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A Self-Lighting (and Extinguishing) Concept Candle

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Remember the useless machine from a couple years back? You know, the device with a switch that activated an arm that flipped its own switch? For better or for worse, I couldn't help but think of that paradoxical box when I saw Zelf Koelman's "Switch Candle"... which, ironically enough, is something like a useful version of the same. Bearing a crown of five tealights, the curious-looking object functions as a dimmable candle. I won't ruin it for you; just watch:

Koelman describes the "Switch Candle" as a comment on "how we perceive artificial light, how we interact with it and how we should not forget the amount of energy light needs to shine."

For ages we have put much effort in keeping on the fire at night to extend the day and keeping us warm and safe. Since the invention of electric light sources, I believe we lost track of how much effort and energy it really takes to keep us awake.

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Redefine Markets with Your Package Designs at Ammunition in San Francisco, California

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Work for Ammunition!



wants a Designer, Packaging
in San Francisco, California

How good are your packaging designs? Are they good enough to help Ammunition redefine markets for their clients in order to create new business territories? If you are confident that your package design abilities fit this bill, this job is for you.

You'll be tasked with creating packaging solutions that complement and enhance their award-winning product designs, and do so while considering the whole picture and the affect packaging has on the eco-system developed around a product.

Sounds fun, right? Polish up your resume, double check your portfolio and Apply Now

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Adjustable Pen Tip for ID Sketching, Yea or Nay?

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When it comes to sketching, line quality is everything. To build up the desired thickness using ink, you can either switch between multiple pens or you can hit the same line repeatedly with the same pen, as Spencer Nugent has done above; if using pencil or a pressure-sensitive stylus on a digital device, you can hit the same line and/or press harder, as Michael DiTullo's done below.

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So this currently-under-consideration-at-Quirky design proposal has me curious. Designer "HSingh" is pushing for a pen with an adjustable tip, whereby a dial in the barrel somehow alters the nib's width.

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There's virtually no explanation for how the thing would work, but the question is: Would you guys use this to change line weights, or do you prefer the old-fashioned way? And does anyone remember having to swtich back and forth from like, five different Koh-i-Noor Rapidographs in design school?

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Parsons The New School for Design x Poltrona Frau - Designing for Wastelessness, Part 3

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ParsonsPoltronaFrau-RaulEspinoza.jpgReporting by Jenny Hsu

In the last few days leading up to the juried review of our collaboration with Poltrona Frau, our studio workspace descended into complete disarray—with tools and materials scattered everywhere. The last bits of scrap leather were hotly contested and, naturally, the industrial sewing machines had failed just days before the presentation was due! As a result, some projects ended up having to be hand-stitched as time was pressing and quality had to be kept to a high standard. Sleep deprivation, minor scrapes and bruises notwithstanding, we managed to pull it together in time for the juried final review.

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The jury panel consisted of legendary designer Massimo Vignelli, Paul Makovsky (Editorial Director, Metropolis Magazine), Sara Gobbo and Federico Materazzi (Poltrona Frau), Mark Bechtel (Interim Director of Product Design at Parsons) and our instructor, designer Andrea Ruggiero. We presented 15 projects, ranging from cigar cases and drink coasters to picture frames and candle holders. Per the design brief, we were required to address wastelessness and how we would envision the potential production of our pieces to enable the least amount of material waste. In a few cases, there was some disagreement between the judges as to the complexity and labor involved to produce a few of the objects. Regardless, the critics met privately after the presentations to decide the three winners of the competition, who will get to visit Poltrona Frau's factory in Tolentino, Italy, in the second half of July.

ParsonsPoltronaFrau-HayleyKim-Doppio.jpg"Doppio" by Hayley Kim

ParsonsPoltronaFrau-NoemiSzalavari-Spirale.jpg"Spirale" by Noemi Szalavari

"Bottoni" by Aaron Chan

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Moneymaking Multi-Monitor Mayhem, and Why Some Prefer Interface Design That Sucks

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Here in NYC we've got a billionaire mayor, and you've probably heard of the device that made him rich, the Bloomberg Terminal. For those of you that haven't, it's an integrated computer system and service feed offering real-time financial data and trading.

For finance peeps, Bloomberg Terminals are like potato chips, in that you can't have just one. Your average user rocks a two-, four- or six-monitor set-up....

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...though that can get out of control.

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The Wait Is Over: You Can Finally Brew Coffee in a Mason Jar with the Portland Press

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You couldn't make it up: a Portland, Oregon-based design duo just launched a crowdfunding campaign to launch a mason jar-based product, designed expressly to brew one of the two beverages that the City of Roses is famous for.

