As Washington Life Magazine reports, Wade Davis (not the NFL player) "has one of the most coveted jobs in America—Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society." This modern-day Indiana Jones, the article states, is

A cross between your favorite professor and a modern day Marco Polo [who] spends of his time with his fingers in the dirt, traversing the globe as an anthropologist, ethnobotanist, photographer, and writer. When he’s home in Washington, he escapes to put pen to paper in his Travis Price-designed study, overflowing with books, manuscripts, artifacts, and inspiration.

Here's what it looks like:

If you're like me you're probably wondering why someone would commission something so unusual and seemingly impractical, and here's the story. First off, Davis wanted to be able to work at home to be with his kids, unlike his own father, who "left the house every day and only returned at night." Secondly, he has a specific way he works that informed the design:

While many need light-filled rooms for inspiration, he wanted to avoid large windows opening onto a residential neighborhood and sought a cave-like atmosphere to disappear into his work. Subtle light was brought in by other means when the architect built a dome above his client’s desk (which Price describes as similar to the rotunda of the oracle’s temple at Delphi) and filled it with the books he uses the most. Davis whimsically calls the space his “Navajo kiva of knowledge.”

A kiva is a chamber, typically subterranean, that a subset of Native Americans used to conduct religious rites inside of. Hence the single, solitary skylight up top, which does indeed make the space seem as if it's below-ground.

While Davis' space wouldn't work for me personally, I am always interested to see what kinds of spaces other folks, particularly creatives, prefer to work in; and along those lines, you may want to check out Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, written by Core77's own Mason Currey.

What's better than having your ingenious designs recognized by a jury of international design experts? How about saving 20% on the entry fee that put your work in front of that jury in the first place. On Tuesday, March 3rd at 9pm Eastern, the Early Bird Deadline for the 2015 Core77 Design Awards arrives, bringing with it the end of the 20% Early Bird Discount. 

2014 DIY Notable "Cafe Latte Stamp" by Lutz Hornischer

But don't worry! You still have 7 days to prepare and submit your entry to enjoy the savings. Once the deadline passes, however, the price returns to it's normal for both professionals and students, and you have to wait an entire year before you can once again enjoy the perks of getting your work in early.  

2014 Social Impact Professional Winner "Saajhi Stepping Pump" by Sam Rulli/Xylem Essence of Life

Spend the next week wisely if you want your work to be seen by the 2015 jury for such a lovely discount. Enter your work today! 

Image above from the Safe Agua project courtesy of Designmatters.

As part of an ongoing interview series on the Autodesk Foundation's new blog, ImpactDesignHub.org, Allan Chochinov, Editor at Large of Core77 and Chair of the MFA Products of Design program at SVA discusses Impact Design with Mariana Amatullo, a writer, educator, speaker, and student of design and social impact. She is the Vice President of the award-winning Designmatters Department at Art Center College of Art and Design which she co-founded in 2001. Mariana is a Design and Innovation and Non Profit Management Fellow at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, where her doctoral research focuses on the evolving role of design as a locus for social innovation. 

In their talk Amatullo discusses embracing ambiguity, being fundamentally optimistic, and expounds on the five things she "knows" about  working in the world of social innovation. 

Read the full interview with Mariana Amatullo on ImpactDesignHub.org.

Tonight at the Hand-Eye Supply Curiosity Club, Designer and Art Director Joshua Berger of Plazm magazine recounts his ongoing recovery from a traumatic brain injury incurred on a routine bike commute.

"When I set out on my bike for my normal ride to work toward the Steel Bridge on May 18, 2012, my to-do list was packed with stuff—call designers for Plazm, the magazine I art direct; manage global retail campaign for the launch of Windows 8; prepare my work for an art installation; take my family to my cousin’s birthday party. A couple weeks later, my task list said, "Wake up more," written on a whiteboard in my hospital room. I had no memory of the accident itself. Apparently I flew over the handlebars and smashed the left side of my head into the pavement, resulting in a severe traumatic brain injury, or TBI."

