A fresh twist on functional design, the Tiki lamp brings a lively sense of whimsy into any interior space. Instantly recognizable with its bird-like silhouette, Tiki perches elegantly, inviting both admiration and interaction. For lamp collectors, designers, and anyone with an appreciation for playful details, it’s a delightful addition that easily becomes a talking point in the room.

What truly makes Tiki stand out is its approach to arrangement. Rather than sitting alone, these lamps are meant to be clustered together, forming flocks that animate tables, shelves, or any chosen setting. Each bird-shaped lamp seems to communicate with the others, bringing a sense of movement and connection. This flocking concept encourages creativity, letting you design your own illuminated landscape with personality and charm.

Designer: Nao Tamura

The essence of Tiki lies in its expertly carved form. Using robotic techniques, each lamp is sculpted from milky-white acrylic, creating a flawless, translucent body that feels both delicate and futuristic. The shade is perfectly balanced above a geometric metal base, making for a dynamic visual pairing. This careful meeting of materials and textures adds to the overall sense of refinement while still keeping things lighthearted.

The lamp uses a built-in, rechargeable LED, powered by a custom battery that ensures lasting brightness. Charging is a breeze thanks to the magnetic base, which easily connects with a USB-C cable; no fiddling with cords or awkward plugs. These practical upgrades mean you can move your Tiki lamp anywhere: bedside, coffee table, or workspace, without worrying about wires.

The interactive experience is where Tiki truly shines. Adjusting the brightness is as simple as rotating the bird’s body on top of its perch, making the act of lighting up a space playful and intuitive. The motion is smooth and invites touch, transforming a mundane action into a small daily pleasure. This tactile control not only adds charm but also makes Tiki accessible to a variety of users.

Tiki’s updated palette introduces a fresh batch of colors that suit any taste, from matte warm white and striking blue to gentle olive green, alongside the classic gloss-black finish. These shades accentuate the sculptural curves and ensure the lamp looks just as good as a solo piece as it does in a flock.

The post Bird-Like Lamp Design Combines Artful Lighting with Playful Character first appeared on Yanko Design.

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In the course of using some everyday products, we probably seldom stop to question why things are designed the way they are. Why are appliances like speakers and air purifiers traditionally rectangular and boxy while flashlights and lamps are cylindrical? Sometimes, the answers lie in history and practicality, but other times it’s just a matter of convention and the lack of motivation to think outside the box.

This flashlight design concept, however, isn’t afraid to dare to be different, perhaps even to the point of sacrificing some ergonomics. Embracing a trending design aesthetic, it isn’t just breaking the mold by throwing out most conventions. It is also challenging those conventions to see what’s possible if we’re not afraid to ask “What if?”

Designer: Nikhil Kapoor

Industrial design aesthetics has carried a rather negative connotation of being cold and impersonal, but recent trends have cast a more positive light on modern renditions of the design language. Teenage Engineering’s products, in particular, have presented a certain flavor of minimalism that embraced the cold surface of metal, the angular and sharp edges of boxes, and an intentionally limited color palette.

The FL-1 flashlight concept embraces these design elements to shock and confound. Instead of the conventional barrel form, it comes in a box that will admittedly be cumbersome to hold for long periods of time, at least depending on the size. It could easily fit in the palm of your hand, as many EDC flashlights do these days, but the sharp edges could bite into your skin over time.

The design does have a few interesting features beyond its industrial aesthetic. The rectangular shape gives it enough room to fit two LED lights, which can be turned on individually or together with a simple sliding switch mechanism. There’s also a display to show the remaining battery charge so you’re never caught unaware. The flashlight is charged via USB-C, which is the only reference to the correct scale of the object.

Like Teenage Engineering’s designs, the FL-1 practically uses only two colors, or three if you count the contrasting shade of gray. A vibrant orange backside increases its visibility, but only if it’s upside down, while there’s no method for seeing the flashlight in the dark if it’s right side up. The concept definitely has its flaws, but it is still a worthwhile thought experiment on how we can challenge the status quo and come up with designs that aren’t just different but also even better.

The post Teenage Engineering-inspired flashlight concept breaks the mold with a boxy design first appeared on Yanko Design.

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The Sharp coffee table boldly defies the ordinary, emerging as a striking piece of modern art. It challenges traditional ideas about furniture, positioning itself as a daring statement. Crafted for those who embrace life beyond the conventional, this table is for individuals who set their own style standards and are unafraid to break societal norms, offering a fresh perspective on home decor.

Rooted in a desire to redefine the role of furniture, the Sharp collection stands as a testament to this vision. This table is a declaration in itself, merging industrial steel with a sleek black finish to create a captivating contrast. The result is an “uncomfortable beauty” that draws the eye and sparks conversation, offering a luxurious experience that proudly embraces its bold, unrefined essence.

Designers: Nikita Gorshkov, Alexandra Ivanets (Primitive Buro)

The allure of the Sharp table lies in its unique design, characterized by stark, deliberate geometry. Minimalistic in detail yet impactful in presence, its narrow lines and abrupt edges create an aura of tension and strength. The black color scheme transforms the table into a commanding visual centerpiece, dictating the ambiance of the room and asserting its presence rather than simply blending in.

Steel, chosen for its timeless and resilient qualities, serves as the perfect medium for the Sharp table. It embodies strength and durability, while the black finish enhances its monolithic presence, lending an air of intimidation and elegance. Each table is meticulously handcrafted, ensuring every piece is unique, with its own distinct personality and character, making it a truly one-of-a-kind addition to any space.

