QDaily Annual Design Awards: 70 Remarkable Products to Help You Live Better (Image-Heavy)

Divided into two groups — one for architecture and interior design, the other for product design.

What you are looking at is QDaily's roundup of the design world in 2015. We picked the most influential good designs in each field over the past year — architecture, graphic design, brand packaging, interior design — along with designs that offered remarkable solutions. And since we recommend a set of good designs every day, we also combed through thousands of products to choose the 50 we thought were the most impressive. We share them all with you here.

Our criteria may be very "QDaily." Broadly, you can look to what we have always said in our "This Design Is Remarkable" column: beautiful, problem-solving, commercially viable, and able to help people find a better life.

We will also ask designers of all kinds to recommend their own picks for the year's best designs; those products will run in a separate article. Stay tuned.

Click the yellow underlined sections to read our detailed coverage from the time. Not recommended on mobile data.

Let's start with the year's most noteworthy architecture and interior design.

Most Talked-About Architectural Work: Rotterdam's Markthal

Step Inside This Arched Market and Eat Beneath a Giant Projection

The Markthal is the world's first building to combine a market with housing. Beneath its enormous arched shell sit 228 apartments, more than 100 food shops and restaurants, a supermarket, and an underground car park. The design comes from the noted Dutch architecture firm MVRDV.

Most Anticipated Architectural Work: Barcelona's Sagrada Família

The Cathedral Whose Client Is God Has Finally Announced a Completion Date

Construction began in 1882, and Barcelona's famous Catholic basilica, the Sagrada Família, is still unfinished. Yet thanks to its singular, spectacular design, the building was named a World Heritage Site before it was even complete — the lifelong work of the Spanish genius architect Antoni Gaudí. The current chief architect, Jordi Fauli, has confirmed that the Sagrada Família will be finished no later than 2030–2032.

Cultural and Sports Architecture: Hangzhou Folk Arts Museum

The Folk Arts Museum Kengo Kuma Designed for Hangzhou Is Worth a Visit

The Folk Arts Museum sits on the Xiangshan campus of the China Academy of Art, built against a hillside. Its diamond-shaped roofs interlock like the small mountain villages of the Jiangnan region. The site was once a tea garden, with a fine natural setting. Architect Kengo Kuma wanted this large building, at 4,970 square meters, not to disrupt the local landscape but to blend into it.

Education and Healthcare Architecture: The "Farming Kindergarten" Outside Ho Chi Minh City

In This Vietnamese Kindergarten, Children Play, Run, and Learn to Grow Vegetables

The kindergarten was designed by the noted Vietnamese architecture firm Vo Trong Nghia Architects. A continuous green roof slopes down to the ground at both ends, then rises to two stories, forming a spiral with shifting layers and gradients. The roof is planted with grass, plants, and vegetables; three ring-shaped bands enclose three courtyards, also planted with grass and trees. So the children have plenty of outdoor space and can get close to nature — running and playing freely on the grass — while also learning about farming and getting their hands dirty growing vegetables.

Residential Architecture: The Sunflower House

If You're Rich Enough, Build a House Like This — Six Sides of Daylight on a Clifftop

This Sunflower House, by the Barcelona firm Cadaval & Solà-Morales, sits on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean in Girona, Spain. The design gives full weight to the views while staying in harmony with the surrounding landscape.

Residential Interior Design: A 13-Square-Meter Micro-Apartment in Poland

How Do You Make a 13-Square-Meter Micro-Apartment Feel Like Home?

In Poland, a lecturer at the Wrocław Academy of Fine Arts named Szymon Hanczar owns a micro-apartment of just 13 square meters. He renovated it himself, fitting in a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living area — all fully equipped — with a hammock and bicycle adding a bit of fun.

Restaurant and Bar Design: Longxiaobao Rice Noodle Shop in Changsha

There's a Rice Noodle Shop in Changsha That Looks Better Than Most Cafés

The Shanghai design studio LukStudio designed this rice noodle shop on the shopping boulevard along the Xiangjiang River in Changsha. The most distinctive thing about the space is that the team drew traditional noodle-making craft into the design, reinterpreting the noodle-drying rack with fine steel wires. They liken the wires to noodles: bundles of thin wire hang straight down, and under warm incandescent light they become the focal point of the whole space.

