The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) has unveiled an electrifying program for the highly anticipated 2023 International Design Conference & IDSA Education Symposium, set to take place in New York City from August 23-25. As the premier event in the field of industria … | Continue reading
I've never found hammocks comfortable, but to many they seem to be the ultimate symbol of leisure. A company called Anymaka has designed a portable hammock, which eliminates the need to find two nearby trees or site a bulky frame. Impressively, the Anymaka frame sets up or breaks … | Continue reading
Industrial designer/mechanical engineer Cameron Smith reckons designers have put "a lot of energy…into making tables adjust size to meet different needs." With his new Crisscross Chair, "The same vigor has now been applied to flexible seating.""Most folding chairs are designed to … | Continue reading
An abandoned quarry is a blight on the landscape. But developers in Shanghai and British architect Martin Jochman saw an opportunity to turn one into an attractive destination.Jochman designed what would later be called the InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland, a luxury hotel and … | Continue reading
"75% of men do not lift the toilet seat before urinating in public bathrooms," says Boston-based startup Cleana, "causing the majority of messes." To prevent people peeing on the seat, the company has developed a special hinge that automatically lifts the seat when it's not occup … | Continue reading
Here's what we looked at this week:The $2.3 billion MSG Sphere, "the world's largest LED screen," was unveiled in Las Vegas. It's great at displaying gigantic basketballs, but otherwise seems simultaneously excessive and limited.As emojis permeate our society, turns out they can … | Continue reading
by Edrick DeeryWe've all seen cars, athletic gear, wristwatches, etc. designed and engineered for "extreme" conditions that the users will never actually endure. Most manufacturers don't mind; the extreme capabilities serve as a selling point designed to appeal to buyer fantasy. … | Continue reading
This freestanding Elena dressing mirror is by veteran industrial designer David Dolcini, who has offices in both Italy and Spain.It has an interesting feature: If you can live with seeing two lines across your legs in your reflection……the trade-off is you've got a small leather-l … | Continue reading
Originally designed for a restaurant/bar in Stockholm, these Goma barstools and chairs are by architect Thomas Sandell.Aiming for "a clean and obvious design language," Sandell managed to bend improbably thick sections of birch plywood into a seemingly impossible radius; because … | Continue reading
Designed by Japanese office goods brand Sogu, this unique bookend relies on a book itself to do the work:I don't know how well it would actually work; presumably you'd have to be choosy about which book you use. In any case, it's called the 9° Book Stopper and it's at least a goo … | Continue reading
Being an apprentice for an unenlightened organization can suck; talk to people in the trades, and they can tell you how much coffee they had to fetch, among other undesirable tasks. But a group of apprentices at Audi's factory in Neckarsulm, Germany got to work on something amazi … | Continue reading
This week Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I opens, and moviegoers will be treated to the insane stunt of Tom Cruise jumping a motorcycle off of a cliff in Norway.I wanted to write about the special one-off Oakleys he's wearing in the scene… …but there isn't much informa … | Continue reading
You may have heard that in the 1960s, GM gave Corvettes to astronauts. That's not entirely true, though there was a connection between the Chevy sportscar and NASA jocks. Here we'll explain.In the late 1950s, as the U.S. started revving up their space program, the earliest astron … | Continue reading
The concept behind this furniture piece is interesting—and should be taken with a grain of salt, as it was designed and built in just three weeks, for a competing-designers television show. The Danish program Danmarks Næste Klassiker ("Denmark's Next [Furniture] Classic") pits fi … | Continue reading
This intriguing, experimental Eclipse chair is by Denmark-based designer Anne Brandhøj."Eclipse is a spatial seating furniture molded from the circle as geometric shape. Poetically, the circles frames the person sitting in it, while forming both a seat and a shading screen in the … | Continue reading
The traditional Japanese hake brush is made by partially splitting a single piece of wood, inserting the bristles into the split, and binding it tight with wire. It's essentially what you'd come up with if you lacked the ability to manufacture ferrules, but had plenty of wire.The … | Continue reading
