German auto supplier ZF Friedrichshafen AG has prototyped EasyTurn, a suspension modification that gives cars an absurdly tight turning radius. "With EasyTurn steering angles of up to 80 degrees are possible," the company writes. "Turning and parking maneuvers are almost effortle … | Continue reading
Industrial designers Alan Harrison and Ben Millett, along with logistics manager Michael Culleton, comprise a Dublin-based product brand called Stayhold. Their eponymous product, which we looked at here, is nuts-and-bolts ID: Just a simple object for preventing cargo from sliding … | Continue reading
This steel SPC Chair, by Bruges-based Atelier Thomas Serruys, is composed of the seat, the backrest and a single bent tube connecting them. The feet are made of hard-wearing Ertalon plastic.It's also available in lacquered red……as well as a wicked galvanized finish, for outdoor u … | Continue reading
Industrial designer Jonas Forsman designed this plug-in timer for Capidi, a Swedish brand that produces electronic products for Ikea. The interface is simple-to-use and clever: "A single button controls the timer function by adding fifteen minutes per click. The full circle of li … | Continue reading
Fascinatingly, Fiskars has launched a line of workwear with military-gear-like on-body storage—ostensibly aimed at gardeners. As someone who does a lot of outdoor work (albeit land-clearing and tree processing, not proper gardening), I can attest to the absurd amount of tools one … | Continue reading
I've seen suitcases with expansion gussets before, but industrial designer Andrea Ponti has gone the other way: His Jollying Pebble suitcase collapses nearly flat.It's worth noting that Ponti is based in Hong Kong, a city not known for having gigantic apartments with lots of stor … | Continue reading
"I visited a local tannery outside Bergen," writes Norwegian industrial designer Lars Beller. "I remember seeing pile after pile of discarded leather, thrown away because it didn't meet the ridiculous standards of perfection demanded by luxury brands. A slight discolouration, ins … | Continue reading
If you interview poorly, a lot can go wrong during a job interview. It's disappointing that interviews are the final hurdle to obtaining a job, when the interviewee may possess the perfect skills needed to execute the work, but simply gets nervous in interview situations where th … | Continue reading
If you've ever installed a ceiling fan or pendant lamp, you're familiar with the frustrating step of trying to stuff the wiring connections into the ceiling cup to close it all up. It's particularly troublesome on a short-stemmed ceiling fan, where you can't slide the cup down fa … | Continue reading
Done as his final project at Art Center, industrial designer Dennis Tsai's Project Isle is an ambitious redesign of bus seating. Specifically, not public transport—which has to contend with vandalism, at least in America—but the sorts of company-provided buses that Google and the … | Continue reading
Well, that didn't take long. Following this week's launch of the Nothing Phone (1), Canadian smartphone accessories company dbrand is selling phone skins and cases that mimic the Phone (1)'s Glyph interface.The cases are called, of course, Something. (Tagline: "It's better than n … | Continue reading
In May 2022, WantedDesign hosted their annual Design Schools Workshop, which was presented with the support of media partner Core77, and hosted at Camp David, Industry City, from May 10 to May 14, 2022. This year's cohort of students explored the theme of "NEW RITUALS: Reconnecti … | Continue reading
A Scandinavian company called Clever Cone has patented a new, proprietary way to laminate veneer cones. Their special technique, the company says, "facilitates an endless range of possibilities."For one thing, a table leg would no longer need to be turned. They can apparently wri … | Continue reading
Saliot is a Japanese brand of small, powerful lighting used by museums and art galleries. Sensing a new market, manufacturer Minebea Mitsumi is attempting to expand into the domestic space, reckoning that folks with fancy homes might want dramatic lighting as an interior design f … | Continue reading
Two cylinders, one bent, each capped by a half-moon. It doesn't get any simpler than this:The Grab watering can, as it's called, is powder-coated steel. The body is of a diameter that's easy to grab, obviating the need for a handle. It's not a high-capacity waterer, but one that … | Continue reading
Flint Lab is a company working on combustion technology intended to replace dirty kerosene and coal-fired heaters used in rural areas and farms. Their goal is to "enable users to use leftover oils from animals or plants as a primary fuel," they write. "Waste cooking oil, animal f … | Continue reading
