This Duna Sofa, a kind of modular sofascape, was designed by French furniture designer Pierre Paulin in 1968. Sometime around 1970, Paulin collaborated with Herman Miller and had a prototype built; but ultimately the company decided not to go ahead with the project. The modular s … | Continue reading
This post is presented by the K-Show, the world's No.1 trade fair for the plastics and rubber industry. Visionary developments and groundbreaking innovations will again lead the industry into new dimensions at K 2025 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Chris Bangle (born 1956) is an American … | Continue reading
A decade ago French architect Pascal Rambaud debuted his Swincar invention. A radical take on an off-road vehicle, each of its skinny wheels is independently mounted on a pendulum-like arm, powered by its own electric motor, and can steer independently of what the other wheels ar … | Continue reading
This Hideaway shovel is by Wilhelm Berbig, done as an Industrial Design student at the Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien (University of Applied Arts Vienna). In Austria, there are signposted hiking trails where you can bivouac in small abandoned sheds. Savvy hikers on multi-d … | Continue reading
"In space the sun is really harsh, it feels as if it's piercing through your eyes," says Koichi Wakata, an astronaut and the Chief Technology Officer for Axiom Space. "We need an exceptional visor system to protect [our] eyes and [offer] maximum visibility to enable [astronauts] … | Continue reading
An Austin-based startup called Blackdot has developed a robotic tattooing machine. The device was created with the help of Yan Azdoud, a medical device engineer with expertise in "hyper-elastic surfaces," and its surgical precision has a startling payoff: Because its tattooing pr … | Continue reading
More outside-the-box thinking from Simone Giertz: Her amusing Patch Cap provides on-head storage for small objects. Made of looped material—i.e. the soft side of Velcro—it comes with adhesive patches that provide the hook side. The $55 cap comes in both youth and adult sizes, and … | Continue reading
Here's what we looked at this week:The Ulefone 33 Pro is a 2x4-sized rugged smartphone. Yamazaki Home's magnetic tape dispenser can hold two sizes at once.These Horl Scissors have an unusual feature designed to make sharpening simple.How you can make even a pencil sharpener go vi … | Continue reading
Your average classroom space hasn't changed much in the past 100 years: They're a factory-like row of desks facing an instructor writing on a large rectangle. London-based ID firm Pearson Lloyd wondered: With all of the changes in technology and society, isn't it time that spaces … | Continue reading
One of the many annoyances of aging is presbyopia. As you get older, your eye's lens loses elasticity, making it more difficult to focus light on the retina for near tasks. Reading bottle labels (or worse, books) becomes impossible. For designers who do detailed sketching or work … | Continue reading
This Solis Adjustable Standing Shelf system was designed by Sergey Dedin, an industrial designer based in Belarus. Consisting of relatively few components, the simple design provides something users have responded positively to: Adjustability. Shelves can be placed and secured at … | Continue reading
At first blush, this appears to be a standard modern kitchen build: But pan out, and you'll see it's been made with a ton of repurposed old windows and drawers.It was done by Piet Hein Eek for a client in Utrecht. Among other projects, the Dutch designer has begun producing custo … | Continue reading
Born in 1921, Paul Smith was an American with severe spastic cerebral palsy. His condition made it impossible for him to draw with a pencil or paint with a brush; however, Smith discovered that by using one hand to steady the other, he could press typewriter keys. He then began p … | Continue reading
This new LifeStraw Escape is a portable high-flow water purifier that can hold 5.25 gallons. It's a heckuva lot larger than LifeStraw's signature product and, uniquely, offers pressurization. Competing models are gravity-fed, meaning you have to wait for the water to trickle down … | Continue reading
If you have a stitch ripper and a sewing machine, any pillow is technically adjustable. But California-based Coop Sleep Goods makes pillows that are adjustable by design. The pillow consists of a washable outer layer made of Lulltra (the company's proprietary blend of bamboo-deri … | Continue reading
This Hypnoloid object is sort of the opposite of a spinning top. Whereas a top contacts the surface it's balancing on only at its point, the Hypnoloid contacts the surface with every square millimeter of its surface area.The shape is called an oloid, and it's a bit difficult to … | Continue reading
