We're halfway through our four-day run for the C77 Design Daily and it seems like people are diggin' it. There's plenty of content within those pages and the weather happens to be absolutely perfect today, so we'll keep this short and sweet.

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As we saw in Accidental Designer's True I.D. Story, production work can be one of the biggest challenges faced by an independent furniture designer/builder. Never mind the months you spent getting your prototype right—can you now design a process, using conventional shop tools, to quickly and affordably manufacture consistent multiples of your design? If you can't, as Accidental Designer learned, it can break your business' back.

Design-build guru Izzy Swan knows a thing or two about introducing efficiency into production work; he not only runs his own well-trafficked, jig-showing YouTube channel, but he formerly ran his own furniture company and now does consulting for other shops looking to speed their own production times. In this video, he reveals a very simple, gear-based tip that can speed productivity by some 20% (hint: it involves leather). In the second half of the vid, he shows a highly specific, multitask jig he designed to make short work of manufacturing a particular component of a tool he sells. Check it out:

That jig is just one component of a highly efficient and ingenious system Swan came up with to produce that tool (and we're loving the self-made toggle clamp). Coming up next, we'll take a closer look at both the tool and the system, which includes Swan's innovative, socks-knocking method for turning the handles.

It's easy to make a good-looking tech accessory. But creating something that has the looks, a semi-secret—yet intuitive—functionality, turns waste scraps into something beautifully functional and whose name is inspired by the ever-motivational Buckminster Fuller? Not so simple. "Call me trimtab" is the famous Fuller line that got grad students Mansi Gupta and Cassandra Michel talking. The word in question, which became the duo's product name, refers to a tiny surface on the end of a ship's rudder that manages the direction of the ship. The tiniest of pressures can send it sailing a different direction. The term also can describe an individual whose small changes lead to a big impact, which is spot-on for Gupta and Michel. The two students, less than a month out from graduating SVA's Products of Design program, met in a Business Structures class where they took on a sustainable design project that was to become TRMTAB.

It's the perfect moniker for two reasons: 1.) The entire design is based around a tab that pulls your tech up and out of its holder with a simple yank; and 2.) The materials that make up the accessories are all waste products from Gupta's family factory—decades-old Prachi Leathers.

Growing up seeing Prachi at work, Gupta's intention was always to make something from the scraps the factory produced—which is the reason she found herself in the Products of Design program. "Mansi came to design school to find ways of creating social impact projects that stem from Prachi," Michel says. "The upcycling initiative is her first attempt. But now that the upcycling process has been iterated on, she's even excited to take TRMTAB to help neighboring factories with their waste and offcuts."

Each run at Prachi Leathers turns over 4,000 pounds of scraps. Instead of thinking in terms of product quantity, Gupta and Michel are looking at creating their project on the scale of one run's waste at a time, starting with some good old crowdfunding. Check out their video for more information on how they're turning all of that excess leather into TRMTABs:

It's always a treat when older design houses launch specialty lines. Half the time; they produce things only the most dedicated Skymall shopper could love and we get to gloat, and the other half, they hit pay dirt. Umbra Shift is dirty in the good way. Umbra may be known for cheap plastics, but it turns out that working with elite designers, limiting your number of products, and giving your team a lot of free reign is a decent recipe for good stuff. The housewares heavy-hitter let Design Director Matt Carr take the helm, and he dreamed up a line realized by 8 great designers and the folks at Umbra Studio.

As seen at ICFF, the line is home oriented and form-conscious; straight lines all over with a heavy focus on natural material and traditional production. Matte textures, soft colors, big leafed plants, and all very Table of Contents feeling. It's still a little silly though. My favorite piece, the Coiled Stool, is a lighthearted butt-friendly design spearheaded by Harry Allen. It feels almost like a visual gag, playing on rope as a nonstructural material. With a steel undercarriage it's plenty strong, and not nearly as squishy as I'd have guessed. But its shape is familiar, like a cousin to both metal tractor seats and wooden farm stools of the ages, brought together with traditional Vietnamese basket-weaving. One of its designers admitted that rendering the shape for production involved a lot of bumming around with cardboard clutched to their butts. Serious stuff.

