News

Oct 12, 2023

TOP 10 reader submissions of 2022 — design products

With the power to transform spaces and enhance the way we interact with our

With the power to transform spaces and enhance the way we interact with our environments and one another, design objects play an integral part in our lives. From quirky lighting installations and sculptural chairs to enliven your living space with a spark of character, to thought-provoking design objects in the public domain, over the past year designboom has seen thousands of captivating submissions directly from our readers.

As we continue our annual TOP 10 roundup before we move into the new year, we handpick the most inspired design stories from 2022.

image © Nanako Kume

Japanese designer Nanako Kume presents her delightful pendant light series made of large wood shavings. Inspired by the scraps left behind from sharpening coloring pencils, she created each shaving with the help of a machine built like a giant pencil sharpener. On the concept behind her project, Kume writes: ‘Since childhood, I was fascinated by the shape and fleetingness of shavings that are made when sharpening pencils. I thought that by increasing the size and thickness of what must be discarded as waste, it would be possible to create new products while maintaining the beauty of the shape.’

image © Ben Glezer

Melbourne-based lighting design studio ambience introduces Linear LEGO Luminaire — the ultimate playful kaleidoscope of color. Made entirely out of repurposed LEGO bricks and plates, the sleek and minimalist fixture emanates light through an opal diffused LED extrusion, which together with the vibrant frame, emanates a whimsical character into its surrounding space. With the attached flex cord, the light can either be suspended from the ceiling as a pendant, or balanced upright on the ground as a decorative sculptural piece.

image © Karolina Kruszewska

‘Pose’ is an educational sex set for the blind created by Polish designer Karolina Kruszewska in collaboration with sex educator Dr. Dagną Kocur. Developed as part of Kruszewska's master's thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, the project offers extensive knowledge about sex positions and identifying anatomical features to help guide the visually impaired in intimate acts. This information is released as 13 audio films on YouTube and 3D-printed figurines depicting the five basic sex positions.

image © Reddish Studio

During Jerusalem Design Week 2022, Tel Aviv based research and product design group Reddish Studio exhibited their new sculpture project, Venus of Jaffa. The objects, a playful study of forms inspired by prehistoric Venus figurines, were displayed as part of the Go for Broke exhibition which presented a series of curated objects and their stories, centered on the dialogue between archaeology and design. Along this theme, Naama Steinbock and Idan Friedman, founders of Reddish Studio, design these the minimal figurines made of latex and copper as contemporary reinterpretations of their palaeolithic counterparts. The figurines spark new curiosity into the ancient Venus models, while referencing both the prehistoric archaeological finds and the way that they take part in our current culture with their bespoke museum displays.