Each year TEAGUE teams up with Western Washington University to help students build their knowledge of design discourse and professional practice in the discipline through a hands-on collaborative project intended to challenge current thinking and suggest new ways of looking at the world.

The 2012 design brief—Access Over Ownership—inspired two concepts: Vote+ and Local Kitchen. The team at TEAGUE was kind enough to share the results of this year's workshop with Core77. Here's a brief overview of the two projects:

LOCAL KITCHEN

Local kitchen is a public space that helps users learn to cook healthy, cost effective meals while providing a social outlet that strengthens community.

Eating used to be social and a key to reinforcing community but in recent years food and the issues that surround it have increasingly become ones of access: access to quality produce, to knowledge of how to prepare it and the financial means to purchase it. The result? Increasingly large portions of the population don't enjoy the benefits of good eating. When health and wellness concerns are added to the mix, the social benefits of providing equal access to good food becomes enormous.

Local Kitchen seeks to address the issue by reducing many of the barriers to healthy eating—specifically cost, access and knowledge. Installed at national and regional grocery stores, Local Kitchen provides enrollees the space, equipment, instruction and produce they need to learn and prepare healthy meals. The program incorporates several common features of fidelity programs with social media tools encouraging participants to discover recipes and techniques while allowing them the opportunity to meet new people.

Using the smartphone app, menu options are presented by cost and by featured produce; a promotion on salmon for example, is paired with a number of relevant recipes. Once a dish is selected users can drive the per plate price down by joining other groups or by adding friends from their Facebook account. Once an acceptable price is arranged, users can book Local Kitchen time and send invitations easily from within the Local Kitchen app or website. On the day of their reservation, users meet up in-store and divvy up shopping responsibilities taking advantage of promotions and special pricing available to program participants. Condiments and basic cooking items such as salt & pepper, butter and spices are provided free of change making the savings even more appealing.

With their ingredients collected, users check out at dedicated Local Kitchen check-in stations located at the entrance of the space.

Fully stocked stations equipped with pots and pans as well as cutting knives and other basic equipment are provided at no additional charge. Each station comes with a dedicated display that provides step-by-step instructions for promoted recipes. A central station is manned with staff prepared to demonstrate basic cooking techniques or more personalized instruction for a small premium. Similarly, specialty equipment and advanced services such as wine pairings or dessert recommendations can be provided at additional cost.

Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2012! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Straight out of Stanford's research labs, the Lytro Light Field Camera is the first consumer Light Field Imaging camera. It's an Icon for a new era, celebrating the most significant technology shift in photography in decades. Lytro captures dynamic vectors of light to create 'Living Images'; images that contain the color, intensity and direction of all light-rays in a scene. The results are photos that can be focused infinitely after they are taken. Derived from the gesture of viewing a kaleidoscope, the 'extruded-lens' form is supremely clean—shrinking what took an advanced imaging-lab into the palm of your hand. As Gad Amit explains in the Q+A of his winning entry:

Our team set out to match the innovative technology with an equally innovative approach to design by not taking anything for granted. Current camera devices are steeped in antiquated gestalt, born of reflex cameras with the need to house mirrors and film. Despite evolving to digital, the industry kept the slab with the pointy lens —we recognized Lytro as a chance to evolve this entrenched paradigm. We set the goal at creating the most iconic and pure design for this groundbreaking technology within the given timeframe, budget and hardware constraints. This notion was applied ground up and driven by the long cylindrical lens that was essential for the device's performance. We were approached to re-skin a component bundle, our answer was to tear it down and re-build it into an Iconic object that re-defines the camera as the world knows it.

How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

A Monday morning email as I arrived to the office and settled in. Great way to start the week.

What's the latest news or development with your project?

Lytro is doing wonderfully in the market. The camera and technology has received coverage and praise throughout the media and been raved about by users. Lytro rolled out support to Windows machines in the last week and is continually updating the software to make the camera more and more advanced. They have more exciting things in the works, stayed tuned..

What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?

Our "a-ha" moment came with a simple fingernail sketch showing board and lens layout. This encompassed the technology for us; used space in the most efficient way and created a simple, iconic and usable object. From this sketch we were able to develop an entire Product Architecture for Lytro, for product to interface—is it cliché to say it helped everything fall into place?

When we think of tweaking the properties of various materials, we normally envision scientists tinkering with beakers in a lab. But cotton maven Sally Fox does her tweaking in the field, literally, and has been since the 1980s.