"My bike accident put a process into motion: coma, returning to consciousness, inhabiting a pre-verbal state, and being unable to walk or control my body. My view of the earth, human life, and our role as individuals has changed. I am still recovering and exploring new territory. As I have added things back into my life, I have taken the approach of evaluation. How much time do these activities take? How engaging are they to me? Do they fit my values? There are many things clamoring for our attention in today's world. These can cloud our judgment and distract us from what truly matters. How do we filter out the noise and find what is meaningful to us? This is an opportunity to do better."

Learn more about his changed perspectives, and the trials and successes of his recovery process tonight at 6pm at the shop or streaming online on the CC Homepage!

When a furniture builder needs to resaw a thick slab of wood into thinner boards, the go-to tool is typically the bandsaw. But what did folks do before power tools and electricity?

Woodworker Shannon Rogers runs The Renaissance Woodworker, a website documenting his projects. One of those projects answers the resaw question above. Rogers took some drawings done by Andre Jacob Roubo—an influential 18th-Century Parisian master cabinetmaker—and recreated his frame saw. This monster tool is unlike anything most of you have ever seen, and uses a 48"-long blade that's four inches deep. Check it out:

With this saw Rogers has managed to cut veneer slices as thin as 1/8", and when cutting across 24 inches of wood, clocked himself at a cutting depth speed of one inch per minute. And when he tried doing boards of lesser width, he found this surprising fact: "I realize that my 14" bandsaw is pretty underpowered, but I know I can resaw a typical 6-8" wide board faster than it can. I have timed it and my hand method beat the bandsaw by 2 minutes on a 7×24 piece of old growth heart Pine for drawer sides. I’m not a super sawer, I chose the right tool for the job."

And speaking of the right tool for the job, Rogers can use Roubo's contraption for jobs that one could ordinarily not perform at all without access to some serious production machinery:

What I think is most exciting is that this saw isn’t just something for the diehard hand tool woodworkers to get excited about. Even the deafest power tool user can’t help but see the benefit of a tool that will allow them to work with really wide and/or thick lumber that only the most expensive, industrial sized machines can handle.

It is a lot of fun to use, and not that tiring since the power comes from your legs primarily.

A recent 3-day design charette hosted by University of Michigan's Stamps School pitted students against one of the trickiest global issues in years: Ebola. The multi-disciplinary teams from design, engineering, medical and business programs addressed three topics based on needs established by NGOs, medical professionals and emergency responders with experience in the crisis. Aiming to keep the resulting projects as economical and pragmatic as possible, the categories were pointedly ground-level: design of personal protection equipment, health communication across cultural and linguistic barriers, and transportation of infected and diseased bodies.

The students’ work was informed by seasoned medical and design faculty from ideation through critique, and the simplicity and thoughtfulness of the projects shows it. And putting real walk to their talk, some of the resulting designs are in trials for further development both on campus and with partners on the ground in west Africa. Here are a few highlights.

On the ground, medical responders regularly need to wear two pairs of gloves at a time for safety, multiplying the already irritating process of removing sticky sweaty gloves and adding a deadly serious threat of self contamination during removal. And with high heat and humidity, dextrous de-gloving gets really difficult. To make non-messy glove removal a little quicker, one team developed an internally adhered sticker, which the user can bend and pinch from the outside for easier removal when the time comes. 

Stringent isolation and quarantine are key elements in treating and reducing the spread of Ebola, which is especially hard on patients removed from their homes and families often without even being able to say goodbye. Because human touch is deeply connected to the act of comforting, physical separation of patients and caregivers and family can deepen the trauma of illness. The Embrace was conceived as a safe method for comforting intimacy, and a humanizing tool against fear and alienation. The design is based on existing methods for doctors and patient interaction, and the methods for parents to interact with neonatal babies.

Protective suits can be unwieldy and difficult to get out of safely which can put them at risk of ripping or worse. As a valuable and often scarce resource it’s important to make sanitary disrobing easier. These simple disposable straps are designed to make peeling a suit off easier without a lot of contamination or struggle. Just stick them on the inside of the lapels while suiting up, and remove safely later. Neatly done.

Similarly simple, the Transformative Tyvek project proposes distributing pre-printed but uncut Tyvek with suggestions for multiple hygienic uses in a response environment. Options include use as a bed sheet, vomit container, apron, mask, and body bag. Tyvek is an easily produced material and by producing and shipping flat distribution would be relatively painless.

For more on this charette check out the project page and keep an eye out for more of the school’s work on social design in the future. 

