Heinz creating a noise with Beanz

We're sure that most of you will be familiar with the childhood rhyme that gives the adage of beans being a musical fruit, now Heinz are playing on that with some deluxe flavours.

The 5 special flavours, will be available from London's Fortnum & Mason in a special pack which includes a themed bowl and a special spoon that will play music or sounds whilst you eat.

The spoons contain a special MP3 player with pre-recorded sounds that can only be heard whilst eating through vibrations that travel up the jaw-bone to the ear.

Each flavour has a distinct sound associated with it, be it an Elgar ditty played with a cheese wire or the sound of rustling garlic skins. 

The special edition bowls are also tailored to the unique flavours which includes, cheese, curry, barbecue, garlic and herb, and chili. 

Number One Hit Product Recall

In this great marketing ploy Australian pop duo, Yolanda Be Cool, have announced an international product recall of their hit song "We No Speak Americano."

Their hit "We No Speak Americano" reached No. 1 on the charts in 16 countries and remains in the charts in many places even after two and a half years.

They have decided that they need to move on, mainly to their next album. So they've officially declared that the beats "are no longer fresh" in "We No Speak Americano," and they're calling on radio stations, DJs and fans worldwide to remove the song from their playlists and destroy any hard copies of it.

See the press conference below:

New glass technique from Lasvit delivers organic flows

On display at Milan Design Week 2012, 'Liquidkristal' is a new glass technique developed by British designer Ross Lovegrove in collaboration with Czech glass and crystal producers Lasvit.

Using a high precision heat transfer process to create organic-like glass panels, this innovative product has been developed for use in large-scale architectural installations. The manufacturer says 'The system facilitates the precise forming of any mathematically describable design, and individual panels can showcase slightly 'shifted' versions of the model, creating the effect of an organically flowing pattern across a building or other large structure.'

This innovative production method lets designers or architects control the level of opacity of segments of glass, allowing the creation of spaces where features can be highlighted and others blended through a play of colour and light.

A very interesting development. Find out more here.

Design of the Year 2012 nominations announced

The Design Museum has announced its nominations for the Designs of the Year 2012 exhibition with a range of exciting designs that appeared in 2011. The work featured includes digital, fashion, furniture, architecture, product, graphic and transport design and is drawn from a wide variety of projects.

All the nominations will be on show at the Designs of the Year exhibtion at the Design Museum, opening to the public on 8 February 2012 and category winners and the overall winner will be announced at the Awards Night at the Design Museum on 24 April.

The Design Museum will be issuing details of each nomination daily on their blog,

Work shown here: Comedy Carpet, Blackpool by Why Not Associates and Gordon Young


Life-Size Paper Monster Hearse by Paul Sahre

Category Winners for the Brit Insurance Design Awards 2011

The votes are in and a winner for each category of the Brit Insurance Design Awards 2011 has been officially announced today.

The winners for each category are:

Brit Insurance Architecture Award 2011: Open Air Library by KARO Architekten, Germany

Brit Insurance Fashion Award 2011: Uniqlo +J, Japan

Brit Insurance Furniture Award 2011: Branca, Industrial Facility, Italy

Brit Insurance Graphics Award 2011: Homemade is Best, Forsman & Bodenfors for Ikea

Brit Insurance Product Award 2011: Plumen 001, Hulger & Samuel Wilkinson, UK

Brit Insurance Transport Award 2011: Barclays Cycle Hire

Click here to learn more about each of these winners and for your chance to speculate who will eventually reign supreme.