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Besides its rugged good looks, it so happens that the mason jar is more durable than the traditional carafe; bedecked in a wool sleeve for insulation and topped off with a maple lid (with a press), the Portland Press is a crafty take on the iconic coffee brewing apparatus (footnote: the origin of the French press is unclear, but the modern version was patented in Italy in 1929; today, it's typically associated with Bodum of Denmark).

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NY Design Week 2013: Reclaim x2 Brings Out the Best of New York City Design

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Just over a week ago, we had a chance to catch up with Jean Lin and Jen Krichels of Reclaim NYC, who opened the doors to their second exhibition today and will be hosting an opening reception shortly. While the first edition of the group exhibition focused on reclaimed materials in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the show takes the much broader theme of collaboration this time around. (Once again, proceeds will go to the Brooklyn Recovery Fund.)

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As Lin told us last week:

What started as a hurricane relief effort will hopefully grow into a larger initiative that could benefit a wide range of social and environmental causes, as well as support our independent design community. Our industry is filled with truly good, charitable and socially-aware people who are looking for ways to help. We hope that Reclaim can become an outlet for these talented designers to focus their charitable and creative energies without commercial pressure, and with a higher goal of giving back to a worthy cause.

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This is a near-comprehensive survey of the work on view now at the third-floor event space at 446 Broadway. Tonight's opening is all but guaranteed to be a good time, but if you can't make it to Soho this evening, we highly recommend stopping by tomorrow or on Saturday morning before Reclaim x2 closes; hours & full address below. (Worst case, you can browse and buy the work at Lin-Morris.)

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A Video Look Inside Art Lebedev Studio's New Moscow HQ

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Longtime Core77 readers know I've been a fan of Art Lebedev Studio for ages. Recently I got a kick out of their Attraktsionus ferris wheel/ski lift combination, their Stubus tree ring watch where cracks in the heartwood and exterior rings serves as the hands, and their older Skrepkus paper clip.

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Design Stores for an Iconic Lifestyle Brand in New York, New York

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Work for Tommy Hilfiger!



wants a Store Designer
in New York, New York

As the brand that celebrates the essence of Classic American Cool, Tommy Hilfiger provides a refreshing twist to the preppy fashion genre. This iconic brand is looking for the right Store Designer to bring to life brilliant retail and environment concepts that embody everything the Tommy Hilfiger label represents.

To succeed in this role you'll need prior visual, planning/design project management and communication skills, plus 3-5 relevant work experience. That will all come in handy when you're providing fixture layouts and renderings for stores, reviewing all construction documentation and millworker shop drawings, and serving as an authority and adviser on design issues including the development of design, construction and fixture details for prototype and implementation.

Apply Now

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Another Minimalist Mudguard: The Plume Rolls Out on Kickstarter

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Plume-1.jpgLooks cool...

Move over, Rain Tail—there's a new ultraminimal rear fender in town. The Plume is a recoiling mudguard that is deployed by unrolling the coiled strip of stainless steel and 'retracted' with a simple flick. The hardware slides neatly onto a bicycle seatpost and it looks something like a sideways cupholder when not in use, functioning something like a reverse slap-bracelet.

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Founders Dan McMahon and Patrick Laing met three years ago in London and have been developing the Plume for about as long. Now that they've filed a patent on the recoiling design, they're pleased to present their creation to the public via Kickstarter.

It's certainly a clever solution to a common problem, and the Kickstarter page duly features a couple examples of what Sparse deemed to be "bike hacks," i.e. variations on DIY mudguards. The main advantage of these ad hoc fabrications is that they're inherently disposable; the tradeoff is that they're ugly as sin.

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NY Design Week 2013: What's Big, Pink and Mobile? UHURU's #Chairtruck

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Earlier this week, I was casually minding my own business on a pleasant bike-commute from Core HQ to my humble Brooklyn abode when lo and behold, I spotted what looked like a giant hot pink chair strapped to a flatbed truck. Once I got over my initial astonishment and confirmed that this was not a mirage in my design-week-addled mind, I instinctively did that thing we do nowadays where one whips out his or her smartphone to document anything that seems remotely interesting. Case in point, here's an inane video of the truck eluding me on Flushing Ave:

It turns out that UHURU's #Chairtruck debuted last weekend at BKLYN Designs, where it provided much-needed respite from human-sized chairs and a fair share of sh*ts and giggles, and will be making rounds this weekend as well. (Not to take too much credit, but one inside source hinted that the #ChairTruck came about partly because a certain well-known industrial design magazine and resource declined to host an exhibition this year.) The ~5:1 scale model of their Hulihee chair is "fitted with a hardwood seat and back reclaimed from the Coney Island Boardwalk," and "strapped to a flatbed biodiesel truck."

