The car changes length, depending on whether you're driving it or going autonomous | Continue reading
Imagine you're cooking on one of those induction stoves, and as you stir a pot of sauce, the pot begins to slide across the surface. You can easily grab the handle to steady the pot—if you can clearly see the handle; if you don't have arthritis; if you have two | Continue reading
I recently hosted a socially-distanced outdoor barbecue for 12 people. (The Delta protocols were a hassle, but I'll save that story for another entry.) Group gatherings can generate a lot of garbage, which the wife and I were keen to avoid. So while stocking up at a local store, … | Continue reading
This Boaz stool is a collaborative ID student project from Aram Pundak of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel and Rabea Gebler of Germany's University of Applied Design in Schwäbisch Gmünd. "A wooden stool, carved by CNC machine, held together by tension. "We chose to … | Continue reading
To colonize Mars, we will need to build habitats there. And current lumber prices aside, NASA will not be shipping a container of 2x4s and OSB sheets to the red planet. Instead the plan is to ship components that can be assembled into an enormous 3D printer on-site, with local | Continue reading
The Dynello Accu Winder and the Bumble Bee Strap Winder | Continue reading
This is the classic shape of the Western-style chef's knife: In China, what they refer to as a chef's knife looks more like what we Westerners would call a cleaver: Interestingly, Fiskars has redesigned their chef's knife in what at first appears to be a hybrid of the | Continue reading
Dr. Mayilvelnathan Vivekananthan is not a medical doctor—he's a solar research with a PhD in Thermal Energy Storage—but he posted this amusing photo of a would-be motivational public health initiative painted on the steps of a metro station in Chennai: Naysaying commenters have p … | Continue reading
I came across this "Tiny Walk" side table by Ideaco, a design firm that makes those objets d'art you typically see in design museum shops. I was about to dismiss it as something a hipster with too much money buys, but the more I look at it, the more | Continue reading
...including one that resembles a Xenomorph from the "Alien" franchise | Continue reading
It's shameful, but despite having moved three years ago, I'm still not fully unpacked. I don't own much storage furniture, and have left lots of stuff in the cardboard file boxes I moved them in. So I'm interacting with these boxes constantly. They work well enough, but one minor … | Continue reading
Food trucks in America aren't exactly designey vehicles; they're all pretty much variations on old ice cream trucks. Unsurprisingly, Italy—land of both designey vehicles and passionate eaters—won't stand for this form factor. As an example, the Europa line of autonegozi (loosely … | Continue reading
Have a look, see if you can guess what it does: | Continue reading
Hokkaido-based lumber processor Takizawa Veneer manufactures plywood so pretty, it'd be a shame to edge-band it. First off, each layer is "checked and refinished individually, to guarantee there are no pores or other defects," the company writes. On top of that, they've developed … | Continue reading
Milwaukee's got an interesting design for portable lighting with their M18 Packout Light/Charger. To make it play nice with their Packout system of stacking toolboxes, they've opted for a boxy form factor that clicks in to the top half of any of the other Packout components. | Continue reading
Parting Stone's unique process makes death easier to handle, literally if not figuratively | Continue reading
On the borderline between hilarious and ingenious: This Pencil Cap, sold by Japanese stationery brand Tsukushi and manufactured in a spring factory in Tokyo, not only protects the sharpened tip, but allows you to carry it around like a pen. The ¥1,650 (USD $15) cap | Continue reading
Parting Stone's unique process makes death easier to handle, literally if not figuratively | Continue reading
Here's an interesting product design that addresses one of those minor UX hassles we all know, but rarely consider. This Self Standing Spreader Knife Air, by Swedish industrial designer Harald Hynell, rests on its handle to keep whatever you're spreading up in the air, rather tha … | Continue reading
Thingiverse denizens have been 3D printing these tiny, nifty storage containers, threaded to match bottlecaps on common products. They come in three variants: Normal, knurled and slitted. The .stl files were created by Japan-based Thingiverse user Tokyo Bird | Continue reading
Before this man designs his furniture, he designs his tools | Continue reading
Sepura Home is an innovative product that allows for sustainable removal of food scraps | Continue reading
Baie de Beauport is the beach that Quebec City's residents flock to during the summer. But some residents, Baie de Beauport operations manager Christophe Roy observed, could only go so far. Seeing "people with reduced mobility who would come to Baie de Beauport…hit a wall as soon … | Continue reading
We've all seen our share of gimmicky transforming tools, but this one looks like it has true utility: Not shown in the video above: It's also got a built-in paint can opener. It's branded as a ToughBuilt product, but curiously it does not appear on | Continue reading
