This unusual cardboard made Christmas Tree was designed exclusively for the Design Museum by award winning interior and surface designer Giles Miller. Simply attach the wooden base and bird and slide the cardboard segments around the central shaft to style as you desire.

An inexpensive Christmas gift, the Giles Miller Christmas Tree is only available through Design Museum Shop. 



+ Design Museum Shop



This year Starbucks celebrates the launch of the holiday season with an innovative free Starbucks Cup Magic app that let customers find and scan all five Starbucks Holiday Characters- on Red Cups, Christmas Blend bags and then watch as they magically come to life on your mobile phone. From carolers singing holiday tunes, to an ice skater practicing her spins, to a boy and his dog having a wonderful time sledding down a hill, the Starbucks Cup Magic app allows customers to interact with Starbucks characters in a festive and fun way, Starbucks-style, for the very first time.

Develop in-house by Starbucks Global Studio in Seattle, the Starbucks holiday will features the usual red cups, Christmas blend & VIA Ready Brew and new Holiday beverage coffee. 





+ Starbucks


To celebrate the launch of Nokia new smartphone Lumia 800, Nokia is bringing together world renowned producer, deadmau5 and the world’s leading 4D projection team for an unprecedented projection show on this November 28.

Plans are to put on a spectacular light show on the full length of the 120 meter building of London’s Millbank Tower. The show will use the 800 windows of the skyscraper as the canvas for the spectacle accompanied by a live music performance. deadmau5 will be performing two new tracks created especially for the event.

The 30-minute show will be able to be viewed from both the north and south sides of the River Thames, and will also be broadcast live online on Nokia UK's Facebook page.

Known as a "4D" projection (a term the team made up to distinguish it from normal projections), the 4D team scanned the exterior of the tower using lasers, and built a 3D model of it accurate to within 5mm. They then create animations and map them exactly to the building. The Millbank Tower will be effectively blacking out to project images of it back onto the building.

Of course, the show will culminate with a giant mobile phone appearing to mark the launch of Nokia's Lumia 800- to signals a new dawn for the company. 





+ Nokia


The house for Belgium architect Lieselotte Steurbaut is a wooden house constructed in only 6 months, with a budget of 1.140 euro/m2 and a monthly gas and electricity bill of 10 euros. The house in every way is a fine example of green residential where energy efficiency, reducing ecological footprint is the priority.

Everywhere we heard & knew that constructing a green building will be more expensive than a conventional building. But the Passive House is an answer to the challenge of an 'economic house'.

Build on a small plot, this compact size, relatively close-looking cube house, which is perpendicular to the south from a big bite taken and windows provided, that act as the 'radiator' for the house. A timber frame, with ThermoWood wall paneling, wood joinery, and a complete interior finishing in OSB (Oriented strand board).

Reduced pipe lengths for ventilation, water, gas, electricity provides a simple technical installation. All rooms were place together to reduced the used on walls which leave plenty of free space for creativity and family gathering.





+ Lieselotte Steurbaut | ilovebelgium


The year 2009 marked the 20th Anniversary of the death of this brilliant universal artist and Barcelona-based Bd wishes to add its special homage by producing a special limited edition of his fantastic furniture collection.

Since Dali never specified which materials he would want his furniture to be made from, the challenge for the Bd team was to balance the tastes of the painter and production viability. All the finishing’s are based on black, with aged black patina on the casted brass, Black Marquina marble for the famous egg, darkened gold leaf and dyed lime wood satin in black for the upholstery and lingerie chiffon, also black for the lamp shades. Refined materials and handcrafted manufacturing to bring up to date a furniture collection thatBd has sold exclusively all over the world since the 90s, guaranteed by The Gala Salvador Dali Foundation responsible for the painter’s rights. The black label collection comes to market in a limited edition of 105 pieces (the age of Dali in 2009).



When with Robert Descharnes we chose projects for furniture from the ideas with which Dali had filled his note pad for his work with Jean-Michel Frank, we had to imagine the colours which Salvador would have chosen to make his single-colour drawings, and we did soremembering the preferences and obsessions of the maestro (gold, Carmin Schiaparelli…). The furniture was really very much in Dali style, but difficult to combine in not absolutely surrealistic interiors. When we made a Leda chair with aged black patina for a special set-up and observed the enthusiastic reaction of the professionals, we were convinced that these crazy objects would look much less controversial in a decor if they were dyed black. From my extensive work with the Maestro I feel that this collection would meet his approval and I am absolutely sure that Gala would prefer it to the multicolour. Oscar Tusquets

Each piece is accompanied by the Certificate of the Dali Series.



Original Bracelli lamp at Clift hotel (San Francisco)


+ Bd


Initiated by Electrolux, Vac from the Sea is a project aiming at raising awareness about the immediate need for the world to take better care of plastics and support the heroes that do. Plastic is the main raw material when making a vacuum cleaner. From a sustainable business point of view, Electrolux relies on an increased global supply of recycled plastic.

