一般t-shirt最大的問題就是它們永遠都長得一樣～t-shirt上印製的圖案再怎麼洗也不會變成另一種圖案而是變更舊而已。利用UV光線在白色t-shirt上繪製自己的想像空間，在黑暗中，圖案就會螢光浮現！$24.99美金
Lazer Shirt 雷射塗鴉衣服
一般t-shirt最大的問題就是它們永遠都長得一樣～t-shirt上印製的圖案再怎麼洗也不會變成另一種圖案而是變更舊而已。利用UV光線在白色t-shirt上繪製自己的想像空間，在黑暗中，圖案就會螢光浮現！$24.99美金
Faces Stamp 表情變化印章
印章從小就是許多人會有的小物，隨時都可以印製喜歡的圖案在想要保留的物體上。其中，Faces Stamp 表情變化印章還可以隨著材質橡膠的特性，利用手指指壓讓印章上的嘴巴做表情變化。有了變化，這印章的使用方式就可以產生不同情境的創意～smile!
Thermosensitive Pillows 感溫枕頭
上班午休時間相信很多人吃完飯後都會小趴睡一下，這時枕頭的需求就大大提升午睡品質。其中，Thermosensitive Pillows 感溫枕頭算是個滿特別的設計，只要它那邊受熱，那邊就會開始有變色的效果。換句話說，當使用者在用這枕頭趴睡完後，枕頭會留下使用後睡姿的留痕變色。隨然這特色並沒有太大的實質功能，但午休放空，讓自己的體溫與枕頭產生對話，我想也是另一種的放鬆方式吧。
Should the World of Toys Be Gender-Free?
By PEGGY ORENSTEIN
Berkeley, Calif.
NOW that the wrapping paper and the infernal clamshell packaging have been relegated to the curb and the paying off of holiday bills has begun, the toy industry is gearing up — for Christmas 2012. And its early offerings have ignited a new debate over nature, nurture, toys and sex.
Hamleys, which is London’s 251-year-old version of F.A.O. Schwarz, recently dismantled its pink “girls” and blue “boys” sections in favor of a gender-neutral store with red-and-white signage. Rather than floors dedicated to Barbie dolls and action figures, merchandise is now organized by types (Soft Toys) and interests (Outdoor).
That free-to-be gesture was offset by Lego, whose Friends collection, aimed at girls, will hit stores this month with the goal of becoming a holiday must-have by the fall. Set in fictive Heartlake City (and supported by a $40 million marketing campaign), the line features new, pastel-colored, blocks that allow a budding Kardashian, among other things, to build herself a cafe or a beauty salon. Its tasty-sounding “ladyfig” characters are also taller and curvier than the typical Legoland denizen.
So who has it right? Should gender be systematically expunged from playthings? Or is Lego merely being realistic, earnestly meeting girls halfway in an attempt to stoke their interest in engineering?
Among the “10 characteristics for Lego” described in 1963 by a son of the founder was that it was “for girls and for boys,” as Bloomberg Businessweek reported. But the new Friends collection, Lego says, was based on months of anthropological research revealing that — gasp! — the sexes play differently.
While as toddlers they interact similarly with the company’s Duplo blocks, by preschool girls prefer playthings that are pretty, exude “harmony” and allow them to tell a story. They may enjoy building, but they favor role play. So it’s bye-bye Bionicles, hello princesses. In order to be gender-fair, today’s executives insist, they have to be gender-specific.
As any developmental psychologist will tell you, those observations are, to a degree, correct. Toy choice among young children is the Big Kahuna of sex differences, one of the largest across the life span. It transcends not only culture but species: in two separate studies of primates, in 2002 and 2008, researchers found that males gravitated toward stereotypically masculine toys (like cars and balls) while females went ape for dolls. Both sexes, incidentally, appreciated stuffed animals and books.
Human boys and girls not only tend to play differently from one another — with girls typically clustering in pairs or trios, chatting together more than boys and playing more cooperatively — but, when given a choice, usually prefer hanging with their own kind.
Score one for Lego, right? Not so fast. Preschoolers may be the self-appointed chiefs of the gender police, eager to enforce and embrace the most rigid views. Yet, according Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist and the author of “Pink Brain, Blue Brain,” that’s also the age when their brains are most malleable, most open to influence on the abilities and roles that traditionally go with their sex.
Every experience, every interaction, every activity — when they laugh, cry, learn, play — strengthens some neural circuits at the expense of others, and the younger the child the greater the effect. Consider: boys from more egalitarian homes are more nurturing toward babies. Meanwhile, in a study of more than 5,000 3-year-olds, girls with older brothers had stronger spatial skills than both girls and boys with older sisters.
At issue, then, is not nature or nurture but how nurture becomes nature: the environment in which children play and grow can encourage a range of aptitudes or foreclose them. So blithely indulging — let alone exploiting — stereotypically gendered play patterns may have a more negative long-term impact on kids’ potential than parents imagine. And promoting, without forcing, cross-sex friendships as well as a breadth of play styles may be more beneficial. There is even evidence that children who have opposite-sex friendships during their early years have healthier romantic relationships as teenagers.
Traditionally, toys were intended to communicate parental values and expectations, to train children for their future adult roles. Today’s boys and girls will eventually be one another’s professional peers, employers, employees, romantic partners, co-parents. How can they develop skills for such collaborations from toys that increasingly emphasize, reinforce, or even create, gender differences? What do girls learn about who they should be from Lego kits with beauty parlors or the flood of “girl friendly” science kits that run the gamut from “beauty spa lab” to “perfume factory”?
The rebellion against such gender apartheid may have begun. Consider the latest cute-kid video to go viral on YouTube: “Riley on Marketing” shows a little girl in front of a wall of pink packaging, asking, “Why do all the girls have to buy pink stuff and all the boys have to buy different-color stuff?” It has been viewed more than 2.4 million times.
Perhaps, then, Hamleys is on to something, though it will doubtless meet with resistance — even rejection — from both its pint-size customers and multinational vendors. As for me, I’m trying to track down a poster of a 1981 ad for a Lego “universal” building set to give to my daughter. In it, a freckle-faced girl with copper-colored braids, baggy jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers proudly holds out a jumbly, multi-hued Lego creation. Beneath it, a tag line reads, “What it is is beautiful.”
Peggy Orenstein is the author, most recently, of “Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture.”
Source
Adjustable Brass Pencil Sharpener 可調整削鉛筆器
一般削鉛筆器只能把鉛筆削尖，尖的筆適合精準線條的使用；但在寫字的時候，鈍一點的筆心會比較好寫；而圓形的筆心則適用於素描或陰影的表現。德國製造，很適合送給喜歡用傳統鉛筆做事的高階主管或同事當禮物。
Radiometer 光熱轉輪
科學性質的玩物一直都是辦公室高階主管所喜好的類型之一，它往往帶有不變的定律，換句話說也是一種經的起考驗的產品。其中，Radiometer 光熱轉輪是Sir William Crookes在1873年所發明的產物，它是由太陽來產生動力，光線聚集越多，熱分子在玻璃密封空間內活動的越快使得裡面的片扇旋轉。$42 美金。
Mug Zero 零馬克杯
這是由韓國所設計的Mug Zero 零馬克杯。非常好的一個設計，由既有的一般弧面握把處造型設計成L型，讓馬克杯使用過後瀝乾時，靠L型握把使杯體成45度傾斜不讓杯口接觸地面。使用者拿杯喝東西動作的不變，但多了杯口瀝乾乾淨的功能！22,000 원
Bright Blind 百葉燈
這是由日本設計師Makoto Hirahara所設計的。利用百葉窗遮陽微調的功能造型，應用到裝置燈飾上。控制燈光的強弱也是參照一般使用百葉窗的方式，將右邊垂棍旋轉所需要的燈光，葉片材質則是選用EL paper（electroluminescent）。非常適合辦公室沒有窗戶的辦公室族群使用！
Pencil Dice 鉛筆骰子
Pencil Dice 鉛筆骰子是由Sebastian Bergne所設計出來的。把鉛筆的六面作為骰子數子上的聯想，轉動鉛筆幫你決定你的猶豫不決。當然也可以拿自己的鉛筆小DIY一下，成為自己獨特的鉛筆骰子。兩支£3。
Hidden Animal Bowls 隱藏動物碗
記得小時候，老師帶我們去中國城校外教學，還哄我們吃完麵，喝完湯就可以看到一條龍當鼓勵，但原來那條龍就碗裡底部的那一條～Hidden Animal Cereal Bowls 隱藏動物碗則是在未使用時，感覺碗裡的造型有著不同的曲面，但也看不出個所以然。但當倒入白色牛奶或有色液體時，邊緣的造型就成為有意義的動物形狀。很適合送給低調的高級上司，因為它的要價也要240歐元～
Financial Padding 鈔票填充物
很多時候我們在包貴重物品時，都回拿一些報紙或不要的紙張來當填充物，防止物品在箱子裡頭的碰撞。而如果將這些廢紙給為假鈔時，除了保有防撞的功能外，更有讓人眼睛一亮的發財夢，是一個非常好的開箱效果！
Emergency Cufflinks 警急備用袖扣
很多時候就是會忘記帶你買這間襯衫的原因-袖扣。而當一件需要袖扣的襯衫沒有袖扣時，就不如不要穿。Emergency Cufflinks 警急備用袖扣以卡片的方式導引使用者放進皮夾內，利用鐵片凹折成型的原理，裁切刀模成具有袖扣功能的造型，非常方便又實用！3.99 歐元
B-Boy Figures 嬉哈小子
還記得以前小時候玩的小綠軍人？這些B-Boy Figures就是嬉哈版的小綠軍人，由知名公仔品牌Kidrobot將街舞的經典動作停格，製成一個個高2英吋特有的地板動作。讓我想到台灣也應該出一些乩童或三太子的小人物，這樣子ㄧ起battle不知道誰會贏歐～每個$ 1.95美金
Wüsthof Knives Calendar 刀削洋蔥日曆