Uniball, which this month rebranded themselves Uni, makes a self-sharpening mechanical pencil called the Kuru Toga.Here's how the self-sharpening system works. A gear system inside the barrel rotates the lead each time you press down.Here's what that action looks like from the ti … | Continue reading
With our devices, we can digitally summon any song we want. But the resurgence in vinyl record sales demonstrates we still crave tactility, the little physical rituals once required to access or create music. The team at Yamaha Design understands this, and as an exercise, created … | Continue reading
Prosthetic limbs must be removed before showering. This presents an obvious problem, as the wearer is now in a slippery situation with only one leg to stand on. Seattle-based industrial designer Harry Teng decided to tackle this.Teng designed Lytra, "the one and only affordable p … | Continue reading
A UK-based company called Hubs sells these geodesic dome kits.They contain all of the hardware, but not the rods, for which you can use inexpensive materials; they recommend roof battens, hardwood dowels, broom handles or whatever you can get your hands on.The design of the hardw … | Continue reading
France-based industrial designer Tim DeFleur asks if easy chairs should be places to stow things. His experimental Pocket Chair invites you to "put all of your personal stuff in the 'pocket.'"And thanks to the form, it's "easy to clean," he writes. "Say goodbye to lost money, key … | Continue reading
The confluence of several technologies—smartphone cameras, app development and 3D printing—means you can now order a Hasbro action figure with your face on it. The toy giant has teamed up with Formlabs on their Hasbro Selfie Series, whereby customers download the Hasbro Pulse app … | Continue reading
Industrial designer Josep Rubau, who holds a Masters in automotive design and cut his teeth at Volkswagen's Advanced Design Center, subsequently designed the Tramontana supercar.Where do you go after that? Interestingly, Rubau took an 8-year hiatus from design to become the Expor … | Continue reading
This beautifully-sculpted Lampara Tango lamp was designed in collaboration between Professor Alex Lobos, Graduate Director of Industrial Design at RIT, and former ID grad student David Villareal.The pair used generative design to good effect:"It was created in Autodesk Fusion 360 … | Continue reading
AquaDams are gigantic rubber tubes that serve as a water-filled alternative to sandbags. We wrote them up a few years ago, when Texas homeowner Randy Wagner used them to save his house during a flood:Wagner paid $8,300 for the AquaDams, after calculating that flood damage to his … | Continue reading
I'm digging these useful-looking and attractive Nest wall hooks by Norwegian furniture designer Stine Aas.Aas took inspiration from nature for the design, specifically borrowing from winged animals' domestic practices:"Like birds feathering their nests with tiny twigs, humans win … | Continue reading
As bicycle uptake increases, so too do bicycle-car collisions. When a cyclist gets hit by a car head-on, there's a good chance their head will impact the windshield. And "Head injuries alone account for half of [cyclist fatalities]," writes Autoliv, a manufacturer of automotive s … | Continue reading
"Throw it away and it is waste," writes design consultancy Seki Design Lab. "Reuse it and it is raw material." Seki's designers, Hiroshi and Mayumi Seki, took high-performance plastic waste, used for machine parts and tools, from BASF and molded them into cutlery. They then had T … | Continue reading
If you're still using USB flash drives, and would like to pay £50 (USD $59) for a single 16GB stick, here's the designey solution for you. This is the Empty Memory Transparency USB stick: Because your average USB flash drive looks like this on the inside… …you might wonder how th … | Continue reading
The Daylight Company is a London-based specialty lighting manufacturer. They got their start in 1987, designing and manufacturing lighting specifically for sewing and crafts, where users need to get a lot of light into tricky spaces.Their Slimline 3 Table Lamp, with its incredibl … | Continue reading
A German startup called Moruta has designed a tent that incorporates your bike into the support structure. The logic is that it keeps your bike dry, and makes it tricky for a thief to stealthily steal it while you're sleeping.The concept sounds interesting, but seeing the executi … | Continue reading
Nokia's new 5710 XpressAudio phone is aimed at music lovers, and has a couple of interesting design features: It has dedicated playback and volume buttons prominently lining the sides of the front face of the phone……and around back, there's a red panel that slides downward to rev … | Continue reading
