No sane person would probably ever consider trying to soak in nearly as much design goodness as I do in order to bring to light the cream of the crop for you. Being the brave soul that I am, though, earlier this month I enthusiastically and recklessly charged head first into Tokyo Design Week to see what I could find. As TDW's 100% Design Tokyo trade show was the place to find the products most likely to be seen in stores in 2007, I chose it as the source of my picks for next year's most promising new Japanese designs.
If you're like me, your desk is fast becoming unusable due to the stack of electronic gadgets scattered across it getting their batteries juiced. Right on cue, in comes designer Takafumi Nemoto, under the brand name Pore, with an elegant solution: Babel. Babel is an attractive, low table with a bottom light and a hole in the center so you can plug your gadgets' cords into the six plugs hidden underneath the cover. Think of it as a stylish power strip that doubles as a night stand. Ingenious!
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