If ever proof was needed of the efficacy of Tokyo Designers Week, the annual designers' trade show currently under way at Tokyo's Meiji Jingu Gaien park, then it is apparent at booth D14, where designer Atsuhiro Hayashi is showing his wares.

In 2009, just months after establishing his own design office in Osaka, Hayashi came to that year's edition of TDW, rented a booth and exhibited a prototype of a product he had designed: a mold that could make ice cubes resembling tiny glaciers with a polar bear standing on top. The ice cube would melt, the hapless bear would disappear, and the drinker would be reminded of the issue of climate change.

Hayashi's objective in coming to TDW two years ago was to connect with a manufacturer who could produce the item, and he succeeded. Among the 60,000 visitors who filed through the event's booth-filled tent that year were representatives of Tokyo-based company Monos, who decided "polar ice" was worth a try.