The creative Fox's lengthy and interesting story is here, and I recommend you read it if you have the time. But for the purposes of this blog entry, the bottom line is Fox is a master cotton breeder. In 1989 she first achieved the breakthrough of creating colored cotton, through wholly natural means, that could be machine-spun into thread.

Fox had been tinkering with natural brown cotton, which was then considered useless for commercial applications as its fibers were too short to be spun. "After only three years of plant breeding," she writes, "I was stunned to find that the brown color was actually hiding green, red, and pink. These unexpected cotton lints were given to handspinner study groups who helped me discover other unique qualities. My plant breeding program took on the task of not only improving the fiber quality, but also increasing the color spectrum."

Today Fox is producing Foxfibre Cotton Yarn in a multitude of colors—including a brown that, interestingly, exhibits natural fire-resistance—that have unusual properties for cotton: The colors get more vibrant after the first 20 washings, rather than fading. Even better, Fox is dedicated to sustainable agriculture, so all of the cotton she produces across her entire operation is certified organic. "My goal to develop organic methods that are suitable for large-scale production of Foxfibre cotton has been achieved," she writes.

This is the most fascinating and unique production method I've seen in a while. Japanese woodware company Bunaco makes tableware, lamps and furniture from thin strips of birch veneer. What's amazing is how they wrangle that veneer into shape. First they wrap the strip tightly, creating a large disc, kind of like how double-stick tape is sold. What happens next is best explained visually:

There are downsides to using this method for tableware; bowls and dishes can't come into contact with hot water or detergent, and cannot be microwaved or placed in a dishwasher. But for lamps and furniture, it's a great way to get a lot out of relatively little material.

Adam Lynch is living the ID student's dream: He's started making money off of his designs while still in school.

Lynch, who studies furniture design at Australia's Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, created a line of flatpack furniture called Scissor that includes stools, tables, and a wine rack. Made from strand-woven bamboo (bamboo waste that has been compressed into super-hard, dense sheets), the Scissor line caught the eye of Australian company Kaisercraft. They offered to buy the design rights from Lynch, who gave it a hard think.

"I had to look at it from two different heads," he told local paper Geelong Advertiser. "They gave me money up front and royalty payments. I would have to sell a lot of units to match that up-front payment and I wasn't really in the position to make them at will."

Dumb luck? Apparently not: Though still shy of his degree, Lynch has produced another design, this time of a stackable aluminum stool, that two companies are currently vying for the rights to.

Ok, so the elegant branches of Etienne Meneau's "Strange Carafes" more closely resemble arteries than their heartward counterparts... but I couldn't pass up the felicitous anagram+alliteration of the two terms. Either way, they're an artistic take on a traditional piece of glassware, the wine vessel reimagined as a sculptural object. The glass tubes branch into upwards of sixteen rounded 'feet,' which resemble test tubes; the numbered variations (literally "Carafe No. 2," Carafe No. 5," etc.) are differentiated by the number of and diameter of the phalanges, the branching pattern, and straight or curved segments.

In addition to the 'terminal' editions, Menau has also produced a couple cœurs, where the arteries are interconnected to form an abstract heart-shaped knot, a more explicit nod to the (putative) cardiovascular benefits of wine.

Principal Visual Designer
GE Healthcare
San Ramon, California

GE Healthcare is seeking a Principal Visual Designer with many years of developing unsurpassed user experiences for leading software brands to help define an visual design signature for GE Healthcare. He or she will be looked to as a thought-leader in design throughout the organization. The designer will display the ability to create unrivaled design solutions, and you will be able to communicate those ideas in a way that is appropriate for various stakeholders.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

Always interesting: Industrial design before anyone knew what industrial design was. One such example is this item by a Virginia-based inventor named Stuart Ellis, circa early 1900s. It's a case of government policy changes unwittingly sparking creative design.

In early-20th-Century America, even if you weren't a farmer, it was normal for you to have some food-producing animals around. A backyard chicken coop meant you'd have fresh eggs for breakfast. But animals get dirty, and in an era before Purell, people weren't as concerned with cleanliness. By the 1910s, local governments like the one in Fredericksburg, Virginia, passed a law that banned the keeping of livestock within the town's borders, for the sake of public health.

In a pre-supermarket, pre-automobile, pre-refrigeration era, this meant that if you lived in Fredericksburg—or any other of the municipalities that passed similar laws—you had to find something else to eat for breakfast.