Café and Bakery Design: SAWAMURA Bakery Restaurant in Japan

Who Could Possibly Not Love a Bakery in the Forest?

In Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, Yuji Tanabe Architects designed this bakery-restaurant, SAWAMURA. Blessed with natural scenery, Yuji Tanabe ran a long corridor along the restaurant's second floor, sheltered in the shade of nearby trees, to create the feeling of a walk through the forest. The café on the south side was built as a terrace, so guests can soak fully in sunlight and trees.

Public Space Design: Terminal 3 of Tokyo Narita International Airport

Muji Made a Budget Airline Terminal Feel Like a VIP Lounge

In April 2015, Terminal 3 of Tokyo Narita International Airport — Japan's largest international gateway — opened. Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd., the manufacturer and retailer behind the popular Japanese brand Muji, led the interior design and made 400 comfortable padded stools in green, blue, brown, and white, reportedly built entirely to the comfort standards of Muji mattresses. They also laid out a dining area of roughly 450 seats, with a full set of tables and chairs in premium oak — more seating than any other airport terminal in Japan.

Retail Store Design: Fangsuo Bookstore in Chengdu

In Chengdu, There's a Bookstore That Looks Like a Sutra Repository

Amid the luxury brands of Chengdu Taikoo Li, Fangsuo arrived like a quiet breath of bookish air. Taiwanese designer Zhu Zhikang spent 16 months building this cultural space, which looks like an underground sutra repository.

Adaptive Reuse Architecture: Flamingo (Shanghai) Brand Strategy Consultancy Office

Another Renovated Old Shanghai Building — Would You Want to Work in an Office Like This?

Neri&Hu Design and Research Office renovated the office of the globally known Flamingo (Shanghai) brand strategy consultancy. The original space was a top-floor loft with a strong industrial character. The team set out to insert a contrasting idea within it — a picturesque residential structure — adding many concrete platforms to break up and divide the floor plate and create distinct office zones of different shapes.

Hotel and Resort Architecture: Temple House in Chengdu

How Did a Century-Old Residence in Chengdu Become the Entrance to a Boutique Hotel?

Architect Bill Webb studied Chengdu's climate, brickwork, and historic buildings to design this hotel — a low-rise Sichuanese structure paired with two L-shaped modern towers — weaving his reading of Sichuan culture into the design.

Hotel Interior Design: Hotel Hotel in Canberra

This Hotel Brought Together More Than 50 Designers' Ideas — and the Results Are Quite Good

Hotel Hotel was named Best Interior Design of the Year at the 2015 Inside Festival interior design awards. Thousands of timber pieces of varying lengths form an array that hangs from the ceiling, wraps around the walls, or is strung together with wire as decoration, giving the hotel lobby a certain theatrical drama.

Installation Art: Rain Room

What Does It Feel Like to Walk Unprepared into a Downpour and Come Out Dry?

This experimental installation, "Rain Room," was made by the art collective Random International. Since 2012 it has appeared at the Barbican Centre in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In September 2015 it came to the Yuz Museum in Shanghai — you could walk, unprotected, into a real rainstorm, watch the drops fall thick all around you, and stay dry.

Exhibition: Harry Potter: The Exhibition

There's a Wonderful Harry Potter Exhibition in Shanghai — As a Fan, You Won't Want to Miss It

Harry Potter: The Exhibition came to Shanghai's Super Brand Mall in December 2015. It showed original props, costumes, and "magical creatures" from across the film series, from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Focused on the film props and arranged scene by scene, it recreated that wonderful magical world.

Brand Packaging Design: "Simple." Fast Food Restaurant in Kyiv

This Fast Food Restaurant Is Called "Simple" — but It's Packed with Clever Little Details

Beyond the interior, the Ukrainian studio Brandon Agency put even more care into the brand packaging. You find an array of lively little details, all within a single visual language: a series of icons (utensils, drinks, food), posters (walking customers through how each dish goes from raw ingredient to finished plate), menus, stickers, and table objects.

Graphic Design: Stamps for the 150th Anniversary of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Who Says Stamps Are Antiques? The Royal Mail Is This Cool

To mark the 150th anniversary of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the children's classic first published in 1865 by the British author Lewis Carroll, Royal Mail issued a set of 10 stamps on the theme, designed by Jason Godfrey with illustrator Grahame Baker-Smith. Each stamp shows a character or scene from the Alice in Wonderland tale.

