This is the seventh of our ten Tech Specsinterviews. Previously, we talked to Ram Trucks' Greg Howell.

Name: Andrew Kim

Job title: Designer at Microsoft, and design blogger at Minimally Minimal 

Background: I went to Art Center College of Design, did a couple of internships and worked at places like Google and Frog Design, and then started my first full-time job here at Microsoft about two years ago. For most of my first year, I worked purely on Xbox projects. Now I’m working on general Microsoft projects, including Windows 10. 

Computer setup: I have two computers on my desk. One is a Surface Pro 3 running Windows. That’s the workstation I use for rendering in programs like Keyshot and SolidWorks, and I also use it for general corporate stuff like getting on the internal network. And then for the graphics work I do, I have a 15-inch MacBook Pro that I use for most of the Adobe programs, like Illustrator and InDesign.

I have a 30-inch cinema display that I use for whichever computer I’m working on. And then when I really need some extra horsepower for CAD, I also have an HP all-in-one workstation that I’ll use occasionally. It used to be on my desk but now it’s elsewhere in the studio. For most everyday jobs, the Surface is good enough for my needs.

How much of your workday do you spend in front of the computer? Basically whenever I’m not in meetings, so that’s about 75 percent of the day.

Andrew Kim

Most used software: Illustrator would be number one, followed by InDesign, Photoshop, Keyshot and, lastly, SolidWorks. That’s pretty much it for creative tools, but then of course you have other productivity software—PowerPoint for presentations and Outlook for communication.

Software that you thought you’d use more often than you do: Apps like Evernote. When I graduated, I liked the idea of having a digital scrapbook or mental diary, so I started using Evernote. But my use just tapered off, and I reverted back to using a physical sketchbook and having random piles of things that I collect in different locations—whether it’s on Pinterest or bookmarking links or dragging images onto my desktop.

Phone: iPhone 6

Favorite apps: I’m completely addicted to Instagram right now, so that would be number one. VSCO is a brilliant photo-editing app; I love the way it works. That’s possibly the app I use the most. Along with that, there’s an app called SKWRT. It’s a perspective tool for photo editing that I also really like. 

Other than that, I just use stock apps—Mail, iMessage. Of course, being in Seattle, I use Dark Sky a lot, because you never know when it’s going to rain and you have to be ready at all times.

Apps that are actually useful for your work: As mundane as it sounds, I think the camera app and the photo app. A lot of times instead of taking notes, I will just take a photo of something. That’s actually something I use all the time at work, whether it’s taking a picture of notes on a whiteboard or a material sample that I want to reference later.

Other devices: Not any that come into my workflow. There was a period when I wanted to move all of my sketches over to digital. I have an iPad, so I tried using Paper, and I’ve also considered using Surface Pro to do sketches on—but I’ve come back to just doing sketches in a notebook.

Other machinery/tools in your workspace: We definitely utilize 3D printers and CNC machines, but those are not directly in my workspace. We’re sending files off to the model shop and they prepare them for the following day. Otherwise, we do have a couple of MakerBots around the studio, but I haven’t utilized them yet.

Kim's desk at Microsoft

Tools or software you’re thinking of purchasing: I’ve actually thought about learning Rhino, just on a personal level. We have quite a few Rhino users in the studio, and being someone who’s purely about SolidWorks, I always get jealous when they’re able to create sketches of 3D models at an incredible speed.

How has new technology changed your job in the last 5–10 years? I’ve only been at this job for a couple years, and I don’t think there’s been a massive shift in that time. One big difference between being in school and being at Microsoft, however, is that at Microsoft you’re able to print anything you want—money isn’t a boundary like it is when you’re a student. So just on a personal level of making models or developing ideas, there’s definitely a level of freedom here that you don’t get in school. 

In his first year at Microsoft, Kim worked exclusively on Xbox projects.

Now Kim is working on general Microsoft projects, including Windows 10—which will feature holographic computing.

Microsoft's HoloLens

When it comes to new tech, are you a Luddite, an early adopter or somewhere in between? Somewhere in between. I like to try out new tech, but I’m also someone that doesn’t like to mess with a lot of things. I like to have things that work, and have a workflow that works the way I like it. But I am always fascinated by new technology.

Do you outsource any of your tech tasks? Yes, especially when it comes to model making—a lot of that is outsourced. We have a couple of model shops that we use all the time, because our shop doesn’t have the ability to do things like VM or machining at a more delicate scale. 

What are your biggest tech gripes? I think right now it would be that I still can’t have a digital notebook and have it feel as intuitive as a physical one. That’s an idea I’ve always liked, hence my experiments with things like Evernote, Sketchbook Pro and Surface. But I think we’re still a ways away. Even an app like Paper—there’s still that difficulty of getting out the tablet, turning it on, going into the app, opening your notebook, creating a new page. It’s not the same as just opening your sketchbook and putting down an idea. So for now I’m still 100-percent sketching on paper.

I think the root of my dissatisfaction with software right now is the lack of immediacy. We’ve grown immensely in terms of speed and performance, but it’s still not the same as paper.

What do you wish software could do that it can’t now? I think the root of my dissatisfaction with software right now is the lack of immediacy. We’ve grown immensely in terms of speed and performance, but as I mentioned before, it’s still not the same as paper. There’s still something so raw and tactile about paper that I miss when I do anything in software. Even the difference between cutting things out and gluing them down on paper versus using Illustrator—I think once we can get that level of tactility in software it will be really incredible.

Finally, we've all had instances of software crashing at the worst possible moment, or experienced similar stomach-churning tech malfunctions. Can you tell us about your most memorable tech-related disaster? The biggest tech trauma that I’ve had was when I was a student and I was on vacation in Korea. It was the first time that I had a laptop hard drive fail, and I lost all of my data. I was so stupid back then—I didn’t even have a backup, so I lost all my music, all my photos, everything. I ended up having to scavenge through different external drives and thumb drives, looking for anything that I could save. That was the worst tech experience for me, personally. The only positive aspect was that I had to start again with a new computer, and it was like having a blank canvas—it was sort of refreshing to have this completely new start. But now, of course, I religiously back up everything in two locations.

Tonight at Hand-Eye Supply's Curiosity Club, we feature the beer knowhow and contentious propositions of a seasoned beer snob. Join us in store or streaming online at 6pm PST, as Jack Harris of Fort George Brewery presents "This Beer Doesn't Taste Like IBUs."

International Bittering Units - or IBUs - have become a standard for beer descriptions since Craft Beer has gained popularity. It has become nearly a requirement for a brewery to list ABV (Alcohol by Volume) and IBU's with a beer name. Jack's thesis is that IBU's do a disservice to beer as they are rarely accurate and almost always irrelevant. 

I will explain what IBU's actually measure and how the measurement is done and then show how the number derived does almost nothing to promote knowledge of the beer it is describing. I will propose alternatives to the IBU for making it easy to describe a beer so the beer drinker can anticipate what they are ordering have been brewing professionally since I worked at the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse in Hillsboro for the McMenamins in 1990. Since then I have run breweries in Lincoln City, Boulder, Redmond (Oregon), Cannon Beach and now own and operate the Fort George Brewery in Astoria. I live in beautiful Astoria with my wife, son, dog, two cats and a Leopard Gecko.

In the last century, cars transformed American life and its landscape—city surfaces became places of vibrant, visceral physicality and driving ushered in the viability of suburban developments and the notion of travel by expressway. When cars were first created, design departments didn’t exist — that came much later when Harley Earl established the concept at General Motors in the 1950s. Instead, in the early days of the automobile, design was an inherent aspect of product development, a carryover from the bespoke coach build process.

Today, the concept of mobility is being challenged as alternative fuel sources, computerized cars and self-driving technology become reality. These changes are ushering in a return to the early days of the auto industry, where automotive designers are working in tandem with engineering to play a key role in the development process. At this year’s North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), lead designers provide insight into how designers are in a unique position to steer the auto industry into the future.

Automotive UX

As technology transforms the car industry, the role of an automotive designer is also shifting to define the way drivers interact with their vehicles. Designers determine and mitigate the pace of technology as its introduced into the car. They flesh out touch and appearance of user interfaces, integrate the sound of sophisticated sensors and select the myriad of materials used on hard surfaces.

Karim Habib, BMW Group

“I realized that being a car designer today is not the same thing as being a car designer in the past,” says Karim Habib, who heads BMW Design. “Building these beautiful sexy shapes, these driving machines, is not only what we do. We have to do a lot more and a lot of that has to do with the experience, the user interface.”

Habib leads 120 designers at the iconic German luxury performance brand. BMW is known for it’s driver-centric experience, but one that prides itself on being perceived as cutting edge; it introduced iDrive’s high-speed function in 2001 production vehicles. “We have to keep the driver and the act of driving in the forefront,” Habib says. BMW designers create the layout of the head-up display, shape the look of the digital cluster and will eventually integrate the autonomous driving experience for the consumer.

