When I was a kid, my cousins lived in an old colonial house in Connecticut. On a visit, one of them told me the ceilings of the house were made out of canvas. I didn't believe him. He grabbed a broomstick and pushed the tip against the ceiling. It moved | Continue reading
With your help we are building gift guides for every type of designer. | Continue reading
Years ago I had a roommate who was a carpenter, and I copied a habit from him: Anytime he came into a little extra money, he'd use it to buy a specialty tool that he didn't immediately have a need for, but anticipated he might someday. If you chose carefully, | Continue reading
Toyota has filed a patent for an "autonomous fueling drone," a wheeled vehicle loaded up with spare gasoline or a battery charger. The idea is that you're on the road, far from a gas/charging station, and need a re-up. You contact a dispatcher, who communicates current prices to … | Continue reading
Some of you reading this have completed your Foundation Year, and were supposed to be in your first semester of Industrial Design right now. Instead the pandemic has you stuck at home. If this is you, and you were looking forward to studying Footwear Design, we've got the video f … | Continue reading
Once, I envied BMW's designers. Nowadays I don't envy their marketers, who must craft a campaign around the widely-reviled design of their new iX. And thus far their approach is basically It's not us, it's you. If you don't like the design, you've got some kind of problem. This i … | Continue reading
We're partnering with MistyWest to host a panel alongside leaders from Microsoft and Google | Continue reading
Like many DIY'ers, Thingiverse denizen Caleb Schulze is a fan of the Kreg Pocket Hole Jig. However, he wanted one that accommodates a different size of screw; since Kreg doesn't offer the jigs in multiple bores, Schulze 3D-printed his own, then knocked in the bushings himself: | Continue reading
In the past, technologies were invented to solve specific problems. But nowadays, we see product development teams trying to contrive uses for whatever existing technology they have access to. And that leads to product designs like this DrawBo. The technology in question is the v … | Continue reading
Footwear brand Kizik's shoes are "hands-free." Designed with a flat spring embedded in the heel counter, the shoes pop on and off without you needing to bend over and fuss with them. They come in a range of styles for both men and women. More importantly, their product video | Continue reading
Back in June, for our post on "The Ford F-150's New Design Tricks," all we had was a grainy GIF of the fold-flat seats. Now they've released a more detailed overview of the seats, which look amazing: In action: Cynically speaking, I am tired of marketers | Continue reading
If there's one thing marketers know, it's that customers love being told a product can be perfectly configured for you. Which would handily explain the wild success of the BeYou Chair, a kooky-looking assemblages of chair-like parts that furl and unfurl into all sorts of position … | Continue reading
Wrensilva is a California-based company that aims to create old-school hi-fi record-playing consoles featuring fresh, modern design. I have mixed feelings about their aesthetic. The M1 is their flagship console, ringing in at 10 grand; they've also got a proportionally-scaled-dow … | Continue reading
GoSun produces portable solar-powered ovens, coolers, chargers, lighting and water purification systems. This month they released their largest product yet: The GoSun Dream, an entirely solar-powered tiny house on wheels. "The Dream is designed for locations with solar exposure a … | Continue reading
Here's a great example of reinventing an everyday object: Sweden-based Frii Designs' Conda strap. It's flexible and rope-like, but when you flip a switch that's attached to it, a segmented section of it turns rigid. This means that in its intended camera strap application, it can … | Continue reading
While the designers of BMW's recently unveiled iX were all over the place, this month they also unveiled a concept vehicle with a more cogent design aesthetic: Their Motorrad Definition CE 04, an electric scooter. Where the iX was all confusing surfaces and chaotic transitions, t … | Continue reading
For tall people who live in small apartments with high ceilings | Continue reading
Japanese artist Kenichi Kanazawa doesn't need to touch his materials | Continue reading
When it's time to sober up, reach for a ClearMate | Continue reading
When it's time to sober up, reach for a ClearMate | Continue reading
This week BMW unveiled their forthcoming iX, which will roll out next year. This first batch of concept renderings below, of the evocative variety, hinted at a bolder direction: As the renderings got more specific, we see an increasingly aggressive-looking vehicle with overly com … | Continue reading
Back in March, it was reported that Sharp was converting one of their TV factories to produce face shields. Now it appears they've used their LCD screen know-how to develop a manufacturing trick for face shields: Producing transparent plastic sheets that are "finely rough," which … | Continue reading
Or, objects you've never thought about: Crowd control stanchion storage carts | Continue reading
This was posted in the Specialized Tools subReddit, as a means of celebrating this brick-grabbing tool. But never mind the tool--what I want is this man's job: (Video source) Aside from the chronic back pain a gig like this would bring, it looks like immensely satisfying work. Te … | Continue reading
Here are some examples of ergonomic "doorknobs" produced by Linear Locksets: They don't look like ergonomic doorknobs--because they're not knobs at all. Rather than rotate, they latch and unlatch doors via push/pull motions: And yes, they're lockable: "When I was renovating my mo … | Continue reading