Design Companies with Ideas

BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), Denmark

Meet the World's Most Innovative Architecture Firm — and the Creative Energy Behind It

In its tenth year, the firm still runs on constant experiment, wide-open vision, and fearless ambition — every cool word you could want. The new Google headquarters, designed with London's Heatherwick Studio, and the waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen are among the boldest recent works in architecture.

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On industrial design, furniture, and lifestyle products — these 50 designs are remarkable!

In 2015, QDaily published 249 daily editions of "Today's Best: This Design Is Remarkable," plus 23 weekend and holiday specials of "This Design Is Remarkable." In this column we have always tried to recommend clever designs we have recently found — designs that solve problems for you and, more often than not, are also good-looking. Below is our TOP 50, chosen by weighing cleverness, usefulness, looks, and reader response.

Electronics

Beosound Moment by Frackenpohl Poulheim

The Danish premium audio brand Bang & Olufsen has long stood for the highest standard in sound. Recently it asked the noted German studio Frackenpohl Poulheim to make a high-fidelity home speaker, the BeoSound Moment. The speaker carries a touch-based MoodWheel for precise control of the sound, and pairs Bang & Olufsen's own network system with Deezer Premium+. It can also tailor playback to your habits and offer different themes at set times of day.

Samsung Serif TV by Ronan Bouroullec & Erwan Bouroullec

The French brothers' most notable work of 2015 was the Serif television they designed for Samsung — a set whose profile follows the shape of the letter I. In their own words, "up close, it looks like a piece of furniture." It has a splayed base and a flat top panel; from the side it resembles the capital "I" in a serif typeface. As Erwan Bouroullec sees it, the television should be like any other piece of furniture in the home — set anywhere, moved freely. "The important thing is for it to appear correctly, like an object, in the right place in our living space."

4th Dimension watch by 22 Design Studio

After a cement ring in 2007 and a cement pen in 2011, the Taiwanese studio 22 Design Studio last year brought us a watch with a concrete element: the 4th Dimension. As the name suggests, the team played with four-dimensional space, taking a spiral staircase as the starting point — each step spans 30 degrees, and at 12 steps, seen straight from above, they form a full circle, each step standing for one hour. The concrete face pairs with a stainless-steel case, bare copper hands, and a leather strap, for a raw beauty and texture. It comes in two colorways, Original and Urban, and sells for NT$8,800 (about 1,710 yuan). Click here to try buying it.

Tube Audio by Piet Hein Eek

The Dutch design brand LEFF Amsterdam recently asked local designer Piet Hein Eek to make a wireless speaker: the Tube Audio. He kept the compact silhouette of his earlier Tube Clock, and the small cylinder, in gold, silver, and copper, reads as quietly refined. The Tube Audio has high-quality audio components inside, supports USB charging and Bluetooth within a 7-meter range, and runs up to 8 hours. Priced at 149 euros (about 1,040 yuan). Click here to try buying it.

Atmosphere by Daan Spanjers

Daan Spanjers, a designer from Eindhoven in the Netherlands, combined the passage of time with the shifting play of light to make a spectrum clock called "Atmosphere." Once you set a base tone, the clock's color shifts with the time of day — from sunrise to sunset — and with changes in humidity, location, and the angle at which it sits, giving you a sunrise and sunset all your own. But since it is called "atmosphere," don't expect it to tell you the exact time; its real job is to make a small wall, or even a whole room, feel a little more romantic and alive.

Keppel watch by Georg Jensen

This watch series is based on Georg Jensen's 1977 classic, The Koppel — known for a very clean white dial, slim hands, and dot-marked indices. The new series brings in modern technology while keeping the original's clean simplicity. Three versions are offered: with annual calendar, with power-reserve display, or with a hand-wound small seconds subdial, all on leather straps and carrying a classical feel.

Home Products

Sunbeam collaboration by Marc Newson

This is a stainless-steel kettle and toaster set — Marc Newson's first collaboration with the Australian kitchen appliance brand Sunbeam. The brushed steel body gives both pieces Newson's usual sense of the future; the kettle lid and toaster body add accent colors, some quite vivid, grounding the appliances in everyday life while appealing to a range of tastes. Both are somewhat flat and rounded — compact, with a retro quality. Available in seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black, and white, priced at US$199. Click here to try buying.