I spoke to Habib at NAIAS, where the company was focused on launching the new BMW 6 Series model. But Habib, like many other auto industry professionals, was still buzzing from the recent announcement at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, where BMW introduced its latest technological thinking with the next generation iDrive: gesture-based commands. Staying true to BMW’s driver-centric philosophy, his team had to determine what gestures would be intuitive, while mitigating risk and the propensity for distraction.

The race to introduce new technologies tasks the design team to sort out the user experience and implementation of the technology—this is where car design departments are recruiting and hiring. For a new generation of automotive designers, it’s not enough to be able to model the shape of a car. Designers must be able to think in more expansive, future-minded ways, and quickly adapt to shifts in consumer perception.

The year car companies and technologists came together

Ralph Gilles, Fiat Chrysler

“It’s amazing how the tech world is diving into the auto world,” explains Ralph Gilles, Senior Vice President Product Design for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. “It’s colliding in an interesting way. I’ve gone to the last four Consumer Electronic Shows and I’ve seen a dramatic interest in the automotive world as they see the potential in this huge market. People are in their cars for hours and hours and they want to tap into that time.”

One of the most innovative strides in the car industry was discussed just outside of the auto show at the Automotive News World Congress, where Chris Urmson, head of autonomous vehicle research for Google, addressed the audience. He expressed Google’s interest in working with major manufacturers to have autonomous cars on the market in five years, an ambitious assertion, but one that is backed up by Google’s high profile engineering and testing efforts.

These industry shifts also open the doors for new players. The Phoenix-based company Local Motors demonstrated the potential of a fully operational 3D-printed car built in micro-factories at Cobo Hall. Some of the tech progress won’t be brand driven, but collaborative efforts, which will ultimately impact policy. The University of Michigan plans to open M City, a test roadway to collect autonomous data, by this Spring. 

The Anthropology of Automobiles

It is these sorts of innovations that are transforming the role of automotive design departments— how much digitized information is necessary, what makes sense for the consumer and how technology should be consumed. “One of the more interesting things for those who are involved with cars is that certain objects have a different meaning as society evolves and changes, and the car is definitely one of those. The meaning of what cars stand for is changing, and it’s changing quickly,” Habib says.

As long as consumers invest in automobiles, human behavior and the desire for individuality remains key to creating and selling successful cars. But as lifestyles continue to reflect an increasingly digitized world, out-of-the-box thinking becomes necessary. Even the way cars are being imagined requires a new approach to design. BMW’s context design team reports to Habib and is charged with studying future trends around the globe. Instead of dreaming up the shape of cars, this group of 8 designers embedded within BMW Group Design Munich study and anticipate the future of mobility by traveling the world and studying how people in different cultures live.

To sort through these questions, Habib turns to the tenets of classic design. “In my experience, really good designers are the ones that worry about two things — one is authenticity. What are the intrinsic values of an object? What does it do well? The second aspect is the environment and sociological changes and how we evolve and the values that come with those changes. That’s the amazing thing. [In car design] there’s anthropology and urbanism.”

____________________________________________________________________________

We're in the early stages of a new tech-driven auto industry. As car companies move toward autonomous driving, key developments will demand the skills of designers as consumers use their sense of touch, sight and sound to operate their cars. It’s a heady time for the automotive industry, in which the pace of progress seems to be stepping ahead of the product and predictions. It’s the designers who are in the position to translate that imagined experience into the tangible aspects in the new world of mobility.

This article is part of the Core77 Tech-tacular, an editorial series exploring the myriad ways that technologies are shaping the future of design.

The way that a machine can "free" you is by doing both boring and exciting things. When you set up a machine to handle dull, repetitive tasks, or tasks of such sophistication that they require an undue amount of your attention, now you can turn your mind to what humans are better at: Innovation.

Sketchthis.net founder and power Handibot user Eric Schimelpfenig understands this keenly. And in his quest to offload more of the boring tasks to his Handibot, making incremental improvements to his process, he eventually created a brilliant, entirely new way to use the machine—one that not even the machine's creators could have envisioned.

First off, let's look at how a Handibot is used on large pieces that exceed the machine's cutting envelope. Let's say you have a long piece of lumber that you'd like to turn into a stair stringer, by routing channels into it like this:

What you would need to do is take an indexing rail—a long piece of wood with precisely-spaced notches in it—like this:

As you can probably puzzle out from the photo above, you attach the indexing rail to your workpiece. The little blue finger nests into the notch of your choosing, and you cut whatever the machine can reach from that position. Then you slide it down a notch or two to make the next cut, having "tiled" your cutting file. In other words, you're cutting out that stair pattern one 6" x 8" chunk at a time.

The indexing rail is not something you buy in a store, of course; you make it yourself on the Handibot. But the first time you do this, you're faced with a paradox: How do you make a long, accurate indexing rail when you don't already have a long, accurate indexing rail to screw it to? Schimelpfenig figured out a clever way to do this.

He sticks a long piece of plywood under the Handibot, clamps it down, then cuts the first area of notches and numbers. He also has the machine drill a hole between the numbers. And he's hacked the CAM code so that after it cuts, the machine stops the bit from spinning, moves the bit above the hole, plunges down into the hole, then moves sideways—sliding the entire workpiece over by the precise amount required to get to the next cutting area. Then the bit lifts out of the hole, starts spinning again to cut, rinse and repeat.

As you can see, all the user needs to do is repeatedly clamp and unclamp the wood. But this next hack gets rid of even that step. Here Schimelpfenig is using the Handibot on PVC pipe, held in place by a cam clamp that presses the upper fence against the workpiece. But this time he's hacked the code to not only move the pipe through the machine, but also to unclamp and re-clamp the piece before and after moving it:

We asked Schimelpfenig about both his background prior to CNC (turns out he came from a traditional woodworking shop) and how he came up with these crazy Handibot hacks.

______________________________________________________________________________

Core77: We didn't get to this in the last interview, so what is your design and build background?

Eric Schimelpfenig: I started at a wood shop right outside of high school. We designed high-end kitchens and very complicated, unique, one-off pieces of furniture, involving anything from custom veneers to Japanese joinery. I ended up working at this wood shop for a number of years, and just picked things up on the job.

You mentioned earlier that you're not a good woodworker. When did you realize this?

Well, I don't like doing mundane or repetitive tasks. And with a lot of bread-and-butter, making-money woodworking—cabinet boxes and such—there's a lot repetitive stuff. So when I say I'm not a good woodworker, I just get really bored cutting panels all day. I'd much rather have a computer do that for me, so that I can then come up with some complicated piece of joinery, or some really interesting way to assemble something.

And that's where my passion for these machines comes in. Because with them you can take out a lot of that repetitive stuff and focus your energy on creative things. It takes boredom off the table and frees up your time to be more innovative, and that's the really cool thing. So like with the Handibot, I don't really have any repetitive tasks—they're all experiments.

Did your experiences in that shop inform your current work?

You know, I think that my semi-intentional lack of woodworking skills is actually what leads me to some of these crazy ways to do stuff [with digital tools]. At the wood shop I was primarily a designer, so I didn't actually work in the shop. We worked with some really high-end, exotic materials, and sometimes I would design stuff without a good regard for the materials and the tools that we actually had to work with.

So we would sometimes run into problems. Like let's say I designed an impossibly long piece of wood, or something that just couldn't be cut with the tools that we had. Luckily we had clients that [were willing to bail us out by] buying a unique tool for a job, which is kind of a magic solution. But you're not always going to have that. So the conventionally "safe" approach should be to look around and go, "Okay, I've got a table saw and a chop saw, and a drill press--what can I actually make with these things?"

And asking "What can I actually make with these things?" gets even more interesting with digital tools.

Speaking of which, how did you figure out that PVC clamping-and-unclamping hack?

At the time I was building a geodesic dome out of PVC pipes, and I decided to use the Handibot to make parts of that.

Hang on a sec, let's back up: Tubular PVC pipe is not an obvious material to use a router on—what made you stick that stuff in the machine in the first place?

Right, so going with the "conventionally safe" approach I just mentioned, you'd probably go "Okay, I've got a cut out a pipe, that means I've got to go to the chop saw." Or "I've got to drill holes in this pipe, so let's go to the drill press." But I wanted to see if I could work it with the Handibot. Admittedly that's not always the best way to approach a problem, but it is certainly the most interesting. Sometimes you come up with some cool innovation that way.

Initially I was trying to make parts of this geodesic dome with the HandiBot. We ran into a time crunch, and I started using the HandiBot as a drill press: I'd stick a piece of pipe in and hit the button, it would drill it, and then I'd flip it over and it would drill the other side. That was really boring and basic, but it allowed me to quickly drill a hole a particular distance away from the end of the pipe. Once I set the jig up, I was just able to type the distance into the machine, then the tool would just move over and drill the hole exactly where I needed it.

But I've got that thing where I'm willing to spend time trying to automate something, so that I could save time later on. And I had like 500, 600 of these pipes I had to drill. So to automate it even more, I set the tool so it was just constantly going up and down.