Most eye-catching are the jagged, teeth-like feet of the table, giving the piece of furniture an imposing presence bordering on frightening. It also boggles the mind, given those pointed ends, how the table can stand so stably, let alone support the weight of a person sitting on it. Yes, it can be used as an impromptu bench, though one would wonder who would be daring enough to tempt fate.

This is why the Sharp Coffee Table is crafted for those who are fearless in making bold statements with their interiors. It attracts those who find beauty in rawness and simplicity, and who embrace the freedom that comes with rejecting conventional stereotypes, making it a perfect fit for the daring and adventurous. For those who dare to defy convention and embrace their unique sense of style, the Sharp Table offers an unparalleled experience, inviting you to explore new horizons in interior design and self-expression.

The post Revolutionize Interiors With This Bold Steel Coffee Table for Unconventional Spaces first appeared on Yanko Design.

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Handheld gaming PCs like the Steam Deck, Lenovo Legion GO, and ASUS ROG Ally have proven to be popular designs in a somewhat niche market. Despite their small sizes, at least relative to laptops, these computers are quite capable of driving even graphics-heavy triple-A games, at least with reasonable settings. And as with any gaming-worthy computer, these handheld PCs are also capable of doing just about anything, including office productivity or even content creation.

That said, their designs are hardly conducive to use cases outside of gaming, especially for tasks that require at least a keyboard. There are alternative designs from the likes of AYANEO and GPD that do add a tiny keyboard, but those are meant more for chatting than actual work. This upcoming newcomer, however, wants you to have your cake and eat it too, and it’s using a rather ingenious design that supports both games and productivity without compromising too much.

Designer: ONE-NETBOOK

We’ve seen handheld gaming PCs that look like laptops, but these usually compress the keyboard in order to make room for gaming controls like joysticks and buttons. This creates a usable but not ideal experience, where typing is doable but uncomfortable and gaming is bearable but not always enjoyable. And that’s not even considering issues with ergonomics for both sides of the coin. Short of having a shape-shifting computer or a modular design (that has actually been done before as well), there’s really no easy way to bridge these two together, at least until now.

Unlike its predecessor that attempted to create a hybrid between a Nintendo Switch handheld and a Microsoft Surface tablet, the ONEXPLAYER G1 embraces the form factor of a small 8.8-inch laptop. Opening it up reveals what looks like a regular physical keyboard, complete with a tiny touchpad, so you might not even consider it as a gaming computer until you remove that keyboard. Yes, that keyboard is actually wireless and connected to the computer using magnets only, and lifting it up reveals the handheld’s gaming chops.

Underneath this removable keyboard are analog joysticks, a D-Pad, and face buttons, the essential parts of a game controller. Because there isn’t a critical need to have a keyboard, the design is able to accommodate a more comfortable arrangement of buttons similar to an Xbox-compatible controller. Of course, there are also triggers and shoulder buttons at the back of the laptop, as well as a number of extra buttons.

What’s interesting about this design is that even this gaming “mode” still has a split keyboard below the controls. It’s not immediately clear whether these are capacitive keys on a glass surface or if they’re just very low-travel keys for basic chat needs. Either way, it’s definitely an interesting twist on the handheld gaming PC design, though the price for such a multi-functional beast will probably cost as much as a laptop as well.

The post Mini gaming laptop has a removable keyboard to easily switch between work and play first appeared on Yanko Design.

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The arrival of the Raspberry Pi really revolutionized not just the computer education market that it targeted but also hobbyists, makers, and all sorts of creators. It offered a computer that, while not as powerful as the weakest laptop in the market, could handle a variety of applications, from programming to word processing to smart home automation. Best of all, it was affordable at only $50 on average.

While the RPi, as it is lovingly called, is now used to power no small number of DIY projects that need a discrete but capable computer, its true calling is still providing that computing power for students, home users, and everyone in between. That’s the calling that Raspberry Pi’s new dynamic duo is answering, providing a simple and minimalist desktop computer at a fraction of the price.

Designer: Raspberry Pi Foundation

The Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer or SBC that shatters misconceptions of what computers look like. Rather than a towering desktop or a slim laptop, you get a credit card-sized electronics board with ports rising from its top. It is definitely a complete computer, but one that needs a keyboard, a display, and a power supply to use like a normal computer.

The Raspberry Pi 500 carries on the new tradition of providing a ready-to-use solution for people who just want a usable Linux computer without having to worry about cases or cables to connect peripherals. It’s part of a rare breed of computers that are hiding inside a keyboard, which is fortunately the right amount of space required by the Raspberry Pi. Although the layout of ports on the back of the keyboard is different, it has the exact number of them, including the 40-pin GPIO connector for experiments and fun.

Of course, you can’t really use a computer these days without some sort of display, so Raspberry Pi launched its own 15.6-inch Monitor for that very purpose. Designed to work with any Raspberry Pi model, in fact, any HDMI device, it fits the use case of the RPi 500 perfectly. Together, you practically have a space-saving computer that only needs a 5V power supply to work. Yes, you’ll need a mouse, too, but Raspberry Pi also sells one, fortunately.

Admittedly, this “Raspberry Pi Desktop” won’t win awards in terms of power, and not everyone will be comfortable using Linux as their operating system. That said, the combo does provide unique value for Linux and power users who want a low-profile, low-power, but still capable desktop computer for their daily needs. Plus, it’s the Raspberry Pi, so you can connect a whole host of other devices, sensors, and DIY components to take it beyond its advertised purposes.

The post Raspberry Pi 500 and Pi Monitor offer a minimalist, low-power, but useful desktop first appeared on Yanko Design.

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