Genesis of a stool

Izzy Swan has much in common with Ron Paulk: Both guys know their way around a shop and ran their own businesses, neither guy went to D-school yet both design things that lots of other people want to buy.

Swan developed his Pallet Pal tool as a simple way to dismantle shipping pallets to reclaim the wood from them. The design of the tool relies mechanical advantage and body weight rather than physical strength to produce the power; Swan posted a video of his 7-year-old daughter demonstrating how to use the tool. Well, people started ordering the thing in droves, and then a company looking to kit their workers out with the device ordered a boatload. Swan was faced with the classic independent designer's problem where you've got to move from tinkering to reproducing—quickly.

To crank these things out in batches, Swan devised a number of clever workshop solutions that would maintain consistency while speeding production time. First off, check out how he turns the handles. Lathe? Nah, not fast enough—try a power drill and a table saw with a dado stack:

By Ali Morris

As in recent years, the line 'designed and made in Brooklyn' was perhaps one of the most common quips at NYCxDesign 2014, and long may it continue, especially when the work being produced is of the caliber of Moving Mountains' work. Stationed at the Javits Center for ICFF last week, Moving Mountains is run by Hawaiian-born Syrette Lew who debuted an excellent collection of furniture and lighting pieces, which is, happily, all designed and made in and around Brooklyn. "It's just more expensive doing it locally," explains Lew. "You could go overseas where there's higher minimums but it's a totally different ball game. I like working with people. Part of the joy is finding a really amazing fabricator, talking through the design, figuring out what could work."

Lew studied economics at UCLA before going on to complete a degree in Industrial Design at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. After graduation, she took a job with furniture giant West Elm, where she spent her days designing furniture for the mass market. After five years, Lew decided to set up her own studio designing bags and jewelry but waited another year before starting work on a furniture collection. "I had to take a break because after having designed for other people for five years I didn't even know what my aesthetic was anymore. I was taught to think in a certain way but it's slowly coming out," she says. Last week, Lew scooped the ICFF editor's award for Craftsmanship, and it's not hard to see why. Moving Mountains' debut collection balances traditional woodworking techniques with playful touches of surface pattern and flashes of brilliant color; the precise form of the credenza is enlivened with a confetti marquetry pattern while the back of the Douglas fir A-Frame mirror is finished in an unexpected vibrant orange that reflects on to the wall to create an intriguing warm glow.

Living not far from some of California's best wineries, I have a number of clients who have bottles of wine to store. Some have just a few bottles, while some have quite a collection. And they all need storage—and something not as elaborate as the Spiral Cellar.

The terra cotta wine racks from Weston Mills Pottery provide a modular system for storing a few bottles, or a larger collection. The terra cotta helps shield the wine from temperature variations, and it won't deteriorate if placed in a humid cellar. It's also incredibly simple to "assemble"—more so than many other modular options. However, this is a heavy product, and would be a pain to deal with if the end-user was moving.

The modular wine rack from MuNiMulA, made from interlocking pieces of anodized aluminum. Although these pieces can be stacked, I'd be somewhat concerned about having a tall stack in earthquake-prone territory, or anywhere small children could pull at it. That's an issue with a lot of wine racks, unless they can be bolted to the wall.

The Echelon wine rack, made from extruded aluminum, addresses my concerns about stability. This is the retail, tabletop version—but there's also an architectural version, which has a wall bracket.

Predicting the future of design may be a grandiose (if not altogether futile) conceit, but we're always interested to see practical visions as to what it might hold. While big data and wearables remain in the ether as buzzwords—namely as potential avenues for designers to tap into Silicon Valley coffers—and digital fabrication has yet to deliver on its promise of an industrial revolution, it's refreshing to encounter well-executed projects that are on the cusp of production.

The work of Marjan van Aubel and James Shaw fits the bill. It's always a pleasure to actually meet designers with whom I've only exchanged a few e-mails and whose work I've only seen in JPGs, and although I only met them briefly in Milan, I had the opportunity to spend more time with them in their natural habitat in London shortly thereafter.

