Dedicated to inspiring designers, inventors & the creative spirit in all of us.

For those of you familiar with the process of injection molding, check out these shoes by Puma. These lightweight, lace-free, foam shoes are a trick to the eye. That’s because they are not tennis shoes, but rather slip-on footwear in the style of Crocs (yeah, Crocs, those glorified flip-flops that are sold at every turn of your local mall). But with these shoes, called the RS 100 INJEX, you can go in style. They appear to be real sneakers by volume, thickness and color, but a closer look reveals they are simply colored foam injection into the mold of a tennis shoe form.

This standing ladle, “tate otama” in Japanese, is a smart design for keeping your ladle upright. Featured on Spoon and Tamago, a New York / Tokyo design blog for cross-cultural designs. This ladle design looks as if it was stopped in motion, dipping into the tabletop. Simple design, smooth texture, logical and practical use.

Joel Escalona of Mexico studied Industrial Design at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco in Mexico City (2008). Since 2006, he has been designing conceptual award-winning products, as well as home accessories and furniture pieces. He leads his own virtual studio developing simple, practical and innovative designs, always driven by storytelling concepts. Joel is currently working on various furniture and product design projects.

What was your first impressionable moment that involved design? I think I had a lot of impressionable moments, obviously, when I was a kid. For example, at school learning something new, at museums or even when I used to help my dad fixing the car.

For some people, there is a single person or a single moment that changed how they see things as a designer. Who would you attribute to you seeing things with a designer’s eye? It’s pretty hard to say; a lot of people influenced my design thinking. Even things I see or read change my way of seeing objects and, of course, my way of thinking on design.

Do you believe studying Industrial Design at UAM in Mexico City makes your work unique in the design world, opposed to a European or North American influence? I really cannot say with exactitude. Mexico’s Industrial Design is very young; we are talking about 50`s. Obviously design teaching has a lot of influence from Europe and North America. In UAM they have a technical approach to design, which helps me a lot.

What do you consider to be your strongest area of design — architectural, furniture or graphic design? I would say furniture and interiors, as it is the area I work in the most. But I’m very interested in working more in product design; I would love to get involved in technology.

What has been your greatest honor to date, as far as awards and recognitions? I have a lot of great experiences, like winning a contest by Volvo – they took me to their factory in Sweden, which was amazing; and also going to New York in order to show my work in ICFF as a part of ICFF Studio. I have been invited to Milan, and they just invited me to Maison & Objet in Paris. I have had a lot of great experiences in my short career.

Your work seems to have a very clean, polished and glossy appeal. What do you consider an influence in your design style? I don’t know, it is like my design territory.

Do you have any intentions of evolving from product design into any other genre of design work? Yes, of course. I’m thinking architecture; I would love to design houses.

Do you use Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or any other communication networking sites to promote your work or stay in contact with other designers? Yes, yes and yes, I use that a lot. I’m very into networking and, actually, I think I have never used normal mail.

What should the ideal designer do every single day, with the intention of becoming a better designer through habit? Studying and practicing. A creativity killer is ignorance.

This inverter for your car is pretty clever. Sized to fit perfectly into your cup holder (because it is a cup shape, as you can see), you can juice up any 2 electronic devices and have a USB hub to boot as well. Even the logo is entertaining, mimicking the likes of a few famous coffee brands. The design makes such a great attempt at realism, it may get thrown out with some take-out if you are not careful.

How refreshing are these images? The sliced fruit design of these Kleenex brand tissue boxes are a step up from the average rectangular design. I haven’t seen them on the shelf at my local Target yet, but I bet they look just as cool in person. The real question is, are they unique enough to have people buying six at a time to make a complete slice?

Here is a unique way to showcase your love of music; a Pratesi Guitar Backpack. I thought this was a pretty clever approach to storing something — creating a case that looks like a favorite object. The design also features a built in mini speaker with an input for your MP3 player.

These sliced bread notebooks are the next best thing since sliced bread. Maybe not, but they sure do look cool. Themed as slices of bread, this set of notebooks is packaged to look as if you were picking up an entire loaf.