The project will see a limited number of Electrolux vacuum cleaners to be made from marine plastic debris – harvested from the Pacific and other sites where the plastic problem is immense.Depending on the local plastic situation the gathering of plastics will vary – from diving among coral reefs, clean-ups closer to shore to scooping up plastic directly from the water surface. The vacuum cleaners that are to be produced from the material gathered will be put on display for the world, decision makers and consumers to see. 




+ Vac from the Sea


Starting from 2006, we saw the arrival of an art collector item on Italian finest espresso maker- the illy designer coffee can. Same as the illy designer cup, this time illy invite not only renowned artists but also young talents around the world an opportunity to express themselves on the 250g coffee can. The limited-edition coffee-cans are unveiled twice a year.

For 2011, the newest addition to the coffee can collection are Alioum Moussa - All Create Together and Michelangelo Pistoletto - Energie Love Difference.



Alioum Moussa - All Create Together theme can was inspired by the artist experience at Cittadellarte - Pistoletto Foundation in Biella. The collector can represents the contrast between Cameroon, the home of the artist, and Piedmont: the result is an energetic, lively décor, with warm colors typical of Africa blended with colder colors, representing the European continent.



Michelangelo Pistoletto - Energie Love Difference is an artistic movement promoted by the artist; its aim is to bring together, around the regions facing onto the Mediterranean Sea, people and institutions interested in creating new outlooks reaching beyond the conflict between different cultures. Here the Mediterranean is represented by a mirror, to symbolize the liquid surface merging the energies of the countries on its shores.

+ illy


Artist Bob Verschueren 'painted' these Wind Paintings from the 1970s and 1980s on empty and desolate landscape with the help of wind.

He used crushed charcoal, iron oxide, chalk, terra verte, flour, yellow ochre, terre de Cassel, burnt and natural umber, which was then laid out in a linear motif on the land. Verschueren would wait for the wind to distribute the coloured pigments and materials over the land. The resulting work was a stunning collaboration between man and nature. The artwork usually only last a few hours, before the wind that created them likewise blows them away. 





+ I Love Belgium



Austrian designer Albert Exergian has created a series of modernist images inspired by TV shows. By converting some simple lines and shapes into very characteristic illustration, the designer has accomplished to capture the essence of some popular TV series.

Founded in 1998, Exergian is a Vienna-based design consultancy specialized in art direction, identity and design for a multitude of applications, media & environments. 






+ Exergian


A collaboration between young Belgian architects Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh, Reading Between The Lines is a see-through church in the Belgian region of Haspengouw. Part of the Z-OUT exhibition project, an initiative in which Z33, the contemporary art museum of the city of Hasselt, presents art in public space.

Constructed in the rural landscape, by a cycle route, that’s based on the design of the local church. This ‘church’ consists of 30 tons of steel and 2000 columns, and is built on a fundament of armed concrete. Through the use of horizontal plates, the concept of the traditional church is transformed into a transparent object of art. Depending on the perspective of the viewer, the church is either perceived as a massive building or seems to dissolve – partly or entirely – in the landscape. On the other hand, looking at the landscape from within the church, the surrounding countryside is redefined by abstract lines.

Reading between the lines can be read as a reflection on architectural themes such as scale, the ground plan etc., but the project also emphatically transcends the strictly architectural. After all, the church does not have a well-defined function and focuses on visual experience in itself.




+ Z-OUT


Palm is inspired by the fluid and sweeping foliage found in nature. Arranged in such a way as to allow light diffusion from both above and below each leaf, the light is an ideal solution for both downward and upward lighting. The Palm design is simple and elegant.

Palm Hanging Light is designed by Janne Kyttanen for Freedom of Creation.





+ FOC


The Guinness Book of world record-holding balloon performer John Cassidy performs a balloon act for the US first lady, Michelle Obama, at the White House on Oct 11, 2011. Cassidy performed for kids on the South Lawn before the First Lady launched a challenge to break the Guinness World Records title for the most people doing jumping jacks in a 24-hour period.

Photograph: Chuck Kennedy/The White House/ Reuters

+ The White House


The Center Piece Silver smooth created by renowned Karim Rashid for silver company Christofle is a fascinating decorative objects, futuristic sculptures or an architectural works of art?

The Silver Smooth center piece with only 20 pieces released plays on the duality of insides and outsides. This piece features a silver-plated engraved metal exterior obtained using a cutting technique known as clivetage, and a gold-plated interior. Either surface of the bowl can be used to hold fruit, or it can be left empty, as an exquisite decorative piece.



+ Christofle


German hobby photographer, Markus Reugels has turned photographing water-drops into a new science and art form. These photoshots could be easily mistaken for images taken far outer space, or something from a science-fiction film.

What Markus Reugels does is combining water droplets with food coloring and creative lighting to make these vibrant images, which were only able to be captured with high-speed camera equipment.

Markus, who proudly reveals his images are free from color and computerized manipulation, used a sensor to trigger the camera because the water falls too fast for his finger to operate the shutter.

An extremely fast shutter speed of of up to 1/16,000 per second allowed him to capture detail the human eye could never see.

The end result shows how the artist is making quite a splash with his unique works.





+ Markus Reugels