Sometimes super practical tools come in super cool packages. The Farm & Field Lockback pocket knife is a well-built, medium-sized, versatile knife with style that cuts deep. Traditionally used for farm and field work (go figure), the lockback is slim and tough enough to handle just about any daily tasks you can invent. 

These feature a 1095 carbon steel blade, smooth pivot, secure lock, exceptionally well-formed brass-pinned delrin/acrylic/micarta scales, and a brass reinforced lanyard hole. They're made in the states, and made right. And because we think great blades deserve great looks, we're extra pumped that these come in amazing colors: choose between bright Orange Delrin, soft matte Black Delrin, Green Linen Micarta, or a bold glow-in-the dark Nifebrite Acrylic! Take a gander—$95 at Hand-Eye Supply.

Steffen Kehrle is the Munich-based designer whose beautiful TRAY we showed you earlier. He's got some other tricks up his sleeve when it comes to cutting wood at angles—peep his pretty, adjustable ANYTHING shelves:

Looking at it closely, the grooves do not appear to be routed into the side slabs, which look veneered to me; I can swear I see end-grain on the triangles in this shot…

…which would indicate someone cut a ton of those angled pieces and painstakingly glued them all in place. More labor-intensive than drilling holes for shelf pins, but I like the final effect.

Another nice touch is his usage of contrasting color for the back panel. In the designer's words,

The back panel stabilizes the rack but moreover works as a stylistic element that accentuates the spaces between the shelves and makes them small individual rooms.

This is no mere concept, by the way; The Anything shelves are produced by Italian manufacturer L'abbate.

Virtual Reality until very recently was relegated to the ultra-nerdy. Dwelling primarily in the realm of sci-fi, gaming culture or the recent onslaught of 3D-blockbuster movies. With today's technology however, the time of two-tone 3D glasses are long gone, replaced now by expensive hardware headsets giving viewers a glimpse into the virtual. Cutting to March 2014 and the highly debated Facebook acquisition of Oculus Rift, it is undeniable that VR is having it's moment in the sun.

For those of us not rushing out to grab the first run of the Oculus, fear not—there is another way to experience the virtual. The wave of cardboard virtual reality viewers has opened up an entirely new use case for your smartphone. 

The DODOcase VR Viewer Kit

On the heels of Google's ‘Cardboard’ viewer and matching app in early 2014, a number of smaller brands took note, creating their own versions to turn your very own smartphone into a VR viewer with a handy foldable kit. The concept of a cardboard virtual reality viewer is the quintessential marriage of high-low tech, effectively retrofitting the smartphone for a number of new use cases. A far cry from the Oculus (rumored to retail between $200-400), cardboard viewers are a first step toward bringing low-cost VR to a wider audience. 

One of the quickest to jump on the cardboard bandwagon after Google’s announcement was the San Francisco-based DODOcase creating their version of Cardboard a mere 24-hours later. Most recently, DODOcase took a step further announcing a customizable printed cardboard version on their site retailing at just under $25 dollars. With a successful Kickstarter campaign funded this past December to the tune of over $60,000, DODOcase is well on the way to creating a go-to community for Cardboard VR aficionados the world over.

The DODOcase VR Viewer now boasts 6+ printable surfaces. 

DODOcase appears to have a history of pulling the ‘quick-launch’ on the coat tails of major product releases; the company was founded immediately following the release of the iPad way back in 2010. Co-founders Patrick Buckley and Craig Dalton were originally dedicated to making high-quality sleeves for tablets, laptops and phones, growing a business based on craftsmanship and an eye for materials. The shift to VR appeared much later as an opportunistic leap following Google's annual I/O developer conference where they announced Cardboard. Originally Google Cardboard was an idea developed as a 20% Project (a Google initiative allowing employees to use one day a week to work on side projects) by David Coz and Damien Henry at the Google Cultural Institute in Paris, but the DODOcase team saw massive potential for the open source plans. 

“As individuals we are very passionate about the craftsman and maker movement. But we are also keenly into digital technology and the developer community of builders. With [Google]Cardboard, it’s just this amazing intersection of taking something that was originally designed for talking—your phone—and transforming it into an entirely different, new immersive experience.” Craig Dalton explains on the DODOcase blog. 

