Design Crack and His Top 20 Trends

Design Crack (aka Brandon) is a designer at the San Francisco architecture firm of David Baker and Partners. He is also a design and fashion addict who runs a blog called DesignCrack.com, a hub for all things heavy in the design world.

He is always looking for inspiration, and does this by exploring the city, the web, other cities, and looking for things he finds beautiful or fascinating.

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The following is a list of Design Crack’s 20 most popular trends.  If you would like to join Design Crack with your own Trend Hunter portfolio, Sign-Up FREE.

Design Crack’s 20 Most Popular Trends

1. Masturbate in Luxury with JimmyJane - the Lamborghini of Vibrators

This is full-on, hardcore design crack. The “Little Something” is the Lamborghini of vibrators. The concept is quite simply perfection: create an erotic toy that is highly functional, viscerally pleasing, and a highly sought after. It’s functional in that you will never have to buy another vibrato… [More]

2. Mexican Wrestling Mixed With High Fashion - Nendo Brand Destroyer Handbag

This project was for Vogue Nippon. The challenge was to modify a luxury brand handbag into the designer’s own creation. Nendo’s concept was to mask the brand’s essence in such a way to make the owner curious as to what’s behind the mask. I like this piece simply because they have turned a an… [More]

3. Extreme High Heels - 2007 Collection by Bruno Frisoni

Bruno Frisoni brings to mind: extreme high heels.  Now, I live in San Francisco. In the Mission District to be exact. And if any of you know the Mission, especially around the area of the New College, you would know that a woman would probably get scoffed at for wearing such a shoe as a Bruno Friso… [More]

4. The Gucci Twirl Watch

There is so much great stuff I can say about Gucci. I’ve got handbag stories that will freak you out, but I’ll save that for a future entry. Today I wanted to mention the new Gucci Twirl watch. I’ve seen this watch in a full page spread in no less than six magazines that I read, and the more I… [More]

5. Lolita Chandelier by Ron Arad (VIDEO)

In this week’s New York Times Style Magazine, they featured a short blurb about Ron Arad’s Crystal chandelier. The chandelier is a crystal spiral with LED lights embedded within the crystals. The LED lights are programmed to allow the owner to scroll messages across the chandelier. It’s absolu… [More]

6. Most Expensive Suitcase Ever - Henk designed by Frog Design

HENK is absolutely one of the most beautiful rich people’s items I have ever seen. It’s incredbily customizable, richly detailed, superbly functional. Everything is perfection of this suitcase. I really find it to be a work of art more than a suitcase. And at about 20,000 dollars for this suitca… [More]

7. The Wave TV Microwave - A New Paradigm in Cooking and Entertainment

What’s so special about a microwave with a chicken on top? It’s only that the microwave has a TV built into the door! You heard me. Marcel Wanders, super designer and beloved by all turtleneck wearers, has teamed up with HE, an aged appliance company in need of super designers, to create a line … [More]

8. The Gucci Dog Backpack

Gucci, along with several other luxury goods providers has realized something that I find enormously valuable to their brand. This is: Rich people have pets. And, those pets will need fashion on a higher level as well. This little pet fashion item is especially useful as well. Let’s say, you’ve … [More]

9. Repurposed Garments by Maison Martin Margiela

Martin Margiela’s house of designers are packed with a level of virtuosity that is almost unheard of. I’ve included two images of repurposed garments but the most impressive is the glove jacket. It takes 103 hours to construct this jacket, and the gloves are unstitched and restitched to work tog… [More]

10. Hot Tub and Barbecue All in One

The Dutch Tub is one of those ingenious ideas where you wonder, ” Why has no-one thought of this before?” It’s a bit like an old-fashioned wood fired hot tub, but it uses a bit more advanced coiling system to heat up the water. On top of that, it’s also a barbeque complete with a wok that si… [More]

11. Gold and Diamond Hatchet Necklace - Lizzie’s Love by FettY

FettY is not affraid to be playful. The Lizzie’s Love necklace is a take on Lizzie Borden’s object of mass murder, the hatchet. FettY renders the hatchet in gold and diamonds, and adds a broken heart charm for kicks. I must admit that Lizzy Borden has been a bit overused as a spooky design eleme… [More]

12. Orgasmatron 3000 Brings Fun to Washing Clothes

I have heard this urban legend all of my high school and college life that goes like this: having sex on a washing machine can cause women to go wild with passion because of the slow vibrating motion of the washer. The spin cycle is supposedly particularly hot. Finally, someone, this being master of… [More]

13. Enteractive by Electroland - Art or Architecture?

The project was an grid of squares embedded within the entrance walkway of an existing office building. Each square was illuminated by LEDs and was pressure sensitive. The effect is that the LED lights would light up when anyone walked over them. The building also had a massive Grid of lights on the… [More]

14. Fallen Log Centerpiece by Jeff Zimmerman

Ever since I visited the island of Murano outside of Venice, where they make some of the finest (and cheesiest) glass in the world, I’ve had an obsessions with fine glass objects. This log centerpiece by Jeff Zimmerman is one of the finest. I’ve watched comparable glass blowers work, and for a p… [More]

15. Burnt Furniture - The Latest Design Trend?

A trend that has been going ’round is to blacken baroque design objects. I seem to recall that is started by blackening crystal chandeliers and sconces. Not too long after this, I noticed this chair at a few different shops. This chair goes to a bit more of an extreme to give the chair a blackened… [More]

16. Spikey Baby by Shin Tanaka

I’m not even exactly sure how this works, but I’ll take a stab. What Shin does is design these little folded paper characters. Then, he puts up the pattern of the folded character up on his website, so anyone can replicate his work or make their own custom Spikey Baby. He also puts up pictures o… [More]

17. How the Filthy Rich Eat - Louis Vuitton Caviar Box

And now for something completely opulent. I’ve never featured anything from Louis Vuitton until recently when I made light of the $42,000 patchwork handbag. After that product, I decided to thumb through LV’s website to really get a full picture of everything they produce… or at least put thei… [More]

18. Carbon Copies - Pencils Made From The Ashes of the Departed

The product design, Carbon Copies, is an idea so profound as to make me ashamed to include it on a site named “Design Crack”. The product is a lifetime supply of pencils where the carbon to produce the pencils is derived from a loved one’s cremation. It’s a memorial for loved ones lost that … [More]

19. Plastic Fantastic Gold Sofa by Studio JSPR

There are a number of incredible items that roll out of Studio JSPR. This will be my favorite for today with many more coming in the near future. Studio JSPR was founded just two years ago by Jasper van Grootel. The studio today is four people with a focus on interior design.The Plastic fantastic … [More]

20. Function Tiles by Droog Design - A Decade Old and Still Cool (GALLERY)

Function Tiles is an oldie but a goodie. It’s a tile system from 1997 by Droog Designers Peter van der Jagt, Erik-Jan Kwakkel, and Arnout Visser that makes the tiles work more functionally, thus the name “Function Tiles”. The concept is brilliant. That is, getting more out of your shower or ba… [More]