First post I hope!

I’ll be waiting for new things. Please, continue this.

second, im sure.

haha, god forbid you ever lost one of those puzzle pieces on that alarm clock.

(wtf is it with the first post thing, if you can’t say anything constructive, don’t post - It’s just lame)

Very interesting article with lots of design inspiration. I have to admit though, I’m not sure I would ever get that alarm put back together when I first wake up. I fear it would be broken after two days lol.

Awesome stuff! We use a ton of those USB Buddies at our office at Link [www.designzillas.com].

Ummm…what exactly happened to the 1200 character limit? This is over 3000. I know I worked pretty damn hard on editing and sizing down my submission to meet the requirements of this contest.

Great idea for a post, but really poorly written. Edit next time, please!

I agree with Laura - very poorly written, but it’s got some great inspirational things/ideas.

Very great selection!
You should also like this retro phone :
Link [www.geekandhype.com]

… or maybe this one with Bluetooth :
Link [www.geekandhype.com]

Thanks for sharing Smashing Mag!

This article is really okay
Why do you keep saying that it’s poorly written?

great thinghs…!!!

Hello,

1st Class article.
Thanks.

I completely disagree with some of the things written here. The retro phone is embarrassingly stupid to use, even if I’m alone at home.

I’ve seen at least half of these things before, the second half I don’t find beautiful at all (e.g. the alarm clock? It’s cool, but c’mon - not beautiful. Btw. there are tougher ones, like running or even flying away when the alarm starts - available in online stores with funny stuff n’ toys along with the USB buddies and the VooDoo Knife Block -> Link [www.toys4boys.pl] - just to mention my native one).

I’d call it rather “10 small things for daily life”. Still, I agree - cool idea for a top-ten-list.

Btw: isn’t “not bad” (in the poll) an acronym for “average” or something even better? Like “not bad, kid”. It’s rather positive, more than average, I’d say. What about replacing it with ‘poor’ and then ‘very bad’ or something, oppositely to ‘good’ and ‘excellent’? From one extreme to another.

nice collections. wud like to hav the USB with south park characters (most preferably, Eric Cartman) though :D

Great stuff, I especially like the Animal Indexes and the shiny pillow! Would love to see some more beautiful things.

this was really great.. specially the Mouse-2! I’m gonna buy that one!

Have you categorized “Discussion articles” and “top-10 lists” in order to select winners? Are these 12 Winners will be categorize as 6 discussion articles and 6 top 10 lists? Since a limited character discussion article cannot compete with unlimited characters top-10 list. How its going to be judged?

?

Most of the items’ descriptions are copy/pasted..

Meh, nothing overly special. The mouse was cool though.

Nice stuff, but I would have liked the list to be longer! I was sad to get to the end so quickly. I don’t know about that chair though, I think it lacks practical function. Good conversation starter, I bet!

I agree about the “first post” thing, by the way. Save that kiddy crap for lolcats websites where its at least kind of cute. No one cares if you’re first here. What’s the point? Do you grab your friends and go, “ooh look, I’m first on Smashing Magazine?”

Sad.

Not a fan of this article unfortunately. One or two things I hadn’t see before, but basically seemed like a trip through thinkgeek.com

Keep the posts featured on design (web, graphic, etc) and I’ll be a happy camper.. :)

Inspirational for some. The puzzle clock will break your morning lol.

I really like the gadgets, I would love to have the puzzle clock. Nice article!

Not bad, interesting, but not really inspiring.

Excellent examples to entartete kunst.

Excellent, like every post

The general idea of the post is interesting, but the choice of item for review is a bit boring and there is no author point for description - that makes this post further less interesting.
So - the idea is great but realization seems weak

lots of nice but useless stuff.

This has already been mentioned.. but try copy and pasting some of the sentences in these descriptions into google.. lots of this isn’t original content?

I must admit that I have not even read this article. Just scrolled down the picture and wow. I’ve got to get one of those Star Wars pen drives !!!!!!

This was great! Too bad there are only 10 items on the list :( I demand a part2 of the series :) :)

promoting pointless consumerism. very unenlightened piece.

Is this chindogu lol…. Nice post, made my day.

I agree with the sentiments that this post falls short of the quality expected for a top ten winner in this competition. Most of the list, copied descriptions aside, are merely items that have been popular on major design and gadget blogs over the past few months.

I’m not against a “shopping list of cool stuff” post, but seriously, given the obvious amount of time spent researching all the other content on Smashing Magazine, I would expect a much more interesting, original list then what was presented. At the very least, have some sort of coherent theme running through the items chosen.

When are the others coming?

That Mandarina Cell Phone might be the handiwork of one Peter Saville, does anyone know for sure?

Also, it’s a bit weak to keep hammering someone whose first language might not even be English (I’m guessing). What’s important is that they have a thought, and have the requisite imagination to see that thought through. This list isn’t half-bad by those counts.

