For those of you who aren't familiar with the work of Murray Moss, this 2008 Metropolis interview is a good place to start. But insofar as a lot has changed since then—Moss shuttered his eponymous emporium after an 18-year run this past February—we were interested to check out a recent conversation between the design doyen and SVA's Alice Twemlow, Chair of the Design Criticism MFA program.

The ghettoization of Art and Design that permeates our cultural institutions, commercial galleries and auction houses, eliminates the possibility of a tertium quid (third thing) which might be greater than the sum of its individual parts. Through Moss and now through Moss Bureau, design retailer and gallerist Murray Moss has dedicated his career to blurring distinctions between genres in an attempt to dismantle such departmental thinking. In conversation with Alice Twemlow, Murray will expound on his "apples to oranges" approach to curation through which, by pairing certain disparate works, he asks his audience to search, with fresh eyes, for new conclusions.

Moss was the final guest speaker in D-Crit's Fall 2012 lecture series, which wrapped up on Tuesday, and the media-savvy folks at the SVA have done well to post a video of the entire presentation. While his rollicking monotone certainly makes for pleasant Friday afternoon background listening, here are some highlights from the talk:

- At about the 24-minute mark, speaking of Moss's (the store, not the man) autobiographical raison d'être: "Why does everybody design a chair? People design a chair because a chair elevates us—every chair is a throne. Every chair separates us, brings us off the ground, and elevates us amongst our peers."

- A few minutes later (29:30), Moss shares the "theatrical metaphor": that customers are an audience, as in a movie theater, and explains that part of the store's allure was simply based on denying customers the freedom to touch the products at their leisure.

- In response to a question about the most valuable lesson from the retail space (46:40), Moss responds that "it's reinforced my understanding that the things don't matter"; rather, it's more about the people. "I have incredible access to people, to studios... I can talk to most anybody I want, in the subject that I love—which is a very wide subject—and what the f*ck am I going to do about that asset?"

- At about 53:50, he's prompted to make some discursive remarks on the role of the curator, eventually advising students to "express yourself entirely through that one thing."

- Shortly thereafter, he elaborates on his own curatorial practice (59:10): "I was invited to do a show at the V&A last year... on 3D printing. And I thought, 3D printing. I know nothing about 3D printing, and the technology terrifies me. But [since] I've been going for 50 years to the V&A... I decided [to pick] six or 12 of my favorite things [at the museum]. So I thought, I want to use the technology to illuminate the work at the V&A."

- Another question from an audience member (1:17:40) elicits a particularly passionate response: "I like museums and I hate museums... I hate the fact that the MoMA segregates the design from the other disciplines. I think it's stupid, I think it's irresponsible, and I don't care what anybody says: It's wrong. It's totally, totally shameful... it's a disservice...

"What would be the harm of taking that Rietveld chair and moving it over, 30 meters in front of that Mondrian? What's the big deal? Who's gonna die? Is somebody gonna go, 'I never knew that the Rietveld was a painting'?"

Although I'd come across Seldon Yuan's Bandolier Bag (created under his SSCY moniker) before he submitted it to our call for submissions our All City All Stars exhibition during ICFF this year, I didn't realize that he was more than just a designer: we ended up selecting his other entry, a sculptural work called "Center of the Youniverse," for the exhibition. When we met in person, he mentioned that he was also working on poetry and a novel, supporting himself as a web developer. Since then, he spent the summer working on a public sculpture, which is currently on view at Socrates Sculpture Park, and he's scarcely had a moment to catch his breath as he's been selected for the next year's Bronx Museum of Art Biennial. (Perhaps the Modern Renaissance Man should be another phenotype...)

Besides the ongoing writing and art projects, Seldon has somehow found time to launch his latest bag, the "Tack." Billed as a "backpack disguised as a tote bag," it's a strong contender for a versatile, go-to bag for stylish yet practical urbanites:

SSCY continues on with their mission of filling a gap in our porting and traveling needs with their newest bag known as the Tack. Tired of having to take off a backpack to access it and annoyed with trying to ride a bike with a tote bag, they've combined the features of both to create a perfect hybrid for travel by bike or by foot. With a few simple steps the bag converts from a tote bag to a backpack and back again.

Photography by Junya Hirokawa, Text by Kai Mitsushio.