Pebble Sofa by Form Us With Love

The Swedish studio Form Us With Love visited Beijing to understand Chinese culture and look for solutions to problems that might come up in Chinese people's daily lives. Last year it worked with the Chinese furniture brand Zaozuo to launch a pebble-shaped sofa. It is as warm and soft as Baymax — gentle and pebble-shaped, with a small pocket for stashing small appliances and batteries, so you can spend a whole day curled up in its cozy embrace. From 1,099 yuan. Click here to try buying.

Hash by Max Voytenko

Max Voytenko, of the Ukrainian studio Line, has released a modular bookshelf called Hash. Its defining feature is that it combines freely, forming different layouts and styles to suit rooms of varying sizes and arrangements. One face of each Hash unit is a solid black steel panel; the other three sides use thin black steel strips to make partitions that you can see through yet still divide the space — and each unit can rotate 90 degrees, giving the whole system a pleasingly striking look.

Ingrid Bathroom Collection by Jean-François D'Or & Frédérique Ficheroulle & Vika

Ingrid is a modular bathroom system, co-designed by the Vika team with designers Jean-François D'Or and Frédérique Ficheroulle. The advantage of modular design is that users can pick functional modules in different materials and colors and combine them to fit their needs and the size of their space. To the designers, the bathroom is where the day begins and ends — not just a utilitarian room but a place to wash and prepare yourself, so its comfort should be raised. They paid particular attention to practical details, such as towel hooks at the shelving and sink, and an electrical socket inside the mirror for charging and blow-drying. The Ingrid series offers 16 color options; for pricing and purchase inquiries, contact [email protected].

Sabine Furniture System by Glimakra

The Swedish furniture brand Glimakra has launched the Sabine series, joining acoustics to other workplace needs to make a sound-reducing furniture system. The name Sabine is a tribute to the physicist Wallace Clement Sabine, who founded architectural acoustics at the end of the 19th century. The series gathers many freestanding storage pieces that link with other components and pair with desks, offering a range of colors and materials. The pressed-felt surface across the whole system connects with slotted panels to absorb sound between 125 Hz and 4000 Hz, cutting noise; the various layouts can also partition space.

Kubus Bowl by Mogens Lassen

The Dane Mogens Lassen trained as an architect. The Kubus Bowl is among his most representative functionalist works — a hemisphere expressing storage and a cubic wire frame expressing support make a striking visual contrast. An everyday vessel should be multipurpose: it can hold desserts, fruit, or candy, or serve as a planter; and you can separate the bowl from its stand for other uses. The Kubus Bowl was also nominated for this year's German Design Award. It comes in black, white, grey, beige, and copper-plated finishes, priced between 129 and 229 euros (about 922 to 1,636 yuan). Click here to try buying.

Cape Cod Collection by Philippe Starck

The German premium sanitary brand Duravit invited the noted French designer Philippe Starck to present the new Cape Cod bathroom collection. Starck drew on the scenic beaches of Cape Cod on the American East Coast — it was the leisurely, tranquil beauty of the place that gave him the idea to dissolve the barrier between nature and the interior. He expressed it through slender basin rims, elegant lines, and high-quality materials. He also fitted the bathtub with a headrest pillow, an air-jet system, and a sound system that connects to various devices over Bluetooth, raising the comfort of a bath. Four layouts are offered: freestanding, wall-mounted, and left or right corner. The vanity units and countertops come in four versions: American walnut, European oak, vintage oak, and pure white coast. The wood versions blend a natural look with a surface that seems like the hull of a boat steadily worn by storms and coastal waves.

Edgy Collection by Patrycja Domanska & Tanja Lightfoot

The Polish designer Patrycja Domanska and Tanja Lightfoot worked with the tile maker Kaza Concrete to produce a tile collection called Edgy. Made of two tile types with 3D geometric forms, it works for both public and private spaces, indoors and out. Whether covering a whole wall or used as partial accents, the results surprise you. The asymmetrical surfaces of the 3D tiles produce a distinctive visual effect.

Sempé W153 by Inga Sempé

The Paris-based furniture designer Inga Sempé last year brought a clip lamp, the Sempé W153, to the lighting brand Wästberg, debuting at the 2015 Stockholm Furniture Fair. The Sempé W153 draws on her childhood memory of clip lamps — the kind found in nearly every rural household, a simple clamp with an incandescent bulb under a conical shade. In designing it, Sempé wanted to give it more ways to be used: it clips easily to a table, hangs on a wall, or — since it has a clamp — attaches to almost anywhere you need it. The shade angle is also adjustable.

