High school student Louis Huang has invented, and successfully crowdfunded, a naturally backlit monitor. Aimed at those who suffer from eye strain, the 24", 1080p Eazeye monitor features a translucent screen and a reflective panel that folds outwards from the back. This reflects … | Continue reading
This week Mitsubishi unveiled their D:X concept, a futuristic EV take on the brand's classic Delica minivan. Meant to be a rugged off-roader, it's kind of styled like a chunky hiking boot. Mitsubishi has never been as mainstream as Honda or Toyota, and the D:X's designers have … | Continue reading
This toilet paper holder manages to be designey and craftsy at the same time.It's by Danish design studio Moebe, who focus on minimalist housewares. It's visually interesting and a different take, but I'm not convinced the roll wouldn't fall off. The holder runs €59 (USD $62.50). | Continue reading
What do all of these chairs have in common:They're all commercially available, and were all used as props in various Star Trek properties. It makes sense as the production designers have their hands full designing the interiors, and it's far faster to send staff to scoop up some … | Continue reading
The Star Trek fan site Ex Astris Scientia has identified and attributed 163 commercially-available chairs that appear as props in the franchise. However, there's still 52 chair designs they haven't been able to ID.You can help out, if you recognize any of the following:(Two photo … | Continue reading
These stainless steel storage jars are by Dulton, a vintage-inspired Japanese housewares manufacturer. (They're something like the Restoration Hardware of Japan.)Intended for kitchen use, they feature a push-button release for the silicon-rubber-sealed lid; the idea is that you c … | Continue reading
For those of you unfamiliar with traditional woodworking, a wedged tenon is an old-school, no-glue-required method of locking tenons in place.British industrial designer Daniel Schofield made the joinery method the centerpiece of his Tenon Tables:"Material is removed where it's n … | Continue reading
I'm always impressed by designers that have range, and this might be the most extreme example I've seen, at least in the automotive world.Joachim Nordwall is a Swedish transportation designer and Art Center grad. As the former design director for Koenigsegg, Nordwall designed the … | Continue reading
This Tipi portable outdoor seating is by Oscar Boyer, done as an ID student at France's ENSCI. His goal was to design something simple that would keep his butt clean when sitting on dirt (though the photos show only grass). I'm not convinced of the sturdiness of the back support … | Continue reading
This Strama Table Lamp is by Malmo-based industrial designer André Bern."Inspired by the elegant simplicity of stanchion barriers found in museums, this lamp aims to go beyond the boundaries of conventional lighting, adding a sence poetic design to any space. At its core, the Str … | Continue reading
Shane Chen, the prolific inventor behind the original Hovertrax hoverboard and the Solowheel, has designed an eponymous EV. Like his Hovertrax, the SHANE car only has two wheels. "Gone is the complicated front wheel steering system," writes Chen's company, Inventist. "Instead, ma … | Continue reading
In just a few years, entirely new forms will populate our automotive landscape. Self-driving vehicle company Cruise has partnered with Honda and GM to create the Origin, a driverless taxi that will launch in Japan.Designed for space efficiency, the interior is all passenger space … | Continue reading
The original source of this video is unknown, but here we have a rooftop worker who has improvised a fast method of descent: Source Question is: How did he get up there in the first place? | Continue reading
This cleverly designed Ringo water bottle is capped with a hinged magnetic ring. It exploits the iPhone's MagSafe tech to turn the bottle into a phone stand or tripod: It pulled in a stunning $330,269 on Kickstarter earlier this year.The company says it's stable whether full or e … | Continue reading
Australian industrial design consultancy 4Design does a lot of work for the mass transit systems in New South Wales. Some examples:TRANSPORT FOR NSWOpal Card Bus Readers"4design partnered with Transport NSW to design the Opal® card ticketing reader for the Sydney bus network. The … | Continue reading
Here's what we looked at this week:As complicated as it looks, this packaging from Sony is designed to be easy to open with one hand. Here's the design story behind Sony's new Access controller, five years in the making. At least one Coca-Cola bottler is switching over to Kee … | Continue reading