I arranged to visit their Southwark studio on a pleasant April morning, and van Aubel happens to roll up by bicycle as I approach their block (as she doffs her helmet, she notes that she started wearing in London—after all, she's no longer in the cycling utopia of her native Netherlands). Shaw is already at the shop, working on what I later learn is a cabinet for van Aubel. It's an unassuming space in a quiet part of town: Each of the four rooms on the ground floor holds evidence of its occupant; the two designers share the space with ceramicist Jesse Wine and painter Glen Pudvine, who also lives in upstairs and occasionally hosts exhibitions there.

Indeed, PlazaPlaza is one of just a couple of creative spaces on the dead-end road in the predominantly residential South London neighborhood of Elephant & Castle. It's not far from attractions such as the Tate Modern and Borough Market (in fact, it took me about ten minutes to walk there after the studio visit), but an NYC analogue escapes me (Long Island City, maybe?).

Nevertheless, the space itself feels familiar; it's comfortable, functional, and well-used, yet rather unremarkable, as studios go. Which is not to say that van Aubel and Shaw haven't made it their own: Viva Radio is the soundtrack (van Aubel: "It's from New York, very hyper. It's nice studio music") and the curious grove of potted plants, adopted from a plant-tending service a few doors down. That, and the fact that a squad of Well Proven chairs and stools takes up much of the office space, not to mention various prototypes, samples and experiments crammed into the various nooks and crannies of the space.

If you liked our write-up on the artists behind the gold-gilded pub mirrors we ran a while back, you'll want to tune into this. While we typically take signage for granted, whether it promises the "Biggest Sale Ever!" or contains a particularly humorous typo, there's an artform hidden between the lines that most of us don't ever hear about. Directors Faythe Levine & Sam Macon went on a journey to put a spotlight on a community they saw falling to the wayside—sign painters. The result is "Sign Painters," a documentary featuring the hands behind the painted signs on storefront windows, walls, billboards and just about every other texted surface you can think of.

Faythe Levine and Sam Macon, directors of Sign Painters

It takes more than just a steady hand to make it in the sign-painting world. According to the documentary synopsis: "What was once a common job has now become a highly specialized underground trade, a unique craft struggling with technological advances." The film features anecdotes from famed sign painters including Ira Coyne, Bob Dewhurst, Keith Knecht, Norma Jeane Maloney and Stephen Powers. Check out the trailer:

Ladies & Gentlemen Studio knows how to play with their shapes. Tucked into a dim upper corner of Sight Unseen OFFSITE, their booth was a highlight of the bright show. Their booth was cosy and inviting, dotted with beautiful glowing glass forms and nonsensical toys. Founders Dylan Davis and Jean Lee met while studying industrial design at the University of Washington, and after some travels, they're still based in Seattle, applying a materials-heavy approach to thing-design.

L&G has previously garnered attention for their sculptural pieces and jewelry, and their new "Shape-Up" collection of lights is a clear outgrowth. As they noted in a pre-show interview with Sight Unseen, their emphasis on strong geometry and multi-discipline dabbling sometimes results in surprising cross-breeding. Almost all of the pieces on display featured glass elements made in collaboration with the glass artist John Hogan. In the same interview, Lee discussed tinkering with the shapes, imagining the bold "noodle" shape as a candleholder or wall-hanging planter. Fortunately for us, it wound up as one of the most striking elements in the four part Shape-Up ceiling light. Intended to be modular, the four lights can be arranged at different heights and clustered in any array your heart desires (within corded reason). The result is a very careful jumble of shapes with simple lines; glowing jewelry for your ceiling.

A couple of weeks ago this video made the rounds, showing two young VW designers enjoying some Gran Turismo before their boss walks in on them:

It was subsequently announced that next month, all of you will be able to drive this GTI Roadster Vision... in Gran Turismo 6, scheduled to be released in June.

We figured that would be the extent of this project, but just yesterday Volkswagen released another video, this one shot IRL. They went to the trouble of creating a full-sized model, and it is gorgeous:

We previously covered Ron Paulk's Mobile Woodshop in depth, interviewing him in a two-part series. Well, there's fresh news of the Mobile Woodshop: It's for sale!