Nice job with widening the scope of ‘design’, Smashing. Those posts relating purely to web design were getting old. More topics = more fun :)

Oh dear, the fact you chose this article to lead your ‘winners’ posts is completely indicative of Smashing Mag recently: none of the originality we used to love and poorly written (to a native English speaker this is painful to read at times). Lets just hope the other 11 winners are better as, if this is the sort of content you are going to search (and then pay) for, SM is going to lose a lot of fans.. :-(

hey,

I personally think that the article is exhaustive and superficial. I mean writing five lines isnt an over-do in general. It might be generally speaking just the language use that I am concerned about even if you guys have already changed things. The Observer always has his or her opinion about Art and Design and I just think that even if the Design aspects are great (exception might be this glowing pillow that that feels like a place holder to fullfill the top ten criteria) the author seem to be too loose, superficial, without a clear and better structure to why something is beautiful and therefore great in design. Its not like she said “most beautiful Product Design with great usability.” Saying that something is beautiful that makes live easier is for me too cheap and corny.

Sorry for being dozens for time repetitive and I hope you see my critique as constructive.

Excellent article. I like it.
Puzzle Alarm Clock is very cool… i should buy one of this.

Oh man, I’d kill for a human-sized bed-pod like the pet bed! Mmmm, womb-like.

I love that you took time to write a post about the simple, awkward and unique things in life that make us all a little happier. Great job.

I really hope this isn’t indicative of the rests of the guest posts. Smashing Magazine is the best at posting useful, interesting articles. Unfortunately, this article is neither.

This was a really fun article, and surprisingly, it showcased a lot of stuff I haven’t already seen on Notcot, etc. I think the people who are trying to smack it down have probably submitted entries of their own and are trying to sway the judges. ;)

i agree with h.a.r.v that i wouldn’t call some of those “beautiful.”
the intro could be better written, it didn’t particularly move me to read the post (the great picture of the USB characters did).
and please refrain from saying that something is made for girls or made for boys, #3, things are often not used the way they were intended. and rather than saying it has useful features–please name a few.

weeee i loved the pillow by Diana Yu-Ju Lin., really nice!

A more accurate title would have been 10 Random Things I Saw On Notcot.org.

As someone else has already pointed out, Link [www.bimbambanana.com] other Link [www.retrostar.de] is either Link [www.artlebedev.com] or Link [www.design-3000.de] from Link [www.todayandtomorrow.net]. It’s just Link [www.designpublic.com] rebranded - Link [hivemodern.com] - as an original article.

There’s no unifying theme or style in either the items themselves or the accompanying text. No attempt was made to explain why any given item is worthy of the epithet “beautiful” - some of it, in fact, is pretty damned ugly.

I understand that the articles were chosen on the merit of their ability to generate controversy, but there’s a fairly significant difference between an article being controversial for its original, articulate, calculated stance on an issue, and an article being controversial because most of its shoddy content was simply plagiarized. This is the latter. Not cool, Smashing Magazine.

Have the finalists of the guest post contest all been notified or will they just be surprised by seeing their post up one day?

Grr, my formatting got messed up - that first paragraph should read:

“… every other article is either barely paraphrased or directly copied from other websites. It’s just advertising text rebranded - badly - as an original article.”

“Most of them are ORDINARILY but they can make our life and the lives of people around us a little bit more spectacular.”
I truly wish that a website that claims (in its url) to be a magazine would restrict its articles to those that are written by people with an understanding of the English language. At the very least you could hire an editor.

Oh common SM, even this cannot be compared to your past article “50 Photoshop Tutorials for Sky and Space Effects”

These objects are corny, and most of them will not be publicly displayed by a self-respecting person much less a designer.

If this is a tease of whats to come then I tremble with fear and zero anticipation.

I think the comment I made this morning is in your spam inbox :D (or maybe I put too much links?)

This site never ceases to amaze me. I loved the glowing pillow and book holders. Really unique stuff. Keep inspiring us designers :)

Sincerely,
Joseph Maguire

Very nice article. I love voodoo knife block and shining pillow. Great work and cool inpiration! LOL

isn’t “not bad” (in the poll) an acronym for “average” or something even better?

You mean synonym? An acronym for “not bad” would be “N.B.”

The items are interesting but the writing is poorly done.

not an original idea but still a nice article…

I’m surprised the cardboard safari didn’t make the cut.

Link [www.cardboardsafari.com]

Thank you for including my project -Shining Pillow- in your 10 beautiful things for a beautiful life. However, could you maybe update the website?

The correct website is Link [www.dianalindesign.com]

Thanks! I really appreciate it. The old website is having some problems and I need to fix it.
Thanks again!!!

i wish retro phone is in my hand :(
Smashing! you always post nice article like always,

meh, average, the “mouse2″ is really really old, and the retrophone should really link to the hulger phones, as they were the original (as Pokia) and are infinitely cooler.

beautiful desingers and good idea…

#60 Aadvark: “synonym”, of course. 5:51AM after working all night long did the trick.. I’m also used to make strange typos in my native language when tired ;-)

I’ve got the the Voodoo knife at home, really like :)

Not crazy about most of this stuff. There are much more “beautiful” alternatives for each of these. Maybe “interesting” or “unique” would have been better?

wow very good!!!!!

Cool Stuff

Cool stuff. I hope this article wins the contest. I avoid buying useless stuff but I’d like to purchase many of the oddities listed here.

Great article, Cashing Magazine, but you should change the article to:

“Ten beautiful things for conspicuous consumers who like to waste plastic and money”

i am looking for those posters of Tomasz Opasinski, do any of you know where i can find it?

I like that … it look good to me!!! thanks for sharing

Junks

most imp thing GIRL FRIEND Is not mentioned there..

yes good designs
But we can make it more beautiful