That meant I could just stand at the machine and keep sticking pipes in there to get drilled, then pull 'em back out. It saved just a little fatigue of not having to push a button or pull a lever down.

Not a very interesting use—but it definitely helped out. Because afterwards I had all this pipe laying around, and I decided to use the HandiBot to mill the Sketchup logo into a piece of pipe. As I did this, I noticed something. You know how when you cut into PVC, it gets all these little hairy pieces around the cut? I didn't want to clean that off every time and wondered how I could make the machine do it.

So I figured out that I could get into the code—you know, the cutting file—and program it so that after cutting, the bit would stop spinning. Then I programmed the bit to go down near the cut and just knock all the little hairs off to make it smooth. It worked and I was like "Oh, man, that is really cool!"

Then I thought, What if I could automate this whole process? So what I ended up doing is I put a ten-foot pipe in the machine, and I had the machine itself come over and actually lock down the pipe in this rig that I built. It would mill the logo, it would unlock the pipe, slide the pipe over six inches, relock it, and keep going. So now I could stick this ten-foot pipe in the machine, work on other stuff in my shop for about an hour, and the Handibot is just pumping out however many logos it can fit on the pipe—all without me touching it one bit.

Pretty amazing. How many tries did it take you to get that process correct?

Probably three or four builds on the rig to get it right, but once I got it, it just worked over and over again. It was awesome.

Your M.O. is not just to figure this stuff out, but to show other people how to do it. This particular trick sounds complicated to teach—is it?

Right, so to actually turn off a spindle like that, you need to go in and manually edit code; it's just text, but it's pretty daunting if you're not comfortable with that stuff. And that feature, to stop spinning the bit, would not typically be built into CAM software because you never want a bit in a piece of material if it's not spinning—if it contacts solid material and it's moving at high speeds, it will break the bit.

But like you said, I like to figure stuff out and then teach other people how to do it—and I try to make it as easy as possible. So after I figured out that this would work, I ended up going to the guys at Vectric, the company that makes the CAM software that comes with the HandiBot. They're great guys and really smart. And I said, "Look, here's a situation where you'd actually want to have the tool off when it's introduced into the material, and it works--there's got to be a way that you guys can make this easier."

So Brian over at Vectric looked at it and was like "Yeah, I think we could figure that out." And he wrote me a little piece of software that plugs into their software. It will allow you to really easily do that. So, once he did that, I'm able to now remake jigs much easier, and I can do it all in that friendly software. And we've actually open-sourced that little plug-in, so that anybody who wants to recreate what I did and make their own rig, they can do that.

Sweet. Have you come up with a name for the process?

Not a sexy one, I just call it the HandiBot Automated PVC Jig. I probably should have called it like, "The PVC Milling Master 9000" or something. I guess I got to get a marketing guy involved and start naming my stuff better!

This article is part of the Core77 Tech-tacular, an editorial series exploring the myriad ways that technologies are shaping the future of design.

In our time of powerful computing, high demand programs and mobile offices, (and in light of certain recent unveilings,) another evergreen forum topic caught our interest: the Jack-Of-All-Trades device. Designers tend to wear many hats, but whether we're talking about a tablet, computer, phone or hoverboard, many of us aren't at leisure to spring for a different single-purpose machine for each task we require. 

Looking for a powerful but portable tablet? Affordable laptop that won't lag with Photoshop? For new designers, broke designers and freelancers, the prospect of investing in the right thing with a range of capabilities (at the right price point) can be frustrating. In addition to your common sense and Consumer Reports, here are a few considerations for cost-benefit analysis, gleaned from the forums. 

User Jakebot's example of using SolidWorks on a Surface Pro 3

It obviously pays to do your homework about which device offers what, but you might also take time to listen to trolls. If you're looking at a version of a device that's been out for a while, it's not a bad idea to look through negative reviews for trends that might not be addressed in early adopter articles and tech reviews. Does the battery life take a nose dive under reasonable conditions? Does the charging port crap out after six months? Is there a new version/driver/plug-in/OS due out soon that might improve or change the viability of this version for the type of work you're doing? Look at where the discontent is, and see if there are solutions yet.

Weigh your current needs vs. speculative needs vs. desires. How long do you want to have this thing? If your need is spurred by a case of "Sweet Jesus I just need to finish this project," you can probably buy the first thing with the minimum technical capabilities you need and resell it later. If you’re set for the time being, use your patience skills and automatic alerts to wait out deals on your dream machine. Auto-bidding programs for Ebay are a boon.

Carefully consider your most essential end goals. As Cyberdemon pointed out, some niceties are noticeable and some truly aren't that important:

IMO the ability to draw on the screen always outweighs the subtle details of line weight and parallax, which most of your non-artist clients won't care about.

Take your pet peeves seriously. If you can get by on a slower system that opens up a lot of possibilities, but if lag destroys your workflow and makes you want to kill...scrutinize those reviews. As such, go Full Nerd with your research. Not everybody loves deep research on gear, but it's almost always helpful to learn about the opinions and experiences of similar users. In message boards like ours you’re likely to find blow by blow accounts of how different devices and programs respond and hold up. In the case of tablets and common software many users are happy to submit examples of work for comparison. 

Helpful examples from Jakebot, pre- and post-install of a Wintab driver

New or used, don't necessarily trust what you demo. As Jakebot points out, some pre-installed programs give a poor impression of what a tablet or computer is capable of: 

I tried out freshpaint when I first got it out of the box and it was terrible. The pressure sensitivity forced you to really jam on the screen to get anything to show up. They should really just preload sketchbook express on the surface if they want to sell people on its drawing capabilities.

Be reasonable about how much can you really cram into a single device at a certain price point. As this OP found, we may have many options but there's still often no silver bullet.

This article is part of the Core77 Tech-tacular, an editorial series exploring the myriad ways that technologies are shaping the future of design.

There is that iconic fight scene in The Chinese Connection where Bruce Lee fights off 30 people at once. Obviously that's just a movie and the scene is heavily fictionalized, but there is one central truth in there, which I can confirm from the spontaneous bouts of wrestling that occasionally break out in Core77's editorial offices: It is impossible for 30 people to attack one person at the same time. It is a simple question of physics and surface area: When I am trying to put the intern in a Camel Clutch and both the Managing Editor and the Photo Editor are in my way, I can't get my hands in there.

For years people have been messing around with "designer salt," which theoretically provides all of the salt flavor of a grain of regular salt, with less of the volume. The end result is that the consumer gets to achieve the salt taste they want without having to ingest as much sodium, as we only taste the part of the salt grains that are in direct contact with our tongue. "PepsiCo studied different shapes of salt crystals to try to find one that would dissolve more efficiently on the tongue," the Wall Street Journal reported in 2010. "Normally, only about 20% of the salt on a chip actually dissolves on the tongue before the chip is chewed and swallowed, and the remaining 80% is swallowed without contributing to the taste, said Dr. [Mehmood] Khan, who oversees PepsiCo's long-term research."

Design student Simin Qiu's "Swirl Faucet" concept also involves surface area—specifically, the amount of water that is actually needed to cover your hands while you're washing them. Royal College of Art student Qiu's concept would run the water through a double turbine within the faucet, creating a sort of cylindrical lattice of water that would supposedly get the job done, while using 15% less water than your average aerator.

I have no idea if it will work. But once I get the intern to tap out, I'll task him with eating salty potato chips, analyzing that Chinese Connection scene and studying Qiu's schematics to get you definitive answers on all three points.

"Cut! Sorry guys, the lens cover was on. You mind if we take that one again?"

Photos: Marcus Gaab. Courtesy of Jongeriuslab

"In design, there are merchants and pastors," explains Hella Jongerius. "I'm a design pastor. Today I step out of the closet to fight for new industrial values." In Jongerius' stirring presentation at Design Indaba 2015, the Dutch design icon explained that designers fall under two designations: merchants, or those making things to feed the retail demand for "new" and pastors, designers that are on a mission for ethics. "We live in a society where we shop without any conscious and there’s too much shit design," Jongerius laments. As a design pastor, she is on a mission to evangelize for a holistic approach to industrial design that, "connects cultural awareness and social responsibility with practical economics."

Over the course of over two decades, Jongerius has honed a unique approach to the design process, striving to unlock the potential of a product through a unique approach to materials research and development. Her studio practice, Jongeriuslab, has produced iconic designs for manufacturers like Maharam, Ikea and Vitra while her role as art director for companies like Vitra and Artek are a testament to her broader influence and deep approach to color theory, materials and a holistic approach to design. Her work for Vitra includes creating a Color and Surface Library for use across the portfolio. 

Daylight Wheel for Vitra, 2011.

"In the materials hides the potential of the product."