#chairtruck's defiant size and reclaimed wood planks pay tribute to the historic Coney Island Boardwalk and reference Uhuru's signature Coney Island furniture line which debuted at Brooklyn Designs in 2010.

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Trendlet: Trippy Trompe l'Oeil Objects and Installations

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This week we spotted objects and installations poised for a big reveal. At first look, their structure was familiar, elements not particularly out of place. But with a quick visual adjustment or test of expectations, something altogether different—a trompe l'oeil—appears.

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Even though our furniture often serves several functions, the art on our walls typically exists just for our eyes. But during Milan's SaloneSatellite exhibition for emerging designers, Japan's YOY Design Studio packed more features into the frame. YOY's canvases, made of wood, aluminum, and elastic fabric, and then screen-printed with images of couches and chairs, actually support sitting. The secondary use is startling, so it might require a little explanation before asking that guests take a seat.

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YoYoDesignStudio-CanvasFurniture-3.jpgImages © Yasuko Furukawa; via Designboom

Last month, the Swiss artist Felice Varini adorned the exterior of the Grand Palais in Paris with a work made from a very specific point of view. From the street, the vibrant orange stretched triangles look haphazardly splashed against the building. But observe them from the hall, and the applied scraps of color align, creating something that looks more like a projection than a perfectly planned effect.

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The Unusual Personal Transportation Designs of Shane Chen

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Shane Chen is a Washington-based inventor obsessed with moving the human body. His company, Inventist, has been developing strange-looking personal transportation devices for nearly a decade. We took a brief look at his Solowheel a few years ago, and it finally went on sale just last year. Check it out:

For those looking to burn some calories, Inventist's Orbit Wheel is user-powered:

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NY Design Week 2013: Colleen & Eric's 'Enzyme-Catalyzed' Bonus Table 571

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Although we've already covered Reclaim x2 fairly extensively at this point, it's easy to overlook details such as, say, the actual texture of the felt chair or the concept behind Emilie Baltz's dyadic infusions. If it wasn't clear from the photos of the Bonus Table 571—which it by no means should have been—it was made with enzymes. Bushwick-based design duo Colleen & Eric (whom we'd previously covered at ICFF in 2011) collaborated with bioengineer Loe Hubbard and sound designer Ben Cameron on the small side table, which features a cryptic Rorschach design on its surface. They explain:

Pure tones tuned to the natural resonant frequency of the wood result in vibrations, determined by the tabletop's size shape and density. The vibrations reveal a geometric pattern inherent to the wood.
The resonant pattern is etched away by an enzyme cocktail tailored to the molecular structure of the wood. This process is similar to acid-etching a metal plate, such as in printmaking. The difference is that this is based on a live process; using enzymes derived from forest floor microbes.

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Perhaps we should refer to the video:

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NY Design Week 2013: Konstfack Presents 'Negative Space' at ICFF

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Stockholm's Konstfack is among the university design departments that occupy the removed North Building of the Javits Center this ICFF, a more manageable—albeit somewhat sparsely populated—exhibition hall in contrast to the main floor of ICFF. Despite—or perhaps because of—the largely theoretical curriculum of graduate programs in Industrial Design, the 11 first-year Master's candidates at Konstfack undertook a self-initiated project to actually make objects, which they first exhibited during Stockholm Design Week back in February. According to the Negative Space website:

What is a negative space?
Can it be framed by something other than matter?
Can a negative space be made tangible?
Ten explorations on the possible meanings of negative space showcasing new and intriguing perspectives. By shifting focus from matter to the space that it occupies, the designers have found new ways of working by investigating the relationship between objects and the surrounding space. Presented here are a series of individual interpretations of negative space, culminating in a fascinating interplay between form, memory, movement, light and time.

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Insofar as the theme itself is intangible, the students took a broad range of approaches; even in the case of light, which might be considered an easy metaphor for space, the inspiration and execution varied significantly. Nevertheless, the overall aesthetic of the work is quite minimal, in keeping with both the theme and Scandinavian design language in general.

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Unfortunately, the logistics of overseas travel and the tradeshow setting made for a somewhat attenuated exhibition—i.e. the convention center simply isn't the ideal context for exhibiting the highly conceptual work. (I find that the Javits Center, for all its cavernous, harshly-lit real estate, is something of a 'negative space,' if you'll excuse the pun.) In any case, the students were excited to be in New York—a first for many of them—and they were eager to share their work.

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Daphne Zuilhof's "Spin" stool inspired friendly jealousy amongst her peers for it's packability. It takes it name not from the English verb but for the Dutch word for 'spider,' where its collapsible legs delimit a volume that is a usable space.