London-based tech firm Nothing was only formed a couple of years ago, but quickly put together a top-notch design team. Co-founders Teenage Engineering provide the design vision, and their London Design Hub is headed up by Adam Bates, formerly Dyson's Head of Design.Following the … | Continue reading
On the one hand, it's quite off-putting to see someone wrapping parts of a forest in plastic wrap purely for clicks. On the other hand, I'm rather awed by the material's properties: It should be noted that the person in this video, which went viral, apparently copied the idea and … | Continue reading
As the James Webb telescope has finally captured its eagerly-awaited first images of deep space, this week NASA released an example:That image shows NGC 3324, "a young, star-forming region" in the Carina Nebula. So what the heck is a mountain range doing in the middle of space? A … | Continue reading
Antwerp-based furniture designer Robbe Stevens designed and prototyped these wonderful steel stacking stools: Video in the third frame below: If Stevens shops the se around to some of the big dogs in the furniture space, I'll be shocked if they don't get picked up. | Continue reading
Imagine you work at a maternity ward or a childcare center, and an emergency requires you to evacuate immediately. How many babies can you carry?Dutch company Baby Mover has designed fire-resistant evacuation vests and aprons for just this scenario. These can be pulled on over yo … | Continue reading
Fancy, elaborate drawing tools continue to have their day on Kickstarter. The latest is this $41 twist on the architect's scale, called T3. Here's the "problem" it solves: Standard architect's scales "usually contains 6 scales, which may not be useful enough for professional desi … | Continue reading
Well, this is insane. This week Bang & Olufsen revealed their new Speaker Bag, designed in collaboration with fashion house Balenciaga. The portable speaker, "Crafted to resemble the iconic sculptural form of Balenciaga's handbags," is freaking milled from a single block of alumi … | Continue reading
Like me, one of my neighbors does not rake his leaves. He claims that dead leaves break down into nutrients that the tree needs and will recover through its roots. I don't rake simply because I have too much other outdoor work to do, and lawn aesthetics are not a priority for the … | Continue reading
A programmer in Japan won a Yahoo Japan Problem Solving Engine Award for writing this RealScale browser-based app, which lets you see objects on your screen at actual size. First you enter the model number of whatever monitor or screen you're using (i.e. laptop, external monitor, … | Continue reading
German startup Electric Brands has racked up over 16,000 pre-orders for the XBUS, their forthcoming modular EV. The boxy, 4-meter-long vehicle is essentially a front cab and a platform, and the customer chooses how they want to configure it. Options include a camper van, a box tr … | Continue reading
Dutch company Sparck Technologies used to make conventional packaging equipment. In 2014, they threw a new problem at their engineers: Design an automated packaging system specifically for online retailers, who are continually shipping objects of different shapes and sizes. Minim … | Continue reading
Orcam is an Israeli tech company with an incredible product: The MyEye, a diminutive AI-driven device that magnetically attaches to eyeglasses and can read to the visually impaired. It can also recognize faces and objects, announcing them on request (i.e. "What's in front of me?" … | Continue reading
Germany-based woodturner Olaf Schlieper has earned his living on the lathe for over 40 years. Custom table legs, staircase balusters and peppermills are his company's bread and butter.When creating a new piece for a client, Schlieper turns the first one, then uses his lathe dupli … | Continue reading
Looking at these non-digitally-fabricated objects, could you tell how they were manufactured? Switzerland-based designer and material researcher Fabio Hendry devised a new production method to create them. Both the method and his company have the same name: Hot Wire Extensions."E … | Continue reading
In our cars, seatbelts hold us in place in the event of an impact. Imagine if our footwear had a seatbelt system too, one that could prevent us from rolling our ankle when we place our foot down on uneven terrain. That's essentially when German startup BetterGuards is developing. … | Continue reading
Eyejusters are reading glasses with dials on either side, allowing you to "tune" each lens in real time:"Two hidden dials change the lens power instantly—just like focusing binoculars," the eponymous company writes. The glasses feature "thin, lightweight adjustable-focus lenses m … | Continue reading