Woodieful chair by Klavdija Jarc

This is a piece of furniture that refuses to settle for being just a stool. Next to the usual convertible furniture, the Woodieful chair wins on its clean, simple form — it can change to meet different needs, working as a side table, a magazine rack, or a small stool, with several ways to store magazines alone. To designer Klavdija Jarc, wood is the best material for interacting with furniture; since furniture is what we touch most at home, wood clearly warms the heart more than anything else.

Poster by YOY

This is a series of A2-format paper wall lights from the Tokyo studio YOY. The raised central section becomes the shade; the paper shell makes it easy to print any design on the surface, so it looks exactly like a poster hung on the wall.

Axor Starck V Tap by Philippe Starck

This piece by the French designer Philippe Starck is a faucet for the German sanitary brand Hansgrohe. The tap is transparent, so you can see exactly how the water flows through it. The clear glass also means any contaminant that enters shows up against the inner wall. The removable top makes cleaning easy — you can even take it apart and put it in the dishwasher.

Osiloi by Rui Pereira & Ryosuke Fukusada

Designers Rui Pereira and Ryosuke Fukusada jointly designed a dressing-table series: a vanity, a dressing stool, a tray box, a towel rack, a bamboo mirror, a triangular bamboo stand, a lamp, and a bamboo cup. The core piece is the zabuton — the low stool pictured. Lowering the seat height offers a new spatial experience; the overall palette is soft and warm, setting a relaxed mood for applying makeup. The materials, COTTO ceramics and natural bamboo, strike a balance between the natural and the modern.

Slit by Hay

The Danish homeware brand Hay has launched a table series called "Slit." These tables, which look like folded paper, are actually metal, in round, rectangular, polygonal, and other geometric shapes. Beyond the standard black, white, and grey, the designer chose a range of soft pastel tones. The name "Slit" comes from the narrow gap running through the middle of each table — a small detail that brings the design closer to the folded-paper look. Here is the purchasing link.

Tonella chair by Note Design Studio

The Stockholm studio Note designed a lounge chair, "Tonella," for the Spanish furniture brand Sancal. The chair is built on a cylindrical wire cage, inspired by the wine barrels of the Yecla wine region in southeastern Spain — which is also where Sancal is based. Note founder Cristiano Pigazzini revealed that they used the shape of a wine barrel as the reference for the chair's curved sections. The team hoped the lounge chair would be equally at home in hotel rooms and shops as in public spaces.

Andes Lamps by Cristián Mohaded

The lighting designer Cristián Mohaded last year designed a pendant lamp, "Andes," for the Argentine company Inconcrete, and it became the flagship of its STRESS series. The Andes lamp uses a lightweight concrete — Mohaded's exploration of what the material can do — creating a visual sense of suspended weightlessness. The tension between the lamp's volume and its form lets concrete play different decorative and functional roles more naturally in a home.

Elementiles by Ontwerpduo for Vij5

The Dutch studio Ontwerpduo designed a set of modular wall elements for the fellow Dutch homeware brand Vij5. The series is made of modules with different functions — a small blackboard, a mirror, a storage cabinet — in shapes that include triangle, diamond, and trapezoid, and in various sizes. Users mix and choose freely to create all kinds of combinations that are both decorative and highly practical. This is Vij5's website — click to see more work.

Sleeve Table Lamp by Metrocuadro Design

Metrocuadro Design is an Italian studio that set out to "make furniture in a tailor's shop." The result is a fully handmade table lamp: the outer sleeve is all grey felt, joined with red thread and buttons. By day the lamp looks clean and neat; at night the warm light seeps through the felt and the seams to fall softly across the tabletop — charming and inviting. The lamp sells for 95 euros. Here is the purchasing link.

Rocking Swing by Clara Rivière and Tobias Nickerl

Designers Clara Rivière and Tobias Nickerl merged a rocking chair and a swing into one: the Rocking Swing. You can rock, you can swing, or you can do both at once. They say they wanted users to rediscover the childhood joy of a swing and the older person's pleasure of a rocking chair — which sounds a bit contradictory, but they hope the piece can become a vehicle for joy and exchange across generations. Either way, the Rocking Swing's clean lines, bold colors, and endearing idea make you inexplicably happy just looking at it.