While the VR viewer is an unconventional expansion of the DODOcase line, their newest iteration of customizable viewers at least sets them apart from their competition. Though the online interface, customers can design the 6+ printable surfaces of their own VR viewers to display any number of photos, patterns or brands. While only a cosmetic step forward for the low-end affordable viewer, it’s a smart one in capturing even a fraction of the billion+ market of mobile phone users. 

Interface for customizing your very own DODOcase VR Viewer. 

DODOcase additionally markets a Developer K

it and Hat-Mount display bundle in hopes of promoting the development of new apps for the viewer, of which there are still relatively few available from Google. The humourous approach DODOcase as taken to further product developments for their VR viewer appears to be giving them a leg up on their partners at Google. DODOcase maintains that the VR Viewer already accounts for a huge faction of their overall sales that only stands to grow in 2015, despite extremely similar products on the market. 

DODOcase Hat Mount for Hands-free usage. 

While its hard to predict what will be next for VR viewers at all price points, the Oculus Rift and DODOcase Virtual Reality Viewer are a clear indication that high and low-end options are covered. Until Oculus is released or we see a viable mid-range, we will be sticking with the good ol' cardboard for our virtual experiences. 

As the founder of Counter Hack Challenges, Ed Skoudis describes himself as an "InfoSec Geek," which means "information security expert" to us civilians. Skoudis trains cyber warriors in the finer points of attack and defense, running courses with names like "Network Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking," and he's one of the guys that government or military organizations call when they've got a cyberhacking problem.

When you think of what an elite cyberwarrior's office must look like, you probably picture a windowless basement dungeon with wires everywhere, or maybe a fluorescent-lit, concrete black ops room buried in the side of Cheyenne Mountain. But as it turns out, this InfoSec Geek has some rather fantastic aesthetic sense.

"We wanted an office that would intrigue and inspire, yet remain functional and fun," Skoudis writes. "We set out to create a space full of anachronisms, a portal into another space and time, a dimension of sound, of sight, and of mind. But never too serious. Here is what we came up with for our Imperial Headquarters (IHQ), tucked away above a garage in a nondescript house in the most beautiful state of the Union."

The entryway is not promising. But the first hint of the interior comes when the door is popped open…

…and you get a peek at the dark, Victorian-looking paneling lining the staircase.

Lit by lanterns, the staircase leads to a landing where a static electricity generator stands sentry.

Upstairs is the Main Laboratory, this one guarded by a suit of armor and a portrait of Albert Einstein.

The horizontal surfaces are awash in steampunkish artifacts: A Nixie tube clock, a phonograph, an antique magnifying glass, a typewriter.

While those artifacts are exactly what they seem, the bookcase next to the knight is not.

It pops open to reveal the Secret Room. "The room's name is spelled with a capital S and a capital R, but never with a capital T. Capitalizing the T in 'the' would be pretentious," Skoudis explains.

In this gorgeous stamped-tin-ceilinged space, we see the square footage where Skoudis can set up ragtag teams of cybergeniuses keeping our nation's cyber bacon safe.

The work counters are solid oak, and an antique globe on one end of one presumably reminds the counterhackers of what's at stake.

Meanwhile, a plasma ball at one end of the room reminds them that "Plasma balls rock!"

Tour's not over yet. A panel at one end of the room swings open…

Revealing what appears to be a disappointingly modern, and cluttered, storage room.

But this Secret-Secret Room has one last trick to offer.

A panel provides access to the rear of the Einstein portrait in the Main Lab.

Why rear?

Because, man, haven't you ever seen Scooby-Doo?

"As our tour comes to a close," Skoudis writes, "remember to engage the universe and its inhabitants with a thankful and playful attitude, looking beyond the surface of things, striving to learn and enjoy the precious time you've been granted."

In science fiction, people can set their laser guns to "Stun." With a flick of a switch, Captain Kirk can opt to fire nonlethal rounds.

Real-life police have no such option. While beanbag guns exist, it's hardly practical for cops to carry both of them around, and they cannot be expected to know which one they'll need at any given moment. As a result, when being approached by a threat who will not comply, their only option is to fire a lethal bullet at the target.