This local government policy, combined with a more far-reaching national one—the expansion of a dedicated postal system that would ferry packages anywhere—meant that inventor Stuart Ellis was in the right place at the right time, with the right idea. Ellis knew people liked eating eggs, and that their source was taken away. He knew there were tons of farmers out in the countryside that had plenty of egg-producing capacity. And then he heard that the postal service was inaugurating a system of "parcel post," where they could now load boxes, not just letters, onto trains and primitive trucks and get them anywhere.

Ellis created a row of six cylinders, comprised of stiff paper and bound together at the top and bottom edges by a metal lattice.

Then he created a series of metal boxes whose width fit these six-unit matrices perfectly, and whose height and depth varied to fit between two to twelve of these cylinder-units.

Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2012! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

• SoundAffects NYC
• Designer: Tellart: Matt Cottam and Nick Scappaticci
• Location: NYC, USA
• Category: Interiors & Exhibitions
• Award: Professional Winner

In an effort to show the city in a different light, the design group Tellart achieved it through sound. SoundAffects NYC transformed the mundane and routine sounds we hear everday into a harmonious and beautiful collection of sounds. In addition the sounds were composed with the aid of various sensors measuring light, temperature, and movement. All of this came together to produce a truly unique sound that describes the diversity and complexity that is New York City. As our jury explains:

One of the few projects analyzed by the team which was chosen unanimously! The winning professional is SoundAffects NYC for Parsons the New School for Design. The project is an interactive installation in the form of a wall with embedded sensors, cameras and light components, installed on a street in New York City. The wall "listens" to the ambient sound and translates the noise into a unique musical composition.

SoundAffects: Behind the Scenes from Tellart on Vimeo.

How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

We watched the live stream on the design awards site. Was nice to see it happen in real-time.

What's the latest news or development with your project?

SoundAffects was only a two-week event, although we look forward to installing more projects like it in the future. The response was fantastic and we had an amazing time working with Mono and Parsons to create it.

What is one quick anecdote about your project?

The weather on installation day was fantastic and rain was the furthest thing from our minds, but about midway through the 2-week installation, New York city was hit with some intense rains and our wall actually flooded. The cameras and sensors became waterlogged and various components were ruined. We scrambled to find replacements and get it all up and running again, and it ended up being fine- the cool part is, we labeled the incident on the project's timeline so you can actually go back in time and listen to what it sounds like when the rain started, when our sensors went down, and finally, when we were up and running again and the sun came out.

What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?
The evening the red falafel truck spent a couple of minutes hitching up and driving off for the day. It was magical to hear something so pretty and then point to something utterly dull and say "that's why." It was absurd to the point of being sublime. I think it says a lot about how we see the world.

Wallpaper's August 2012 issue, Wallpaper* Handmade, is arguably one of its most exciting editorial efforts of the year. Every year the magazine commissions designers to team up with craftsmen and manufacturers to produce "unique furniture, fittings, foodstuffs, fashion and more." This year brands like Hermes, Kartell, Minotti, Alexander McQueen, Louis Vuitton and Guerlain have paired with designers like David Rockefeller, Madeline Weinrib and Aldo Bakker to create finely crafted, limited edition textiles, dishware, furniture, dog houses and objects that defy description (one might be described as an effervescent lighting element). Here are the best of the very best.

Dog retreat by Jarmund/Vigsnaes Arkitekter, Moderne Materiell and Kebony
Norwegian architects Jarmund/Vigsnaes worked with the timber experts at Kebony and architectural woodworkers Moderne Materiell to combine familiar canine imagery—the dog bone—with traditional Nordic log structures. Easily flat-packed, the house is made from naturally stained Kebony maple with a polycarbonate sheet roof to allow in light. Available from Mungo and Maud.

"Sliding Sue" by Rockwell Group and CA Atelier
We've been waiting a long time for someone to redesign the twirling Lazy Susan of our childhood, the engaging and oftentimes disastrous spinning wheel of dinner table condiments that our adolescent hands loved to "accidentally" send flying. But even though the core idea of the Lazy Susan really is a very convenient way to put salt, pepper and Sriracha within the reach of every diner, their unfortunate design has contributed to the kitsch factor that has relegated them to thrift store shelves, rendering many a Susan even lazier. So when we saw Rockwell Group's updated version, the linear "Sliding Sue," which runs along the length of the table, our nostalgic hearts leapt. The only downside? The table is very much included, meaning you have to buy the entire unit.

