Ever drawn love letters in the sand or, on a less exalted plane, pee’d your loved one’s name in the snow? Sure, we’ve all been there (some after too many beers) but you won’t find sandy beaches or fields of virgin snow just anywhere, especially in our everyday urban environment.
Liu Hsiang-Ling is one of those closet romantics and, being a designer, can express her thoughts through her imaginative, innovative works.
Take the Rain Brush Umbrella: on the face of it it’s a perfectly functional bumbershoot whose fabric pleasingly shades from white to black. Wooden ribs and an organically lathed handle evoke a less-hectic age when walking in the rain was one of life’s simple pleasures.
Liu takes us back to those days with the Rain Brush Umbrella. Alone at a bus stop and a stranger joins you beneath the shelter’s roof, nothing to say but you fidget and fumble with your umbrellas… but your umbrella has a silicone ferrule that not only resembles a traditional ink paintbrush’s tip, it acts like one as well!
Dip the tip in a convenient puddle, and you’re ready to write, draw, express and impress. State the obvious (that’s the Chinese character for Rain above) or try and outdo Shakespeare himself – time and weather permitting.
Like our thoughts and emotions, your umbrella-writ expressions are ephemeral. A few more raindrops or a few minutes of sunlight and they’re gone forever… your new friend, on the other hand, just might be a lasting one. (via Yanko Design and WebUrbanist)