An unnamed, retired sheriff found this problem vexing, and "did not like the fact that people were being shot when the officers do have time (to consider options) but they had no other option than lethal force," Christian Ellis told CNN. Ellis is the CEO of a company called Alternative Ballistics, and they have spent nearly a decade bringing that sheriff's subsequent invention to market.

What the sheriff came up with is a small product, called "The Alternative," that can be quickly snapped onto the end of a pistol. When he then pulls the trigger, the bullet slams into a larger projectile on the end of the barrel, with plenty 'nuff force to carry both of them to the target. But the larger secondary projectile slows the speed and spreads the force over a greater area—in other words, it does not penetrate. "It's gonna feel like you had a professional baseball player hit you in the chest with a hammer, so it is going to hurt," Ellis explains. But the thinking is that you will survive, bullethole-free.

Here's how it works:

Obviously testing will be needed, as there are many hurdles to clear: Realistically speaking, can an officer break this out in time? Is there room for yet another item to hang from an officer's belt? How will the training be handled? So while we don't say this is the magic bullet, if you'll pardon the pun, to solve unnecessary shooting deaths, we do appreciate the fact that at least someone, somewhere is trying to apply design to the problem. Because we're damn sure not able to work it out between us as humans.

When your boiler breaks, you call a plumber. Damaged staircase, you call a carpenter. But who do you call when a Category 4 hurricane rips the roof off of your 18th-Century historical buildings?

That was the problem faced by Charleston, South Carolina—the oldest city in that state—when Hurricane Hugo swept through it in 1989. Hugo "carried off nearly every roof in town, leaving homes and businesses to be flooded by torrential rain," writes Citylab. As water began pouring into now-roofless structures built hundreds of years ago, damage figures soared into the billions.

And as residents set about rebuilding, they soon realized they had another problem on their hands: a shortage of artisans trained in skills like masonry, ironwork, and plastering, necessary to repair the city's famous historic buildings.

These trades had traditionally been passed down by skilled craftsmen to their sons or apprentices, but that old system had long since been fading away. "It was a recognition that a generation of teachers had diminished," says Mayor Joe Riley, who has been in office since 1975.

Charleston would recover from Hugo, but city leaders, newly appreciative of high-quality craftsmanship, decided that something had to be done to prevent traditional building arts from disappearing for good.

Riley got together with local preservationists to form a trade school that could produce skilled artisans to wield those forgotten skills. Putting together any kind of school, let alone one like this, was no easy task, and it took the better part of twenty years. But in 2005 the American College of the Building Arts opened its doors. By 2009 they were finally minting diplomas and had graduated their first class.

ACBA offers a four-year Bachelor in Applied Science degree in Building Arts, and it's the only school on the entire planet to do so. (They also offer a two-year Associate's degree.) All students technically have the same major—Building Arts—but within the program, choose to specialize in one of six areas: Architectural Stone, Carpentry, Forged Architectural Iron, Masonry, Plaster, and Timber Framing.

What's even cooler is that they also include traditional liberal arts classes—math, English, science, history—into the curriculum, but connect those courses heavily to the building arts. For example, the math classes focus on problems you'd encounter in an actual shop environment; the English classes might have you preparing debates—about ironwork; the science classes give students a better understanding of materials and their properties; the history classes tie in with architectural history.

The internship program doesn't sound too shabby either, having "sent students abroad to work on castles and cathedrals."

As for what it's like to take the classes themselves, an article written by the National Trust for Historic Preservation provides this example:

Amid the clanging hammers and buzzing saws stood Bruno Sutter, a timber framing professor who was teaching the so-called trait de charpente system of using geometrical drawings to construct compound roof joints. The method, thought to have been invented by medieval monks, works well for preservation projects, Sutter explains, because beams in old buildings are rarely plumb.

It's one thing to fake your way through an English paper on Hamlet. It's quite another to fake your way through building a compound roof joint when your professor is Sutter, a steely-eyed Frenchman who trained in the renowned Compagnon system, a European carpenters' guild that dates to the Middle Ages. Says student Moyer Fountain, a senior specializing in timber framing, "The first week we were here, we had 8-by-8 timbers and a framing square. We hand-sawed for a week straight. Bruno just stood there and smiled. 'What the heck is he doing to us?' we thought."