The clickbait that always gets me is visual: Text-free banner ads showing an object that I cannot identify. Today it's this thing, which not being a cyclist, I couldn't guess the function of: E-tailer Temu sells this portable bicycle chain cleaner for $4, so you're probably not g … | Continue reading
These are the taillights on a 1947 Cadillac.They actually hid the fuel cap. The top part flips up to reveal it. The two red panels on the bottom are, of course, made of glass; this was 1947. However, GM design chief Harley Earl wanted to do something different for the 1948 model. … | Continue reading
The 2023 Core77 Design Awards season has come to a close with the final shipment of trophies to our winners today. Once again congratulations to all the winners of the 2023 Core77 Design Awards as well as to our Jury Teams.We also want to take this opportunity to thank our partne … | Continue reading
This Rohan chair is by Burniture, a UK-based collective that harvests wood from unwanted furniture. "All of our furniture is made out of scraps that were found on the street, in skips, or donated to us," they write. "This, in combination with batch manufacturing allows us to avo … | Continue reading
As someone who is still mowing the goddamn lawn, here in October, this holds tremendous appeal: Honda has developed a self-driving mower.The Autonomous Work Mower looks like any other zero-turn, and is in fact meant to accommodate a human driver—for the first pass. "When manually … | Continue reading
The development of humanoid robots has ramped up sharply; in the past six months, we've seen a half-dozen different designs. Aesthetically speaking, they're all over the place. These two seem designed by engineers just trying to get the thing to work:Left to right: Tesla Optimus, … | Continue reading
The goal of this project, by Madrid-based artist/designer Lucas Muñoz Muñoz, would make a fantastic ID school assignment: Build a lamp with the least amount of materials possible.Muñoz calls his creations B.A.R.E. Lamps (Brick, Appliances, Rods and Electricity)."These lamps have … | Continue reading
This Balloon Glass Office, by architect Hiroshi Nakamura, was designed for a co-working space. Because the single room is massive (1,500 sq. m., 16,146 sq. ft.) and Nakamura didn't want to break the sightlines, he partially divided the space with these large, dramatic, semicircul … | Continue reading
Danish architect and industrial designer Christian Flindt designed these beautiful, minimalist bollard lights.They're made of aluminum and sold in two heights.Multiple units can be run through a single power supply.As for mounting options, they can be spiked into dirt or gravel… … | Continue reading
A few years ago we wrote about Ascento, a robotics company that developed this self-balancing two-wheeler:We opined that the technology might be useful for powered wheelchairs. While that application wasn't pursued, the company has evolved their product into the Ascento all-terra … | Continue reading
Design is a profession driven by personal passion, a deeply rewarding practice for those impulsively driven to create, however it still has to satisfy the basic role of any J-O-B, which might be summarized as, as Destiny's Child puts it: "Can you pay my bills? Can you pay my tele … | Continue reading
When developing a new motorcycle, Yamaha Motor's ideal outcome, called Jin-Ki Kanno, is lofty: "To deliver users the seductive exhilaration felt when they truly become one with their machine."To achieve this, they reckon the bike, not just the rider, ought have some autonomy. Thu … | Continue reading
This wall-mounted Revolver desk is by Portugal-based Teixeira Design Studio.It offers a novel way to provide a bit more surface area when needed:Novelty aside, with no handles, I think operating the rotating sections might require a bit of futzing. You'd have to push a section on … | Continue reading
A company called Graphic Packaging International has developed KeelClip, a paperboard-based carrier for six-packs of cans. Meant to replace plastic rings and shrink wrap, it's recyclable, provides a little extra room for graphics, and "offers consumers enhanced hygiene, as the ca … | Continue reading
"It has always confused me that clocks go round in a circle," writes Tom Clark, a design student at London's Kingston School of Art. "Time to me is linear, a one way trip, a thought that is both exciting and terrifying, and our clocks should show that."Thus Clark's design for the … | Continue reading
Sony's radical Access controller for PlayStation is designed for the differently-abled. Users can customize the layout and choose different button styles to better suit their needs.Creating it required the collaboration of many: Industrial designers, UX designers, hardware engine … | Continue reading