Nike's new Phantom Luna soccer cleats, which you'll see being worn at the upcoming Women's World Cup, have been designed specifically to reduce injury for female players.Yale Medicine found that female athletes are two to eight times more likely to suffer an ACL tear than their m … | Continue reading
This year's Core77 Design Awards included our very first edition of the Editor's Choice Prize. Our team of editors ultimately chose Liquidplant as the winner, a progressive materials project that directly tackles the issue of microplastics—but there were many excellent projects w … | Continue reading
This Private Public Bench was designed by Dafi Reis-Doron, during her time as an Industrial Design student at the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem."The research question behind this project was how to find privacy in public area, using objects.""Adding a hinge to each beam of … | Continue reading
In business for almost 20 years, a company called HKV Studios specializes in 3D modeling, animation and visualization. The company describes themselves as "a trend-setter in quality, accuracy and detail level of vehicle 3D models;" they then sell these models on 3D marketplace Tu … | Continue reading
Earlier I was critical of this design for a folding table. I argued it doesn't make sense as a bookshelf as it needs to stand in the middle of the room to be useful as a table, and requires the shelves be cleared of contents.However, more recently designer Hongliang Qian realized … | Continue reading
Boosting safety and providing convenience, a heads-up display is one of the handiest things you can have in a car. How can you add a HUD, BMW Motorrad's designers wondered, to a motorcycle? They came up with the only logical solution for a windshield-free vehicle: Get the display … | Continue reading
If you've got a standard desk that you like, and would like to add standing ability without replacing it, here's the QuickStand Lite by Humanscale Design Studio. It's essentially a monitor arm with an extra bit that can bring the keyboard up with it.The QuickStand Lite can be rai … | Continue reading
For those of you who bring lunch on-the-go, and find glass too fragile and plastic too plasticky, this Explorer Leakproof Lunchbox is made of food-grade stainless steel. These are designed and made by Seattle-based sustainable lunchbox company PlanetBox.The "leakproof" bit comes … | Continue reading
First designed in 1999 by Japanese designer Shigetaka Kurita, emojis were supposed to make our lives easier, or perhaps more fun, by providing a communicative shortcut. Twenty-four years later, as texting has supplanted voice calling, our conversations are littered with them. As … | Continue reading
Amid much fanfare, this month media company Sphere Entertainment unveiled their MSG Sphere, "The world's largest LED screen," in Las Vegas. Standing 336' tall and 516' wide, the sphere's exterior is covered in 580,000 square feet of LEDs. ("A creative canvas so bold and bright yo … | Continue reading
Here's what we looked at this week:Subversive art collective MSCHF used nanoscale 3D printing to knock off a Louis Vuitton bag, which they sold for $63K+.The University of Michigan's new Center for Materials Innovation is developing self-healing plastic.This tiny Artemus multi-to … | Continue reading
There's a lot of intelligent design in this seemingly simple, inexpensive camping utensil. The designers of the Switch Spork, by veteran outdoor products company UCO, reasoned that forks and knives are often used together, but not spoons and knives. Thus they've collapsed three u … | Continue reading
Here's an example of a designer simply repurposing two existing objects to find market success in a burgeoning product category. A firm calling themselves Intension Design* took a tripod and a 12" x 16" board, worked out a connector and branded it the Tripod Standing Desk.I don't … | Continue reading
In designing this Lavitta line, Finnish designers Timo Mikkonen and Antti Rouhunkoski wanted to pay homage to Scandinavia's tradition of all-wooden furniture while infusing it with something new. Rather than going with solid wood, the duo opted to work with veneered and molded pl … | Continue reading
This unusual, Memphis-esque Keystone chair is by Oskar Peet and Sophie Mensen, a/k/a design studio OS & OOS."The whole is greater than the sum of its parts? The Keystone project began as an investigation into just that, where loose autonomous objects create balance, which is crea … | Continue reading
If it weren't for the rash of designey power tools we've seen recently…Bosch IXO Black & Decker's Reviva line of cordless tools Hoto 12V drill Hoto 12V driver …this design below might not make much sense. But these days it looks positively saleable. Called Module, it's a concept … | Continue reading