The students soon realized that Sutter was starting with the basics. Before you can entertain grandiose visions of building a curved wood staircase, you need to learn how to work the material. Fail to split your pencil line in half when cutting a piece of wood? Do it again. Forget to carry a numeral when making calculations and end up with a shoulder that's too short? Do it again. "He broke it all down, then started building us up with training," says Fountain.

In other words, you're doing real, hands-on stuff, not swimming through pools of theory.

You can learn more about ACBA here.

On February 7th, 1979, thousands of Americans were introduced to the Supertrain, which ran from New York to Los Angeles. Nuclear-powered, the super-wide-bodied train topped out at 190 miles per hour and boasted on-board luxuries like a swimming pool, a discotheque, a shopping center and a movie theater. It even had a dedicated on-board Social Director.

But it only made nine voyages over three months…before network executives pulled the plug. The Supertrain wasn't a real vehicle at all, but a fictional NBC television show, the most expensive ever produced at the time. It was also a massive flop that made TV Guide's "50 Worst TV Shows of All Time" list, as a sort of Love Boat rip-off—just on rails—that no one wanted to watch. And on top of that, one of the insanely expensive models suffered a bad crash at an outdoor set:

That was $250,000 down the drain, and the model had to be replaced. The network reportedly spent some $5 million total on all of the models and sets, a huge amount of money back then. But it must have been a bonanza for a bunch of modelmakers.

Why Supertrain failed is no surprise, and proof that back then everyone in Hollywood really was on coke, which makes horrible ideas sound great. Plots involved hitmen, heiresses, jewel thieves and in one episode, a Presidential candidate murdered by his twin brother who has now assumed his identity but has to fool his brother's ex-wife into thinking he's the real deal. Great stuff.

So now you see why I don't have much faith that America will ever produce a coast-to-coast high-speed rail system. We can't even get it right on TV.

When any of us use wood as a building material, whether in structures or furniture, we typically do so because of its rigidity. We spend time designing our pieces and joinery in such a way as to eliminate flexure. While wood has some natural give to it, we often try to counter it.

But here's a good example of a craftsman taking a different tack: Working with wood's tendency to flex, and thereby creating a very cool mechanical feature. We've sliced this video into a sub-one-minute segment, now watch how this folding table works:

While these are totally different projects, using the sprung wood in the table reminded me of the handle mechanism on Matthias Wandel's Flip Handle Ramekin Serving Tray. You'll see him first start to devise it around 5:55 in the video, but the whole thing's worth a watch, as you get to see him design the project as he goes along:

Design Indaba 2015 kicked off today with an exceptional roster of speakers spanning the worlds of advertising, digital design, furniture and interactive art, but the blue sky thinking from a group of young designers presenting work in progress provoked a wide-ranging conversation about design for the future. In a PechaKucha-style run, the eight members of the "Global Design Graduates" panel represented student work from RCA, University of Stellenbosch, Parsons, ECAL, Eindhoven, RISD and Carleton University. Here's a look at three product design projects worth exploring—take note, it won't be the last time you hear these names.

A Transforming Wheel

We covered the work of Ackeem Ngwenya and his "Roadless" transforming wheel when he was crowdfunding his design education in 2013. Since then, he has graduated from RCA and received additional funding to continue developing his concept for a transforming wheel that can easily navigate the unpredictable road conditions of his hometown of rural Malawi. The young designer shared his belief that, "design and creativity can have a huge impact on developing communities." 

The "Roadless" project was created to provide people "something that works in spite of the infrastructure." Since we last wrote about the project Ngwenya has started down the long road of materials exploration in search of something that can be both durable enough for rough road conditions and flexible enough to withstand the rigors of a shifting form. He has also been looking at the "Roadless" wheel as a cheap alternative to more traditional tires by incorporating strips of junk tire with his wheel mechanism

An IKEA Hack for Gamers

When Marc Dubois, an avid gamer and interaction designer from ECAL, goes to IKEA, he sees infinite possibilities in every day objects, not just another affordable desk lamp or colander. Dubois' "Open Controllers" project takes familiar icons from the shelves of IKEA and transforms them into game controllers. Leveraging the technology embedded in most mobile phones (gyroscope, camera), salad bowls and paper packaging become tactile gaming instruments and the light from a gooseneck table lamp helps gamers navigate an on-screen environment. Dubois' most recent project—leveraging Oculus Rift technology—continues his work in how sensory experiences in the real world can augment digital environments.