British artist Justin Bateman has been active since 2001, but it was the 2019 pieces he created below ("Stona Lisa," "Pebble Picasso") that went viral: In early 2020, Bateman took what was supposed to be a one-week vacation to Thailand. The global lockdown struck, and | Continue reading
Ikea's previously announced Förnuftig air purifier was a standalone unit. Now they've announced they're releasing a new model, the Starkvind, that comes in side table form. It's such a smart idea. The Honeywell air purifier I've got has a considerable footprint and no other funct … | Continue reading
Global design experts choose this year's best apps to strengthen finances | Continue reading
Ikea's previously announced Förnuftig air purifier was a standalone unit. Now they've announced they're releasing a new model, the Starkvind, that comes in side table form. It's such a smart idea. The Honeywell air purifier I've got has a considerable footprint and no other funct … | Continue reading
At the local home centers, small tarps are cheap, but large tarps (30 feet or above in either dimension) get pretty pricey, up into the hundreds. If you need something large but don't want to pay a lot, there are at least two companies selling repurposed heavy-duty tarps at affor … | Continue reading
This is a long way to go to achieve a unique decorating effect, but I still enjoy watching experiments like this. Woodworker Michael Alm was willing to put in oh, 10x the labor of creating ordinary hardwood edge banding by cutting up, rearranging, relaminating and veneering plywo … | Continue reading
The original version of the Adirondack chair looked pretty different from the one we know today. Originally it was called the Westport Chair after Westport, New York, the town where it was designed. A typical modern-day Adirondack chair. (Image: Greg Hume, CC BY-SA 3.0) A Westpor … | Continue reading
Just learned about this: Traditional hatters used a pair of tools called a conformer and a formillion to ensure hats perfectly fit their clients. The conformer captures the client's head measurements in a math-free way, marking a paper template. That template is then used to posi … | Continue reading
In the Montessori system of education, it's believed that children experience these three things below the age of four: An interest in small objects, sensory refinement, and order. Greek toy designer Matolaki thus designed this mechanical wooden toy to slot into the curriculum: " … | Continue reading
Just learned about this: Traditional hatters used a pair of tools called a conformer and a formillion to ensure hats perfectly fit their clients. The conformer captures the client's head measurements in a math-free way, marking a paper template. That template is then used to posi … | Continue reading
Milan-based product designer Paolo Stefano Gentile came up with a poetic way to package French fries: In the very waste they create. Peel Saver - ecological fries packaging" Fries companies produce a lot of potato peels waste. The idea of this project is to use this waste materia … | Continue reading
The 3D CMPT will be made in a limited run | Continue reading
The Best of Show wins a trip to Italy for two and VIP tours of the sponsor facilities | Continue reading
The OB-4 Magic Radio from Teenage Engineering is essentially a powerful Bluetooth speaker with several bonus features. It can be used via Bluetooth or line-in, can receive radio stations, and can also be switched to a "disk" mode with three "channels:" "Ambient" creates a soundsc … | Continue reading
Here's a fascinating twist on kinetic furniture, from artists Nicholas Gardner and Saša Štucin, who collectively go by the moniker Soft Baroque: They call it the Dancing Furniture Chair, and have also created the Dancing Furniture Armchair, below. Frustratingly, at press time the … | Continue reading
Best of all, you don't need to drill into or modify the van | Continue reading
British-Columbia-based fabricator West Coast Firepits may have been the first company to create a Death Star fire pit; while today you can get them from a multitude of fabricators—and on Amazon, Etsy and Wayfair--it was WCF's that went viral in 2017. The attention was enough to l … | Continue reading
Reza Baluchi, a 49 -year-old Florida man, built a human-sized, floating hamster wheel out of aluminum and plastic balls for buoyancy. He then attempted to use it to walk—on the ocean, of course—from St. Augustine, Florida to New York City. Impressively, he made it some 25 miles b … | Continue reading
We're at an exciting point in history, where a multitude of companies are trying to figure out flying cars, and practically no two design approaches seem alike. A startup called Lilium's approach is to use conventional jet engines, since their reliability and maintenance needs ar … | Continue reading
You might remember these sewing baskets we looked at a while ago: Tatsuya Sakurai, a Product Design student at Japan's Tama Art University, has designed a piece of storage furniture that reminds me of those baskets a bit. I do, however, prefer Sakurai's work: Writes | Continue reading
Regulations say they must be less than five feet wide | Continue reading