If someone asks you "What does 3D printing have to do with nuclear fission," you can confidently answer "Nothing." But recent strides made by, surprisingly, a government-backed lab, show that 3D printing can be used to create cheaper nuclear energy.Nuclear powerplants need to be … | Continue reading
Well, this is bananas. Casio somehow got a master craftsman to hand-hammer the finish of 500 G-Shock watches. These G-Shock MR-G watches are made of DAT55G, an ultra-hard titanium that's notoriously difficult to machine. The tsuiki (hand hammering) expert, Watanabe Kazuya, had to … | Continue reading
This looks like a Braun product from an alternate universe, but it was actually designed by Japanese ID firm Propellor Design. Designed for the elderly and hard of hearing, it's a wireless TV speaker for those who have trouble hearing the television. The user plugs a stick-style … | Continue reading
From a product design perspective, the EDC market is fascinating. Here you have people lavishing design attention on objects that would be, for me as a non-EDC person, worthless in real life; yet some of these objects are positively MoMA-worthy.Take this IMP Folding Knife, done i … | Continue reading
The tool storage system for most mechanics looks something like this: It's been widely accepted that drawers are the way to go. However, industrial mechanic and engineer Kelly Benes reckons that hunting through all of those drawers wastes a massive amount of time. After interview … | Continue reading
When a new technology emerges, smart industrial designers think about how it could be used to improve or replace incumbent products. Ideally, products built around the new technology would be attractive; failing that, they should at least improve the user experience. These Lizard … | Continue reading
Marcello Gandini would have loved this: L.A.'s Petersen Museum has just opened "The Wedge Revolution," an exhibition dedicated to wedge-shaped cars.The history of the automobile is full of high points and heydays: the formative brass era, the voluptuous streamline era, the fins o … | Continue reading
A pencil sharpener is the last thing I expected to see go viral on social media. But Chinese office products manufacturer AFMAT has followed a common formula used these days: Design a product with a mildly novel feature; make it in bright colors; seed them, for free, to social me … | Continue reading
This slick little piece of steel is a magnetic-mount tape holder. It can hold smaller-diameter tapes (like electrical) on the inner fins, and larger-diameter (duct, packing, blue) tapes on the outer fins. The gap in the fins allows it to accommodate some dispensers. It's made fo … | Continue reading
Since their inception 18 years ago, the trend has been for smartphones to get bigger each year. But that's only in two dimensions, width and height. Users want bigger screens, but what they don't want is thicker phones. This has led to many people carrying fragile and unwieldy gl … | Continue reading
Like all edged tools, scissors go dull. Re-sharpening them requires tools and skill, and is probably beyond the capabilities of your average household user. Horl, the German company that makes the clever sharpening object we looked at here, aims to remedy that. The company has de … | Continue reading
Here's what we looked at this week:The Worksport Solis and Cor Hub are a solar-power-harvesting tonneau cover, and a portable generator, for pickup trucks.The KikFin Shark: A wearable underwater jet pack. Maximum, which makes furniture out of industrial waste, turns old crowd … | Continue reading
It may seem gimmicky but this iLevel, designed by ID firm Cardboard Helicopter for client Franklin Sensors, is brilliant. It's a 12" level that turns green when it's perfectly level or plumb. This is not only easier to see than gauging the bubble—particularly when you're at an an … | Continue reading
For decades, the common way to set fence posts was to dig a hole below the frostline, tamp some gravel in the bottom for drainage, place your post, then set it in concrete. This is time-, materials- and labor-intensive. To dig the hole, you need a post hole digger or a powered au … | Continue reading
A disturbing new study from France's Université de Toulouse has found we're constantly breathing in microplastics—in our homes, workplaces and cars. Postdoctoral researcher Nadiia Yakovenko and her team learned we're inhaling 68,000 microplastic particles every day, far more than … | Continue reading
In "Playground Equipment for Teenagers to Senior Citizens," we looked at how playgrounds can benefit the bodies of folks of all ages. Now play expert, industrial designer and design educator Cas Holman has got a new book out on how play can benefit adult creativity and more. Holm … | Continue reading