Bacterial Lights

The mystery and promise of nature inspired Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Teresa van Dongen to pursue the possibilities of harvesting light from biological sources. With a background in the sciences, van Dongen's interdisciplinary practice incorporated the work of scientists from TU Delft to create the Ambio lamp. Captivated by the natural glow of bioluminescent algae that populate warm water oceans the world over, van Dongen seeks to recreate the underwater twinkle that can be witnessed with each tide. The designer fills a glass tube with an "artificial seawater medium" inoculated with bioluminescent bacteria. With each swing on the weighted pendulum, the water becomes oxygenated, activating the bacteria. Although the lighting is not sustainable (the bacteria cannot live in the fixture for extended periods of time—it must be fed, oxygenated and filtered regularly) the experience of seeing the light in action is mesmerizing and will inform her work to come.

Children often have lots of toys, and those toys need a place to go when not in use. A toy box can work well for larger items (costumes, large toy trucks, large stuffed animals, etc.) while smaller items get lost at the bottom.

Safety is always an issue when it comes to toy boxes—children can get caught inside, and lids can fall on them. Designers address these concerns in various ways. These boxes from Gary Moore have cut-outs on all four sides to keep children's fingers from getting caught; they also provide ventilation if somehow a child did get trapped inside. Furthermore, the lids are fitted with lid stays. The rope handles help with carrying the box.

This toy box from Childs & Co. uses lift-off lids with big finger holes instead of a hinged lid; that's going to be easier for many children to handle. It's made from plywood from responsibly managed forests and uses environmentally friendly paint from The Little Green Paint Company—things that will matter to a number of parents.

Yam&Toast provides another design, using a drawer that's easily pulled out rather than using a lid. Amazon.com warns that this box has small parts and isn't appropriate for children under 3. If it does indeed have those small parts, that's a warning well worth heeding; it would be better to design a toy box with no such parts.

Great Useful Stuff solves the problem of small toys getting lost in the toy box by providing mesh pockets around the sides. This is a lightweight box that collapses flat when not in use. It closes with a Velcro tab.

Although the lid on this toy box is very light, I’d be a bit worried about the potential for a child to get trapped inside if the lid closed and the Velcro latched. However, Great Useful Stuff assures me it has sold many of these toy boxes over the past five years with no issues.

The Plantabox toy storage crates have nice features: optional wheels and rounded corners. However, if a user chooses to customize a crate with a child's name, the name will need to be painted over before it's reusable by another child in the family, and (unless the name is painted over) it will be harder to sell or give away. For people who won't want to bother with doing that painting, such customization might be better saved for smaller and/or less durable items, or for items the child might carry forward into adulthood.

Another approach for toy storage is smaller bins that can then fit under a bench or a play table. These allow for more sorting by toy type, making it easier to find what's wanted, but these bins won't accommodate the largest of toys. The See-n-Wheel bins from Jonti-Craft have acrylic windows so users can see what's inside; that's a smart design. Like the Plantabox, these bins have wheels and rounded corners.

ViaBoxes are modular, customizable solutions for many storage needs; in this case, three boxes were combined with a top piece to create a toy box. The different colors and shapes can provide cues to what goes where, and of course users can see in through the openings. As with any toy storage piece that is this open and close to the floor, the Via boxes may not work in a household with pets who like to chew on anything available. It might also be a bit awkward to see and to reach any smaller toys that get shoved to the back.

The Nua Bubbles from Red Edition, created by Marie Macon and Anne Laure Lesquoy, are a "reinvention of the toy chest." They have the advantage of working well for many toys while also being usable for other types of storage as the children grow up. 

The Toy Store from Oeuf has bins that can be positioned either flat or tilted. One smart design feature: The dividers are removable, so large sections can be created when needed.

Stacking toy boxes save space, but may be hard for children to unstack; adults may need to help. The Alerce stackable toy boxes from Nonah! are the nicest ones I've seen, with cut-outs that work as handles to make unstacking as easy as possible. Also, when the boxes are turned over, they can serve as stools.

This toy box from Childs & Co. is designed for under the bed—very smart, since that's a space that's often under-utilized, and it's easy for children to get to. There's a lid that can be turned over and used as a play table. 