There are enough quirky "found thing" necklaces out there for this one to pass as nothing more than a piece of jewelry ironically moonlighting as a camera—which is exactly what Brooklyn-based designer Olivia Barr wants you to think. In reality, it's a real-live piece of tech that's perfect for the hipster Harriet the Spy in all of us.

Barr made the first version for her 101-year-old grandmother (pictured below), who took up photography in her 90s. She wanted to create a lighter version that was easy on the muscles and simple to use. The half-inch thick walnut camera also shoots HD video and comes complete with 3.5MB capacity and straightforward instructions laser-etched on the back.

Left: Knauf and Brown's Floor Coaster. Right: early prototypes of the rolling table

Die-hard auto enthusiasts swear by manual transmissions, not only for the gas mileage but also for the sensation of being in fuller control of the car. It's an appreciation fostered by active participation and intentional use—an appreciation that the design studio Knauf and Brown (whom we recently profiled along with two fellow Cana-designers) wants to foster in household objects through its new Standard Collection.

"If you ask someone why they drive a standard instead of an automatic, the answer is usually related to enjoying the act of driving," says D Calen Knauf, one half of the Vancouver-based studio. "You're using your hands, you're using your mind more, you have to make decisions, and those elements bleed into this collection." Perhaps the most notable object in the collection, which debuted at Sight Unseen OFFSITE during New York Design Week, is the Standard Floor Coaster, a petite rolling platform that looks sort of like a cross between a coffee table and a curling stone.

Knauf made an early, makeshift version of the table during his freshman year at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, in Vancouver. It was born out of the very real need for a small, movable table that wouldn't be toppled by his swiveling armchair. "It was just a block of wood with a notch cut out of it, so that it was easy to grab, and a rounded bottom edge to allow it to drag on the carpet easily," Knauf says. "People would sit on it at parties and it would break. Every time, it would take like a week or so to fix it, and I'd realize how much a part of my life it was."

Beer was reportedly invented sometime around 5,000 B.C. So it's shocking to think that refrigeration wasn't invented until the 19th Century. Because that means that the majority of man drank warm beer for nearly 7,000 years. Which is kind of gross.

Nowadays we can all enjoy a cold beer whenever we want, and your correspondent might even be enjoying one right now, depending on whether or not your correspondent's bosses are reading this. But we rely on electricity and refrigeration to keep our brews frosty. Four fellows in Denmark, however, have figured out how to keep beer cold, outside, without using any power.

Their invention is called the eCool, and it delivers "year-round cool beers" without being plugged into anything except the earth. To install the roughly four-foot-long device, you bore a hole into the ground using a garden drill, though they advise that "[the eCool] can be installed with a shovel as well, if you're a real man." Once you've got the hole dug, you insert the cylindrical device into the ground, then load it with up to 24 cans of quaff.

The earth then keeps the beer cool, and when you're ready to have one, you turn a handcrank attached to a vertical conveyor that serves you up a fresh can. "Do something great for yourself and the environment," the eCool guys write. "It's easy to install in the garden or terrace, and uses no electricity. With the eCool you can always drink a cold beer with good conscience."

What we'd like to see next: A bottle version, please!

Just this past week, a team of schoolchildren and workmen in Hungary, Budapest have given us an update to a question we've all wondered at some point in our lives: How tall could you possibly stack a set of LEGOs? Answer: 34.76 meters (around 114 feet). The previous record clocked in at 34.4 meters (112 feet, 9 inches) and was put together by a group of Delaware students back in 2013. The building began on Wednesday, May 21 and it was declared the new record holder the following Sunday. The entire structure is made up of hundreds of thousands of LEGO pieces and sits in the shadow of the area's famed St. Stephen's Basilica.

