Cool Design: Elegant and Practical

Rowan Liivamägi is an industrial designer based in Vancouver, BC. A recent project called “Väärtus” catches our eye for the way it combines simplicity of design, beautiful lines, and a highly practical set of applications. According to her website:

Väärtus is about value and pride. Arthritis is a problem occurring with our aging population; the need for medical aids to perform everyday tasks is apparent. Current assistive devices are clumsy, undependable, impermanent, poorly made, unhelpful and ugly. People who require aids don’t want to use them. Vaartus is the opportunity to bridge the gap between what is currently available and the demand set out by a modern aging audience seeking value and independence.

A key chain acts as a lever to help people who lack flexibility to open doors:

A ring acts as a tool to help pull buttons into button holes and to pull zippers:

A band is designed to help the user write by bracing a pen between either between two fingers or thumb and forefingers:

Interestingly, you can buy the products from an online store, Shapeways, or printed-out on a home 3D printer. In a previous post, A Hammer Looking for a Nail, xray-delta wondered what might be some useful applications of home 3D printing; it looks like designs such as these are part of the answer to that question.