Juheko is an Estonian company that manufactures textile-covered cables, lighting accessories, LED bulbs, sockets, junction boxes and switches. The section of their website for the latter objects caught our eye; their assortment of switches and junction boxes look wonderfully tact … | Continue reading
The Studio designer takes the suggestion that a designer's desktop says a lot about them, fine-tuning their environs in pursuit of a perfect expression of form & function through a small pantheon of design artifacts and implements their work(space) speaks for itself. Habitat: Eit … | Continue reading
Gradated etchings, larger fonts, the color red, a "catch lip" | Continue reading
North-Carolina-based CEF (Custom Educational Furnishings) designs furniture for schools. Classrooms need to be regularly cleaned, of course, and as with restaurants, once everyone's gone a staffer must flip chairs and stools upside down and place them on the tables in order to sw … | Continue reading
The car is so fast it has to be driven by an ex-racing-champion | Continue reading
This week Romain Grosjean was discharged from the hospital, which was a miracle. Because based on what happened to him last weekend, Grosjean should be dead. The 34-year-old Formula One driver suffered a horrendous crash at Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix, rocketing into a metal barr … | Continue reading
Those in the business of creating cars are usually on either the design side or the engineering side. Gavin Hartley, however, is one of those rare individuals with degrees in both. The Loughborough University/RCA grad spent 11 years honing his skills at Land Rover, and has spent … | Continue reading
I might be the only person in this county who hasn't hit a deer yet. You see the roadside carcasses and/or blood-smeared pavement regularly. I keep my eyes glued to the twisty roads down here, and even still have had a few near misses; the deer seem to spring out | Continue reading
In "Alternative Design Approaches for Slicing Cheese," we looked at some unusual (to Americans) cheese-chopping contraptions from overseas. A Danish model made us curious, but we couldn't find any details on it. Thankfully, reader Simon Flummox is familiar with the model, sent a … | Continue reading
What a boon the pandemic has been for plastics manufacturers. The latest outsized example of COVID-inspired demand comes from India's Tata Motors, which is presenting newly-purchased cars and SUVs to their customers in plastic tents that they're calling "Safety Bubbles." Accordin … | Continue reading
Fifteen years after bringing the art form known as "gift guide" to the Internet we are reaching into our back catalog for a classic edition to remix. In 2012 we introduced *The Seven Designer Phenotypes* to the world both online and in a pair of pop-up stores. Now, we're turning … | Continue reading
Having a turntable that can rotate under its own power is great for both spraypainting and 360-degree product shoots. In this video, industrial designer Eric Strebel shows you how he made his own, using a harvested motor from a microwave and basic studio materials: _________ Tip … | Continue reading
Remember Sandy Munro, the manufacturing expert who did those Tesla teardown videos? His company, Munro & Associates, has a very unusual client: Nobe, an electric car startup from Estonia that's trying to get their 3-wheeled Nobe 100 into production. And it's a doll of a design. | Continue reading
The FloaX is intended to mitigate flooding and prevent mosquito breeding | Continue reading
Great news: The FCC has announced they're canceling their boneheaded plan to allow in-flight cell phone calls, ending seven years of speculation. It was in 2013 that they first proposed allowing airline passengers to yap on their mobiles above 10,000 feet. Unsurprisingly, flight … | Continue reading
Sustainable design gifts are getting ever-more popular these days as people become more aware of the harm products can do to the planet. Give a gift to friends and family that delights while also reducing their carbon footprint. | Continue reading
The chic scooter company with a commitment to sustainability is in it for the long haul. | Continue reading
"One of the things we like to say about Academy students is they have grit and determination, which gives them resilience." | Continue reading
A Colorado-based company called ShopBotix has created a desktop injection molding machine. Ten inches deep, and 34.5 inches wide and ten inches tall, the MicroMolder plugs into a regular 120V outlet on a 15-amp circuit, and can crank out parts as either single-shot or in an AutoR … | Continue reading
Recently multiple automakers have updated their logos to the "flat" aesthetic… …but one company resisting the trend is Ford. In fact, their logo has remained remarkably consistent over the years: But as it turns out, they almost got their flat logo redesign…way back in 1966, by n … | Continue reading
A Colorado-based company called ShopBotix has created a desktop injection molding machine. Ten inches deep, and 34.5 inches wide and ten inches tall, the MicroMolder plugs into a regular 120V outlet on a 15-amp circuit, and can crank out parts as either single-shot or in an AutoR … | Continue reading
People who play shopping center Santas are, by definition, in the high-risk category for COVID: Elderly and overweight. Combining them with a parade of children waiting to sit in their laps seems undoable. Yet a survey cited by outdoor goods retailers Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's … | Continue reading
Arrows can fool your brain into perceiving motion when there is none | Continue reading
