Book & Hero bookend and Supershelf by studio Artori are clever inventions that hold your reading in place and create a cool effect of books suspended in the air. Double win. The optical illusion is achieved by a metal frame that holds the books, and a magnet that holds a figure. Available for purchase here.
Ludovica lamp, created by Italian design duo Zanocchi & Starke, is a lamp and a a bookend in one. The piece is comprised of two independent parts: a painted aluminum frame and and a removable lighting element in opaque white plastic. The light is battery operated, so you take it from the base and place it anywhere you need soft diffused illumination. And the best part – this lighting element can be recharged from your computer via a simple USB. I also really like the matching red cable. The piece fill be presented at the Tortona Around Design exhibition, during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan this week.
This clever little shelf/bookend has been created by Tokyo based design studio YOY. The piece, called Extend, can be attached to a desk or to an existing bookshelf in order to generate some extra space. With the books in place, Extend becomes invisible and creates an illusion of books floating in the air. Beautiful. The piece is made from powder coated steel.
This lamp/bookend hybrid has been created by Roderick Vos. Inspired by library lights, the designer tried to come up with a solution that can function as a light and at the same time illuminate books and make them more visible. So he designed Mr. Ed, a light bulb held in place by two vertical, book-like shapes. At home on a bookshelf or on a bedside table, Mr. Ed has enough brute strength to act as a bookend. The piece is made of cast aluminum and can accomodate any 40-watt bulb.
These multifunctional bookends by young Baltimore based designer Nicole Runde are milled from solid cork, a rapidly-renewable and eco-friendly material. The pieces can be used as planters or pencil holders (depending on how green your thumb is). And because cork is a perfect bulletin board material, these bookends can serve as heavy duty organizers and hold notes, photographs, reminders and such. Each piece comes with a removable plastic insert that can be washed and reused. Sold at Canoe.
(via BLTD)
Graphic designer Jack Curry made these brilliant (and orange!) bookends, called Biblio, for his own bookshelves. He also gained an instant fan the minute I saw them. As a typographically inclined individual, Jack initially searched for ready-made type-centric bookends. But after series of unexciting woodblock letters or “A & Z” bookend sets, he decided to make his own. ‘Using some off-the-shelf black bookends as a reference, I began figuring out how each letter would begin to look if used in the given framework, – says the designer. – After several different directions I came to the conclusion that the best solution would be to simply have the foundation of these forms contain both sides of the base, which would swing out in opposite directions; not unlike a gymnast doing forward splits.’ The first batch of letters (spelling out “READ”) were then produced from 16 gauge stainless steel and powder-coated in classic library orange. Beautiful!
(HT Typetoken)
