management and design experts – get to know them here.

What is really impressive is that like our YD community, there is instant feedback and reaction to your designs by the community members. So participating in this contest really makes sense. You get evaluated not only by your contemporaries, but also by an elite panel of judges. Which other design competition can boast of this killer combo?

To know more on the contest details hit here.

The whole contest phase is being charged by the HYVE Innovation Community GmbH. HYVE is a German innovation agency dealing with customer integration into the product innovation process. Feel free to get all important information about HYVE on their website, or contact them directly.

I know how enthusiastic most of our readers are about cooking, so this round-up should have been my top priority. Better late than never, they say. So here’s a list of Ten Innovative and Creative Kitchen Concepts seen on YD. Some may beg to differ, but that’s ok, we are all allowed to have our opinions. Point is, we all love to cook in a classy, futuristic kitchen!

10) Kitchen Drawer by Nojae Park

Compact and all-inclusive with a fridge; I can see this kind of kitchens being sold in the future, touted as height of modularity! There are four main parts to this set: a stainless plate for warming up food, an electric stove for cooking, a dish drawer for storage, and a mini-fridge.

9) Aion by Antoin Lebrun

You have to hand it out to designers for trying to incorporate the “Green” element into their designs. For instance, this kitchen features specialized plants that were developed by the aerospace industry for their filtering and cleaning properties. If it has to be Green, then it may as well be the Aion.

8 ) Transportable Kitchenette by Aurelien Banerjee & Olivier Picard

This kitchenette was designer for outdoor usage by charitable organizations who do a lot of field works and require nourishing their charges. A simple electric socket is all this needs to get it going.

7) Mood Kitchen by Scavolini

Who doesn’t like a chic sophisticated kitchen, with oodles of space and charm!

6) Lift Modular Kitchen by Michel Cornu

Lift is a kitchen concept that has truly captured the essence of the word modular. It’s tough to explain this in words, which is why I am showing you all the images for it here. It’s a kitchen with several modules mounted on the wall, and can slide up and down, as per usage.

5) L’Evoluzione by Giancarlo Vegni for Effeti

Another chic kitchen with the essentials neatly tucked into drawers and special nooks. Something that we always dream of having, but alas, always out of reach.

4) All In One Kitchen by Sebastien Poupeau

The mother-of-all Single platform kitchens! One slab and that’s it….you don’t need anything else to call it your cooking space. It houses a main work top, which is height-adjustable, food cutting area, digital screen, dining table, induction hobs and an oven, a sink and its drying rack, dishwasher with two separated racks! What more could you want.

3) Outpost Kitchen by Simon Kingston & James Rennick

Sized as filing cabinet with extendable surfaces, this is the ultimate in modular kitchen. It may lack in glam-quotient; but for all practical purposes, this is a fully functional cook-spot that can operate anywhere…office, home, backyard….anywhere!

2) Grandma’s Kitchen by Melanie Olle & Ilja Oelschlägel

A series of latches and slides helps you to transform this wall unit from a kitchen to a dining table and back. An interesting way of going from cook-mode to dining-mode in a jiffy.

1) Multifunctional Kitchen by Wiwat Pitakpongsanit

Another single-slab module kitchen, but the difference is that you can customize it as per your needs. This versatile space can be reconfigured; depending upon what you want where. Totally Awesome!

First glance you can pass this off as a book of matches, but that isn’t what the “Five Minutes” is all about. A book of 10 small candles that comes handy in many everyday situations! Why, I can think of 3 situations right this instant: 1) When you bring in the cake but forget the candles. 2) Emergency lights-out. 3) In my travel bag, right next to pocket matches and paper-strip soaps! How many tricky situations can you come up with?

Designer: Poketo [ Buy it Here - $6 for 4 packs at the Yanko Design Store ]

The 5 Minute Candles (4-Pack) is available for $6 at the YD Store.

Remember that post I did just the other day? The one about the metal pants. Well there’s more! There’s a whole range! It’s called the “Dual Range” and it aims to take your home to a new level of simplicity and versatility. Explore with me, if you will, six new concepts that do one of my favorite things: cram two things into one.

First, the “Notch” – you already know a little bit about this from the post we had before. It’s a side table and stool with a handy little notch in the middle to hold your book open.

Second, “Notch+,” what the! It’s just basically a smaller, more square version of the Notch, right? Well check it out- the squareness of this situation increases the stackability tenfold!

Third, the “Lean” – a board with lots of notches in it. Each notch is able to hold a whole lot of material, especially made-for-hanging clothing.

Fourth, the “Lean MIRROR.” This is the one I’d want most. Only thing is, I wouldn’t hang a belt on there for fear of scratching the surface with the metal buckle.

Fifth, the “Myriad.” This is a magnetic messageboard, whiteboard for writing, shelf, and hanger system. What else could possibly be crammed!?

Sixth and last is the “Dual Clock” which is such a simply good idea I cannot believe it hasn’t been thought of before. It’s a clock. It’s a messageboard. Write on it, erase it, love it.

Designer: Alex Bradley Design

Are those plates to be eating off of? Nay!* They are vent covers. Retractable vent covers. Customizable vent covers. I bet you’re saying to yourself “self, I’ve always wanted to customize my vent covers, and self, this is my big opportunity.” And you’d be right. Available in like 5 billion colors and designs, this is the Ventware system.

With the Ventware “Seasons of Change” system, you’ve got both the best in retractable kitchen vent systems AND “a whole new paradigm for kitchen appliances – unparalleled customizability.”

This system is made of a ceramic faceplate and removable filter behind the vent. Cleanable in the dishwasher, switchable for every season.

*If you really wanted to eat off these, I bet you could. By all means, if they’re clean, use them. One of my favorite things to drink water out of is a mason jar. It just tastes better. Who am I to say you wouldn’t get a kick out of eating liverwurst off of the vent cover? Just do it.

Designer: RKS