Cool Hunting

Having spent weeks talking to students and looking at the annual Royal College of Art degree show, Exhibit-K, a London-based art tour service, came up with five hot design picks exclusively for Cool Hunting.

Doodle Dudes
Andrew Haythornthwaite's Doodle Dudes gives the characters that children create in their drawings a 3-d life by using rapid prototyping to print their drawings in 3 dimensions. Children’s drawings are transformed into a toy that—given the high retail cost—may be more for adults than children. The toy comes in parts that have to be slotted together and can be made in resin or metal.

Tongue Sucker
A new essential item for the first-aid box, the Tongue Sucker literally sucks the tongue away from the windpipe to prevent suffocation when a patient is unconscious. All current designs on the market can only be used by a trained professional, but the Tongue Sucker can be used by anyone. Inspired by the lack of such an item during the 7/7 bombings, this group of designers (Phillip Greer, Graeme Davies, Lisa Stroux, and Christopher Huntley) have won several prestigious awards for their product, which is set to become a staple of all first-aid boxes in the UK. It's a simple, cheap and effective piece of design that will save countless lives.

Liquid Orange
Allowing the user to juice an orange from the inside, all vital nutrients and fibers survive within the orange's natural sphere. Graeme Davies juicer takes only 20 seconds to blend the inside of an orange and makes about 160 ml of the freshest juice. Simply stick a straw in the top and go—all the goodness within an entirely biodegradable package. Davies is already working on a mini juicer ideal for the picnic hamper.

Digital Remains
A design for storing memories in the digital age, Michele Gauler suggests that in the increasingly digital terrain of our future we will no longer be able go to the attic and look through a box of old letters and photographs to remind us of dead loved ones. This kind of material is more likely to be stored digitally and found by looking through a loved one’s desktop. She proposes a system where all our personal information is stored on a remote server that is only activated when with a login key, the property of our next-of-kin. Once activated, one would have access to digital storage of a loved one and be able to hear the last piece of music they listened to, image they stored or email they sent. This thought provoking piece explores how we may deal with rituals of mourning and remembrance in the digital age.

Fiat Scratch
With a carefree approach to car ownership, Flat Scratch makes a car gain worth as you use it. Designed by Uros Pavasovic specifically for the Italian market, four layers of different exterior colors means that this car gets more exciting and beautiful the more you scratch and scrape it. This socially sensitive design provides a fun take on our contemporary obsession with vintage, second-hand and retro products. In some ways, Pavasovic’s proposition for the vehicle industry is a mere extension of Levis’ highly successful trade in already faded and soiled jeans.