Chicago reminds everyone that the city embraces the bicycle as evidenced in new bike lanes seen behind the Merchandise Mart. The lanes promote bikes and bike safety. Here are five well-designed bike safety products you should put on your gift list.





Feel dorky wearing a bicycle helmet? Nutcase creates an aesthetically dis-pleasing, strictly utilitarian experience. Helmets seemed made to be ripped off as soon as possible. [ nutcase ]





Vespertine Cinch Belts offer a subtle pattern of intertwining diamonds wraps around the extremely reflective ANSI approved material of the Cinch Belts. They even reflect in the rain! [ vespertinenyc ]





Bookman bicycle lights. Stylish, luminous and pocket-sized. A slim, detachable bike light from Bookman, a Stockholm based company that makes accessories for bikes and people on bikes. [ bookman ]





Fibre Flare™  is a portable self-contained flexible solid core side emitting fibre optic element interposed between two electronic housing ends. Inside each of the housing ends is a single high intensity LED. Water resistant silicone outer housing. Powered by 2 x ‘AAA’ batteries. [ fibreflare ]

Ok, you’ve made yourself safer. What about your bike? The innovation for all cyclists, whether hobby cyclists or pros protects two-wheels with a high theft risk using this foldable lock. [ abus bordo granit x-plus ]

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Sale highlights include a pair of monumental sconces by Paavo Tynell, an Egg chair and ottoman by Arne Jacobsen and Acorn silverware (service for twelve) by Johan Rohde. A selection of hand-woven carpets produced by Märta Måås-Fjetterström AB, table lamps and sconces by Poul Henningsen and vases by Wilhelm Kåge and Axel Salto also stand out within the sale.

All lots can be viewed online at [ View lots ] or in person at Wright, 1440 West Hubbard Street, Chicago, IL 60642. For additional information about the sale, please contact 312.563.0020. [ wright auction ] [ auction begins 17 may 2012 | noon cst ]

Which brings me to their best design feature (if it wasn’t obvious already): they stand on one leg, making them the pirates of the cabinet world. Really, their one-legged-ness comes from de Hoop’s devotion to minimalism, so minimal, in this case, that he did away with 75% of the product’s base. Still, they’re just as stable and function just as well as their quadraped counterparts.

about perrin drumm

My favorite pieces from her portfolio are her porcelainware. These are often meditative experiments with natural forms in which Dubinsky tests the boundaries of her craft. Her most sophisticated of these is her Measuring Tools collection, the design of which stems from what were once purely functional measuring instruments, but which Dubinsky has refined down to pure form.

“Standards for measuring length and width in ancient times relied on the measurements and movements of the limbs of the human body, and evidence of these techniques are still to be found in use around the world. I wished to investigate and apply this law-like regularity by designing measuring tools which are based on the dimensions of the human body. I am not concerned with historical elements but rather with a set of archetypes which establish new relationships or which reconstruct primal relationships between man and his environment. The project consists of four measuring tools, each one tailored to standardized terminology and related to the measurements of the human body: cubit, hand-breadth, finger and foot.”

Even though no one is going to use these to actually measure something (and that’s definitely not Dubinksy’ point, either), the shapes of the tools are just so pleasing, perhaps because they’re derived from the natural form of the human body. Measuring Tools was awarded in the 2011 London International Creative Competition.

Dubinsky has continued her study of the human body with Body Signs, a collection of jewelry made from porcelain, silver and gold. You can contact her to place an order.

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It’s been difficult for tokyobike fans not living in Japan to get ahold of one of the company’s well respected city bikes, but on May 17th their London shop will officially open. To celebrate Dezeen is giving away a single-speed tokyobike worth $840. To enter, just show up to the opening party in Shoreditch this Thursday night. The winner will get to ride home on the bike that evening, and five runners up with get Gropes leather handlebar grips worth $40 apiece.

If you’re unfamiliar with tokyobike, it’s a small, independent bicycle manufacturer founded in 2002 in Yanaka, a suburb of Tokyo. The name references the bike’s purpose. “In the same way the mountain bike was designed for the mountains, so tokyobike was designed for Tokyo.”

So what makes a bike suited to zipping around the streets of a congested city like Tokyo? “Smaller 650mm wheels and slim, compact, steel frames make the bikes easy to handle and light to ride. More about slow than fast, tokyobike is as much about discovering your city and enjoying the ride as it is about the destination.” It might not be best choice for a bike messenger, but it will do quite nicely for the rest of us.

Before setting up shop in London, tokyobikes hit the streets of Milan for Salone del Mobile – watch a cute video of design week goers biking to events.

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Designed for the Italian furniture manufacturer Mattiazzi, the chair was actually “born” on their factory floor. Grcic said “The chair was inspired by the material, the machinery and, of course, the skill and craftsmanship of the people we worked with…Right from the beginning, I was looking for a distinct grammar for my design, a language that would express the characteristics of wood. I liked the idea of working with planks. They signify the very beginning of the production process – a tree trunk that is cut into slices. I like the way in which a carpenter joins wood. It is immediate and direct. The construction remains visible and easy to read. Structure turns into form.”

Medici comes in three different kinds of wood: Walnut, Douglas Fir (in natural and yellow) and, for outdoors, thermo-treated Ash.

“Designing for Mattiazzi was like a personal time travel. It took me all the way back to my professional roots. At the very beginning of my career, I was trained a cabinet maker. Working with wood is what I learnt from scratch. It is where it all started for me.”

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Vaulot & Dyevre gives Fantôme a bit of personality in their description: “Let him proceed in your living room to conceal your personal effects. Simple and enigmatic, he’s harmless.” Their other designs reflect this sense of humor, like BoraBora, a pill that shines like a lightbulb to remedy your “moodiness, flaccid skin, and tendency to depression. You are obviously in lack of sunshine. Our range of supplements Kelvin Lumen restores the vitality you need. Sunset Laboratories offers a wide range of solar radiation, Borabora, the Maldives, Haiti and the Bahamas, ask your pharmacist. Read the instructions carefully. Do not exceed the recommended daily dose. This additional Solar should not totally replace natural exposure. Avoid abusive use.”

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Carol shelby, 89, lived life in the fast lane. He was the only individual to influence all three major American automakers.

ac 289


This author’s all-time fave automobile. Nothing else comes close. AC series built from 1961 – 67







He most recently collaborated with the automaker on the 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 Mustang >above

[ road & track ] [ ac cobra ] [ ford shelby gt500 mustang ]

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File it under brilliant, Jake Frey’s NeoCover is a magnetized light switch cover that makes it more convenient than ever to hang up your keys the moment you walk through your front door. You don’t even have to go as far as tossing them into your key bowl or dish or whatever you’re currently using, just place them against the light switch the moment you flip them on.

You may have seen Frey’s first version of the Magnetic Light Switch Cover, which came out last year, but he’s just released a new “enhanced” model and dubbed it NeoCover. This heavy duty upgrade can hold up to 27 keys and any other metal object, like bottle openers, lighters, a dog leash, even a hammer. It comes in standard white but you can request a custom color job or 2-, 3- and 4-switch models. Who would have thought a light switch cover could ever be so useful?

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