Berlin winters can be notoriously cold dark and depressing (as many other places in the northern hemisphere). Families take their kids to school in the dark, and then go to work in the dark and then by the time school and work are over its dark again.

It was when watching one young family all on bikes, on one of those dark dark journeys to school, we came up with a little idea: a simple, customisable, engaging replacement for these numerous reflectors parents cover their kids with in order to make sure they can be seen by other traffic participants.

On one side the badges would be covered with super bright LEDs, which play simple individualised animations. On the underside the badges are covered with solar cells, charging capacitors.

So during the day, when at school, the badges could be turned over and laid onto the window sill catching light beams.

And once back at home the kids would have the possibility to assemble their very own animations on a PC and play the animation onto the device via a USB connection.

Most recipe sites I come across focus on the ingredients… I always find this strange. Rarely, when I am on the computer (either at work or in the studio), do I know what I have or haven’t got in my cupboards, and rarely are my food desires to do with particular ingredients alone.

Food is far more emotional than that. Our eating habits are usually inspired by moods, circumstance, time, money and less to do with specific ingredients. More often than not I never know what I want to cook, ‘how hungry are you..?, what kind of mood are you in..?, do you want to cook or shall I..?, are you hungry..?’ these are the questions that always preceed my decisions about cooking.

So I sketched a quick prototype interface, based on these types of questions. It’s a way of searching that I would find as far more inspirational and useful. Using sliders, would be quick and intuitive, and enables you to constantly change the parametres easily. Colours in the background could change and intensify as the sliders moved (the colour aspect would need more development… but could become an integral part of mood and taste matching.)