To celebrate such an occasion, you had better believe there was a worthy tower-topper. The building team's finishing touch: a Rubik's Cube. Fitting, since the puzzle's inventor—Ernö Rubik—hails from Hungary. Check out this newscast highlighting the hubbub:

By Ben Valentine

After enjoying a short vacation, I finally read Google's post unveiling their brand new self-driving car prototype. I was surprised by just how disappointingly adorable the transformative car was. Their release, "Just Press Go: Designing a Self-Driving Vehicle," didn't mention why their exciting vehicle had such a kawaii face-like appearance, but our Core77 readers knew why: people are never comfortable with radical shifts. What we don't understand, we fear, and driving is dangerous enough already, thank you very much.

Forumite c4b7 believes that the launch video and surprising design is a "way to make a drastic societal change simple and intuitive." Another user, Cyberdemon elaborates, "Given the amount of scary lasers, cameras and sensors, if it looked like an F117 Stealth Fighter it may be cooler, but probably scare the crap out of people." I completely agree.

We needed the awkward and hybrid Prius before an extremely cool, sleek, and fast Tesla could take hold in the market. This type of transitioning of new technology into public acceptability is usually mitigated by distance and the price tag. Usually nobody but a few wealthy organizations can afford to experiment with new technologies at first. We only catch glimpses of the latest robots from DARPA through YouTube where we can safely watch them at a distance. If they were being tested first on our streets we'd freak out.

The problem (and the excitement) with Google is that their product is only really impressive if it can share the same roads as everyone else. To do that, Google has to get us comfortable with that idea first, even if the technology works perfectly well. This is a similar problem Google faced with Glass, and it seems like they're learning from their missteps.

This guy.

The world's freshest space taxi has been unveiled! ...And it looks like a Japanese cartoon mascot. Last week, SpaceX live streamed the curtain drop, and space dorks (including yours truly) around the world got a first look at Dragon V2, the company's first manned craft. Introduced by everyone's favorite terminally positive visionary billionaire-owner Elon Musk, the media ceremony was punctuated with colorful laser lighting and a tastefully deployed fog machine. Designed as a major step after their successful robotically operated resupply craft the Dragon (whose singed hulk hung overhead), the Dragon V2 makes some massive changes that even the smoke machine can't oversell.

Currently, passage to the International Space Station relies on use of the Russian Soyuz, which costs over $70 million per person, round trip. In light of the increasingly tense Russo-American alliance, developing a domestic commercial option for passage to the ISS is both economically and politically reasonable... though Soyuz does mean "Union" it's wise to have a backup. The V2 seats a whopping seven space-bound humans, doubling the slots available on the Soyuz. It also features larger windows, an attractive flat screen display (with hardware panel for the most vital procedures), and futuristic carbon and leather seats for a truly luxurious trip.

OG Dragon, NASA veteran

For Hand-Eye Supply's Summer Quarterly we're spotlighting those of you who have helped make us...us! Enter the All Geared Up Photo Contest by submitting a photo of you with your favorite HES gear, and you could be featured on our Summer Quarterly poster! Entering gets you a shot at winning the online People's Choice Award to be featured on our blog, the Runner Up Prize for $100.00 in-store credit, and consideration for the GRAND GEAR PRIZE - a selection of brand new products from our summer collection worth $200.00!

Enter by June 21, and you could be surrounded by sweet new stuff in no time. The first 30 entries will receive a $15.00 Hand-Eye Gift Certificate and pair of clear aviator safety spectacles! Contest details here!

This creative community inspires us every day—show off a little! Enter now (but, y'know, read the contest guidelines and rules before submitting your photo).

Back in '09 we showed you an Ultimate Factories clip of an IKEA factory revealing what's inside their lightweight tabletops. That clip has since been rendered unembeddable, so we'll grab the new code and show it here:

As you can see, by adapting the technology used by hollow-core door manufacturers, Ikea was able to create a lightweight, yet reasonably sturdy tabletop surface at a pricepoint that attracted consumers.

The honeycomb construction isn't only in their tabletops, of course; anytime you see something chunky at Ikea that seems lighter than it ought, there's probably honeycomb inside. UK-based Physicist Lindsay R. Wilson—a man who built "a prototype double-layer luminescent solar concentrator module" for TU Eindhoven--is the kind of guy who has high-end optical imaging technology lying around his house, so after he recently bought a soon-to-be-obsolete Expedit, he X-rayed the thing to show you what's inside: