This installation made for the exhibition On! Handcrafted Digital Playground takes a playful approach to reimagining the table tennis bat.
Smashpong combines the best parts of volleyball and ping-pong
Designing a winning product is a big enough task as it is but redesigning a classic one is about as difficult as it gets. Here designers Julien Vallée, Eve Duhamel and Kristian Nørhave created a new version of table tennis that sees the humble bat redesigned in a number of ways.
Smash Pong was an installation made for the exhibition On! Handcrafted Digital Playground, curated by Héctor Ayuso and exhibited at the Contemporary Art Center of Cincinnati. Celebrating our intuitive attraction to play, ON! transformed the CAC galleries into "a collection of playgrounds where creativity is limitless and experimentation is the norm".
With circular and triangular rackets and other weirdly wonderful shapes Smash Pong is designed to be a new table sport that combines the "best parts of ping-pong and volleyball." Visitors are invited to play the game, which involves using the paddle as a tool to hit pieces on the table and gain points.
What to know more? Head on over to the Smash Pong website.
What do you think of this game design? Let us know in the comments box below!
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Sammy Maine was a founding member of the Creative Bloq team way back in the early 2010s, working as a Commissioning Editor. Her interests cover graphic design in music and film, illustration and animation. Since departing, Sammy has written for The Guardian, VICE, The Independent & Metro, and currently co-edits the quarterly music journal Gold Flake Paint.