SOULeaf by ilsangisang

These leaf-shaped lights come from the Korean studio ilsangisang. They painted the outlines and vein patterns of ginkgo, plane-tree, and elm leaves onto eco-friendly paper with glow-in-the-dark ink; in the dark, the leaves give off a calm green glow of extraordinary delicacy. When lit, besides the leaf veins you can spot the silhouettes of butterflies, dragonflies, and frogs, making the set feel even more natural. The designers wanted to remind people to cherish precious natural resources like trees. Here is the purchasing link.

O2 Vase by ODDD

This is a series of vases from the London studio ODDD, made to explore the delightful shift between 2D and 3D. Just fold paper and inflate it to finish the handmade vase — a little like the paper crafts we made as children, except that these use waterproof materials and can actually hold water and flowers. Two other vase designs use high-density polyethylene composite paper and are not waterproof, meant only for dried flowers. The vase surfaces are also decorated with metallic foil for a shimmering effect. Click here to buy.

"square system" by karakter

The Paris home furnishings fair worked with the furniture brand karakter to re-release Italian designer Joe Colombo's 1969 product, the "square system." The original plastic was replaced with aluminium alloy, widening the range of combinations and adding to the design's value. The product keeps its modular structure and can be freely assembled into a table or bookshelf of any configuration — a classic of contemporary design.

'alphabeta' lamp by Luca Nichetto

This is a set of pendant lights the Italian designer Luca Nichetto made for the online design brand Hem. Twenty-four shade options mix and match in any combination of colors and forms — all-white or all-black for more formal settings, or a riot of colors for a private home. The lamp surface is steel with no extra ornament, hung from a single curved thin wire, with a raw, elemental beauty. The bulb can point up, down, or both, in keeping with the lamp's free-spirited character. Here is the purchasing link.

nest shelf by Nendo

More and more furniture pursues spatial flexibility. The bookshelf the Japanese studio Nendo showed at the 2015 London Design Festival can be pulled apart at will, extending to twice its original size when fully open — fitting spaces of different sizes. It can be a grid-like rack or a shelf with uneven compartments, but the space on the left and right always stays equal, keeping a sense of symmetry: free and flexible modern furniture.

Everyday Objects

MINIM+AID by Nendo

The Japanese studio Nendo chose only the most essential items — some made to fit inside a cylinder, others shaped as cylinders themselves — and stacked them inside a single long cylindrical container 5 centimeters across. The first-aid kit comes with a shoulder strap, so it can be worn across the back or carried by hand. Available in black, white, and silver. Click here to read our detailed coverage.

2015 Spring Bag Collection by nanamica

The popular Japanese outdoor brand nanamica recently released its 2015 spring bag collection, in five styles: the Cordura Cycling Pack, Two Way Duffle Bag, Two Way Tote Bag, Cordura Briefcase, and Cordura Day Pack. The team used lightweight, abrasion-resistant canvas and coated nylon in warm, fresh colors. With the careful attention to detail typical of Japanese brands, the result balances fashion and function. Priced between US$299 and US$409 (about 1,860 to 2,544 yuan). Click here to try buying.

Camping Doughnut by Sungha Lim, Hyunmook Lim & Han Kim

What can you do with a tent? Three Korean designers — Sungha Lim, Hyunmook Lim, and Han Kim — last year produced an unusual doughnut-shaped tent, the Camping Doughnut. It is essentially an enormous cylindrical bag: when not in use, it rolls up for storage; when needed, it expands into a cylindrical tent that can be bent into an S-shape or looped into an O-shape. In the O-shape, the enclosed interior turns into a small play area — ideal for a group of friends heading out together.

Scotch Tape Dispenser by 3M & Joongho Choi

Ever wished you had a third hand when using tape? The Korean designer Joongho Choi designed a tape dispenser for the American company 3M — the Scotch Tape Dispenser — using a water-wheel rotation to cut the tape evenly and feed it upward continuously, so you can pick it up cleanly without other cutting tools. Available in 12mm, 18mm, and 22mm widths, with a safety blade so children don't accidentally cut themselves; the remaining space can even serve as a pen holder.