"Polarization" is a word you hear a lot these days, often in reference to politics, where it has taken root worldwide. But the binary love/hate mentality has also crept into product design, where objects with divisive aesthetics spark everything from online forum debates to "WTF, … | Continue reading
Le StandUp gives you an unparalleled view of what you're gliding over | Continue reading
In America, cheese slicers look like this: In Europe, there are alternative design approaches, starting with the type of slice you'd like to produce. For instance if you'd like to serve your cheese in delicate rosettes, there are cheese curlers like this sold under the brand name … | Continue reading
A 1960s AMC Rambler by way of Argentina's answer to Carroll Shelby | Continue reading
According to the news, millions of Americans have traveled for Thanksgiving, ignoring CDC advice to stay home. Well, if Christmas is a holiday you celebrate and you plan on traveling again on that day, at least do it wearing one of these: | Continue reading
Back when we could go to bars and cafes, it was common to see a pile of customers' phones behind the counter, all being charged as a courtesy. France-based café owner Sébastien Cardi did this for his customers--and one day accidentally spilled coffee on a customer's phone. In sea … | Continue reading
Artisan Dice is a Texas-based outfit composed of craftspeople who make "rare, exotic and over the top" gaming dice "from the finest and most exotic materials available." As extreme examples, bison horn, Jack Daniels whiskey barrel staves, lignite coal and even moose poop are all … | Continue reading
Julian Meagher's Playforever brand comes from "decades of studying car design and automotive styling" | Continue reading
Fifteen years after bringing the art form known as "gift guide" to the Internet we are reaching into our back catalog for a classic edition to remix. In 2012 we introduced *The Seven Designer Phenotypes* to the world both online and in a pair of pop-up stores. Now, we're turning … | Continue reading
New York State's Office of General Services is responsible for eBaying government surplus items: Office furniture, filing cabinets, school buses, et cetera. But today they're posting some rather atypical items, according to the Daily News: "188 pairs of highly sought-after sneake … | Continue reading
Vicodin candy jars, opioid snowglobes, liquid-filled tape dispensers and more | Continue reading
It sounds like an unlikely team-up: Leading car luxury brand Mercedes-Benz, and Israeli household garbage recycler UBQ. But it's happening, in large part because UBQ is no ordinary recycler. As we wrote in an earlier post, the company has cracked the hardest part of household gar … | Continue reading
This is like a nightmare of mine: I'm trying to lose a couple of pounds, then a fast-food chain develops an autonomous, roving kiosk that follows me around, wafting that cooking oil smell in my face and daring me to buy something. That's not quite how KFC's roving meal 'bots | Continue reading
Germany is a design powerhouse today, so it's weird to think that just 30-something years ago, the country was bifurcated, and that the eastern half was living under communist austerity. You can't kill a history of design just by ripping a country in half, so East Germany, a/k/a … | Continue reading
No less than three anti-COVID vaccines are on the horizon, though approval--and more importantly, distribution--will take time. Access will differ by region and country. Until V-Day arrives worldwide, office building managers have a problem: We need to get the economy going, but … | Continue reading
French eco-mobility company Ecox Enterprises is launching the Emergency Bike, a two-wheeled ambulance that allows first responders to slice through city traffic. Designed to deal with Parisian rush hour, the electric-powered cargo bike features an insulated box for carrying medic … | Continue reading
Virtual reality began with a headset to fool the wearer's vision. Next came hand-operated controllers, giving VR users some agency in the virtual world. The next barrier is how to allow VR users to walk around whilst in-world. We were thinking 360-degree treadmills, but a startup … | Continue reading
You know when you see a new product, and you can't tell if it's meant to be a joke or not? An Italian company called Crash Baggage produces suitcases that look like they've had the hell beaten out of them, straight from the factory. "What's the first thing we think | Continue reading
Creality's 3D Print Mill prints to a conveyor belt at an angle | Continue reading
Ever since I was a kid working in restaurants, I've loved wall-mounted soap dispensers. From a UX perspective, I consider them an almost perfect design: You can clearly see when they need to be refilled, refilling them is easy, and the button is easy to press with knuckles or the … | Continue reading
I'm always torn when I encounter objects like this: On the one hand they don't need to exist, but on the other, I see the appeal of the concept. The Portable International City Radio Box allows you to stream live, local radio stations from your choice of 18 cities: | Continue reading
So far we've seen two space colony form factors that arose from a 1975 NASA-backed study. The Bernal Sphere was round, the O'Neill Cylinders cylindrical. This third concept, proposed as part of the same study, is a sort of combination of the two that takes the cylinder and bends … | Continue reading
This might be the cleverest invention I've seen all year | Continue reading
When the Enzo Ferrari Museum in Italy needed a stretch ceiling, they turned to French manufacturer Barrisol. Housing precious Ferraris aside, Barrisol, who bill themselves as the "world leader of the stretch ceiling," has developed a revolutionary application that their competito … | Continue reading
After a kneejerk reaction, I'm thinking this is a great idea, for some | Continue reading