This box would work well for the smaller items that get lost in larger toy boxes. The boxes come in two sizes and two heights, making it easier for users to find one that will fit the space they have.

Major Decision is the name of a web series aimed at high schoolers figuring out what to pursue as a career. The show's two co-hosts meet with practitioners from a variety of fields—banker, lawyer, engineer, professor, etc.—and quiz them about their work on-camera, then repair to a studio where they rank that profession based on "Basic" and "Essential" criteria.

Because of the rather stock, commonplace vocations mentioned above, and because the show has an element of curation to it—they focus on "promising and fulfilling careers" rather than every single job that's on offer—I was surprised to see "industrial designer" as one of their picks. I still think of ID as being a relatively unknown, and certainly underappreciated, field, though there's no question that our visibility is better now than it was 20 years ago.

In any case, I didn't want to start this entry off with their "Day in the Life of an Industrial Designer" videos—more on why in a moment—but would rather show you their end appraisal first:

How does that stack up against your own experience? Obviously some of the categories are a little wonky, particularly 2, 3 and 6 in the "Basic" category, and 1 and 2 in the "Essential." I assume those five were based not on some industry-wide survey, but by the one industrial designer (Seth Freytag, a Senior ID'er at Florida-based consultancy Inoventions) that they interviewed.

As for said interview, there are two reasons I didn't lead off with it. First is because, due to the broad nature of our profession, it's virtually impossible to do a "Day in the Life of an Industrial Designer" that could accurately nail the entire vocation. There are just too many variants; some of you reading this are wearing a tie or women's business attire, others among you are dressed like you're on your way to paint someone's garage and you have black shit under your fingernails, and yet your tax returns all list the same profession.

The second reason I didn't start with the videos is because, frankly, they're a little hard to watch. While I applaud their mission, the videos themselves seem like what an adult thinks a high schooler would respond to; and as I sat through all five, I found myself doing that thing where you grit your teeth because you're embarrassed for someone else. But for the convenience of those curious, here they are:

File this first one under wildly impractical but mind-blowingly cool. Audi's "OLED Swarm" concept wraps a super-thin layer of OLEDs—we're talking sub-millimeter—across a curved glass surface, essentially turning the back of the car into a curved flatscreen:

Sure I'd swerve off the road watching this from behind, and have an incomprehensible story for the paramedics, but darn if that isn't cool-looking.

Audi competitor BMW is also messing around with OLEDs in the tail lights, albeit with a more sober application. Exploiting the sheer thinness of OLED panels, the designers have encased an angled array of them in a housing, wresting a look of motion out of a static arrangement:

Of course, it can be argued that neither of these concepts has done anything to improve functionality or the driver's experience. For that we need to move around to the front of the car, to take a look at BMW's Intelligent Headlight Technology:

That last one, by the way, isn't a concept: BMW rolled it out on their 7-series in 2012.

It was two years ago that we first showed you Tom Sachs' "Love Letter to Plywood" video, and we didn't realize he'd since updated it. The video is part of his "Energies & Skills" series on studio practices, which are "required viewing for Tom Sachs' studio:"

They comprise guides to studio practice and documentation of specific projects and installations. The movies represent aspects of the sculptures that exist in time. These films will enhance your experience with the work and are the prerequisite for any studio visit, employment application, or interview. Most were made in collaboration with Van and Casey Neistat.

The updated version contains an added section about how not to strip a Philips-head screw, and another on sanding. If you've completed even your first year of ID school you ought already know this stuff, but either way the video as a whole is worth a re-watch:

When did climbing to the top of a very tall structure, then BASE jumping off of it, become no longer enough?

I wonder if people always did crazy stuff like this, and there was just no such thing as a GoPro to record it, so we never got to see it. In any case, now that the diminutive camera has changed the way we're able to view spectacles, by providing previously impossible-to-record POV's, it seems folks are upping the ante and creating feats outside the realm of normal extreme sports competitions or run-of-the-mill thrill seeking.

Hence BASE jumper Erik Roner hops into a lawnchair, letting a crew rig it up with 90 weather balloons that carry him to a height of 8,000 feet. Then he starts shooting the balloons out with a shotgun: