One of the latest Quirky designs to reach production is the UnHampered folding laundry basket, a neatly-folding object that tucks away when not in use. Unfortunately the Quirky site doesn't credit the original designer, though we gather her first name is Barbara.
Made from plastic and featuring living hinges, as you can see in the following vid the UnHampered draws more than a little inspiration from another uncredited source, Joseph Joseph's folding colander:
Question for you all: If you're the Joseph Joseph designer behind the colander and you see this, are you bummed out or excited?
I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.
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Quirky's UnHampered: Imitation is the sincerest form of laundry
Is it possible to by this anywhere ?
www.designwright.co.uk.
I think there is a patent on the particular corner detail.
However the idea of using living hinges in polypropylene is hardly new or protectable, its been around for ages, and is more a material property than a "design" per se. It happens because the long polymer chains in PP align when stress is applied to them, making the material actually become stronger where it has been folded. A great design which makes use of this principle is the "folding chopping board" by Mark Sanders, which has been in the MoMA collection since the eighties.
www.mas-design.com/chopping_board.html.
It has recently come back into production with joseph and Joseph, too.
Elijah, I don't think they've ripped off your wheels, in fact I think your wheels look off the shelf- that wheel design is fairly generic. I was expecting to see something quite different when I visited your site.