Checkout our highlights from the Tokyo Designers Week and DESIGNTIDE TOKYO exhibitions here. We're always excited to see what's coming out of Japan and this year's work emphasized natural materials, used a playful integration of emerging technologies and traditional forms that delight in new ways.

» View Gallery

See more coverage:
» Graphic Design Meets Traditional Japanese Craft in Shinna Asano's Furniture
» The Koshirae Light
» Paper-Wood by Drill Design
» Kamidana, the Modernized Miniature Shrine
» Revitalizing the Tohoku Region through Film: The Moveable Movie Theater

Splitting firewood with a hand tool is a solved problem—the axe is one of the oldest tools on Earth—but there's still a mess of people experimenting with different ways to do it. Here we'll take a look at a few of these alternate methods, ranging from crazy to clever.

Mechanical Advantage

Any homesteader worth their salt will scoff at these, but they're worth including just to see the range of what people have come up with.

The Logmatic Wedge Axe has got a real buy-one-get-one-free kind of vibe, and the video quality is horrible, but it's an earnest attempt to design an easy-to-use tool that concentrates a lot of force on a single point with minimal effort.

The Foot Operated Log Splitter seems like it looked great on paper, but turned out to be underwhelming in reality:

Associate/Full Professor - Director of Foundations
American University of Sharjah
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

The College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD) at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) invites applications for full-time continuing and visiting teaching positions in the Department of Design. The faculty is currently seeking an Associate | Full Professor | Director of Foundations to oversee the Foundations Program at the College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD), an autonomous one-year curriculum that supports the common educational requirements for all majors within the College.

The motto of LifeEdited, an experiment in compact living started by Treehugger founder Graham Hill, is an alluring one: "Design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy." The design of the prototype LifeEdited apartment (actually Hill's residence) fulfills the motto neatly, incorporating furniture you'll recognize from our Resource Furniture videos (here and here), an intelligently-designed moving wall, and lots of nice little touches that reveal some serious depth of thought:

Crazy seeing what an absolute craphole the apartment was before Hill's insane reno. I also admire how he's extended his philosophy of editing things down even to the kitchen implements and his clothing.

Designer Dandy

Habitat: Modish Metropolises, Swanky Vacation Destinations

Plumage: Carefully Considered Accessories, Pressed Pocket Square

Attributes: Impeccable Taste & Aesthetic Perfection. Has filed a restraining order against The Sartorialist.

Description: As architectural dandy Mies van der Rohe famously stated, "God is in the details," and no one takes this more seriously than our Designer Dandy. Whether at the studio or out on the town, the Dandy posesses impeccable taste and a high-minded aesthetic. Considered accessories and timeless design go a long way with this hard-to-please customer.

For our eighth annual Ultimate Gift Guide, Core77's crack editors have identified a taxonomy of seven known 'Designer Phenotypes' who might be on your shopping list. From Designer Dandy to Studio Snob, Homebound Hobbit to Workshop Workhorse, we have something for the discerning gift giver and recipient alike.

In addition to our beloved online Gift Guide, we're also pleased to announce that we've partnered with Blu Dot in New York City and our sister store Hand-Eye Supply in Portland, OR, to open bicoastal Holiday Pop-Up Shops for your shopping convenience. Stop by before December 24th to check out the product in person and pick up a poster featuring all seven designer phenotypes, illustrated by Core-toonist Tony Ruth, a.k.a. lunchbreath (while supplies last).

When the disappointment of unfulfilled pledgers set in on Kickstarter, the notion was that something had to be done. I thought the solution would have been to better educate backers on the potential fallibilities of the design process, but I realize that's unrealistic, given how long it takes us ID'ers to learn what we know: Two to four years of school, the internships, the first few floundering projects executed as a freshly-minted designer.

Kickstarter famously went with a rendering ban instead. Time will tell whether that step produces the intended result—projects with a tighter handle on production realities—but that doesn't mean the competition is waiting. Last week saw the launch of Christie Street, a new crowdfunding site that will focus exclusively on objects.

In addition to being a natural platform for industrial designers, the thing that will set Christie Street apart from Kickstarter is their careful vetting process:

Focusing on product concepts that are original and feasible, Christie Street addresses the problems typically involved with crowdfunding products, namely: the way capital is currently generated, the concept vetting process and the lack of support to both inventors and backers from the platforms.