看到日曆就想到以前公司行號在過年前都會製作一些日曆發放給親朋好友使用，然而現在還有誰會用日曆呢？尤其是一天撕掉一張的那一種，送你你可能還覺得很佔空間～但Wüsthof Knives Calendar 刀削洋蔥日曆會是我想要留著使用的日曆！Wüsthof這個品牌想宣傳他們刀子的鋒利度，以日曆的頁數（365頁）遐想成刀子橫切的數目，將層次複雜的洋蔥每切一刀的畫面，呈現在每張日曆的平面上！平常簡單的日曆有了新的價值觀。
Clip USB 迴紋隨身碟
隨身碟已經是現代人（尤其是每天需要面對電腦的族群）所必備的物品之一。而迴紋書籤則是看書常常使用到的文具。設計者試圖將日常生活的工具與數位科技的關係拉近，讓使用者無意識的接受兩者的結合。
Sparrow Keychain 麻雀鑰匙圈+鳥屋
非常可愛的鑰匙圈組合。以麻雀做為鑰匙圈的造型，當回到屋內時，自然而然地可以把麻雀放回小鳥屋內! 並且將尾巴設計成口哨功能，也可以做為呼救的工具。一來，鑰匙有妥當的放置處外，二來，這真的會讓人會心一笑，回到最安穩放鬆的空間內。 $18 美金
Shiro Pencil Pot 璽洛筆筒
Shiro Pencil Pot 璽洛筆筒被永久保存在德國法蘭克福的the Museum of Decorative Arta（裝置藝術博物館）。以魔術般的視覺效果，挑戰使用者對物理的認知。即使知道原理，眼睛還是很難擺脫事實的呈現～$29.95 USD
Parmesan Cheese Pencil 巴馬乾酪起士筆組合
吃東西除了味道好以外，讓食物“操作”起來有趣也是會抓住很多人的心！其中，由Kolle Rebbe所設計的Parmesan Cheese Pencil 巴馬乾酪起士筆組合就是一個以削鉛筆的概念，將起士作成過大的鉛筆造型（成份都是不同口味的起士），使用者想加一些新鮮起士於沙拉上時，就像消鉛筆一樣，把一層層的現削起士直接淋灑在上面。設計者利用大眾熟悉的操作模式應用於類似的結果上，因為不陌生而增加使用者的信任度，更提供不一樣飲食樂趣。
Instant Cooling Foam Spray 快速降溫噴霧泡沫
這是由日本人設計的Instant Cooling Foam Spray 快速降溫噴霧泡沫。擠出來的泡沫感覺就像是一團可以捏的五彩碎紙，泡沫會逐漸膨脹，並砰砰釋放出涼爽的空氣。最有趣的是它可以塑型成各種形狀附著在身上！
Magnet Tube Magnetic Field Viewer 磁鐵觀賞管
磁鐵真的是一種不可思議的東西，而Magnet Tube Magnetic Field Viewer 磁鐵觀賞管就是一個很好欣賞磁性美的玩物。將棒狀的磁鐵套進觀賞管裡，裡頭磁鐵粉就會開始向中間聚集，形成一種隨機自然造型。工作累得時候，不妨把玩一下，轉移一下注意力。$12.99
Cherry Chomper 櫻桃大嘴怪
現在連吃櫻桃都有專門取子的可愛Cherry Chomper 櫻桃大嘴怪！只能說“懶”跟“怕弄髒手”是個很好作為產品設計開發的主要原因之一，當然可取之處則在於單手向下施力，與回彈定位完成取子動作，並將廢子儲存在一個空間，好讓使用者可以一次處理掉，而安全性也是非常高的。$12.95 USD
Wild Fling Popcorn Bowl 瘋狂零食投籃碗
自從喜歡邊吃零食邊看體育賽事，手裡總是捧著滿滿的洋芋片或爆米花，而Wild Fling Popcorn Bowl 瘋狂零食投籃碗是我看過最直接又好用的零食碗。除了有設計放零食的空間，連飲料罐的擺放空間也都有，更有去的是它有一個可以讓使用者投籃得分的器具！很適合在播廣告時，跟朋友來個簡單的PK賽。下一次，公司要開一個小型的同樂會就可以派上用場了！$29.98 USD
Tickle me plant 含羞草
第一次知道有這種植物的時候，感覺好奇妙，現在看到總是會勾起兒時的回憶！如果有人真的請我推薦在辦公室裡該養甚麼植物的話，那Tickle me plant 含羞草就是我的第一選擇。心情不好時，一定不忘記請他表演,垂頭含羞的模樣。
Scratch Magic Note Cube 神奇刮簿
最簡單方便又特別的便條紙就是Scratch Magic Note Cube 神奇刮簿！取代以往只能使用筆具書寫在便條紙上，Scratch Magic Note Cube 神奇刮簿讓使用者只需要用像牙籤般的木棍，利用刮的方式，紙上會顯示繽紛的顏色！很適合在筆沒水的時候派上用場，化解尷尬的氣氛。$9.95
3 Mile Pencil 3英里鉛筆
看到這個產品的時候，Toys@Work整個多快哭出來了！所謂3英里鉛筆就是當這支筆寫完的時候，把過去的筆畫加一加，就等於是3英里的長度。嗨～原本預計7月底Toys@Work要進行與3 Mile Pencil 3英里鉛筆概念類似的產品，配合台灣或世界各大城市的景點，推出長短不一的鉛筆，鉛筆上會標示寫到某個位置的時候，代表使用者已經從某個點移動至下一個地點。其實這個概念是從我念四技的時候，我跟一位教創意行銷的老師說我很會把平常不起眼的東西轉化成某一種想法或思考方向。於是我就請老師隨便拿一個東西給我試試看，他拿了一支粉筆給我，我拿到之後就開始從黑板的一端畫一條直線到黑板的另一端。轉身面對同學說，五秒鐘之前，這隻粉筆的長度是五公分，現在他雖然少了快3公分，但我卻在另一個媒介上讓它長300多公分以上。也就是說物體的單位或價值會因之後所碰觸媒介的差異而產生新的意義與認知，簡單來說，東西是不會消失的，只是看你能不能找到而已！
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