Icecap by Peter Provart

The British engineer Peter Provart, a drink lover, designed a tool for chilling drinks fast: the Icecap. Before use, it goes in the freezer; when needed, it sits on top of a glass so the drink flows through internal channels into the glass as it chills, cooling to no higher than 10°C. When you suddenly want a cold drink, the Icecap can come to the rescue. Priced at US$34.99 (about 217 yuan). Click here to try pre-ordering.

Lightmark by Peleg Design

The Israeli studio Peleg Design specializes in giving fresh, creative readings to ordinary everyday objects. Its latest bookmark, the Lightmark, does exactly that: it takes the outline of a small reading lamp, simplifies it, and applies it to a bookmark. The team wanted this tiny bookmark to light up the last page you read — like a miniature desk lamp, with the yellow tab that slips into the page acting as a shaft of light shining straight down.

The Scrubba Wash Bag by Scrubba

Hand-washing clothes has always been hard, slow work. The Australian team Scrubba has made a portable wash bag for business travelers, campers, and anyone on the road. The bag contains microorganisms and hydrolysis-resistant polyether TPU, making it easy to clean the clothes you carry — and to avoid shared washing machines and the germs on communal equipment. It can wash up to five garments per use in just 30 seconds to 3 minutes, with wear comparable to hand-washing; it is also water-efficient. If you're carrying a wash bag that weighs less than 145 grams, do you still have an excuse to be lazy? Priced at US$49.95 (about 325 yuan). Click here to try buying.

Nessie Ladle by Ototo

The Israeli homeware brand Ototo has released a ladle shaped like the Loch Ness Monster: the Nessie Ladle. The designer gave it four short, stubby legs so it can genuinely stand on a table or in a pot. Set in a pot full of soup, the Nessie Ladle seems to poke its head above the surface, turning your kitchen into the most adorable place imaginable. Priced at US$15.99 (about 100 yuan). Click here to try buying.

Corners by Kyuhyung Cho

The Stockholm designer Kyuhyung Cho has released a set of shelves called Corners, made of three L-shaped mini-shelves of different sizes. Each has three side panels; by varying how each unit is placed and combined with the others, you create three distinct enclosed spaces, giving desktop objects a logical layout. The mini-shelves come in a range of colors — decorative and practical at once. The product is made by the Danish furniture brand Menu and is set to go on sale in late spring this year. Kyuhyung Cho's earlier works are also very clean, beautiful, and functional — here is his portfolio website, feel free to explore.

Wet-Free Unnurella Umbrella by Kazuya Koike

Designer Kazuya Koike made a water-repellent umbrella to solve the problems of water running down the umbrella after rain, wet floors even once it's folded, and the general bother of carrying a wet umbrella. It uses a special high-density woven fabric: when wet, a single gentle shake sends every droplet falling away without a trace, making it genuinely easy to carry.

Pour-Over by Poppy

Pour-over coffee is the choice of serious drinkers, but the process can be fiddly. The Pour-Over machine by Poppy aims to simplify the workflow. The top funnel holds 1.25 pounds of beans; the grinder uses a built-in burr; the water reservoir has a charcoal filter to keep the water clean. The machine is controlled through the Wink app — once setup is done, the app can even reorder beans and filters for you automatically. Here is the official link for purchasing information.

Trio Love by Stefano Giovannoni

The Italian children's brand Chicco asked the noted product designer Stefano Giovannoni to design a new pushchair. Called "Trio Love," it aims to give babies a comfortable, safe environment while meeting parents' practical needs — light, stable, and convenient. Approaching the design from kinematics, Giovannoni adjusted the stroller's weight and bulk. The frame is aluminium, refined yet sturdy, and it carries automotive-grade safety bumpers.

Leano by Nik Lorbeg

The name "Leano" almost sounds like an invitation to stop and lean somewhere for a rest. It is at once a small blanket and a small lounger — roll it up to carry, then lay it flat on the ground to rest anywhere: by a lake, on the grass for a picnic, under the stars and the moon. The support frame is solid beechwood; the blanket is a durable woven fabric. It comes in three colors — yellow, navy blue, and green. Click here to try buying.

Ctrl-X Scissor by Alessio Romano

The scissors Alessio Romano designed draw on the "cut" keyboard shortcut Ctrl+X. They are also scissors that can "stand up": the basic form follows the traditional scissor design, but adds a conical base to keep them upright. For balance, the designer made the handles circular, giving the whole object a more harmonious, stable look.