Recently sighted at a lifestyle trade show in Germany: a gizmo by the name of ”Nemo” that flashes and beeps at you from inside the fridge when the milk has gone off or the meat is bad.
The idea is that older people don’t smell or see as well as they used to, but they will notice the fishy warning after learning to love the little fellow in the 2003 Disney/Pixar movie Finding Nemo.
After setting Nemo, you clip him to the milk carton. Just before the sell-by date, Nemo flashes. After the date has passed, he yells.
”Our products are aimed at older people who need mechanical aids but expect first-class design,” explained co-developer Karin Schmidt-Ruhland of Berlin’s University of the Arts.
Nemo does not actually sniff the milk. It works more like an alarm clock.
Devices such as these were the centre-point of Tendence Lifestyle, a recent show in the central Germany city of Frankfurt where 3 706 companies from 88 nations showed many items that may show up in gift and home-furnishing shops next year.
Kare Design was there with a range the Munich company calls ”Ethno Punk”: lamps that range from an inner-lit Buddha statue in psychedelic orange to a chandelier made of glittery acrylic glass.
Asked to pick an over-arching trend, Kerstin Maenner, the trade show spokesperson, said ”haptic” sensations — those coming from touch rather than appearance — are dominant in 2004.
Examples included a carpet made of tiny pebbles that feels agreeable underfoot, an ”organically formed” tray that feels agreeable when carried, and bowls that are as kind to the hands as they are to what’s inside.
A Dutch firm, Silly Gifts, was in Frankfurt with a mouse pad that comes complete with a gel-filled cushion for the wrist. Other items from the Deventer-based company, such as lamps containing a pickled alien, lived up to its name.
Also sighted at the fair: Christmas decorations that suggest angels will be the predominant seasonal symbol in Europe this year.
They will also be available printed on T-shirts, shopping bags and place mats, and of course it will be de rigueur to have heavenly hosts of them on the Christmas tree.
”Santa Claus is out this year. It’s all angels from where I can see,” said Maenner.
The fair proved you can style practically anything. Giorgia Graziadei, a University of Bolzano student, was showing off the results of a project code-named Pappilan where 27 designers were asked to sculpt better biscuits.
One of the most interesting creations came from Lorenzo Damiani of Italy: a biscuit with a lip that hooks over the outside of a saucer.
If you accidentally slop a little tea or coffee into the centre of the saucer — as you might well do if Nemo suddenly beeps from the milk jug — Damiani’s lip stops the biscuit getting soggy. — Sapa-DPA