This year marks the 60th anniversary of Hans Wegner's eye-catching CH07 Shell Chair.The CH stands for manufacturer Carl Hansen & Son, and the furnituremaker is releasing a special 60th anniversary version of the chair in Rosewood and Oak. "When originally designing the Shell Chai … | Continue reading
Starting with this sketch……Italian (self-taught!) industrial designer Rodolfo Bonetto designed this "Oyster" T-1228 television set for client Voxson, circa 1973. I love that you can close the thing.Not close-able, but also fun: Bonetto designed this TV Linea 1 for Autovox, circa … | Continue reading
This Push tape dispenser was done by Jasper Ohainski, as an Industrial Design student at Germany's Kunsthochschule (Art University) Kassel. The finished product is made out of one piece of brass, with two depressions debossed into it; once bent into place, you just slide the roll … | Continue reading
Here's something you don't see every day: Chairs with castiron frames. These are by Julia Ribic and Jan Wagemann, both ID students at Germany's Kunsthochschule (Art University) Kassel. "The chair GRAT is the uncompromising fulfilment of the expectations of cast iron material. Spr … | Continue reading
Industrial designer Manuel Golub used 3D-printed legs to turn 5-gallon buckets into rolling stools.Lowe's in-house brand Project Source also seeks to make the ubiquitous buckets more useful, with this $6 piece of plastic:The 5-Gallon Bucket Scoop lets you turn the buckets into du … | Continue reading
As we mentioned earlier, Atari is re-releasing their 2600 game console, nearly in its original 1970s form. But for those who want the classic Atari gaming experience with more modern kit, they've also licensed their brand and I.P. to gaming hardware manufacturer My Arcade. My Arc … | Continue reading
This graphically interesting Lin Chair, by South Korean design firm Studio Shinyoo, appears to rely on thin strips of steel for its structure: I say "appears to" because there's no explanation of the chair's specifics nor materials. Instead, the designers provide this spare descr … | Continue reading
This looks like an ID student's initial mockup of a thing they're going to refine. Shockingly, it's the finished object: A Lie Down Laptop Stand.Actual quote from the product copy: "If you have a wireless mouse, we recommend leaving it on the floor beside you for easy access."I d … | Continue reading
Discommon, a South-Carolina-based industrial design firm, knows that you can't just do client work all the time; sometimes you just need to have fun. Which is why they created this bizarre object, and took the trouble to get it into production:It all started with a Midjourney AI … | Continue reading
As the tech world hurtles towards goggle displays……we're seeing an interesting burst of design experimentation with what is undoubtedly the outgoing form factor: Portable screens. It's as if these screens are a creature that knows it's going extinct, and is desperately trying to … | Continue reading
Check out the interior of this BMW 7 Series. Notice anything unusual? Surely you can see that the A-pillars and door/window frames look exceptionally chunky. They are, and that's because they're meant to withstand this:So this is BMW's recently-unveiled 7 Series Protection. For s … | Continue reading
Yamanaka Kumiki Works is a Japanese manufacturer of puzzle boxes. The company also makes this intriguing cow puzzle, where you have a series of unlikely shapes that can be assembled into a bovine:Could your kid figure that out? I'm not even sure if a practicing industrial designe … | Continue reading
This will only matter if you're a serious sketching/writing nerd.If you're looking for a pen with a ultra-fine point, you can grab a 0.5mm at your local big-box. Dig deeper online, and you'll find pens with 0.3mm or even 0.2mm tips. But they're all rollerballs. That's because the … | Continue reading
Last week we looked at Systainer/Festool's MW 1000, a tool-toting handtruck that turns into a mobile workbench. Reader Tim Golnik pointed out:"Years before the Festool version, a maker/fine woodworker named Timothy Wilmots designed a version that can be made by hobbyists and make … | Continue reading
Here's what we looked at this week:Fantastic edge detailing on this Water Lily Work Desk, by designer/cabinetmaker Jonas Lyndby Jensen.When leather furniture was designed to be re-tightened over time. 19th-century manufacturer Ross and Co. of Dublin made a lot of flatpack fur … | Continue reading
Initially inspired by the pandemic, Street Level Stations is a concept by industrial design consultancy Pensa. The idea is that information about mass transit, and other transportation options, could be shared at above-ground kiosks, allowing people to spend less time underground … | Continue reading
