A humidifier dubbed Balduin takes the form of a friendly, ergonomically shaped ghost, while tape dispenser Elvis has the swinging hips of the legendary rock 'n' roller. Dirty dishes are cheerfully tackled by dish brushes Tim and Tweetie with their stubbly punk hairstyles. With a large dose of irony and subtle allusions to everyday culture, the products made by this company in southern Hesse, which has adopted the hard- tocontradict guiding principle “Design ist Dasein” (Design is Being) are full of surprises, but of course viewed with suspicion by those who stand guard over proper design etiquette. Good manners are hardly at risk, though, when wit and bright colours are celebrated here in high style. The “Ideas for Friends”, as marketing-conscious company owner Stephan Koziol calls his collection of internationally coveted gift and household items, are admittedly not exactly exercises in purism. Their charm lies precisely in their highly original and sometimes off-beat look, the plastic of which they’re made being right in step with the times and demonstrating convincingly that whimsical playfulness is not at home only south of the Alps. In the late 1920s company founder Bernhard Koziol had a workshop for carved brooches and ivory figurines. In the mid-1930s he switched to the new injection-moulded plastics, obviously a far-sighted move. Finally, in the early 1950s, the Odenwald firm came up with a worldwide best-seller: the water-filled “snow globes” with their frozen scenes over which snow flurries fall when the ball is shaken. Having now gone far beyond this still-popular souvenir classic, Koziol is today pursuing an entirely new product line under the label “spheres”: furnishing objects for the business world. One of the successful products in this range is the series of room dividers made of variously structured coloured squares that can be freely interhung to form surfaces of any size. Images of the Bauhaus and Ulm inevitably come to mind upon contemplating this utterly simple, yet highly variable, system. The transparent walls of colour create spatial situations and influence the atmosphere within them. Also new is a lamp collection, including the hanging lamp Josephine. Its name and plastic skirt, which comes in a range of shimmering colours, represent yet another tongue-in-cheek cultural quote.