Piscina Municipal de Montjuïc, Barcelona. ©2012 The Olympic City Project

Our friend Gary Hustwit has been as busy as ever since the release of last year's Urbanized, traveling the world with photographer Jon Pack in what might be construed as an ultracontemporary archaelogical quest: "After the events are over, the medals have been handed out and the torch is extinguished, what's next? What happens to a city after the Olympics are gone?"

Some former Olympic sites are retrofitted and used in ways that belie their grand beginnings; turned into prisons, housing, malls, gyms, churches. Others sit unused for decades and become tragic time capsules, examples of misguided planning and broken promises of the benefits that the Games would bring.

The Olympic City is an ongoing collaboration between the two artists, who have "sought out and photographed the successes and failures, the forgotten remnants and ghosts of the Olympic spectacle" since 2008. So far, Hustwit and Pack have traveled to Athens, Barcelona, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Montreal, Lake Placid, Rome, and Sarajevo, "with plans to document Beijing, Moscow, Berlin, London, and other Olympic cities."

The duo will be traveling to the last round of "post-Olympic"—a term that has a curious resonance with "post-apocalyptic"—cities over the next few months, as the project is set to "culminate with the publication of a limited-edition book of photographs in Spring 2013." As per usual, they successfully Kickstarted the home stretch of the journey earlier this summer.

Inasmuch as the 30th Olympiad has brought the spirit of athletic competition to the international consciousness once again, Hustwit and Pack are pleased to present an exhibition of their efforts thus far:

On the occasion of the 2012 London Olympics, Storefront for Art and Architecture presents The Post-Olympic City, an exhibition of works-in-progress from "The Olympic City Project" by photographer Jon Pack and filmmaker Gary Hustwit. The exhibition pairs a selection of photos Pack and Hustwit have taken so far documenting sites of former host cities for the Olympic Games with archival images, research materials, video and Olympic ephemera, exploring the life of the post-event city. As part of the exhibition, Storefront will live broadcast the 2012 Olympic Games in the gallery.

The artists will be present at the opening tonight, from 7–9PM.

Gary Hustwit & Jon Pack
The Post-Olympic City
Storefront for Art and Architecture
97 Kenmare Street (at Cleveland Place)
New York, NY 10012
August 8–18, 2012
Opening Reception: Tuesday, August 7, 2012, 7–9PM
'After-match' Conversation: Tuesday, August 14, 2012, 7–9PM

We know we covered this yesterday, but this slight rejiggering is too good not to post. While we'll never get to see actual video views of the Curiosity Rover's "Seven Minutes of Terror" descent to Mars, the guys over at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory re-cut and re-timed the CG animation of the planned landing and interspersed it with footage of what was actually going on inside the Mission Control room at the time:

Again, our hats are off to the men and women at NASA. Truly freaking amazing.

Core77's Hand-Eye Supply is quite pleased to have Molly Danielsson and Mathew Lippincott of MDML in what promises to be a fascinating Curiosity Club. The talk starts at 6 at the Hand-Eye Supply store in Portland, OR. Come early and check out our space or check in with us online for the live broadcast!

Mathew Lippincott & Molly Danielsson
MDML "Designing in a Cultural Blind Spot: Restrooms, Ergonomics, and the Environment. "
Hand-Eye Supply
23 NW 4th Ave
Portland, OR, 97209
Tuesday, August 7th, 6PM PST

Bathrooms are not designed in vacuums. Often they're designed by people wearing pants. Join us for an exploration of the interrelated cultural and social issues at play in designing the components of restrooms and the treatment of excrement.

More than any other issue, the handling of human excrement defies the logic of impact reductionism. Our excrement is the waste most intimately ours and also the waste we are least able to limit; we can't reduce it and its production is not a choice. It is also a valuable source of nutrients crucial to soil health and structure. Combining inevitability, intimacy, and ecological value, the problem of excrement is situated directly between our artificial boundaries of human and natural environments. Unraveling these interconnections and demonstrating a new positive human ecology is the key to understanding our place in our environment, and deconstructing our systemic problems of waste. Ecological Sanitation is more than simply environmentally conscious sanitation, it is a powerful model for re-imagining ourselves as a keystone species and positive ecological actors.

Mathew Lippincott flies kites and balloons to solve problems. Mathew is Director of Production in Education for Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (PLOTS). PLOTS supports citizen-based, grassroots data gathering and research. He is Co-Founder of the Cloacina Project, a project to create replicable sustainable portable sanitation services for the Pacific Northwest. Partner, MDML Design. B.A. Oberlin College Philosophy 2006.

Molly Danielsson is illustrating the science behind shit. Molly and Mathew co-founded the Cloacina Project two years ago and have created a series of educational publications, workshops and services in order to demonstrate the economic feasibility of sustainable sanitation through a replicable business model. Molly is lending her artistic hand to ReCode Oregon to create an educational campaign for regulators and the public on ecological sanitation with funding from the Bullitt Foundation. Partner, MDML Design. B.A. Oberlin College, Environmental Studies 2007

In addition to friction welding, there's another production method that exploits heat from friction to perform operations in metal: Thermal drilling.

With thermal drilling, a conical bit is rotated at high speed and driven into sheet metal or the walls of metal tubing. The heat generated deforms the material at the point of contact, allowing the bit to push through. But what's especially neat here is that material is not excavated, as with drilling a hole with a conventional twist bit; instead the heated material is actually formed into a bushing within the workpiece itself, providing a convenient mounting point for a fastener. And yes, it can be tapped.

Check out this video demonstraiton, put together by thermal drilling company Formdrill USA:

Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2012! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

• MTN Approach backcountry accent ski
• Designer: Cory Smith, John Kaiser, Bob Carrasca, and Tyler Swain, Pillar Product Design LLC
• Location: Seattle, WA
• Category: Consumer Products
Award: Professional Notable

The MTN Approach system is the first ever hinged back country ski that allows you to fold and store into the space of a conventional backcountry day pack. The system is lighter, faster than conventional split board systems as well as other climber skis on the market. Our focus was the collapsible binding system design.

What's the latest news or development with your project?
The MTN Approach Ski system had their initial production release in June 2011. The product was first introduced at SIA (Ski Industries of America) in Feb 2011. Since that time frame the MTN approach System has received numerous acknowledgments and awards from SIA, ISPO and multiple industry specific magazine ads. The latest news is the excitement and support of top pro snowboard athletes in the industry who are using this system. It is the greatest honor when pro snowboard athletes are on your product because they see the benefit and a tool that allows them to push their skills as well as access completely new terrain. It is a good feeling when pro athletes want to be on your product not because they are being paid but because they see the ultimate benefits of this innovative system. MTN Approach System has reached out to new countries from Norway to Argentina. It is really amazing how quickly this system is gaining momentum. See more on our blog.

What is one quick anecdote about your project?
When developing the MTN Approach system with owner Cory Smith, we were constantly faced with budgetary and timing constraints. The typical issue of having very little money to get this product off the ground combined with even less time to bring it to market. I realized that Cory was in for the long haul and dedicated to making this idea a reality when he sold his 4WD Toyota truck that he used to commute to his day job at Smith Optics to pay for design and development work that Pillar Product Design had embarked on. So I don't know if Cory ended up taking the bus to work every day for a period of time, but it really showed all of us how important this ideas was to him and that we needed to do whatever it took to make sure we developed the best system we could no matter how long the hours and commitment level.

What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?
Many patents came out of the development of this product. The one a-ha moment that the Pillar Product Design team specifically came across was when we were working on the binding system and we developed a fold-down heel loop design. Many of the challenges with this product included: weight, strength and making the unit as compact as possible. We really started looking at unique folding mechanism from a multitude of in and out of the industry. As we evolved the heel loop system and explored new mechanisms, we were able to create a simple system that allowed for foldability, low-profile nesting and infinite size adjustability. This new mechanism allowed MTN Approach and Pillar Product Design to receive a joint utility patent.

Mitsubishi Chemical's Junior Designer Award is aimed at the graduating class of design students in Japan, and rewards pure creativity with support and training. One of the more beautiful nominees for the 2012 award is Musashino Art University student Yasutoki Kariya's "Asobi," which re-interprets Newton's Cradle—you know, the thing Wall Street guys had on their desks in the '80s—with a bit of Thomas Edison and a dash of Corning:

Obviously the installation is motion-controlled rather than operating under actual physics, but there's so much you can read into Kariya's creation: The fragility of technology; the transmutation of kinetic energy into light; the advancement of glass as a material from vulnerability to durability; Sir Isaac Newton standing side-by-side with Thomas Edison.

Below is a video of "Asobi" in situ, though it's not quite as mesmerizing as the GIF file above. (Kudos to Redditor Teeohdeedee123 for cobbling the GIF together, BTW.)

We first highlighted the work of French graphic designer Malika Favre about a year ago and we were, ahem, excited to see her illustrations for Penguin's recent edition of the Kama Sutra this past Valentine's Day. She's pleased to announce her first London solo show, "Hide and Seek," at Kemistry Gallery in Shoreditch.

Malika Favre's Hide and Seek tells the story of an intriguing and sophisticated woman travelling from one pattern to the next, hiding from the unsuspecting viewer. The woman sometimes reveals herself to us for a short moment in time, only to run away towards her next mysterious destination.

Fascinated by patterns in everyday life, urban surroundings and architecture, French born Malika Favre has put together Hide and Seek, her first solo show in London. Malika's work is bold and minimalistic, exploring the relationship between positive and negative space.

The viewer fills in the gaps literally and figuratively: "Working within a narrative core, she always likes to play with the viewer's imagination."

The artist notes that "there is such beauty and intrigue in those repetitive concrete balconies, I felt like creating a series of abstract prints based on the architectural patterns that no one really notices." Thus, "the prints on show work together as a series of optical experiments, [which Malika hopes] will make people see the beauty in their everyday surroundings, leaving with a smile and feeling sightly dizzy."

The video (after the jump) is a tantalizing taste of what's to come...

Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2012! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

• CityGrill
• Designers: Kathrine Bundgart, Christian Christensen, Morten Gleie, Thit Hagen / Copenhagen School of Design and Technology
• Category: Food Design
• Award: Student Winner

CityGrill is a rentable grill solution (or a mortgage scheme grill) launched by the city of Copenhagen and placed in public areas. The purpose of the CityGrill project was to improve the grilling experience in public park areas and on beaches.

How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?
While shopping in the local supermarket I got a message from one of the other group members with the happy news. I would have loved being 'a fly on the wall' at that moment. Afterwards I ran home to see the juries video. I had to watch the video a couple of times to understand what was happening.

What's the latest news or development with your project?
CityGrill was created for our second semester project, therefore we've stopped further study for the time being.

What is one quick anecdote about your project?
We managed to incorporated a vending machine in the storage rack for our special designed Quick BBQ grill briquettes before the exams. That makes it easier and quicker for the user to buy fuel for the grill. We also built a bicycle parking on the side of the rack. Furthermore we all took the exam in June and all got highest grades for our accomplishments.

What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?
Bad a-ha: When we found out that the grill would weigh over 10 kilos. Good a-ha: It was a growing a-ha-moment seeing the project develop from an idea to comprehensive and instructive project. As we started groping our way and got more and more confident that the idea could turn in to an interesting product.

Product Communication Specialist
Qatar Airways
Doha, Qatar

Qatar Airways is seeking a Product Communication Specialist to capture inspirational images of Qatar Airways' onboard product and service and incorporate the images into materials used to inform their colleagues and trade partners about the five-star services that they provide.

Key accountabilities include: Research and implement the latest trends in product photography and communications so that communication pieces created reflect the Qatar Airways brand and service in the very best way possible way. Arrange and set up photo-shoots covering each aspect of the Qatar Airways onboard product—seating, catering, service and in-flight entertainment. Experiment with product photography to develop new and exciting ways of showcasing the products and services available onboard Qatar Airways operated flights.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

You've all heard the expression "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." Which clues you in to the facts that a) eggs used to be carried around in baskets, and b) baskets are not a secure way to carry eggs.

Earlier we told you about Stuart Ellis' Fredericksburg Metal Egg Crate Company, and ended the tale by asking why you'd never heard of it, or him, or seen any of its products, despite its success back in 1913. The short answer is that a competing design made better use of materials and apparently had an inventor with better business sense.

Two years before Ellis' Virginia-based company was formed, a Canadian inventor named Joseph Coyle, who lived in British Columbia, observed a dispute being waged between the Aldermere Hotel and the Bulkley Valley Farm. The former regularly ordered eggs from the latter, the eggs frequently arrived broken, and each blamed the other.

Coyle owned a local newspaper, the Interior News, which meant two things: He was well-situated to be aware of local gossip, and he had access to lots of paper pulp.

The inventive Coyle took some paper pulp and formed it into a sort of tray with little indentations the eggs could nestle in. Sadly no images of the resultant egg carton exist, but it proved to be a superior solution to carrying eggs in a basket, and Coyle found himself in charge of a second successful business. At some point he switched from making the cartons by hand to developing some kind of production machinery for them, but details on this are scant.

What we do know is that by 1919 Coyle decided to try and take his business to the next level—and initially failed. He moved his egg carton operation from his home base of Smithers to the bigger town of Vancouver, teaming up with a company called United Paper Products. But the venture was not a success, and Coyle subsequently made a bold move and shipped his production machinery to America, Los Angeles specifically.