So sorry about the slow update…
This is one of my favorite quotes by Thomas Edison. “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”

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With tons of stuff to do, I haven’t even posted the latest idea. I’ll do it next week I promise. And after that, probably the best post for this year will be here in a few weeks!

This is a very weird looking CD player. It looks like a head of a duck when a CD is set. (Why a CD player now you ask? I’ll write a post in Johnnyholland.)

There’s a round body that rolls and a black speaker. the speaker is attached to the body at its axis and it rolls around the body.

The functions are just play/pause/next/previous and volume up/down. To turn up the volume, you roll the body so that the “beak” opens up. When you turn it off, just let it stop quacking.

That’s it. I wouldn’t stop rolling it for a while I had it on my desk. And my kids would never leave there.

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Just in time.

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“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
Albert Camus

If I’m allowed to design stuff like what I show in this blog not only in my free time but all day long, I’ll definitely do it. Just wondering.

This is simple and it might have been used already, but I really want to paste a post-it on a desktop icon so that I won’t forget what I should do with it. So if anybody knows a plugin like this, please let me know!!

Post-it colors, font size should be customizable just like “Stickies” (a default mac application).

Quick Look (a quick preview feature) or hover the cursor to see the enlarged image of the post-it.

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Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Whenever I think of a new design, I refer to great works I find on the internet and from the images I have collected so far (about 10,000 pics). And I’ve got many requests from my readers who want to see what I’m seeing, thinking and interested in.

So I really want an invitation for FFFFOUND! (inspiration bookmarking site), where I can introduce some images of the great products and designs I get interested in such as this beautiful vase of Lena Bergström. I’ll update on a daily basis.

So if there is someone who could send an invite, please!!!

Updated on 19th Sep.
Someone who’s really kind contacted me and sent me an invite!!
Thank you sooooo much!!
Here’s my FFFFOUND! link.

Updated on 21st Sep.
I've already given my invite to someone.

iHammock

I use my iPhone at work and at home. When I’m at work in the office, I can’t make it ring loud when there’s an incoming phone call or an email, so I change the setting to the silent (vibration) mode. But when it vibrates on my desk, it makes even louder noise than a beep, so I was thinking if I could make something soft to put my iPhone on so that it doesn’t rattle when vibrating, and thought that a hammock style would be fun. It looks like your iPhone is relaxing on a hammock, so I added a parasol that works as a solar power battery charger. You open and flip the parasol in the sun to get electricity and close and fix it on the hammock to charge your iPhone.
“iHammock”?

Just for fun again.

iAcqua2

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a 3D screen that displays stereoscopic images of music visualizer and stocked photos when your iPhone is docked? It’s like a combination of my old ideas (snow globe screen and iAcqua).

3D screen and a speaker

Cover flow in the water flow?

OC

This one tilts a bit when your iPhone is docked, making the speakers and the transparent screen float.
It tells you when there’s a phone call and an email by rocking from side to side.

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I have several cloth hangers unused in my closet. I always wanted to use them like a mobile sculpture.
Just for fun again.

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I can’t believe I won the red dot design concept award for the Looking Glass concept!!

First of all, let me thank Radhika Seth (for everything), Mika Ueno and *momoc (for beautiful photos), Takashi Yamada (for first picking up and naming this gadget), Regina Teh (for inviting me for the competition) and my family (for letting me keep doing this crazy hobby).
This is really exciting for me because it’s the first award I won since I became a designer.

I added some new images and fixed a few old ones.

Dragging stuff like a building floor to see its floor map would be useful and fun.

And here’s the presentation sheet I submitted to the red dot.

I also appreciate all the support I’ve got from the readers and magazine/newspaper editors who wrote articles of this gadget.
I’m planning to attend the award ceremony on November 24th in Singapore, so anyone who happens to be there, please talk to me. I’ll post some photos on my Flickr if I can shoot good ones there. And of course I’ll keep twitting in Singapore, too.

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Sorry it took so much.
This is one of my favorite quotes that my teacher taught me when I was in 5th grade of elementary school. In Japanese it says like “No genius can compete with someone who’s making continuous efforts”. Since I knew that quote, I try to do what I want to be good at little by little but every single day.

A xylophone meets a pitcher.
Listen to the pitch of the sound made when the pitcher is hit. Compare it with the pitch of the handle (working as a tuning bar) to know if the pitcher is empty or not.
That way you won’t bother to open the lid while having fun.

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