"Our feeling is that the customer that's buying doesn't have the sophistication to make the right decision [about whether a design's production targets are reliable]," founder Jamie Siminoff told Wired. "The only way is create a place where you can trust to buy."

Here we go again: with this September's release of the iPhone 5, third parties have yet another excuse to revisit the iPhone case. We've passed on a lot of the usual suspects, but a pair of independently-developed Kickstarter cases are noteworthy for their ultraminimal approach. Alex Karp's "Bummpies" and mod-3's "Radius" case kicked off their campaigns within 24 hours of one another last week, and although they're different enough that they're not outright competitors, both cases abide by the less-is-more approach to design.

First of all, I should clarify that Bummpies will work with the three most current models of iPhone: seeing as Karp's been working on the adhesive bumpers for 16 months, he must have started designing them for the 4/4S and simply tweaked them for the new model. This gives him a significant edge in terms of potential customers.

The mod-3, on the other hand, has the ambiguous advantage of a Harvard-educated designer and CAD-geeky backstory: Hendra Bong holds a graduate degree in Architecture the Ivy League school. (A bit of digging reveals that Karp actually studied mechanical engineering but has since shifted his professional focus at HP.)

Bummpies are made of polyurethane rubber and are attached with a semi-permanent (but removable) adhesive from the materials experts at 3M. The corners for the Radius are made of 6061 aluminum with a non-slip lining; they're held in place by an X-shaped brace, which is secured with a tiny screw (as is the case with many of Apple's offerings).

Videos after the jump...

The viper's nest of cables under your desk might be bad now, but imagine how much worse it'd be if your desktop spun around every few seconds, independently of the legs. That's the cable management issue faced by industrial robots, which have multiple parts that often rotate along different axes.

One company with a solution is Igus, a Germany-based manufacturer of industrial machine parts. A sub-specialty of theirs is "Energy Chain Systems" made from plastic components, designed to twist and bend while preventing the cables within from becoming kinked and abraded. Here's a guy who works at Igus named Harold, and he's very excited to show you these chains:

The craziest-looking out of all of them is the one that coils in multiple directions like some kind of Escher drawing. Called the TwisterBand Chain, it's capable of rotating 540 degrees. Here's a closer look:

Over the years we've covered our share of impressive Rube Goldberg machines, from human-powered to suitcase-sized, and created from the likes of "Brooklyn's Rube Goldberg" to alternative band OK Go.

The next one we cover might be yours—Rube Goldberg, Inc., is now accepting applications for the 2013 Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.

Open to college and secondary school students only, the theme of this year's competition is "Hammer a Nail." Entrants have to design a machine no large than six cubic feet that accomplishes this with a minimum of 20 steps from start to finish, in two minutes or less. Beyond those regulations, limitations are few: You can't use open flame, explosives, hazardous materials, or live animals.

Igus, the plastic machine parts company we looked at in an earlier post, is one of the sponsors for this year's competition. That being the case, they're willing to supply free parts—flanges, bearings, linear slides, aluminum shafting—for entrants to use in their designs. You can request Igus samples and information on available parts here.

Senior Designer
American Express Publishing
New York, New York

American Express Publishing is seeking a Senior Designer who will be responsible for designing front-of-the-book stories for the print magazine as well as translating them for the iPad and Android tablets under the direction of the Design Director and Creative Director. He/she is responsible for stories from concept to completion. The Senior Designer will collaborate with the photo team in defining the visual direction for stories and will help edit pickup film. He/she will collaborate with editors, as well as other designers and the production department during the monthly design and closing cycles of the print magazine and tablet editions. The designer will commission illustration and contribute to art discussions regarding visual concepts for the issues.

I was recently in Helsinki, where wrought-iron gates like the one above are still a common sight (at least in the Punavuori neighborhood I crashed in). I remember seeing videos of iron being wrought in our second-year Production Methods course at design school, but it was mostly footage of singular artisans working the material with hand tools; in Intro to Welding, before we were allowed to touch the torches, we learned how to hammer out primitive shapes and curlicues by hand.