Jongerius' recent redesign of the business class cabins for KLM's fleet of 747s, is a great case study for understanding how the designer fuses craft and industry, creating a more nuanced relationship between objects and the people who use them. Beginning the process with an intense exploration of what was possible and not possible, Jongerius admittedly asked a lot of questions. But through an exchange with the client where, "we gave a master class in what design could be...and they gave a master class in all of the restrictions of the industry," the KLM team joined Jongeriuslab in questioning what was possible and pushing against those boundaries.

KLM cradle-to-cradle carpet.

Part of that process was to visit suppliers—textile mills, seat manufacturers, surface and material fabricators—to understand and work on the materials themselves. In a collaboration with Dutch carpet producer Desso, Jongeriuslab created the world’s first cradle-to-cradle carpet in the aviation industry. The wool for the carpets was harvested from sheep that were being bred for the meat industry, utilizing what was previously considered a waste product. The pop of KLM blue was created with yarn made from recycled KLM uniforms. Old carpets from the aircrafts will also be returned to the manufacturers for rescue.

A Hand-On Approach

In both the design process and the final product, one can see the working hand. For this project, the Jongeriuslab team was tiny: besides Jongerius herself, she worked with product designer Arian Brekveld and textile and color specialist Edith van Berkel to create a, "signature for the brand," as van Berkel explained. A Hands-On approach meant that the designers worked by modeling in foam and working with real materials on a human scale. 

Clockwise from top: Hella Jongerius, Arian Brekveld and Edith van Berkel.

There are very few airplane seat manufacturers and typically the process of designing a cabin means buying a seat off the shelf. Brekveld worked on the shape of the seat itself. "We made it more contemporary and fresh, creating a sense of protection," he explained. "It has to do with shaping the shell within limits. The original seat has an egg shape but we thought it was too obvious. We tried to make it look as much as possible like an ordinary seat. But it's an airline seat that is full of technologies. So we played with certain radiuses and created flat areas."

A cabin’s lifecycle is about 20 years with intense usage and in this highly industrial space, Jongerius stressed that, “even when you’re surrounded by industrial products you need to recognize yourself—you are still a human being.” To that end, a craft approach created a warmer, more inviting atmosphere for World Business Class passengers. 

"We developed our own fabric," van Berkel explained. "We created a contemporary shape and feel, color wise and material wise, and we stretched the materials wherever possible. In shaping and reshaping [the seat], developing our own colors for the plastics and the texture of the plastics for manufacturing in the US, we created diversity within limits to give the cabin a personal feel, a homey feel, a comfortable feel." By using 100% wool textiles, introducing a broad spectrum of materials beyond plastics, adding hand-sewn details and simplifying elements of the cabin, travelers are able to relax into an in-flight cocoon. These details, which convey a sense of, “seeing someone as an individual,” have become a point of pride and an investment by KLM in their customers.

“I Never Start On An Empty Sheet of Paper.”

A tenet of Jongerius’ process is a dip into the archives. This way of working, she explains, “takes back a loss of cultural awareness in the world of the new.” During the KLM re-design, the team discovered a Gerrit Rietveld sketch showing multiple color fabrics in a KLM cabin. Although the Rietveld’s design was never realized, the basic premise was honored in the new cabin interiors. Employing a range of five simple yet subtle dark hues for the cabin seat covers—eggplant, dark brown, night blue, cobalt and dark gray—serves to differentiate space for passengers and also tricks the eye to make the cabin look larger.

“Have a Signature.”

Those familiar with Jongerius’ work recgonize her use of dots and her work on the KLM cabin bears her signature. “The dot softens,” Jongerius explained. A repeat dot textile was used for the pillows and a double weave curtain featuring, you guessed it, dots, divides business passengers from economy. But more than just a visual signature, the dot represents a humanness, a warm approach to what can easily be a sterile industrial space.

While the designs for the World Business Class cabins are currently being rolled out across the fleet, Jongerius is working on an overhaul of the economy class on the 787s. Surprisingly, Jongerius shared that her work on the pillows and blankets has become the most difficult product because of the demands placed on the materials: washed after every trip and the need to stay fresh. She is still working to find the right material, giving the same attention to detail to, “the actors that no one cares about.”

It’s this care and focus that makes Jongerius a unique evangelist in a crowded field of both merchants and pastors. Her work imbues emotion and memory in industrial objects, communicating, reinforcing and reflecting our humanness. At Design Indaba, she challenges designers to draw out the potential of objects beyond “just new.” Through a layered, holistic approach, designers can excavate the true value of the relationship between object and humans.

This is the eighth of our ten Tech Specs interviews. Previously, we talked to Microsoft's Andrew Kim.

Name:Jonathan Harris

Job title: Digital artist specializing in data visualization and storytelling

Background: I studied computer science at Princeton. Then it took me some time to figure out how to use computer science to do anything creative. I would say that really happened for me when I did a one-year fellowship in the interactive department at Fabrica, in northern Italy—that was the place where I started using computer code as a creative medium, in 2004. 

A lot of my early work was in data visualization—in scraping data from the web and aggregating that data into custom interactive experiences, which at the time was a novel idea. I did a number of projects in my early twenties that used data from the Internet as a means of telling stories about humanity. Then, in my late twenties, I started doing more offline work—giving myself certain rules to follow and then gathering data in the real world as a result of those rules. That led to projects like The Whale Hunt and I Love Your Work.

On my 30th birthday, I started documenting my own life through a simple project of taking a photo and writing a short story each day. That was called Today. I continued it for a year and a half, and from that project came the feeds for Cowbird, which is a storytelling tool that other people can use to share their own life experiences in a really beautiful and ad-free format. I spent three years working on Cowbird; now that’s on auto-pilot and I’m getting back to making my own personal work.

Computer setup: I’ve always used MacBook Pros. I think I’m on my fourth or fifth generation now; I just got a new one about a month ago. And I always get the most souped-up one that you can get. It annoys me that I have to do that basically every three or four years—and I think it’s a really unethical design by Apple, which is basically manufacturing in obsolescence the moment your AppleCare warranty runs out. 

Despite those gripes, I still end up buying another one every four years. So my current one is a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro, and I hook that up to an external monitor.

That’s about it. I have a very clean and simple space that’s very quiet to work in—that’s important to me. I don’t listen to music when I work; I just like silence. And I always have a very big desk that I keep really clear, so it’s just my computer and few pieces of paper for taking notes and diagrams. I do a lot of work on paper; I’m constantly adding thoughts and ideas to sketchbooks, and now I have a huge collection of sketchbooks from the last 15 or 20 years.  

How much of your workday do you spend in front of the computer? It varies a lot, because my work is half computer-based and then the other half involves expeditions and going out into the real world and photographing and writing. 

When I’m in the computer part of the work, I’ll spend the whole day at my desk, working from 8 a.m. until midnight sometimes, if I have a long day. But then if I’m off doing a traveling-based project, sometimes I’ll go two or three weeks without even checking the Internet. And those are times that I really relish. 

Jonathan Harris. Photo by Ryan Essmaker

Harris's former workspace in Siglufjordor, Iceland. Photo by Björn Valdimarsson

Most used software: It’s changed over the years as platforms have changed. In the early 2000s, I used Flash a lot, and I don’t use Flash at all anymore. And then for a few years I was using Processing, which exports Java applets—and then Java applets stopped being supported by most web browsers, so I had to stop using Processing. 

Then I worked for a little while with openFrameworks, which is good for doing installations—but it’s not great for working with the web, because it doesn’t really export to the web, so I had a brief stint with that. Now I mainly use JavaScript, PHP, MySQL and pretty basic web-programming languages. I’m just starting to do some work with WebGL now too, which I’m hopeful will stick around for longer than its predecessors. 

In terms of programs, I use TextMate for writing code. It’s pretty basic; it doesn’t do any completion, or at least I don’t have it set up to do that, but it’s simple and looks elegant. I use the Adobe products pretty frequently— specifically Lightroom, Illustrator and Photoshop. I use Google Docs for writing things. Gmail with Mac Mail. It’s pretty basic, actually. I’m not one of these people who’s super into the latest programs and programming language. I tend to use what I know and what I like. 

Phone: I’m kind of a Luddite when it comes to this stuff. I think I got my first smartphone in 2012, which is kind of crazy. Now I have an iPhone 4S. It’s very slow and annoying to use because I keep updating the software; it’s absurd at this point. 

Favorite apps: One app that I really like is called WriteRoom. It’s just a full-screen text editor where the entire screen is white and all you see are the words that you’re typing. I really like that for distraction-free writing.  

Apps that are actually useful for your work: Pretty much just WriteRoom and TextMate. When comes to the phone—and I think this is one of the reasons I haven’t upgrade my phone—I have pretty strong opinions about how distracted so many of us are by our smartphones, especially when we’re out in social situations. I try to use my phone at a minimum; the only stuff I really ever do on my iPhone is use Maps, the calendar, e-mail when I have to send something on the go, and occasionally Safari to browse the web. I don’t really install apps on my phone because I just find that they’re going to set me up to distract myself. So I try to keep my phone pretty minimal, and that’s one of the reasons that having an older phone is fine with me.