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You and Starbucks Will Change the Way People Look at Coffee

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Work for Foursquare!



wants a Sr. Packaging Designer
in Seattle, Washington

There are only a handful of brand logos that are as recognizable as the classic green and white Starbucks emblem. From their vast array of coffee and tea accessories, right down to the little green splash sticks, each element of their packaging successfully honors their products.

You now have the opportunity have your designs influence this quintessential branding as the next Senior Packaging designer at Starbucks.

You'll need eight years of packaging design experience and a passion for improving the customer experience through creative and brand research, all while providing across the board quality through thoughtful design solutions.

Starbucks is looking forward to hearing from you. Apply Now

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Ford's Foot-Activated Liftgates

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It's been over a year since Ford has incorporated foot-activated tailgates into their cars, and we're hoping by now some of you have direct experience with them. (The bulk of Core77 editorial staff is a bike-riding, subway-catching, sneaker-treading lot.) Ford designers' simple observation that many people approach their trunk with both hands full, and their incorporation of a feature that pops the trunk open by waving your foot under the bumper, is a welcome one. But for those of you actually living with one of these cars, how is it in practice?

For those of you who've not yet heard of this, the way it works is a sensor on the car detects when someone with the key fob on their person is in proximity. It then enables a laser sensor under the rear bumper to read when a foot breaks the beam, and that opens or closes the trunk. Observe:

But if we look at this less-slickly edited video...

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NY Design Week 2013: Compelling Geometries from Brooklyn's PELLE Designs

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Although this year marks their first ICFF, PELLE Designs actually dates back to 2008 or so, when co-founder Jean Pelle developed the first Bubble Chandelier. She met her future business partner (and husband) Oliver about ten years ago at the Yale School of Architecture, and each went on to work for major firms before setting out on their own.

ICFF2013-Pelle-coffeetable.jpgThe "Quadrat" series of tables takes its name from the German word for "square"; Oliver left his native Germany to study architecture in the States

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Thus, their debut collection consists of iterations on the designs: the Bubble Chandelier is now UL listed, and they've just introduced a long version (not pictured) for a total of nine different shapes and sizes (they've also taken an interesting step in making all of the items available to order through an online store).

ICFF2013-Pelle-soapstones.jpgJean noted that they make and hand-carve the Soap Stones in their Red Hook studio

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Ryan Frayne's Windcatcher Magnifies Human Breath, Enabling Super-Fast Inflation

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As we saw with NEMO Equipment's gear, clever design can enable air to play a significant structural role with camping gear. In NEMO's case, that air is provided by a pump.

Portland-based inventor Ryan Frayne is also experimenting with air, but he's zeroed in on a particular element of the user experience: How to get the air into the product. To that end, Frayne has focused on designing a special valve, and the results are pretty impressive. Frayne's Windcatcher design amplifies your exhalation, using physics I don't understand to multiply your air volume by a factor of 10 or 15—with the added benefit that you don't even have to put your mouth on the thing. Observe:

Frayne's Air Pad seems like a good entry-level product design, but we feel it's his valve that will be the killer app. An easy, pump-less way to inflate things could play a major role in everything from disaster relief to life-saving devices.

At press time, the Windcatcher's Kickstarter campaign was at just under $16,000 of a $50,000 target, with 23 days left to pledge.

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Fabrican't Hardly Wait: Manel Torres' Long Road to Commercializing Spray-On Fabric

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Fabrican is a sprayable fabric that actually contains fibers, and after curing it can be washed and re-worn. It first created an internet stir in 2006, but for reasons only the internet gods know, Fabrican is now resurfacing on social media and often being mistakenly presented as new.

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Don't get us wrong, Fabrican is amazing. But it is not new, and serves as a reminder of just how long it can take to bring a good idea to market, and how dogged inventors need to be. Manel Torres first conceived of Fabrican way back in 1995, when he was an RCA student studying fashion design, after watching a friend get sprayed with Silly String. Torres began to collaborate with chemical engineers, and by 2000 he'd filed a patent and set up R&D facilities at Imperial College London.

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Three years later Torres formed Fabrican Ltd., and another three years went by before the blogosphere picked up on the stuff. Here in 2013, seven years later, there are still no announcements for commercialization; the "News" section of Fabrican's website saw its last update in 2010.

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Has Torres given up? Doesn't look like it, as he's delivered several Fabrican-based TED Talks as recently as last year. We can only speculate as to what's preventing the appearance of Fabrican on store shelves, which is what we'd really like to see; while Torres is proposing industrial solutions targeted at the medical, automotive and fashion design industries, we think selling the stuff in cans and letting you guys figure out what to do with it would be a good way to go.

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Hit the jump for some videos (one NSFW, if you work in Puritan America) showing the stuff in action.

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