Category Archives: Designer

Coffee As Unique As Your Handprint

Memory-by-Wenyao-Cai-Electrolux-Design-Lab-2012-finalistA small but important part of many people’s lives is the intimacy of having a barista who remembers who you are and more importantly how you have your coffee. Memory is a coffee maker that uses hand print recognition to act as your personal barista and make the right cup of coffee for the right person. Set it to your preference of weak, medium or strong coffee or even an espresso to a ristretto. When you’re ready for your perfect cup of coffee, Memory will scan your hand and get it right every time. The machine was designed by WenYao Cai from China, an Electrolux Design Lab 2012 finalist.

No matter how hard we wished it wasn’t, Memory is still in the concept phase and isn’t ready to be on the market just yet.

What Sparks Our Fire: An innovative gadget that allows you to get your perfect cup of coffee with a simple scan of the hand.

Do you wish Memory was out on the market? Let us know your thoughts.

Food Without The Fuss

photo-main (1)Our kitchen has drastically changed over the last 30 years to make our lives easier when preparing meals. Now, there could be a new addition to our existing high tech equipment: a smart microwave/oven that can learn your habits and help you stay fit. It’s called the MAID oven (that stands for Make All Incredible Dishes), and it learns your tastes and habits.

MAID Oven is a Kickstarter project that met its $50,000 goal in just five days. The advanced oven has a list of recipes, and users can upload their own into the database. Once you’re ready to bake, the oven has settings to automatically set the temperature and cooking time for whatever dish you might be whipping up. The coolest feature the device offers is that MAID Oven can act as a pseudo health-conscious dietitian. Depending on your eating and fitness habits (it can sync with your smartphone or smart watch), the oven will make suggestions for meals that factor in your calorie intake and taste preferences. It has access to an unlimited number of recipes from the web so you don’t have to worry.

Another feature of the sophisticated oven is you can control it with your voice. You can actually tell the oven what’s for dinner — it’s got built-in voice recognition. It doesn’t end here. MAID Oven also comes with an accompanying smartphone app. This means you can get push alerts when your food is done cooking, adjust cook time and temperature settings from afar, or remotely activate/deactivate the oven while you’re away from home. Isn’t it magical? Feel free to check out MAID Oven baking pizza, pasta, and even cake in the Kickstarter’s demo video below.

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MAID should be ready to go to market by Thanksgiving 2015. Hopefully you can deactivate the dietary suggestions for the holidays!

What Sparks Our Fire: A useful device with smart features and functionality that could truly make cooking easier, healthier, and more fun.

Will you be making some space in your kitchen for the MAID Oven?

The Invisible Umbrella

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If you dream of a world where people use air-powered umbrellas to fight the rain, you can wake up. The future is now. To be honest, the umbrella is one of those gadgets that hasn’t really been updated much in the last 200 years. Sure, technological advancements have allowed them to become easier to handle and more durable, but overall, it’s pretty much the same deal. But a new Kickstarter campaign has launched an idea that changes the umbrella game completely. It is called the Air Umbrella and it makes use of the airflow to form an umbrella without a visible cover.

Put simply, the gadget releases air that pushes the rain away. Currently, there are three sizes of the Air Umbrella available: small, medium and large. You can also fit two people under the Air Umbrella. The air umbrella will be ready to launch by December 2015. Head over to the Air Umbrella Kickstarter page to find out more.

What Sparks Our Fire: Engineers that strive to bring innovation to the most basic objects.

Would you consider investing in an invisible umbrella once it becomes available?

For The Maker In All Of Us

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As kids, we all loved playing with Play-Doh. We could let our imaginations run wild to build, mold, cut, flatten and create anything, yes anything. Well, thanks to the people at inventables, a technology company based in Chicago, you can now make those childhood dreams a reality. Inventables has developed the perfect technology, Carvey, a successfully funded Kickstarter project expected to be in full production by Fall 2015.

 Carvey is quiet, clean, easy to use and can carve your project in 3 simple steps.

  1. Make your design with the integrated softwaresoft
  2. Choose your material (wood, plastic, foam, wax, cork soft metal, etc,)
  3. Click “Carve” and let the machine do the work until it achieves your desired form

Here is a list of items you can easily make with Carvey: jewelry, wooden sunglasses, street signs, can openers, etc. Fell free to watch the video of Carvey in action here.

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What Sparks Our Fire: A 3D machine that is easy to use and can help us turn ideas into real objects in under 5 mins.

What would you make with Carvey?

Find the Hidden Message

Screen Shot 2014-11-06 at 9.51.08 AMIn the world of branding, logo design is a key pillar of the company’s identity, therefore, when it comes to crafting the right logo, one needs to be creative and invest a large amount of thought and hard work. The first feature of a good and effective logo is that it can immediately grab the viewer’s attention. A good way to do so is by giving viewers a puzzle to solve. Everyone likes puzzles, right? When viewers get the hidden message behind the logo, there’s this instant little satisfaction feeling, and gets them talking and sharing. But most importantly, chances are they will never forget.

So, if you’re a graphic designer or an entrepreneur looking for some logo ideas and inspiration then, this post might be for you. Today, we are sharing 12 logos that have hidden symbolism you may have not noticed before. Some are obvious, others are not, but all of them are interesting when you take a closer look. We’re sure you won’t forget them once you see them. You can find the full list on Just creative.

What Sparks Our Fire: Powerful brands that translate their core ideas through their logos.

Do you have any other cool logos to add to the list? Feel free to share.