10 February 2011

Young Balkan Designers

Today's post is the Young Balkan Designers contest.
Young Balkan Designers winners (mikser.rs)

The Mikser organization created the contest.  Mikser is an organization intending to bring attention to the talent and creativity in the Balkans.  Other projects include Ghost, an expo for young designers in the region, Young Serbian Designers (a focus on Serbian designers since Mikser is a Serbian organization), and the Mikser Festival, which is another huge expo.   I wish I could go to these expos because the samples I see are too clever and beautiful to miss out on.  On the other hand, I will be needlessly torturing myself with things I cannot buy.

Serving plate/table, Croatia (mikser.rs)
The Young Balkan Designers expo and contest is every January and the website has the winners and their products.  I tried looking up a few (other than Zaharinov, who I've already featured) and came up with nothing other than what I already found.  Either they're doing great off the radar or they're still trying to get some backing.  But the winners of 2011 were a fun bunch.

Hanger, Bosnia-Herzegovina (mikser.rs)
The one to the left is a very cool stacked table that separates into serving trays!  I'm all about double-duty furniture and it's a clever and chic idea for creating multiple surfaces out of one product. The hanger to the right is visually graphic for such a utilitarian object.  I'm assuming that the "tails" have bendable wire in them so you can create your own size of hanger.  It's visually appealing and the consumer manipulates the product according to need.  Why aren't these designers bigger?  These are genius.  Really.  Go to the site and check out the rest.  I also like the floor lamp that's rather phallic but almost like a rocket ship or a camera tripod.  They're all rather conflated in my mind.