From the Continent, there is an antique style of dresser called a semainier. "Semaine" is French for "week," and the semainier contained seven drawers, each holding garments for a day of the week. Examples of semainiers Canada-based furniture designer/builder Heidi Earnshaw has p … | Continue reading
The White House is basically a mega-mansion, with six floors providing 55,000 square feet. Yet only the President and his family live there; why? The Executive Residence on the second floor, shown below, is essentially a massive 9,000-square-foot apartment; they can't carve out a … | Continue reading
How do you get your groceries home? In the city I loaded up a backpack at the supermarket, biked home, hiked up the steps to my apartment, and dropped the backpack on the counter for unloading. Here in the country, we load up disposable plastic bags (thanks, pandemic) at the | Continue reading
Here's a list of what products they get turned into | Continue reading
Meyers Manx, the iconic dune buggy company started by Bruce Meyers in the 1960s, has been sold. Meyers, now 94, and his wife have handed the reins over to Trousdale Ventures, a VC firm run by Phillip Sarofim. "We are putting together an international dream team of passionate and … | Continue reading
"Splats" would be cheating for ID sophomores. Is it better for kids? | Continue reading
Even before the pandemic was in full swing, Fiat Chrysler had decided to merge with Peugeot parent PSA. The deal will bring the Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroen, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram and Vauxhall brands all under the same umbrella. The … | Continue reading
It's such a PITA that they've launched a public awareness campaign | Continue reading
Like many of us, Michigan-based entrepreneur Terence Jackson, Jr. observed that Amazon, GrubHub and other delivery-based services were changing the way we live--and for the deliverers, how they make money. But unlike many of us, he came up with a unique way to participate in this … | Continue reading
Here's a fantastically quaint object that, if I didn't tell you what it did, you'd never guess. In the 1960s and '70s, when everyone was speaking on landline phones with the dumbbell form factor for the receivers, Japan's Sankyo made these "telephone rests:" You placed the receiv … | Continue reading
Even before the pandemic was in full swing, Fiat Chrysler had decided to merge with Peugeot parent PSA. The deal will bring the Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroen, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram and Vauxhall brands all under the same umbrella. The … | Continue reading
After moving out to the countryside, I was shocked to learn that not everyone wears their seatbelts out here. Despite it being a law for years, there's even ongoing political wrangling over what the fine should be. Anti-seatbelters say they should have the right to decide whether … | Continue reading
In younger years I carried a Zippo everywhere, and considered it a perfect object--until I got a job at a restaurant, where I had to light dozens of votive candles at the start of each shift. The ability to light downwards would've saved a lot of time, spilled wax and | Continue reading
While most human beings know how to wash their hands, the managers of industrial-scale food processing facilities can't afford for a harried worker to rush the job, miss some germs and contaminate a batch. This has given rise to a rather bizarre machine: The automatic handwashing … | Continue reading
The deadline to apply has just been extended to December 31st, 2020 | Continue reading
Here's a fantastically quaint object that, if I didn't tell you what it did, you'd never guess. In the 1960s and '70s, when everyone was speaking on landline phones with the dumbbell form factor for the receivers, Japan's Sankyo made these "telephone rests:" You placed the receiv … | Continue reading
Amidst the chaos of last week's election, Elon Musk began selling Tesla-branded Tequila online. Check out the bottle design: Unlike Musk's hocking of flamethrowers, which were simply rebadged roofing torches, the Tesla Tequila is legit: It's "an exclusive, small-batch premium 100 … | Continue reading
These days every major auto manufacturer is at least considering the autonomous driving future, but settling on what the interiors will actually look like and do is an unanswered matter. In concept videos we've seen, for instance, unused steering wheels can still be summoned at a … | Continue reading
While double-paned windows are usually filled with argon gas, researchers at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University have experimented with a different material: Water infused with hydrogel. When sunlight hits the liquid-filled window, the water begins to absorb the heat, bl … | Continue reading
German bicycle manufacturer Alutech has released an obscenely expensive e-bike called the CNC E-FANES 29/275. The frame is unusual, to say the least: Rather than being composed of welded tubes, it's CNC-milled from solid billets of 6061 aluminum. The left and right halves are mil … | Continue reading
What's the longest thing you've ever seen on the back of a truck? My guess is pipes. Water, sewage and gas lines require miles of the stuff, and it's carried to jobsites by the truckload. A large job can require hundreds of trucks, all billowing fumes, just to haul the | Continue reading
Here's a nifty way to hold a mold together: In this video industrial designer Eric Strebel shows you how he 3D-printed a mold with threading on both parts, so the whole thing screws together (and unscrews at the end, with a little persuasion): | Continue reading