Design Debate

Oh I like these, very sophisticated, smart glasses that are colour-controlled by a stroke of your finger. In this modern world we swipe at everything. I have even seen babies trying to swipe an actual old-fashioned paper book, which is slightly disturbing! But with these specs I can see the appeal. An Austin, Texas-based brand, Sutyo, has come up with eyewear that is touch-controlled and moves your lenses from light to dark. They have eco credentials too: they are bio-based and made from renewable castor bean seeds grown on farms in India. They are even recyclable at the end of their life. They have won design awards galore, including the 2026 A’ Design Award and Competition, the iF Design Award and an IDA Design Award Gold in 2025. It’s through electrical signals that these glasses activate liquid crystals, altering the light and colour in layers. I like the silhouette too, simple, classic, very wearable. You just slide y...

I do love the act of scribbling a note. I mean, I use my phone for note-taking all the time, but there really is no substitute for picking up a pen and scrawling a note, a sketch, or a message as you head out the door to a loved one. The issue is that sticky notes are not brill for the environment. They curl up, fall away and, once you've finished with that particular thought, that's normally the end of them. So I rather like the idea behind M Note, a reusable take on the familiar little square. It hasn't tried to reinvent the sticky note too much either, which I think is part of its charm. M Note has a wipe-clean, whiteboard-style surface, with a magnetic layer and reusable adhesive on the back. So you can move notes around, stack them up, wipe them clean and use them again. Bravestorming says the backing can be reused more than 10,000 times – that's a lot of scribbling! I can see these working particularly well for mood boards and tho...

Well this is a blast from the past, technically a bit before my time (born in the 1980s) but the Raleigh Chopper is a design classic I remember well. The British brand just this month have brought back their iconic 1972 bike keeping it as true to the original as possible, whilst also making sure it meets modern safety regs.  My first bike was a Raleigh and I loved it! Not quite as cool as the chopper though, I seem to remember it was gold in colour, a hand-me-down I loved. The Chopper made bikes cool, it was the bike all kids wanted in the 70s. Designer Alan Oakley based the look for the bike on Peter Fonda's motorbike in the 1960s movie classic Easy Rider. The tall handlebars and vintage graphics remain in this re-launched version, as well as the original colours of 'ultraviolet' and 'infrared'.  The new Mk2 took four years of pain-staking research, the company keen to not disappoint fans. They used 3D modelling of the original bike to produce the CAD designs for t...

I love a piece of design that makes you look twice, and Gregory Beson’s Salt Chair certainly does that. Created in 2019, it is fashioned from 76 blocks of Himalayan pink salt. Yes, actual salt. Beson is a New York-based designer and sculptor with a fascination for materials and the stories they carry. The salt blocks came from a cave in northern Pakistan before being sculpted into the chair in New York. It is simply beautiful, but the choice of material is about rather more than its lovely pink glow. The Salt Chair was created for the 2019 In Good Company exhibition, and Beson used it to explore our complicated relationship with natural materials and resources. Salt feels completely ordinary to us, yet here is a natural mineral extracted in Pakistan, transported across the world and transformed into a piece of collectible furniture. That contrast is really the point. There is another clever reference hidden in its architec...

  Inspired by the camouflage capabilities of the squid, this jacket looks quite like a normal black jacket by day, but by night it reflects every known colour in the spectrum. Made from 2 billion tiny glass spheres embedded into the jacket, Vollebak co-founder Steve Tidball says  "when light hits the jacket, it travels through the curved surface of these black glass spheres and strikes the back of them, before being reflected back at the original light source and scattered away from it simultaneously, so that the fabric looks like it’s emitting light.’ The fabric resembles an oil slick and the fully waterproof jacket has a liquid aesthetic that looks quite alien. Pretty cool really, see more at Design Boom . 

Here's some colourful design to brighten up your Tuesday! Have you heard of the company Izzy Wheels? Taking the world by storm, Izzy Wheels was set by one sister for another, a way to empower and personalise her wheelchair. Ailbhe wanted to create a way for her sister Izzy to express who she is and her bubbly personality through her wheelchair. What started out as a college project has become a product line featured in Vogue and winning 10 awards. The wheelchair covers are designed by different artists in bright and eye-catching colours and patterns. Ailbhe says that her sister and many others see their wheelchairs as aiding their freedom, something that shouldn't look so clinical and cold but should be celebrated. Their catch phrase is "If you can't stand up, stand out"! You can check out their latest range online and read an interview with Ailbhe at Design Sponge .  

  I like it when people take a fresh look at something we have come to take for granted. One hammer looks like the next, however designer Abidur Chowdhury believed  that there was a “lack of consistency between both the hammer head and handle” and set about challenging that. He wanted to create a set of household tools that were approachable, beautiful to behold and a joy to use. Instrumentum gives DIY a new visual language, one that feels more suited for our modern world.  But these aren't just elegant tools, they are smartly designed. The split in the handle absorbs some of the impact making the tools comfortable on the hand. And of course the packaging doesn't disappoint.  See more at Yanko Design . 

What a great bit of product design. I had to use an inhaler a little when I was younger, whatever it was sorted itself out. I don't remember it being an issue but they were clunky and certainly not cool. Designer Tim Zarki spent a weekend and re-thought this piece of medical equipment. His offering is unrecognisable. 3D printed with a colour gradient, speckled and with a kind of active-equipment-hang-rope. Beautifully bold and a badge of pride rather than one of shame for a suffering kid in the playground, great! He created the design with #breathebettercs, see more at Knstrct .  

Product designer Sebastian Scherer captured my imagination today, especially his bubble-like iridescent pendant lamps – so beautiful. After studying product design in Aachen and working as an interior designer in Berlin, Scherer set up his own studio and later founded the NEO/CRAFT label. Iris was inspired by the delicate, shifting appearance of soap bubbles, and Scherer's prototype won the Lexus Design Award Grand Prix in 2014. The idea has since developed into today's Iris Globe , made from mouth-blown crystal glass. Ultra-thin layers of metal oxides create those wonderful iridescent colours, changing as the light and viewing angle change. The orbs within orbs are mesmerising. I want to reach out and touch them, as though I could hold a little world in my hand. I love how subtle the colours are and how the glass captures, distorts and reflects the view around it. That fascination with geo...