Here's Tivoli Audio's SongBook Max, a portable speaker that looks like a Bauhaus boombox. Pleasingly, for those of us sick of membrane switches and touch interfaces, the device offers analog switches, sliders and knobs.It's a pretty hefty device, measuring 15" wide, 11" tall and … | Continue reading
Sony's Project Leonardo, a radical design for a customizable PlayStation controller for the differently-abled, is ready for prime time. Renamed the Access controller, it's in production and will launch on December 6th. Sony's packaging designers have ensured the unboxing process … | Continue reading
Here's what we looked at this week:Repurposed Materials, "America's largest industrial thrift store," provides examples of how customers have creatively repurposed their offerings.Cheap material and decommissioned industrial stuff: We posted a lot of examples of what Repurposed M … | Continue reading
"Everyone knows mason jars are hugely popular," writes industrial design consultancy A2, "but where to go with it?""A2 developed dozens of inexpensive snap-in attachments that transform existing mason jars into useful products." A2's creations become the company Jarware, a subsi … | Continue reading
Montana-based interior decorator Jana Roach came up with this clever Invisible Man costume for Halloween: I mean, you can't even see the eye holes. Someone get this woman a prize! Roach says she sourced everything from a thrift store, setting her back just $30. | Continue reading
I could do these types of puzzles all day. Below are two images by Hungarian illustrator Gergely Dudás, who has changed five elements from one to the other. Anyone with design training ought be able to solve this quickly, (though I'm ashamed to admit that while I spotted the firs … | Continue reading
This designey Enna oil cruet was designed by Martinelli Venezia, the design firm of architects Carolina Martinelli and Vittorio Venezia. This objet d'esign is billed as being "easy to refill"... ...but I'd argue against that; because the object is opaque, how would you know when … | Continue reading
Kyle of RR Buildings, an American construction firm, recently visited trade schools and job sites in Switzerland to learn about European practices. While he recorded a lot of construction-nerd stuff, sometimes it's the little things that are the most interesting. Watch this short … | Continue reading
Inspired by the Japanese town of Kamikatsu's Zero Waste mission, a private-sector business decided to build a pub there. The Rise & Win Brewing Co. opened in 2015, featuring both a microbrewery and barbecue stations serving a public house in the front.For the design, Rise & Win h … | Continue reading
Lachlan Turczan is an American artist who works with light and water. He recently posted this video of a temporary piece he created. Hit play, watch it for a few seconds, and think about it. Can you figure out how he pulled it off? Turczan explains:"An ellipse of light reflects o … | Continue reading
On a number of Japanese auction sites, you can find this vintage lamp by using the right search terms:The design is fun, the lamp is dimmable, and I'd guess it's from the '80s or '90s. It has a surprising provenance:Did the cosmetics brand Shiseido have a line of lighting? Not as … | Continue reading
It's no bulletproof BMW, but luxury rival Lexus has also produced a specialty vehicle that's not for regular consumers: The Lexus LM, a "sophisticated executive transport" vehicle with a minivan form factor.The styling makes me assume this is designed for the Asian market. There' … | Continue reading
A decade ago, Spain-based Iñaki Aliste Lizarralde was an interior designer. But as a hobby, he created startlingly detailed floorplans of homes from popular TV shows, and sold them on Etsy.Now Lizarralde's switched to illustration as a career, and is selling his popular TV show f … | Continue reading
This month Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf and hard of hearing, unveiled their football team's new augmented reality helmet. Deaf players cannot hear plays called by the coach, placing them at a disadvantage; but the new 5G-connected helmet, developed in collaboration … | Continue reading
In 2003, the Japanese municipality of Kamikatsu declared their intention to become a Zero-Waste Town. While true zero-waste is impossible, 20 years later the town has reached an impressive 80% recycling rate. (The national average in Japan is just 20%; in America, single digits.) … | Continue reading
In the previous post we looked at examples of creative re-use, courtesy of Repurposed Materials, "America's largest industrial thrift store." In this post we'll look at some of the crazy stuff they sell, which you can repurpose yourself. If you're looking for materials or kitting … | Continue reading