What Designers Have Been Up To! Saturday, 13 February 2010 08:25 Written by Julia Taylor

Designers today have total freedom to design whatever they want, but then they have the added stress of trying to come up with something “new”, because how many more necessities can there be!  I have chosen some of the new quirky designs that are on the market these days.

This Apple Calendar was designed for health insurance provider AOK, “an apple a day” by Munich-based ad agency Service plan is an innovative calendar that not only helps you keep track of time, but also keeps you healthy by eating an apple a day!  The calendar is a long tube made out of UVA- and UVB-resistant Plexiglas, which is then filled with apples according to the number of days in the month, e.g. it requires 31 apples for the month of January, 28 for February and 30 for April.  Each day you need to eat an apple to keep the calendar on the correct date.  You then refill the tube when the month is over.  I think this is pretty cool, but there is no way apples in China will last a month before eating them!

Lighting is one of the areas that has most of the designs, which then leads the designers to have great flexibility for experimentation or scope to play with their creativity.  The Jar Lamps from Noon Studio are lathed wooden desk lamps that use rotating lids as switches to turn them on and off and control the intensity or glow of the light.  Made in oak, the Jar Lamps come in different dimensions, ranging between 125×280mm and 250×280mm, to give a new perspective to home decor.  I think these are beautiful would love to have some of them in my apartment and it would be nice to have something in my house in Shanghai that is NOT from IKEA!  

Airplane from Cold War-era turned into a luxury hotel.  This is a plane with a difference!  No matter how many times you have been lucky enough to jump onto the business class of an airplane you would never have been greeted with so much luxury as you would get on this one.  Located at Teuge Airport, Netherlands, the hotel makes full use of a 120-seater German plane of the 1960 offering the guests with luxurious sauna, Jacuzzi, 24/7 hostess, 3 flat screens, Blu-Ray player and so on.  Earlier serving as a restaurant for 15 years, the Cold War-era plane has now become a luxury hotel suite to host the rich and wealthy.  Featuring the interiors and luxury facilities installed by Dutch company Hotelsuites.nl, the one of a kind hotel also opens the untouched cockpit to take the guests back into the Cold War-era.  Moreover, the hotel guests can enjoy parachute jumps or stunt plane rides to make their vacation unforgettable.