Designer Emma Caselton has come up with a smart recipe holder for the wannabe cook who’s experiencing in the kitchen. This device has a creative way of telling what to do and when to do it. There’s a chronological timing bar that slides down the sheet ensuring you’re getting the timing right for all your ingredients. Although it’ll only work with the special printed recipes for the arm to follow, Emma’s neat concept sure makes for a nice addition in the kitchen if you plan on getting both the chicken and the veggies done at the same time. We’re game– and we’re hungry! [via yanko]

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Japan’s Mile Project rethinks the old-fashioned clock hand with its Good Afternoon click. Instead of traditional hands pointing out from the center, this clock uses a lit bezel around the inner perimeter, with small slits for leaking out rays of light. It’s not clear whether the slits rotate around the clock, or if there are 60 individual openings that shine on timed intervals. The latter would look cooler, I think, but it’d be a distraction. In any case, the Good Afternoon Clock allows any surface behind it to come through, blending the clock seamlessly with the rest of the home. The project was exhibited in Milan at SaloneSatellite 2008. [Mile Project via MoCo Loco]

The Window Phone designed by Seunghan Song provides a sleek glass interface that changes to reflect the weather conditions outside. Instead of spending half an hour watching the annoyingly-bubbly banter of your local morning show just to miss the 3-minute weather segment, you can give a quick glance at your phone and get an instantaneous update.  Outside of looking straight through the clear phone and out the clear window to witness for yourself, there’s no indication as to how the Window Phone will provide you with “accurate weather predictions”, but it would certainly be nice. In fact, I’d settle for accurate weather predictions with or without a stylish concept phone. In addition to weather, the phone features breath-to-text, which presumably lets you write text messages like a child would write on a cold car window. Check out the gallery for a closer look at each feature. [via Yanko]
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Last week’s Tikk-Tekk rainbow measuring device proved to be a functional tool for the visually impaired, but this Braille Phone Concept goes beyond that. A sleek, minimalist design by Seonkeun Park, it’s an universal cellular phone that comes with an Electric Active Plastic (EAP) cover and has all the functions that a traditional mobile has to offer. The EAP technology creates particular patterns on the surface of the phone and raises those parts with an electric signal, and offers letter blocks in two by three dot matrixes. That’s how the visually challenged get to enjoy calls, text messages and menu browsing. [via Tuvie]

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If you’ve been looking for a practical, atmospheric fireplace that doubles as an outdoor cooking solution, the Fireplate by Radius Design is what you need. An elegant design with an eye for both quality and aesthetics, the Fireplate has been designed from black varnished steel and features an attached grate system to barbecue in the traditional manner. Available in two versions — 75cm or 100cm in diameter, it looks like the ideal solution to bring into your back yard or patio. [via Selectism]

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Over the past several weeks, we’ve become rather indifferent to the idea that our eventual demise is going to come at the hands of vengeful robots that have been gifted a bit too much autonomy. And then, as if by divine intervention, we’ve been given robots that were created specifically to harbor peace among men: Peace Robots, designed by Jelena Stojkovic, Dominik Premauer, Jupin Ghanbari and Benjamin Cselley. Ordinarily, this is the space where the writer would provide a bit of background about the utility of the design, either from his own vision or directly from that of the designer. All I see, however, is a flying robot with a bunch of propellers. As for the designers, they’ve offered what can only be referred to as incomprehensible garble. I refuse to simply recycle it unfiltered, leaving the reader as baffled as I am, without clearing my conscience with that disclaimer. Read on, do your best to make sense of it yourself! Continue Reading

The Stat Key Company has found a way to make your keychain as unique as possible with their custom designed keys. Designed by a former car designer for Honda R&D Americas, the blank keys are crafted in brass and feature animals, chess pieces and icon interpretations. On top of that, Stat Key also allows you to upload an image and describe your design in order to get custom made keys of your very own. Yours for $11 on any piece you choose, all you need to remember is that they only fit with your Kwikset lock. [via StatKey]

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Although it looks like a canister from one side and a vase from the other, this little thing was actually built to play music. Crafted by Israeli designers Eitan Gigi and Ofer Dahan from Studio Lama, the ceramic FM kitchen radio is a highly fashionable re-interpretation of the radios grandma used when we were little. It has wooden dials, offers unlimited styling and finish possibilities and meets your preferences with decorative motifs of your choice. Although we’re not sure where the speakers are or how great it sounds, we’re completely sold and would get one in our office just to play with it. [via dezeen]

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My first thought when I saw these was that surely Braille flash cards are already being used in classrooms throughout the world. However, looking a little bit closer at these Hello Haptic flash cards, designed by Rhea Jeong, YoungSoo Hong, Sun Min Lee and Sae Hee Lee of Samsung Design Membership, one can see that they offer a particularly high education value. Designed to teach blind students about environments that they aren’t exposed to in real life, the cards include a term like “wood grain”, some text describing what it is and a tactile backing that allows the student to feel the material hands-on–a very comprehensive learning experience packed into a simple card. These look a heck of a lot more interesting than the flash cards I remember from grade school. [via Yanko] Continue Reading