Other devices: I do have an iPad that I use occasionally when I’m reading. If I’m creating books, then I do a lot of reading in the evening, and if I want to quickly check something that I’m reading about, I can just grab my iPad, Google it and then put it down. I find that it doesn’t suck me in the way my computer would. 

Other machinery/tools in your workspace: I have a Cannon 5D Mark II camera, which has been a great tool for me over the years. And I have an Edirol sound recorder, which I use when I’m working with audio

Tools or software you’re thinking of purchasing: I’m thinking of possibly getting a smaller camera. I love the 5D Mark II, but it’s just so enormous and heavy to carry around that I end up not bringing it as much as I would like. I’ve also heard a rumor that Canon might be coming out with a smaller, more lightweight cousin to the 5D at some point soon, so I’m keeping an eye on that. And I don’t plan to get an Apple Watch!

I Love Your Work is an interactive documentary about the everyday lives of sex workers.

How has new technology changed your job in the last 5–10 years? I’ve really enjoyed GitHub for doing source control on my code and collaborating with others—I started using that with Cowbird around 2011. Google Docs has also been great. That’s where I put everything now, and I find that it’s really easy to collaborate and share with people, and everything is saved in the cloud, so I really like that. 

When it comes to new tech, are you a Luddite, an early adopter or somewhere in between? Definitely not an early adopter. Possibly a Luddite—but probably somewhere in between. I just use new things when they seem like they’re going to be really useful, or when I’m forced to by the ecosystem changing. 

For instance, giving up Processing was a sad thing because it’s such a beautiful programming language. It was simple and it’s very fast; you can output beautifully complex, interactive experiences. But then web browsers just stopped supporting applets. So you’re forced to use things like WebGL, which is slower and more complicated to write and more fussy and less standardized. But at least it’s an open standard, so you know it will be around for a lot longer. I tend to change my tools only when it’s absolutely necessary; otherwise, I stick with things that work. 

Do you outsource any of your tech tasks? Not really. With Cowbird, I have one engineer that I work with to help with some of the backend server stuff. Other than that, I tend to do everything myself, although that’s something I’m trying to change. I’ve always been kind of a control freak when it comes to all aspects of my process, and I think that it’s limited me in the amount of work I can produce. I’m about to start a new collaboration, though, so that’s something I’m going experiment with loosening a little bit. 

What are your biggest tech gripes? The biggest is the one I’ve alluded to a couple of times, that for those of us who are making work for the web and have been for many years and love the web as a medium, it can be very frustrating how formats become obsolete and no longer accessible. I have a number of projects that I’ve made over the years that are no longer accessible unless you download weird plugins and things like that, and that’s frustrating as a creator. I guess the lesson to learn there is to use open formats as much as possible—and this is one of the reasons I’ve really been opposed to building apps. With Cowbird, we made a decision not to develop an app, and I’m pretty sure I’m not ever going to make apps for my projects. I know that it has a short-term cost in usage, but I just feel like apps are destined for obsolescence, the same way CD-ROM and Shockwave formats were ten years ago. So the role of obsolescence in technology is something that’s frustrating. 

I’m pretty sure I’m not ever going to make apps for my projects. I know that it has a short-term cost in usage, but I just feel like apps are destined for obsolescence, the same way CD-ROM and Shockwave formats were ten years ago.

What do you wish software could do that it can’t now? That’s such an open-ended question. I mean, there are so many things: I wish software could be more true to life; be more capable of expressing ambiguity; be a more nuanced medium for self-expression without all of these layers of abstraction. I wish it could be more direct, the same way a pencil is direct—you just make a mark and there is the mark, whereas with software there are all of these steps you need to go through in order to make a mark. Especially when it comes to code languages, I think there is tons of room for improvement.

Harris's log-cabin workstation in the Oregon mountains, the site of his worst tech disaster. (Read his daily story from that day.)

Finally, we've all had instances of software crashing at the worst possible moment, or experienced similar stomach-churning tech malfunctions. Can you tell us about your most memorable tech-related disaster? Unfortunately, I’ve had a couple of those. The worst one happened shortly after I turned 30. I had been in New York for six years, and when I turned 30 I moved out to Oregon to this little log cabin in the mountains, at 4,000-foot elevation. I was there through the winter, so there was, like, four feet of snow and I would see another person once every three or four days when I drove into town to get groceries. I had a very slow satellite-internet connection, and I was building Cowbird there—that’s where I started.

I was there for four and a half months or so, and at that point I was not using source control for my code—I basically just had the entire source code for Cowbird on my laptop. And one dark, winter night, my computer just wouldn’t turn on. I got this black screen with white MS-DOS–looking prompts. The hard drive was just dead. And I hadn’t backed up any of my data.

The nearest Apple Store was in Eugene, a four-hour drive away down the mountain through treacherous passes and icy roads. So I got in my car and drove down there and dropped it off. They told me it was going to be a few days to try and repair it, and see if they could salvage the data, so I drove all the way back up into the mountains and had a few days there without my computer, unsure of what was going to happen with it. Then I went back down to Eugene to see what they could do. It turned out that they were able to replace the hard drive and salvage some of the data, but some of the code was lost also. That was a frustrating experience but also a good lesson in backing up data, and I’ve been meticulous about it ever since. 

This article is part of the Core77 Tech-tacular, an editorial series exploring the myriad ways that technologies are shaping the future of design.

The MFA in Products of Design program at SVA, in collaboration with Field Experiments, will be doing a workshop in Bali, Indonesia this summer. With a focus on transnational and interdisciplinary exchange, the workshop is open to undergraduate and graduate students, along with practitioners from any field of design, located anywhere in the world.The Design Summer Workshop explores and emphasizes alternative models for using design:

• Design as a tool to learn about culture and people

• Design as a way to build cross-cultural appreciation and understanding

• Design for mass communication (over mass production) as a way of sharing narratives and telling stories

There's a ton more to learn more about the program, and it's coming up quick! Check it all out here.

As part of our Core77 Tech-tacular, we took a deep dive into the world of wearables with a survey of the current landscape of wearable technology. In it, Carla Diana calls for a more holistic and wide-reaching approach to the field by approaching product design with integrity, cultural context and a deeper knowledge of materials. 

Material ConneXion boasts the world’s biggest library of materials and publishes reports on their monthly findings. To get a cutting edge material-hound’s view of where connected tech is heading, we spoke with Dr. Andrew Dent, Material ConneXion’s Vice President and materials researcher. 

Core77: We’d love to hear your thoughts on new trends for connected tech. What are the most important things to keep an eye out for right now? 

Andrew Dent: To start, the difference in what we’re doing and our intention with our reports is a focus on materials. Type in ‘wearables’ and you’ll get watches or trackers for your body. But if you’re thinking about creating a device, not just a watch (which is currently just a phone with a strap around it…not that groundbreaking), we’re more interested in the idea of smart materials and textiles. Less like an object, more like something you’d wear and forget about. Integration into clothing and accessories, not a distinct separate device. The trends I’m seeing are in four areas, in both materials and process.

First, seaming and encasing. The coming together of two things, as a solution. Polyurethane tape is a flexible alternative to stitching, already regularly used in bras and swimwear. It’s also an excellent way of sealing in wires and connectives. It’s already in apparel, now how can we use that as a substrate? It’s challenging to put electronics into woven and knit fabrics as part of the structure, since it’s still expensive and complicated. With the move away from yarns for stitching and towards films and membranes, perhaps it’s easier to put the electronics in that, sealed by another layer, to make it waterproof etc. With this you don’t have to be an excellent weaver to get your cables and so on into fabric.

Second, stretch. Polyurethane stretches, and we’re seeing more electronics that can also stretch, without losing the quality of the signal. I can make something stretch, but can I do it without losing connection or quality of sound in headphones? In new connectivity it’s vital to retain normal range of movement without losing quality. Now we’re seeing an increased flexibility of printed electronics, able to stretch without losing quality.

Electroluminescent Ink Technology. Stretchable silver conductor paste for printed low-voltage circuitry for wearables. The conductive ink can be printed on elastic films and textile substrates since it has good stretchability, adhesion and conduction. It can be washed up to 100 cycles and is stable through repeated elongation with minimum change in resistance.

Third, 3D, two ways. Several companies are using stretchable material as a base and thermoforming it into a 3D shape. It’s also increasingly possible to deposit onto a surface, in a printed or spray-painted application, now even onto very complex shapes and difficult compound curves. (Imagine a hand palm down on paper, and drawing a connected line up over the fingers and down—those types of contours!) We traditionally put the circuit board inside the object. Now you can print it on a flat 2D piece and then form it into a 3D piece, like the outer surface of a phone or a lamp, or you can “spray on” your circuitry with a very focused type of spray painting.

