Editor’s Note: The one thing that sets YD apart from other design magazines is how we’re deeply connected with our community of young designers. We’re invested in their success, we share the stuff they make because good talent and great ideas excite us. Design has been our passion throughout, but we believe this is the right time to use our platform to channel a new kind of energy – an energy for hope and support, in our own small way. We will be sharing works from Ukrainian students and designers, giving them the spotlight/platform they need and deserve at this moment. We hope this spotlight will give their work a chance to speak, and the designers a chance to be viewed on a global stage. I hope we can send them love, appreciation, hope, and even work opportunities in this incredibly uncertain and scary time.
We stand with Ukraine. We stand with peace.
Golden Age Custom BMW C400X Scooter by Rostyslav Matiukhin
Harkening back to the halcyon days of pre-world-war motoring when transportation was equal parts speed, style, and skill, the Golden Age captures this sentiment in a modern incarnation. The Golden Age is best described as a modified version of the BMW C400X, with its spiritual ancestor being the classic 1930 Henderson Model KJ Streamline. With a curvaceous design that’s highly reminiscent of the automobiles from a century ago, the Golden Age is just a vintage-inspired treat to look at… complete with chrome trims to punctuate the curved black volumes, a classic circular headlight, and a plush leather throne for the rider to sit on.
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Color Pencil Holder by BondArtStudio
With its arc-shaped design, the BondArtStudio’s color-pencil holder puts the literal ‘bow’ in rainbow!
Crafted out of beech wood, the holder comes in a variety of sizes, storing anywhere between 24 to 72 pencils. A small area in the middle acts as a container for other stationery like brushes, erasers, sharpeners, etc. while the most attractive element of the holder remains its ‘perforated arc’ that lets you spread out your color pencils in an eye-catching spectrum of hues.
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AeroTwist Portable Bluetooth Speaker by Kateryna Sokolova
Donut underestimate the AeroTwist speakers! They come in all shapes and sizes. Well, basically one shape, but with its flexible design, you can twist it to suit your fancy. These speakers come from Jarre Technologies, known for their kitschy take on audio systems and docks. The AeroTwist is their latest, award-winning twistable Bluetooth speaker. Available in sexy Matte, svelte Gloss, and slick Chrome variants, the speakers come with NFC, and the ability to make you the coolest in your pack!
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Origami Cake by Dinara Kasko
Dinara’s cakes look nothing like normal confectionery – because they aren’t inspired by them! An architect-turned-pastry-chef, Dinara’s pastries stand at the intersection of design and baking, with their forms relying on complex geometric 3D-printed molds, generative design, and Voronoi patterns. Looking more like edible sculptures than your run-of-the-mill pound cakes, Kasko relies on symmetry, light-and-shadow, and textures and colors to allow her cakes to shine. In fact, she even sells her silicone cake molds online for anyone looking to recreate her work!
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NOOM Suprematic Lamps by Kateryna Sokolova
With the allure and appearance of minimal greenery (for the lack of a better term), Katerina Sokolova’s Suprematic lamps for NOOM brighten the home, quite literally, if I may add! The 3-part lamps come fabricated from powder-coated sheet metal and metallic pipe cross-sections, and can be simply assembled by fitting them together using interlocking cutouts. The lamps cast a warm, downward light that takes on a diffused greenish glow, thanks to Suprematic’s powder-coated color-palette, both illuminating spaces as well as creating a sense of calm, not too different from the calm associated with having plants around you… because the Suprematic does look like an abstract, suprematist Bauhaus take on a planter with plants!
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Periscope Mask by Qvarta Studio
Designed to be at the intersection of adventure, sports, and rescue, the Periscope Mask is a well-detailed diving accessory that lets you easily navigate the waters. The Periscopic Mask is an upgrade from the wide variety of existing leisure full-face masks, although with a clever little feature. While most masks have the distinct snorkel pipe that emerges from the mask and ascends upwards, the Periscope Mask also builds a periscope into the snorkel, giving it a clever extra feature that lets people see above the surface of the water, or even above obstacles. The mask, designed by Ukraine-based Qvarta Studio, operates in three distinct modes – a snorkeling mode, a water-line adjacent mode, and a deep diving mode.
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Sopp Table Lamp by Max Voytenko for Gantri
Looking quite like some Zaha Hadid-inspired architecture on your table, the Sopp table lamp by Max Voytenko for Gantri uses Gestalt’s visual laws to look like it has mass, while the lamp itself is made from what seems like entirely crisscrossing 2-dimensional surfaces. The Sopp is a paradoxical masterpiece, inspired by seemingly opposing disciplines: natural forms and modern architecture”, Voytenko writes. “Who knew minimalism could be so mesmerizing?”
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ROS.M Electric Hyperbike Concept by Rostyslav Matiukhin
At its core, the ROS.M electric hyperbike concept breaks the one unsaid rule of luxury automotive design – even though it falls well within the hyperbike category, it’s still meant to be a daily driver. Taking on an approach that mirrors products like the iPhone that’s ‘designed to be high-end, but is built for being good at everyday tasks’, the ROS.M hopes to be, and these aren’t words you’ll hear too often in the automotive industry – a luxury hyperbike that regular consumers will love to drive too… and that required Rostyslav to first start by asking some pretty important questions.
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Xiaomi Wearable Speaker by Ivan Zhurba
No, this isn’t a fan-made arc repulsor from Iron Man, although you wouldn’t be the first one to mistake it for one. Instead, it’s a refreshingly new speaker concept that merges sound and sapien together to create an experience absolutely new. The Xiaomi Wearable Speaker is a conceptual Bluetooth audio device that’s designed to sit on your wrist. Instead of making you just hear the audio by putting headphones in your ears, the Xiaomi Wireless Wrist Speaker makes you hear and FEEL audio because the speaker is quite literally strapped to your body. The sound travels through your ears, and the speaker’s vibrations traverse through your body, sort of mimicking the effect of being at a concert, where the music actually goes through your body, immersing you deeply.
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Storm Lamp by Julia Kononenko
The beauty of the Storm Lamp by Julia Kononenko is that there isn’t any method to its mad design. The lamp comes with a variety of laser-cut wooden panels that can be arranged/oriented in any way you like, because as its name suggests, the Storm Lamp is all about beauty in chaos. Looking almost like an abstract tornado, the lamp is entirely made from flat pieces of laser-cut plywood that are either left plain or painted black. When assembled together, they create a 3D form using the Gestalt visual law of continuity. Moreover, the jagged edges themselves illuminate to look like chaotic lightning strikes, reinforcing the product’s inspiration!
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