Staring in the 19th century, West Virginia and Kentucky became powerhouses of coal production. When electricity came around in the 20th century, those two states provided much of the nation's energy.Coal production peaked in 2008, then went into sharp decline. Hundreds of mines w … | Continue reading
This Hiroi Chair was designed by Sam Hecht and Kim Colin, a/k/a Industrial Facility. Featuring exposed fasteners and clearly being made out of stock materials, its humble aesthetic may surprise those who know the duo's work; however, this was designed specifically for Ishinomaki … | Continue reading
This 30 Second Delivery sculpture is by Seattle-based artist Sunday Nobody. Whether he's commenting on shoppers' demands for ever-faster package delivery, Jeff Bezos' preoccupation with rockets, or a link between a consumerist economy and wars fought over resources isn't clear; p … | Continue reading
Designed on the cusp of the 1980s, Joseph D'Urso's Occasional Table perfectly expressed the designer's penchant for melding the industrial with the minimal. The welded steel table appeared visually light thanks to its proportions, and the table seemed to float on its hidden caste … | Continue reading
They say it takes 10,000 hours to develop mastery, but Michael Kuzma may have pulled it off in 9,400 hours. That's how long it took the guitarist and electrical engineer to develop his Kuzma Self-Playing Guitar System. Kuzma's invention, which can be fitted to any guitar, consist … | Continue reading
As a college sophomore, Angus Willows set himself an ambitious task: Design a better coat hanger. In Willows' eyes, the incumbent objects were flimsy, disposable, and ill-suited for holding a wide variety of clothing items.Willows got to work, and after gaining dual degrees in Me … | Continue reading
Pipe Lighting, the German company that makes inflatable LED fixtures, has revolutionized the film production lighting game. The company's lightweight offerings require minimal rigging compared to heavier predecessors, cutting down on production time and improving safety. That sai … | Continue reading
Foam earplugs are a cheap solution for hearing protection, but they can become itchy and uncomfortable. A startup called Paxauris has developed something they reckon is better: Fluid Earplugs. They're made of medical-grade silicone and, as the name suggests, are filled with fluid … | Continue reading
This post is presented by the K-Show, the world's No.1 trade fair for the plastics and rubber industry. Visionary developments and groundbreaking innovations will again lead the industry into new dimensions at K 2025 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Chris: So, Thilo, tell me about … | Continue reading
For the traveling tradesperson, a vise can be a handy thing to have. However, vises as we know them are objects that you bolt to a workbench. And in the work vans common in Europe, there's simply no space. Thus Germany's Sortimo created this folding vise, designed to attach to th … | Continue reading
This PowerBug is a handsome, minimal MagSafe charger by Twelve South, a South-Carolina-based tech accessories brand. It cleanly eliminates the power cable all wireless chargers require, and is ideal for locations with counter-height outlets, like kitchens and bathrooms. Foldable … | Continue reading
This striking Volumen series of sculptures/paintings is by Swiss artist Fabian Oefner. He has somehow captured two-dimensional brushstrokes in three glorious dimensions, forever freezing them within a block of resin. "I have always been fascinated by the textural quality of pai … | Continue reading
Because solar panels are easiest to manufacture flat, cars are a pretty poor substrate for them. However, pickup trucks—often seen as a symbol of energy guzzlers—actually provide the perfect platform. Most pickup trucks have beds with level sidewalls. Worksport, an American manuf … | Continue reading
This Bultan seating is by Maximum, a French furniture brand whose raw material is industrial and municipal waste. This design started with crowd-control barriers (a/k/a Vauban barriers), specifically their design flaw. "One damaged part, and everything gets thrown away!" the comp … | Continue reading
This KikFin Shark is a wearable underwater propulsion system.Three cylindrical thrusters on the back, each containing a propellor, provide the propulsion. Each cylinder is attached to a shark-like fin that provides stability.The fingerless glove you see on the diver's right hand … | Continue reading
We've seen round houses before, and a house that rotates. Those designs had some purposefulness to their dispositions, whether or not you consider them successful. But here we've got a house that is both round and that rotates, and the thinking behind it makes absolutely no sense … | Continue reading