How bad ass are these items? Okay, it’s maybe a bit hard to tell what these are at first glance, so I’ll add a bit of description: These are vases where the designers have woven an electro luminescent (EL) wire around a ceramic vessel. EL wire is a low light emitting wire used in the making of signage, traditionally. However, Wong and Saw, have skillfully adapted the wire to the shape of a vase. I must admit, when I saw this project I was surprised that the concept hadn’t passed my way before since it was originally conceived in 2002. When I found this out, it made me wonder if anyone else was experimenting with this EL wire, and why I hadn’t seen more design objects experiment with the material. If any of you know where I can get some of this, and what it’s properties are, it would be greatly appreciated.

These are solid aluminum paperweights brought to a high polish. There is really not much more you can say about this except that, heck, shiny things are kinda sexy. I don’t know why, but I think this piece will be worth something some day. Maybe it’s because these objects are somewhat similar to the work of Jeff Koons, the master of bringing the everyday object to a higher plane… by casting that object in aluminum and making it shiny. If Jeff can do it, then the six pack paperweight can surely do it given it’s pop art track record.

Areaware is a New York based design collective whose focus is on the design of everyday objects. Harry Allen, in particular is an extremely talented individual who is probably more well known for his interior design work which include several high profile retail interiors. And although Mr. Allen has had great success in product design, he has reserved to produce the Reality line of housewares (including the Pig Bank) under it’s own brand. My guess is Target might not be quite that forward thinking as to have a gold plated resin pig that was cast from the corpse selling in their stores. Mr. Allen has produced a number of such products, but this one is striking to me because I can’t help but wonder how he got the pig corpse to stand in such an upright and natural position. It’s really impressive when you think about it.

Over the next week or two, I will include some of my favorite designers from ID Magazine’s “ID 40″ list of top designers of 2006. It’s a pretty amazing list, so I urge you to pick up a copy of this magazine.

Culdesac is a Valencia, Spain based design collective with a multidisciplinary approach. Their work ranges from graphic design to product design, and anything in between. Their work recently seems to focus on the found object or the recycled object as means to spark creativity. There are a number of beautiful objects that are crafted around rejects. I will profile a few in the future, to be sure, but today I wanted to mention Re Ciclos. Reciclos is a project developed for Lladro to recycle ceramic rejects a simpler manner rather than pulverize and reconstitute. This particular project led Culdesac to focus on bells and their intrinsic cone shape to build structures. The work amazes me because their delightful creations require no more than a simple metal clip to assemble.

The Vest Collective is a Canadian group of designers with a bit of a postmodern streak (in the architectural sense). They make reference to past traditions with an eye towards future manufacturing techniques. And although their work is very PoMo, this vase by Jessica Lertvilai is really not about that. It is a high-concept piece where miss Lertvilai has taken the love letters of her Vest Collective colleagues and transposed them in braille to the surface of a ceramic vase. The deep concept here, for me at least, is the visual narrative is as powerful as the narrative a blind person would get from physically reading the vase, but the two narratives are completely different. In this piece, the blind is really allowed to see while the sighted are somewhat left in the dark.

I’m not really sure why I chose Butterfly Cachepot as an object to include on Design Crack. Maybe it’s the name. Butterfly Cachepot could as easily be an indy band from Seattle or Austin as easily as it could be an exotic Brazilian object des arts. Or maybe I like it because it’s a piece of dichotomies: It’s smooth yet rough, it’s monolithic yet made of several pieces. Or maybe it’s the level of craftsmanship that it takes to stitch the wood together with light wood butterflies.

I just don’t know. It’s probably the name.

Object: Ashleytray

Designer: Diplomat Design

URL: http://www.diplomatdesign.com/

Category: Tchotchke

Price: $see website

Lust Factor: Warm

Description: The AshleyTray is one of those designs that makes me want to take up smoking just so I can use this product, It’s an elegant piece of glass that smacks of my grandparent’s decor circa 1970. I mean, they had an ash tray that could be this object’s twin but in blue. Oh, how I yearn for the carefree smoke anywhere culture! So, many fantastic glass blowers surely went out of business. what products are made out of blow glass today, after all? None.

Make any vessel a vase with Vase Maker by Ron Gilad. The Vase Maker is a magic trick in the making. Imagine the Vase Maker sitting on top of a table. On the table top is a concealed hole directly under the vase with a bucket of water inside the table directly under the hole. Then, you could put massive flowers inside the tiny vase, and your guests would be wondering how the vase could support such a flower. Ah, the games designers play!

“Punch him in the face with style and grace.” could be the pitch for the BronzeKnuckle by Diplomat Design. Not Really! This is actually an artistic centerpiece which could double to display fruit. Diplomat Design has gone all out with the finish of this bronze piece. The outer edges of the piece are polished to give it an almost liquid appearance while the inner rings are left with a dull, matte glow. Unfortunately, some of the qualities of the piece are lost in the photography. It doesn’t really look like much for $2,100. However, the piece in real life is more stunning.

From DL&C’s website:

Mr. Douglas Little is a sybarite of the sense who has created award-winning images and ideas for the finest names in beauty. His appetite for rarefied pleasures has compelled him to bring D.L. & Co. into being, so that he might share with others his passion for the hidden treasures of this world.

The skull plate is a representative piece of what D.L. & Co. stands for: a love of gothic curiosities. I highly reccommend visiting their site. If I were a poetic 19th century vampire from the London, this would be where I shopped. The Brand really is beautiful. I might buy something from them even if I was a middle-aged overweight architect from San Francisco.