Look Ma, I'm 95th out of 3481

Or should I say at least 95th out of 3481.  I entered the designboom/Plantronics Sound Innovation contest for two reasons.  I love designboom.  And Plantronics is a regular client of mine, and I thought it would be fun to win their contest too.  But alas, I was merely shortlisted, along with 95 others.

My entry, shown above, is an attempt to break out of the boxes connected by wires paradigm that speakers are still stuck in.  The red felt matt that connects the right and left speakers hides the wires and adds some nice materiality.  I like how it hugs tabletop, while the corners resist, and reach for the sky.  This is what I want under my 24" apple monitor at the studio.

Here's the link to my entry

The winner?

  

Kimming Yap and Yulia Saksen from singapore were the winners.  I like the volume control interface--that's nicely done.  I do not like its relationship to the iPod. It looks like its about to break off.  Like a lot of otherwise good products, it is a nice sculpture on its own, but gets a bit lost in context.  Here's the link.

Here are a couple I dug.

Janne Salovaara (ya think she's finnish?) knocked this one out of the park.  I love it.  It couldn't be simpler.  The speakers inside the perforated sphere point out in all directions.  Stereo be damned!  But if you imagine these hanging like (or with) light fixtures, it works.  Check out the rest of the photos here.

Timothy Rundle from New Zealand did these nice, clean revolves of the speaker icon, and then sliced a bit off so they wouldn't roll around.  Love it.

Here's his entry.

So I guess 95th out of 3481 aint THAT bad.  Especially when Alberto Meda is judging!  Alberto is the man.