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Three Red Dot Award Winners that Keep it Simple and Doable

By Rain Noe - October 1, 2014

in Object Culture

The Red Dot Awards winner's page is usually a fun look at some out-there ideas. But among this year's batch of winners, it's the oh-man-that-is-so-doable concepts that caught our eye. To rethink something simple that already exists can often be far harder, we think, than envisioning a blue-sky solution.

In the Personal Hygiene category, Chen Wanting's clever Tiya Convenient Floor Drain makes perfect sense for anyone who's ever had to remove long hair from a conventional shower drain.

In the Green category: A lot of us extend the lives of plastic bags by using them in wastepails, but the bags invariably come in different sizes, with some fitting better than others. Hu Lingling and Zhang Baoyi's Eco Trash Can neatly solves this, while also providing the option of using multiple bags in a single receptacle.

Over in Recreation, Kim Seonghyun and Yu Yunjo's Tennis Picker provides a quick way to pick up balls that's easier on the back. (I do wonder if this might de-fuzz the balls and unbalance them, but then again, my understanding is that tennis balls lead short lives; any of the tennis-experienced among you care to sound off?)

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powers

10 years ago

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the shower drain design is very classy, but I just made my own. You know those cheap, annoying advertisement magnets for sleazy lawyers stuck to phone books? I carefully peeled the sticker off the magnetic backing, cut it into a ring and hot glued some screen I had laying around to the magnetic ring. BAM. No more shower drain clogs. Still doesn't solve the problem of the hair getting stuck to the side of the shower. I have no idea how that happens.
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Andrew

10 years ago

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The slots might need to be tightened up a bit, but as a man married to a woman with long curly hair I have the job of cleaning the drains and I would welcome a drain that could simply be wiped clean (then rinsed, CW).
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James

10 years ago

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Tennis balls do have a short life in competition. The more compacted the nap, the faster the ball. As they wear, the nap gets fuzzy and slows the ball. It's not about unweighting the ball, it's about uneven rise of the nap.

That being said, the "tennis picker" is a bad idea. It's a solution looking for a problem as you can pick up tennis balls with the racquet already.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C3IdE7aNq8

There is no need to add weight to the end of the racquet. Plus, you now have an adhesive strip on your to pick up dirt and grunge in your tennis bag. Plus the rendering of the device shows the width of the racquet head to be at least two times wider than real life so the adhesive strip would have 1/2 the surface area proposed.

It makes me think that the person who designed this doesn't play much tennis and was looking for a

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Derek Chan

10 years ago

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Always wanted to DIY one of those rabbit ear style bins. This looks much easier to do with a hacksaw.
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David

10 years ago

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Adhesive residue? And a hook and loop would only work on brand new balls. Also seems heavy (i.e. an easier way to tennis elbow). But hey, at least you're saving your back, right?
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Lawrence

10 years ago

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Think the slots in the floor drain would makes it too easy for the hairs to pass trough the slots...
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CW

10 years ago

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Maybe the pictures of the drain need to be tweaked a bit? They show a shower drain that catches hair, then you wash the hair off into another drain? Doesn't really make sense to me, since most sinks have more restricted drains unless there is a garbage disposal. But hey it won an award, so it must make sense (said with heavy sarcasm)
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