10 great products of 2009
Books, toys, a dollhouse, a portable computer and a pair of shoes – here’s an unordered and mixed up list of great design-driven (or driving) products of 2009.
I wanted to write this post since quite some time now but successfully procrastinated. I finally assembled some of the products that excited me the most this year – in no particular order. Enjoy!
“An Awesome Book” by Dallas Clayton
As mentioned before, I think this book is a must have. Also take some time and read all the stories behind it and watch the videos on Dallas Clayton’s website.
“Change by Design” by Tim Brown
A very inspiring and well written book about “Design Thinking”, featuring a dozen of insights into the work and methods at IDEO.
Airport by Muji
Doesn’t need much explanation. The perfect gift for kids and wannabes. Comes in a fabric bag.
MUJI + LEGO Kit
Two great design-driven companies created a dozen of fantastic product mashups. Seems so obvious, but would you have thought about it before you actualy saw it? I hope our dear office mate Henning will bring some from his current trip to Tokyo …
“Cyril” by Pointer Footwear
I immediately fell in love when I saw these shoes and after wearing them for quite some time now, I can say they not only look great, but are also very comfortable and robust. They’re also available in several other colour combinations.
The litl webbook
The newly released litl webbook is keeping me excited and interested since I first saw it. Very nice product design, Identity and User Interface by Pentagram. To me, it’s the most innovative and convincing “netbook” concept I have seen so far, even sporting its own operating system and a refreshingly simple and elegant new paradigm for experiencing the Internet. I hope it will be available in Germany sometime.
Vitsoe Starter Collection
I’m in love with the 606 Universal Shelving System designed by Dieter Rams since a very longtime (my parents have them since the 60s). Vitsoe released different compact “Starter Collections” this year that are totally worth checking out.
Iphone and Itouch paper stand
The first and the best free iPhone and iPod Touch stand. Start tinkering now!
The Green Dollhouse
I stumbled across this product when I was researching dollhouses for my daugther’s 3rd birthday. An inherent idea of this product is to teach strategies around saving the environment to your kids very early on and in a playful way.
IdeaPaint
“IdeaPaint turns virtually anything you can paint into a dry-erase surface and any room into a hub of creativity and collaboration. Where do you want to use it?”. Enough said.
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[...] interaction looks quite appetizing. The question remains: will this sketch ever be turned into a great product? Indications are spawning. And if so, will it fly or will it again suffer from Microsoft’s [...]
a good list http://www.precious-forever.com/2009/12/04/10-great-products-of-2009/
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Hi, thanks for listing our litl webbook – though it’s no surprise to us of course. Quite right about our new UI paradigm for accessing the web at home. Just a few minor points about the design: Pentagram worked with us on the initial UI concepts and also did the branding. But detailed interaction design and personas were done by Cooper Consulting. Fort Franklin also did some design elements. And our in-house teams worked closely with these companies every step of the way – our CEO John Chuang was involved personally in the majority of key design decisions.
It’s worth noting that the capabilities of our device will be expanding all the time through our channels (apps) platform – new channels will be added automatically to your device’s software at night via our zero-maintenance update system. We intend to release an SDK in the near future that will allow anyone to develop awesome channels for the litl webbook. In the meantime we are building our own channels with some very interesting partners. So there’s lots on the horizon for litl.
Re Germany: There has been a _great_ deal of interest in our product from people in Europe. Rest assured we do intend to sell in Europe but – sorry – we are not able to release a timeline for that just yet. Keep checking blog.litl.com for updates.
More info: litl.com
Questions: asklitl@litl.com
Follow: twitter.com/litl
love the litl web book!
great designs