Cool Hunting

We were lucky enough to attend the opening for the MoMA Design Store's new product collection, Destination Seoul, which highlights designers and products from South Korea. Buyers selected young, emerging Korean designers and their creations across a range of categories for a diverse curatorial of goods usually only found on the peninsula.

As part of the MoMA Design Store's destination series and sponsored by HyundaiCard, the Korea Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP) and Design Seoul, it's the first Korean design collection of its kind in the States, further cementing Korea's place in the international contemporary creative scene. Products range from a spoon reimagined as a bottle opener to mini replicas of Bibimbap, but our favorites from the collection have to be the Sandwich Sponge ($10), Wooden Block Rattle Set ($18) and the Cloud Memo Pad ($8).

Designed by Jaewon Yang and Hyung Jeong Lee, the Sandwich Sponge is an absurd take on the cleaning utensil, playing on the similarity between breads and sponges, as well as the idea of cleaning food with food. The Wooden Block Rattle Set designed by Jae Keun Song is a clever combination of two childhood toys. Made from natural wood finished with linseed oil, each wooden block features a different face and makes a distinctive sounds. And Ami's favorite, the Cloud Memo Pad, designed by Mi-Jung Ju, features Korea's traditional color stripes in the form of a cloud shape. The pad consists of an array of lined and unlined paper of different colors.

All the Destination Seoul products are exclusive to MoMA and available for a limited time online.