This MW 1000, developed by Systainer Systems and branded Festool in the US, is a tool-carrying handtruck that turns into a workbench. Aimed at tradespeople, it's designed to be lightweight, robust, easy to transport and, of course, to be paired with Systainer's system of accessor … | Continue reading
Honda has just unveiled their Motocompacto, an electric scooter that, incredibly, folds into a rectangle just 3.7" wide, 21.1" tall and 29.2" long. In its briefcase form, it takes up little space and can be fully charged from a regular wall outlet in 3.5 hours.At 41.3 pounds, it' … | Continue reading
A startup called the Smart Tire Company has licensed NASA's airless tire technology, and adapted it for bicycles.NASA's non-pneumatic wheels, intended for interplanetary rovers, look like this:These "shape memory alloy radials" rely on the spring-like strength of alloys, rather t … | Continue reading
The X-Cabin is Japan's answer to the Airstream trailer. Sized for the country's space constraints, it's a single-axis aluminum-clad trailer measuring just 4,850mm long by 2,120mm wide by 2,170mm tall (roughly 16' x 7' x '7), tipping the scales at 730kg to 750kg (1,609 lbs to 1,65 … | Continue reading
Ford's designers have pulled a clever trick with their new Pro Access Tailgate. To make it easier to access the bed while towing something, they've broken the tailgate up with a center section that hinges vertically. You can quickly pull this narrower section open to access the b … | Continue reading
An underappreciated cog of modern society: The army of repairpersons driving around in vans. Stuff breaks all the time, and these men and women get it back into working order.By necessity they haul a lot of gear around, and that gear needs to be organized. To meet their needs, Sy … | Continue reading
Hollywood modelmaker Greg Jein created miniatures for the Star Trek franchise. However, Jein was a fan of sci-fi all around, and the artisan—whose career spanned from 1974 until his death last year—amassed an insanely deep collection of movie props over the years. According to NP … | Continue reading
I think this is crazy: Would you buy a toy, made by an overseas company, that's armed with a camera, connectivity and AI, and set it loose in your house for your child to play with?That's the idea behind the UGOT Robotic Kit, by Hong-Kong-based UBTECH, an AI and robotics company. … | Continue reading
The last time we looked at Germany company Fraunhofer's robots, they'd developed some fun Roomba-like cargo bots that unload cargo by intentionally crashing into platforms.More recently they've developed this form-follows-function evoBOT for carrying cargo. As a refreshing altern … | Continue reading
International research organization Deep is dedicated to furthering our understanding of "the planet's deep water environments." In a nutshell, what NASA is to space, Deep wants to be for the ocean. To that end, they've designed and engineered this Sentinel subsea habitat. It's e … | Continue reading
Is there anything more fun than seeing early, experimental designs for now-commonplace objects? As in, the wild things people tried before the dominant form factor emerged.Rescue & Restore shows us five proto-pencil-sharpeners that they restored, and demonstrates how they operate … | Continue reading
We've seen tons of expanding table designs over the years, but this is the first I've seen for outdoor use.The Extendable Table 1800 expands from 1,800mm to 2,600mm (roughly 5'11" to 8'6"). French manufacturer Tectona says the extra leaves store beneath the default tabletop, and … | Continue reading
We've seen some bizarre product from Chinese e-tailer Temu: A baseball cap with flip-down sunglasses on the back, some wild-looking sneakers.Their latest strange footwear offering is these bizarre-looking Women's Bubble Slippers. They're made from EVA foam, and fleece-lined.The b … | Continue reading
On a recent Sunday afternoon Core77 and video/photographer Ben Friedle visited the Made handmade bicycle show in Portland, Oregon. It's a new exhibition, debuting as the long-running North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS) struggles to restart after a pandemic hiatus. Organi … | Continue reading
When did industrial design start? History books might say 20th century, but that's wrong; that's just when the term "industrial design" was coined. The Industrial Revolution started in the 18th century, and people were designing mass-manufactured objects back then, too.This cleve … | Continue reading
Before there was space-saving furniture for small apartments, and before Ikea had perfected flatpacking, there was campaign furniture. This was furniture used by military officers on campaigns, and so everything had to break down, if not quite flat, then as close as possible.Ross … | Continue reading
This is the LC1 Chair, designed by Le Corbusier in 1928. Here's the Huntsman Chair, designed by Danish furniture designer Børge Mogensen in 1950.And this is the SZ 02 chair, designed by Dutch furniture designer Martin Visser in 1960. What the three have in common is leather. Leat … | Continue reading
This Water Lily Work Desk, by Danish cabinetmaker and furniture designer Jonas Lyndby Jensen, might not look like much from afar:Get up close, though, and you can see the wonderful details of the edges. "This detail has been crafted by using a CNC milling machine," Jensen writes. … | Continue reading
Here's what we looked at this week:BMW has revealed their new design direction, and it's good news: The Vision Neue Klasse gets back to design basics.Turns out the cutouts in this Apogee+ wearable exoskeleton, previously described as being weight-saving, have a secondary applicat … | Continue reading
Detroit-based Sundberg-Ferar is an industrial design, research, engineering, innovation strategy and prototyping firm. They undertook the following thought exercise: How could robots—sorry, "cobots"—make a positive impact on the food industry? Ideating Cobot Uses in the Food Indu … | Continue reading
These odd-looking blue protuberances, installed at the Provenza station in Barcelona, were initially mistaken by passersby as some form of bicycle parking.In fact, they're ergonomic pieces of street furniture: "25º is the name of a lumbo-dorsal support element that allows the bac … | Continue reading
Here's a well-considered project by Damian Byland, an ex-bike-mechanic turned Industrial Design student at Germany's Basel Academy of Art and Design.Byland designed this Kai entryway bench not only to be attractive, but also to be easy to manufacture using a Striebig panel saw, w … | Continue reading
This APC PE6U4 surge protector, by Schneider Electric, re-thinks the form factor of the power strip.Featuring six outlets and four USB-A ports, the U-shaped device can hang on a cubicle wall or slide onto the edge of a desk, held in place by a spring-loaded lever.Alternatively, y … | Continue reading
Whether it's solid wood coming out of a sawmill, or plywood coming out of a veneer press, wood comes to us in flat forms. To shape and join it in the curved shapes that we like for furniture is often labor-intensive.However, this Stool #1, by clever designer Thibault Huguet, remi … | Continue reading
This Low Bench is by Dutch artist/designer Linde Freya Tangelder, founder of design studio Destroyers/Builders.Made from massive oak slabs, the joinery is as simple as it is visually pleasing. I can't quite nail why this piece calls out to me, but it's pulling me towards it like … | Continue reading
This cleanly-designed Snug Bed is by industrial designer Steffen Kehrle, a/k/a ASK (Atelier Steffen Kehrle)."The round bed posts are at the heart of the design. Marked by an elegant visible join, the side panels run flush into the cleverly designed corner connection. This produce … | Continue reading
When mass-manufacturing techniques for cutting threads (and tapping threaded holes) were invented, first for wood and then for metal, the adjustable-height stool became a solved problem.However, those manufacturing techniques were not evenly distributed. This stool below, purport … | Continue reading
Because plastic drinking straws are bad for the environment, the thinking was that paper- and bamboo-based straws were the answer. However, researchers at Belgium's University of Antwerp have some bad news: They've found paper- and plant-based straws were more likely to contain P … | Continue reading
My hat's off to whoever invented this EZ-Nabber, a brilliant design for a cat-capturing tool: The tool is manufactured by Campbell Pet Company and targeted at veterinary staff:"Have you been searching for a way to safely and humanely remove a fractious cat or small animal from a … | Continue reading
This Butler Chair, made of laminated veneers, is by Danish industrial designer Rikke Frost. "The design is based on basic, functional challenges I have observed in public spaces, regarding storage of outerwear, bags and other personal belongings," Frost writes. "When seated in pu … | Continue reading
These wonderfully minimalist movie posters are by Polish graphic designer Michal Krasnopolski. "The idea was to create a very simple, modernist poster series for movie enthusiasts," Krasnopolski writes. "The designs rigorously adhere to the same mold: [no more than] a circle over … | Continue reading
At present, there is no clean design solution for adding a second screen to a laptop. This CrowView monitor is a prime example. While it does come with its own stand, allowing you to use it off to the side……the designers (from Elecrow, a Chinese company I've never heard of) have … | Continue reading