Fourth, disposability. Now this may be a good thing, or not, but we’re seeing advances in cheap enough batteries, wires and sensors (and even some screens) that they can become disposable. This is interesting because we’re moving towards a more highly efficient system of producing flexible, disposable products. There are many applications for this. Packaging, tickets, interactives. The combination of a number of technologies now all able to be put down and working in a low cost, high volume way makes them cheap enough for one-time use. That most packaging IS thrown away is a fact we have to accept, and this area will be interesting to watch.

Bioleather. Tough, flexible translucent sheets are made of bacterial cellulose produced as a secretion from bacteria fed a sugary solution in a warm bath.

Last is less of a new trend and more of an ongoing problem: the deep disconnect between engineers and creatives. And magazines, blogs, and information resources are to blame! In a clickbait headline you’ll see, “This new tech will allow us to do… a NEW INCREDIBLE IMPOSSIBLE thing!” Trying to help clients with wearable technology, they’ll say, “I want to charge my iPhone from my bag.” Ok, how? The perception that the technology exists, easily available, with no problems is a problem. Electronics are systems! The reason smart phones and watches are doable is that they’re very high technology in one integrated small piece. Apparel is a much larger area, the system has to adapt itself to that shape. A technology can work fine in the lab, but often they haven’t talked to an apparel or footwear designer —“I have to kick with that! It’ll be dragged through the mud during winter.” Electronics are still second fiddle to apparel or main function. 

Printed circuitry from GSI

I adapt to the way my phone works. It’s not a durable object, so I encase it in something. It only has so much battery, so I always have a charger. I’m adapting to my phone’s needs. That’s not the case yet with wearables. I don’t want to have to charge my bag, I want to hang it up! We expect clothes to work like clothes. A different perception of use needs to be the case. That’s one of the biggest challenges. Washable flexible bendable durable… we would never expect from a smartphone. And there’s extrapolation of what can be done. Thermoelectric fabrics, for example, generate electricity from the flexing of the fabric itself. A client wants to charge a cellphone from a jacket, you go back to original article and there’s one tiny piece [of evidence] that couldn’t possibly support the claims made, which were never supported by the researchers. 

You have expressed a lot of interest in naturally-based and grown materials. What are some sure signs that they’re getting out of the sci-fi (or retro) realm and into viable territory for designers and manufacturers?

One promising process is the mineralizing of natural fibers like hemp using lime, the product of which is incredibly strong and can be used for building blocks, like cements, but with a no heat process. Super durable and hard with building viability. It’s not a complete replacement for cement, but good for construction.

Biopolymers are also viable solutions. A great early use of biopolymers was the Braskem sugarcane polyethylene used in bottles for companies like Odwalla. Engineering quality plastics, made out of natural resources. Now, we can’t make all materials from it or we’d run out of food, but new methods use algae and sources that don’t cut into food or arable land. For every option from corn or sugar cane, we need more from the less interesting sources like algae that can be produced on an industrial scale and replace oils. 

There are also plenty of waste resources that are underutilized. Professor Wool of University of Delaware has won an award for his use of chicken feathers as a strengthener, and is now also applying it as a fibrous base in a false leather. They get approached by companies like Tyson all the time—industrial byproducts cost producers for their disposal. 

Additives, chemicals, precursors in manufacturing might be less interesting or splashy but work as adhesives or intermediaries, and are bio-based. You don’t hear about them as much because they’re less sexy, but there are a lot of them that you don’t even see. 

LumaFilm, a thin and flexible planar LED light emitter that does not require a heat sink.

Are there specific industries you believe will benefit most from developments in these types of naturally-based materials?

One industry that WANTS to use them is packaging. I congratulate Coke and Pepsi on plant-based bottles that were a real breakthrough, because they worked in the existing manufacturing and disposal stream. A biopolymer for a beverage bottle doesn’t work because it contaminates existing stream—it complicates recycling and messes up existing positive structures. New options can enter the recycling stream, still using a bio based resource. Sensible! 

Consumer products...less so. Some companies use it as marketing, but not a lot of it. We’re seeing coconut fiber surf boards, or Columbia’s alternative to neoprene, but no critical mass because in those cases the material is more expensive than the standard, barring wide adoption. 

Architecture loves the idea and wants to use them, but they only have to make one! Each building is a prototype. So they’d have to test the hell out of these materials. That said, architects are used to using natural materials, like lumber. And we’re getting good at taller buildings entirely made out of wood, up to 10-12 stories.. and they have a warmth to them that you can’t get from steel and glass.

Others might be industries that we don’t deal with or see much. Adhesives, etc. In automotive they’re sometimes in trunk liners, unseen interior panels. German and European manufacturers are actually mandated to use more natural materials. 

Washable Salmon Leather from waste taken from the food processing industry. Fish leathers normally require costly and inconvenient dry-cleaning, whereas this leather is able to be machine washed while maintaining its vibrant color, oft texture and strength.

Since the release of the most recent Material Connexion book on product design, which field have you been focusing on? When will the next publication drop?

Packaging should come out in August. Other topics will include interior design, then fashion or transportation design. 

Any advice for designers interested in broadening their use of materials past the tried and true?

The important guiding ideas for us are like that Donald Rumsfeld quote that won him a Foot In Mouth Award. There are three areas of knowledge: the stuff that you know that you know (designers know the materials that they know), then the known unknowns (I don’t know everything about it, but I know it exists), and the third section is the unknown unknowns. That’s the area that has the most potential. Until you’re provided with a new palate of materials you’re missing out. If you want to stretch yourself go for the things outside your frame. Thats where we come in—the stuff you didn’t even know exists—along with the info you need to use it and think and work in an entirely new way. 

Until an example [of building with mushrooms] the normal response would have been “What? No!” And that’s great! That’s our role and one of the most enjoyable things about what I do. 

Check out Material ConneXion for more information about their publications, services and ever-growing library of cutting edge materials.

This article is part of the Core77 Tech-tacular, an editorial series exploring the myriad ways that technologies are shaping the future of design.

Illustrator/author Christopher Niemann produces the amusing "Abstract City" blog for The New York Times, where he physically holds quick sketches in front of urban scenes and shoots them, as in these photos he took at the MoMA:

Even more fun is the stuff he does in-studio. For his "Sunday Sketches" series, Niemann takes everyday objects and integrates them with watercolors to create wholly original works. Whether it's food…

…clothing…

…household items…

…or the items in our pockets...

...Niemann's mind fills in the blanks in clever and unexpected ways. And I especially like when he integrates his own tools into the pieces:

Niemann's books can be purchased here.

And in the similar-but-different department, be sure to check out Hombre McSteez's work.

Via Bored Panda

Broad Sustainable Building is China's most press-friendly pioneer of prefabricated construction. In 2012 we were astonished to see they put up a 30-story hotel in just 15 days, and they subsequently announced plans to erect a 220-story skyscraper in just three months.

The latter construction, called Sky City, has yet to happen; but in the meantime BSB has released a video of the appetizer to that entrée. Sky City Mini, a/k/a J57 Tower, was erected in China's Hunan province at a rate of three stories per day—or what company architect Xian Min Zhang is referring to as "China's new normal." Be sure to check out the stats they're calling out in the video:

At nearly 1,200 feet in height, The 57-story J57 is the tallest building in the city of Changsha by nearly 300 feet. (For scale, it's about the height of the Woolworth Building in New York.)

The "95% prefabricated modular technology" used to erect it is the same way BSB plans to build Sky City, and global building information provider Emporis reports that J57 Tower, while a functioning structure in its own right, was intended to be a self-test the company would undertake before putting up the big kahuna. Following their passing grade, Sky City, it seems, is not as fanciful as it once sounded.

Since 2011, the Core77 Design Awards has relied solely on juries of international design experts to bestow the Winner, Runner Up and Notable honors upon the most worthy designs. This year, to celebrate our fifth time running the program and tip our hat to all the people who make the Awards possible, we decided to open a portion of the Awards to you, the design community. 

2014 Equipment Professional Winner "Illumagear Halo" by Pensar + Illumagear

We are proud to introduce the Community Choice Award, a new honor and set of prizes given to the "Winner of Winners" as selected by the public. Don't worry, the rest of the program works exactly the same as it has before - you will still compete against fellow designers from all over the world and your hard work will still be critiqued by a panel of reputable design professionals. Winners still get the trophy, the coverage on Core77.com, the satisfaction and all the bragging rights of years past. 

The difference this year is that the Winners, Runners Up and  Notables selected by the juries are automatically presented as the nominees for the Community Choice Award.  You, the design community, will then vote for your favorite nominee from each category during the two weeks following the jury announcements, leading to 14 Community Choice winners in all. However, the nominee with the most votes overall, across all the categories, will be our Grand Community Choice winner. Think of it as a "Best in Show" competition, but with much less barking. The Grand Community Choice Winner will receive the coveted title, plus airfare and hotel accommodations for one to attend the 2015 Core77 Conference this summer.

2014 Visual Communications Professional Winner "The Infographic History of the World" by Valentina D'Efilippo

We look forward to giving you a voice in our program and can't wait to see the results from the juries and the public votes. You'll find more details about the Community Choice Award here, which includes all the great reasons to enter the Core77 Design Awards. 