Depending on the product category, ergonomics has gone forwards and backwards over the decades. For instance, the office chairs of today offer better support than the ones of yore:On the other hand, which of these phones looks like it was designed to be easily held? There's now a … | Continue reading
Steve and Joan Prasser are active outdoorspeople with three kids. Getting back into the car after a day of fun means they're often sweaty, sandy, muddy, covered in sunscreen, etc., and they sought a way to protect their car seats.The Prassers noticed what many of you probably hav … | Continue reading
A team of researchers from CalTech, Northeastern University and NASA's JPL have created this Multi-Modal Mobility Morphobot (M4), which can transform to use several different forms of locomotion. It has four wheels, each of which contain rotors, and by changing their axes the M4 … | Continue reading
Here's a rather bizarre organizational object that will appeal to those whose brains are wired a certain way. The designers of the Alpha QuickFind have created a sort of standalone junk drawer, or more specifically five drawers, plus a sixth pull-out compartment meant to serve as … | Continue reading
An interesting trend: Fourth of July fireworks shows being replaced with drone light shows. Reasons cited by cities in California and Colorado range from logistical (fireworks supply chain issues) to environmental (air pollution caused by fireworks, fear of igniting wildfires) to … | Continue reading
Carmagheddon, an Italian collective of automotive hackers, took the trend of lowering cars to its most extreme possibility. They took a Fiat Panda and removed, well, most of it: And yes, there's actually a guy in there driving the thing. If you're curious as to how they did it, t … | Continue reading
The few times I've needed to get keys on or off a keychain split-ring, it's usually right after I've cut my fingernails. That small annoyance aside, I don't do it enough to warrant buying a tool to make it easier, but if you do, here you go. EDC manufacturer Tec Accessories produ … | Continue reading
Plastic is useful stuff, until it breaks. We've all had to throw something out (you can tell yourself it actually got recycled, if it makes you feel better) where most of it was fine but the object lost its utility due to a single crack. Here's an image of a wheelbarrow on our fa … | Continue reading
Subversive art collective MSCHF is at it again. This time they've taken the piss out of luxury brand Louis Vuitton, by using a nanoscale 3D printer to knock off their OnTheGo tote bag, which retails in the $3,000-$4,000 range. The LV bag measures 16.1 x 13.4 x 7.5 inches.MSCHF's … | Continue reading
Foundermade Last month, New York City's Spring Street Studios transformed into a two-floor creative incubator as thousands of innovative brands, designers, retailers, and entrepreneurs made their way downtown for Foundermade's Innovation Show East 2023, the East Coast counterpart … | Continue reading
Here's what we looked at this week:Bistroo, by furniture designer Dirk Wynants, is a modern update to sidewalk café furniture.Plusminus, by industrial designer Stefan Diez, is a lighting system based on power-conducting webbing straps.The Lizzy chair, by industrial designer David … | Continue reading
Product designer Annabella Hevesi prototyped this unusual Crosses chair. Rather than traditionally tufting the upholstery, she's experimenting with the following technique:"The motivation for designing this collection was to try a new mechanical joint solution that allows a new a … | Continue reading
Well, this is cheeky: A B2B metal fabrication company in Japan called Morpha is selling their off-cuts on the consumer market as objets d'esign."These are the leftover lumps after [the usable] parts have been removed," the company writes. "From the metal scraps produced by our me … | Continue reading
The brief on this product is so narrow, it almost seems like a design school project to me. "Assignment: Devise a way to store extra rolls of toilet paper in a bathroom using minimal materials." I suppose it may make sense for Japan, which is where this Sogu Hanging Holder comes … | Continue reading
PHOS is a project by Gabriele Onnis, a Product Design student at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Cagliari, Italy. It's for a rather unusual sort of portable and rechargeable dual light."PHOS is a lighting system for home design, consisting of two bodies that generate and store … | Continue reading
This year's Core77 Design Awards included our very first edition of the Editor's Choice Prize. Our team of editors ultimately chose Liquidplant as the winner, a progressive materials project that directly tackles the issue of microplastics, but there were many excellent projects … | Continue reading