Still looking for clever, original holiday gift ideas? The editors of Canadian Interiors are here to help with these fun items that caught our eye(s) recently.
The Krups Barista.
The Krups Barista boasts a one-touch digital display, a unique automatic self-cleaning function and a first in coffee customization technology. Strength, temperature, quantity and grind, each member of your household can store their personalized coffee recipe under the Barista’s “Favourites” setting, so that it can be readily accessed at the mere touch of a button. Beyond its sleek, two-toned, black and silver exterior, the machine is extremely user-friendly: its ergonomic design makes coffee preparation easy to do from the front of the machine.
Find Krups near you: http://www.krups.ca/Shop
City Tea Towel
Made in Germany by 44spaces, the City Tea Towels are fashionable and functional skylines silkscreened by hand on 100 per cent organic cotton and printed orange, blue and black and will undoubtedly make doing the dishes a pleasure.
Pentagon Trivet & Coasters
Designed by Jonathan Dorthe for Montréal-based Atelier-D, this set of four pentagon shaped coasters and one trivet are made of plywood, and are etched and stained on one side with a geometric pattern and the other side has a natural finish and no etching. The trivet has a natural finish. You can use them individually on a small table or combine them to protect a bigger surface.
Sagoma
The Jeff Goodman Glass studio in Toronto, Ontario has just released a new line – Sagoma – for this holiday season. Sagoma is the Italian word for outline or profile, and this line is a study in form and silhouette. Each piece is handmade and the studio’s trademark etched surface treatment accentuates the curvy forms. Available in over 20 colours, look for new forms and colour combinations to evolve from this series.
Beyond the Bridge plates
Think Fabricate, a Brooklyn-based, multidisciplinary design firm, has a few neat gifts up their sleeves, including Beyond the Bridge plates. The prototypes for these plates, which feature historic images of Brooklyn, are part of the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent decorative arts collection, and have been expanded to include four designs in fine porcelain, all manufactured in America by Pickard China.
http://www.thinkfabricate.com/
Play Communs
Play Communs is a robot toy for children and adults to bring both ages closer to electronics. It was invented and developed by the French group Ultra Ordinaire, design Nathalie Bruyère and Pierre Duffau, studio Duffau & Associés, based in the city of Toulouse, and presented during this year’s Milan International Furniture Salon.
These robots include just a handful of electronic components – colored LEDs and servo technology – that move and turn the head, the body and the arms of the character, each one expressing a different personality and providing innovative ‘outside the box’ solutions.
To stimulate the imagination and creativity, the robots have been designed to be modified, improved and invented by children.
http://www.ultra-ordinaire.com/
Koolhaas-themed skateboard
Dutch skatebrand Dufarge has produced a skateboard deck that honours a popular local skate spot. Part of OMA’s Museum Park-scheme in Rotterdam, the spot, also known as ‘Rem’s Flag’, features a 150 meter stretch of brightly coloured stripes: a colossal version of OMA’s ‘EU Barcode’.
The EU Barcode was designed in 2001 by the OMA think tank AMO to represent the European Union as “the common effort of different nations, with each state retaining its own cultural identity while sharing the advantages of acting together.” The skateboard-enthusiasts from Dufarge think that’s all perfectly okay. Their primary concern is landing tricks and skating perfect lines across the striped pattern. Completed in 2011, Rem’s Flag has become a meeting point for both local skaters and skaters visiting from other countries.
When it came to incorporating the EU Barcode in the skateboard design, the designers decided to go basic, spreading the striped pattern accross the bottom of the deck and spent a lot of effort in finding a manufacturer that could print the exact pms-colours on a skateboard. Eventually they teamed up with the American company Generator, an established name when it comes to producing high quality skateboards. The craftmen at Generator screenprinted the decks in a limited edition of 80 hand numbered boards.
www.dufarge.com