Remember, you can't win the Community Choice Award unless you enter, so don't miss the March 24th submission deadline.  Enter today! 

This is the ninth of our ten Tech Specs interviews. Previously, we talked to the digital artist Jonathan Harris.

Name: Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman

Job title: Director of the Intelligent Materials Applied Research and Innovation (IMARI) Lab at Pratt Institute. I also teach in both the industrial design and fashion departments at Pratt, and I run my own design firm, RPF Design Studio.

Background: My undergraduate degree is in fashion design, from Pratt. I worked in men’s active sportswear for 15 years, and then I came back to Pratt to do my master’s in industrial design. Then I took my unique skill set of industrial design plus fashion design and combined them to apply product to the body—that’s how I think of wearable technology. 

I’ve been teaching in Pratt’s fashion design department for 17 years and in the I.D. department for 11 years. Last September, I was approved to start a new research facility at Pratt, the IMARI Lab, where we take some of the interesting materials and technologies that are emerging, and figure out how to apply them to products, installations and other areas that provide us with interesting ways to interpret technology in art and design.

Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman

Computer setup: The way that the IMARI Lab works, it’s basically like a bootstrap startup, so we’re all running our own personal equipment. I use the same setup for the IMARI Lab and for my private practice. I have two computers—a PC for running SolidWorks and a MacBook Pro for everything else. That’s basically true for the entire IMARI Lab—we’re all Mac-based. Some people use Boot Camp on their MacBook Pros to run SolidWorks, and then a couple of us have PCs and flip back and forth.

How much of your workday do you spend in front of the computer? Both for me personally and for the others at the IMARI Lab, I would say that 80 to 85 percent of our time we’re working on the computer. The rest of the time it’s model-making, prototyping, stuff like that. 

Inside Pratt's IMARI Lab

Most used software: For the early iteration and concept phases, we use the Adobe suite, especially Illustrator and Photoshop. And then when we start getting into actual design and modeling, we primarily use SolidWorks. We have used a little Rhino, but mostly it’s SolidWorks, and then there are a couple of plugins we’ll use—like KeyShot, which is a rendering plugin for SolidWorks that’s kind of nice. And because we do a lot of electronics stuff, we also use Fritzing. It’s an online, open-source hardware initiative for making electronics. 

Other than that, I personally use Word and Excel a tremendous amount, because my job involves a lot of communication.

Software that you thought you’d use more often than you do: I thought I would use AutoCAD a lot, and I don’t really use it at all. I have a lot of AutoCAD and Alias experience, but I haven’t used them much lately. Nowadays I prefer to use Google SketchUp—the learning curve on SketchUp is so fast that it’s really easy. 

Phone: iPhone 5. I love my iPhone—I could rule the world with my phone. 

Favorite apps:Timely, which tracks everybody’s time and what projects they’re working on, so I can see what the productivity is. I also use all the social-media apps, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter—I’m a huge Twitter person. I actually think that, with wearable technology, the best way to stay on top of what’s happening is through Twitter. When people tell me they want to understand what’s happening in wearable technology, I just give them a list of people and organizations to follow on Twitter—it gets you up to speed really quickly, and you know the minute something is launched.

Apps that are actually useful for your work: I use an app called eDrawings Pro, which let’s me show SolidWorks renderings on my phone or tablet—that is super valuable. Another really useful one is called Shake. It’s like having an attorney in your pocket. A lot of times in my practice and in the IMARI Lab, people want to show you something new but they don’t want the whole world to know about it, so you have to sign a nondisclosure agreement. With Shake, you can create a nondisclosure on your phone in less that five minutes, and you sign with your finger and it e-mails copies to both parties, and you can have an instant nondisclosure. 

Other devices: At the IMARI Lab, we’re really fortunate to be on the Pratt campus, so we have access to amazing wood shops and different model-making shops, plus there’s the Form and Tech lab, which has numerous different types of 3D printers. We use laser-cutters and the CNC cutter as well, when we’re doing our model-making. Also, because a lot of the things that we do are textile-related, we often use the sewing facilities in the fashion department—there are numerous types of industrial sewing machines that we make use of. 

Other machinery/tools in your workspace: For the electronics components, we use soldering irons, and multimeters to check the electricity. Otherwise, we just have some regular printers for paper. Because a lot of the things that we do—the drawing, the rendering, the concept development—is 2D work, before you start building the 3D work.

Tools or software you’re thinking of purchasing: I’m jonesing for this new 3D printer that prints flexible material. It’s super cute—it’s called the Formlabs Form 1+. You can print, like, five different types of resin, and you can print it in colors so that it’s easy to prime and paint. It’s really amazing, and it’s reasonably priced too—about $3,300 for the printer. That is my next purchase.

Research for NASA's E-SEWT reconfigurable e-textile garment

Sewing a glucose-monitor armband

Smart-textiles research

How has new technology changed your job in the last 5–10 years? It’s been an exponential change. Just having access to electronics that are easy to prototype with—to be able to have these tools that break down the barriers that existed for applying technology to products, it’s huge. Because industrial designers are fearless. We’re fearless people. We will tackle any project. And the easier that it is for us to prototype something quickly, the faster we can get to innovative design. 

So that’s number one—to be able to prototype electronics easily and quickly, with a lower barrier to entry. The second thing is 3D printing. I know this is not news, because a lot of people use it, but just the ability to make a number of iterations and models and changes at the rate that we can make them with 3D printers has revolutionized how quickly we can create nuanced design. 

When it comes to new tech, are you a Luddite, an early adopter or somewhere in between? I am totally an early adopter, for as long as I can remember. My dad was a computer science teacher, so when I was in middle school, he gave me my first design computer. And I have been using a computer in my design process since the early 1970s. That’s pretty unusual. People my age don’t usually embrace technology; I love it. I’ve always had it in my life, and I always find ways to use the newest thing. I find it really inspirational. 

Industrial designers are fearless. We’re fearless people. We will tackle any project. And the easier that it is for us to prototype something quickly, the faster we can get to innovative design.

Do you outsource any of your tech tasks? Yes, but I don’t necessarily call it outsourcing—I call it collaboration. For some of the heavy programming, for instance, we’ll outsource that software development work, because we’re not really experts in the software development side. 

For example, for the past two years I have collaborated with electrical-engineering students at other universities. And that works out really well, because they’re primarily not hardware people. So we will work on developing a prototype with Arduino pieces, and then we will design the physical interface. We’ll ask all those I.D. questions: How does it fit on your body, is it comfortable, does it meet your expectations, is it easy to understand, et cetera. The electrical engineering students work on the actual software and computer side, while we end up doing most of the physical model-making. They design the circuit and write the software, but we actually do the building. That really is the ideal way that we outsource. 

What are your biggest tech gripes? I want it all and I want it faster! Really, I would love to be able to think something up and not have to worry about the interface of how to get it into a computer. I feel like there’s going to eventually be a way to think things and have them instantly be in the computer—that’s what I want. 

What do you wish software could do that it can’t now? I use Photoshop a lot, and it never seems to get things quite the way I want. Or I’ll be working in SolidWorks, and I want a certain shape to be twirling in space in a different direction, and the program just won’t let me do it, because in the program’s mind it’s impossible. But I know in physical reality it is possible; they just don’t let me break the rules. So I think it’s more like—you know, you can’t really anticipate the things you’ll need until you start working, and then you look for the tool that’s going to execute that for you. So I don’t think that there’s a program that I can just dream up that I don’t have. But I can tell you one of the things that I love is searching for the hack. We are really experts at the workaround, at trying to combine multiple pieces of software or different steps to get things the way that we want them. 

Finally, we've all had instances of software crashing at the worst possible moment, or experienced similar stomach-churning tech malfunctions. Can you tell us about your most memorable tech-related disaster? The biggest thing that happens, and it happens quite a bit, is that we lose our data. Your computer gets stolen or it’s not uploaded on the cloud in the right way, and we can’t get at our information. Or someone spills a Coke on their computer and fries the work. I would say that’s the biggest issue.  

This article is part of the Core77 Tech-tacular, an editorial series exploring the myriad ways that technologies are shaping the future of design.

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 Greene 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.

Many people discover their homes lack sufficient places to hang the towels which are in use. They may decide to add hooks or some basic towel bars and towel rings—but designers have provided these users with numerous other options, too.

One small luxury that many users appreciate is a heated towel bar. Besides providing some welcome warmth, these bars also dry the towels, avoiding musty odors. The towel warmer above, from Tubes Radiatori, comes in versions heated by electricity, hot water, or a combination of the two. Users getting the electric version may want to consider not heating the warmer 24/7 in order to minimize power usage as well as the resultant electricity bill.

Designers have provided users with many options when it comes to towel warmers. The Montecarlo from Tubes Radiatori, designed by Peter Jamieson, comes in a rectangular form and a square form, allowing it to fit where other towel warmers won't.