Some of the machines we saw in the videos resembled mere pipe-bending jigs, like the one used to produce the gate below:

Not terribly sexy. But there are, of course, far more sophisticated machines used to produce wrought iron shapes. A multinational manufacturer called Hebo—which credits themselves with "[having] invented the modern wrought iron machine and [being] the worldwide leader in this field"—makes a variety of machines designed by German blacksmiths. One of the things they can produce are the wrought iron "onions" or baskets you sometimes see used as finials:

I'd always wondered how those things were made. Check it out:

As the crowdfunding incumbent, Kickstarter still has plenty of life left in it. But it's interesting to see that crowdfunding newcomer Christie Street's first project, the DoorBot, has teamed up with another product design that sidestepped Kickstarter: The Lockitron. (We wrote about the latter project and how they pulled it off without Kickstarter here.)

To refresh your memory, Lockitron is a remote-operated keyless entry system that can be retrofitted to existing doors. It therefore seems the perfect match for the DoorBot, a wireless, Wi-Fi-enabled video doorbell. Both systems can be linked to your smartphone or tablet, enabling remote operation. And while the DoorBot seems marketed towards suburban homes, I can think of plenty of urban uses for it: I'd love a way to inexpensively monitor the front door of my apartment building, which is notorious for missing deliveries due to its poor buzzer system, and I'd also like to be able to remotely admit shooters into my nearby studio without needing to be there.

Recently, industrial design students at DAAP (the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art & Planning) were asked to address the future of automobile design by focusing on an often-overlooked component: The tires. Hankook Tire America sponsored a three-month competition tasking the students with designing sustainable, efficient and performance-enhancing tires for a car of the future.

The students did not disappoint. Each of the four finalists' designs offers a completely different take on what a smarter, more sophisticated tire could do by incorporating shape-shifting techniques or mag-lev technology:

The first and second designs featured in the video, Ben Zavala's "Tiltred" tilting tire design and Mark Hearn's "Motive" off-road concept, won first and second place, respectively. The names of the students behind the third and fourth designs were not released. (If you guys/gals are reading this, let us know who you are!)

Photos by Robert Lowell

We first discovered Akke Functional Art at the ICFF this year—how could we pass on a steampunk ping-pong table?—and designer Axel Yberg has all but outdone himself with his latest project. The "All In" poker table refers both to the game itself and Yberg's recognition that building the Akke brand "has been a team effort and everyone involved has given it their all." "On a personal level, it symbolizes the fact that when I commit to something, I give it everything I've got; mentally, physically, and emotionally. When I'm excited about an idea, the first thing I say is, 'I'm all in!'"

Over 600 man-hours of labor went into the arboreal tabletop, which features fifteen species of exotic wood: Madagascar Ebony, Rosewood, Purple Heart, Zebra Wood, Wormy Maple, English Brown Oak, Black Locust, Claro Walnut, Quilted Maple, Sycamore, Cherry, Catalpa, Black Walnut, Quarter-Sawn White Oak, and live-edge Ash. And while the ligneous lines that comprise the striking web pattern of the surface are purely aesthetic, the rest of the table is chock full of symbolism:

The vectors that bisect each angle on the perimeter of the table are made from Madagascar Ebony and Rosewood. Their colors, black and red, represent the suits in a deck of cards. This idea is carried into the turnbuckle drink holders, which are designed as a quadrant of Black Walnut and Cherry. The organic nature of the live-edge Ash on the perimeter of the table symbolizes the fact that the game of poker requires complex thinking, as opposed to a systematic game like Black Jack. To be a successful poker player, you must have plenty of skill, nerves of steel, and a good amount of luck. The steel horseshoes that surround the WPT logos symbolize that combination.

The center of the table features a five diamond pattern—"a nod to the legendary Doyle Brunson and the [World Poker Tour] Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic"—that is backlit by Edison reproduction bulbs, set in Akke's signature pipe fittings, while the gold-painted base is an ostentatious allusion to the "bling associated with Las Vegas."

The final product comes in at 81” × 52” × 31.5” and, by Yberg's best guess, roughly 300 lbs—hit the jump to see the making-of video...

Here's an interesting example of how cultural influences have led to the ubiquitous uptake of a product design. The country in question is Russia, and the product is the dashboard cam.

The Internet is awash in well-captured car crash footage, and in an earlier entry on the subject I wondered why much of it seemed to come from Russia. It's not that Russia has more auto accidents per capita, but simply that more citizens have always-on cameras to capture them. Russian expat and journalist Marina Galperina explains why: "Dash-cam footage," she writes, "is the only real way to substantiate your claims in [a Russian] court of law." Russian law is such that little stock is placed in eyewitness accounts, and a premium is placed on footage-as-proof. The gaming geek's mantra of "Video or it didn't happen" comes to mind.

On top of that, a subset of criminals figured out they could earn money by staging fixed accidents, intentionally allowing your side mirror to hit them or even backing into your car, and then extorting the driver on the spot. Dashboard cams preclude this. Yet the criminals still try: In this article by Cory Jones, a video compilation of would-be scam artists is shown. We won't embed it here because some of the footage is a bit violent.

Speaking of violence, Galperina points out that Russian websites have a higher tolerance for the stuff; whereas YouTube is pretty good about removing footage of people being decapitated by 18-wheelers, Russian video embedding sites don't blink. There's even a Russian LiveJournal account that documents the worst of the worst—fistfights, violent crashes and people who are alive one second and spectacularly dead the next—and while the content changes regularly, all I can say is viewer beware.

Sensationalism aside, one important point made by Galperina is that ubiquitous cameras don't just capture crashes; they record plenty of footage of Good Soviet Samaritans assisting each other in times of roadside disaster, particularly in the wilder nether regions where help is often hours away and citizens take up the slack. Sadly, there's no site I know of that's collecting those videos; no matter what culture you're from, it seems no one wants to watch people sacrifice their time to treat each other decently. The dashboard cam has become a form of protection for the Russian motorist, and a source of lurid rubbernecking for the global community.

I admit I'm not immune to the sensationalism. If you want to get a taste for some of the most insane driving experiences in Russia, where motorists are buzzed by helicopters and jet fighters, and need to dodge everything from falling trees to wild animals to collapsing power cable towers, here it is:

Please consider this your official invitation to what promises to be the most *Curious* and *Chummy* event of Portland's holiday design itinerary. Come down and chat-up some of our 59 Curiosity Club Alumni - that eclectic mix of local makers, thinkers and designers who shared their projects and insights at our bi-weekly speaker series since 2010. Intellectual stimulation and creative inspiration will be served alongside drinks and tasty treats from Pacific Pie Co.

This is your chance to meet and mingle with the presenters of the Hand-Eye Supply Curiosity Club: Our group boasts Designers, Engineers, Tinkerers, Makers, Writers, Theorists, Open Source Manufacturing advocates, Teachers, a Cyborg Anthropologist, a Historian, a Luthier, a Pinhole Camera maker, a Knife maker, a One-Wheeled Motorcycle designer and developer, a Chef, an Upholsterer, an amateur Rocket Scientist, an Improv Comedian, Cargo Bike Builders, Butchers, Programmers, Perfumists, Community Developers, Cryonicists and Artists, Tiny House enthusiasts and the list goes on with each area of expertise being equally fascinating.

RSVP on Facebook here

Curiosity Club "Meet the Alumni Party" at Hand-Eye Supply
Tuesday, December 11
6:00 to 9:00 PM
23 NW 4th Ave
Portland, OR 97209
(503) 575-9769

Ryan McGinness has been self-publishing these unique To-Do list calendars for his personal use for years, and the 2013 calendar is the perfect resource for any artist, designer, or dedicated list-maker to have on his or her own desk. The lightly gridded space of each page is a blank slate for everything from points of business and grocery lists to scribbles of inspiration or overheard sayings.

Ryan McGinness To-Do List Calendar
Available at Core77's Hand-Eye Supply
$24.95

Click through to see close-ups of some of the pages...

Amsterdam-based entrepreneur Marijn B. Berk and bag designer James Jeffrey are working on an interesting product: A bag that not only carries your laptop, tablet and smartphone, but can charge all of them up. Called Phorce and billed as "The world's first smart bag," the rectangular satchel boasts unseen, on-board power that can charge up to three devices at the same time, via built-in cables.

That's the power part; as for the smart part, the bag itself connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth. With this enabled you can set an alarm, so if you and your bag move a certain distance apart, it sounds. That won't help you if you leave both in a cab, but if you walk out of a meeting with your phone and absent-mindedly left your bag behind, it'll let you know before you hit the elevators.

Beyond the techie stuff the bag has well-thought-out physical design features: Expandable sides, waterproof zippers and fabric, a strap system that converts the bag from backpack to shoulder bag, and magnetically-clasping dual handles for a briefcase mode.

The slickly-produced Kickstarter video is here, but I actually found their more raw YouTube video provided a better look at what the bag can do: