Vinyl cut out clocks by Pavel Sidorenko

Last night I was at a small bar in my hometown listening to a friend DJ (Narita playing a great DJ gig as usual), when I spotted a clock made from an old vinyl record on the wall next to the DJ booth. I immediately thought that it was a great idea for a DJ gift but poorly executed (i.e. how about making clock hands like record player arms instead?) . Today, thanks to a Design Sponge post about Pavel Sidorenko, I found out how much better this idea can become.

Pavel Sidorenko is an Estonian designer, born in 1980 in Tallinn. He studied industrial design at the Estonian Academy of Arts, graduating in 2006. His aim is to create functional and playful products that retain their simplicity, interacting with the space and the user, creating not only incorporate pragmatic necessity, but also transmitting an emotional quality within the everyday environment. he received the 1st prize in the Massimo Martini Design Awards, in Milan's Macef show while his latest exhibition participation was in this year's Ambiente show in Frankfurt, as part of the EDL stand.

The clocks are made by laser-cutting the old vinyl records in various shapes. It is a fun idea, reminding me a lot of paper-cutting stuff other people do - the choice of material here is key and fresh. I would not mind having one of these on my wall!

© Pavel Sidorenko

Vinyl Records become jewellery...

Having grown up in the vinyl age of records, I always have had a fetishistic relationship with them. The whole ritual of getting the record out of the sleeve after having read every minutiae of information on it, from titles and producer to art director and photographer plus all the credits, putting it on the turntable and listening to music filling the room was very special for me. The smell, feel and look of the vinyl made it precious to me - not to mention the music recorded on it.

Photo of rare Live in Chicago Dead Can Dance LP - surely not to be recycled into jewellery!

Imagine my surprise when, through The Fabulist, I discovered the website of a company making jewellery out of vinyl records. Making stuff out of old vinyl records is nothing new, I have seen even bowls made out of them (yuk!). But the jewellery of Vling! is something quite unique.

My favourite is the cassette necklace - sentimental reasons of course!

Other music related designs - which seem more appropriate to me and best designed (the rest of the stuff looks uninspiring) are a guitar, musical note, the word Rock and a gramophone that looks like a Grammy award:



The company is based in the U.S. They have also a page on MySpace. They even take custom orders, like names written in vinyl. They do ship worldwide and you can e-mail them here for questions. I can think of many records that I would never give up to be recycled but also of many I would gladly see turned into better looking stuff!