Towel warmers don't have to be wall-mounted; the Scaletta comes in both free-standing and wall-mounted versions. However, free-standing towel warmers can't be positioned with the flexibility of other free-standing towel racks, since they still need to be plugged in.

Another towel warmer design that can save wall space is the Totem, since it mounts perpendicular to the wall. It will tend to serve as a small partition, which will work well in some rooms and not in others.

The Linea double swivel towel bar from Zack uses the same space-saving design principle as the Totem towel warmer, but it has the added advantage of letting the two bars swing apart, making it easier to hang the towels and providing more air circulation for drying—useful here, since there's no heat to dry the towels.

These towelrails from Decor Walther look nice, but many people I know would never take the time to nicely roll the towels to fit into the rails.

This product from Antonio Lupi'sQJini line of bathroom accessories combines a towel rack and a shelf, which will help some people make the best use of limited space. The Qjini is made from lacquered stainless steel. It was designed by Daniel Debiasi and Federico Sandri of Something.

Here's another combination of shelf and towel rack; this one comes from Ethnicraft. In this design, one side has the towel rack while the other, larger side has the shelf. It looks lovely, but it's going to be somewhat harder to hang the towel up than with other designs—so it won't work well for all users.

People lacking in both floor space and usable wall space might appreciate a ceiling-mounted towel rack; this one from Decor Walter is called Move.

Wash basins that incorporate a towel rack provide a handy place to hang a towel or two. This one from Planit, made of Corian, has the towel rack off to the side, where it's less likely to get in the way than if it were right in front of the basin.

The Cup wash basin from Artceram shows just how creative a designer can get in incorporating a towel rack into the basin's design. That's an easy place to toss a towel, too.

There are lots of countertop towel racks—and sometimes that's just what the user needs. But this Handi hand washing valet is the only one I've seen that incorporates a valet for jewelry the user removes while washing up. It's such a good idea that I'm surprised to not find more designs like this. This one also incorporates a soap dispenser, which would save countertop space but would also mean fiddling around to refill the dispenser, so it's got both pros and cons.

Another combination product that might work well for the elderly or anyone concerned about bathroom falls is the Grabcessories combination grab bar and towel bar. Sometimes people try to use a handy towel bar as a grab bar, which doesn’t work; this product might avoid such problems.

Many people are happy to use their smartphones as their alarm clocks, but that won't work for everyone. Some users don't have smartphones—or are minimally tech-proficient and only know how to use them for limited purposes. Others choose to follow the advice of sleep researchers and feng shui consultants and keep all screens out of the bedroom. And others simply find a physical alarm clock easier to deal with when waking up than a smartphone.

If you're an industrial designer working on an alarm clock, remember that users care about ease of use, the sounds used to wake them up, the display lighting during the night, and of course the reliability. The Lexon FLIP alarm clock, designed by Adrian and Jeremy Wright, certainly keeps things simple; the user just flips the phone over to turn it on and off. This could be useful for a quick alarm silencing when one spouse needs to wake earlier than the other.

The user can choose a 12-hour or a 24-hour display, which is a nice feature. The backlighting only comes on when the user picks up the clock, and turns off quickly. This is a problem for some users, but those who don't want a clock light on all night will be pleased. Some users also noted that this clock tends to run through batteries quite quickly. And it doesn't have a low-battery indicator, as some other alarm clocks do.

Some users need a travel alarm clock—and designers have addressed this need with small, durable alarm clocks, often with added features. The Jetlag clock, designed by Industrial Facility for IDEA Japan, was designed specifically for ease of use; no manual is needed. It has one display for the current time and one for the alarm. However, a couple of users have said the alarm sound is too low, so it may not work for anyone but a light sleeper. (Even if someone prefers a quieter alarm so as not to wake a sleeping spouse, it would be better to have an adjustable volume that could go louder when needed.)

The Braun reflex control travel alarm clock has a motion-activated snooze function. It also has a flip-down lip that protects the clock face while traveling; the interior of the lid has a world time zone map. The silent quartz movement is a feature that would be appreciated on any alarm clock.

Of course, it's not just travel alarms that have novel designs. The Pick-me-up alarm clock from Thomas Bai Designs lights up the clock face (for five seconds) and activates the snooze function when it's picked up, so users don't need to find the snooze or the off button. (As with the FLIP, this could be useful for spouses waking at different times.) However, unlike the Braun, some users said that this clock is too noisy—a common problem with battery-powered analog clocks. (I had to give away a different alarm clock for just this reason.)

For users who'd like to wake up to a gentler sound than a buzzing alarm, there's this alarm clock from Now & Zen, which uses a chime. It also doubles as a countdown timer or an interval repeating timer. This alarm clock is targeted at those who meditate and those who practice yoga or various types of bodywork, but it certainly isn't limited to them; I used an analog version of this clock for years, and enjoyed waking to the chime.

The Timex Simple Set Direct Entry Alarm Clock is notable for just how easy it is to set the time and the alarm; users tend to purchase it for children or the elderly. However, one user noted that the alarm off button isn't that easy to reach; it would be easy to hit the wrong button. And, once more, some users have said the alarm is too soft, even on the loudest setting.

I have mixed reactions to this TimeSmart self-setting alarm clock from Brookstone. On the one hand, with those big buttons (one for each of the two alarms), it sure is easy for the user to see if the alarm is set, and to turn it off. (There's a large snooze bar between the two buttons.) It has a crescendo alarm, getting louder over time, which helps ensure that heavier sleepers (or those living in noisy city environments) wake up without being too startled. Users can set the brightness of the display; there are five settings, with one of them being "off." On the other hand, users choose the brightness setting by pressing on the snooze bar—not exactly intuitive.

Another concern is the whole "self-setting" thing. The clock is factory set to be correct for the Eastern time zone, although you can change the setting to use any other U.S. time zone. But this clock is not radio-controlled, as the user might assume; it's just using data stored internally. (It has a five-year battery.) A number of users have mentioned problems with time accuracy—the single most important thing for an alarm clock.

This alarm clock from Quantysis radio controlled; it's also solar powered. With one charge from some hours in the sun, the clock will run for a year; that's going to appeal to the environmentally focused user, and any user who gets tired of replacing batteries. There's another version that's a combination alarm clock and smoke alarm. The red dot you see by the number 3 is the indicator that the alarm is on. 

The Philips Wake-Up Light Alarm Clock simulates a sunrise; the light gradually increases for 30 minutes. After that, there's a beep at the user's set wake-up time, although many users will be awake before then. There's also a snooze function. 

Another model of wake-up light from Phillips has a choice of three sounds: morning birds, wind chimes or that beep. Some users really miss not having that choice in this model.

Philips claims that 92 percent of users agree that this alarm makes it easier to get out of bed. However, it may not work for users who take naps during the day, or any users (shift workers, etc.) who need to wake during broad daylight; it’s more suited to dark winter mornings. Also, this is not the alarm for anyone sharing a bedroom with someone who needs to wake up later, since it works over time and will light the room rather than being an alarm the user can have close at hand and shut off quickly.

The Sound Rise wireless speaker and alarm clock from Soundfreaq was designed for music lovers. Users can choose to wake to a preset radio station or the music on any Bluetooth device they've paired to it. As one user said: "I select the album I want to hear on Spotify, pause play on my phone, and voila, that is what I wake to. If I forget to do that, it plays random selections from music stored on my phone." And if the Sound Rise has trouble pairing, it will use its built-in chime instead. 

The Sound Rise also has a USB port that can be used to charge devices such as smartphones and tablets. Screen brightness can be adjusted, and turned off entirely for those who prefer to have no display at night. There are dual alarms with weekday/weekend settings. 

The Sound Rise is designed for a nightstand, keeping the footprint as small as possible and going vertical to provide space for the speaker components.

Some alarm clock designs are created specifically for those who tend to turn off other ones and oversleep. This version of the Ramos alarm clock, which is still in development, is intended for that type of user. 

The Ramos Smart is a remotely deactivated alarm clock; it's connected to a smartphone app and a Bluetooth beacon. It forces a user to get out of bed because it will only turn off when the user's smartphone is brought close to the beacon, which should be placed well away from the bed—some place the user wants to go after waking up, such as next to the coffee maker. (Ramos does have a snooze function, but it can only be used a limited number of times.)

Many users will be fine with standard shoe storage products: basic shoe racks, plastic shoe boxes, shoe cubbies or shelves in a closet, over-the-door shoe pockets, etc. But shoe storage can also involve creative designs which some users will appreciate.

The wall-mounted horizontal shoe racks from J-Me (above) come in two styles; one is designed specifically for stilettos and one for shoes in general. The non-stiletto version also comes in two lengths, holding either three or six pairs of shoes. These racks could be used in many different places: an entranceway for shoes-off homes, a bedroom, a closet, etc. Many users have chosen to stack two or more of them, one above the other. The standard racks take up as little room as shoe racks possibly could, so they're going to work well in small spaces. But they won't work in homes with dogs or children who will grab the shoes, unless the racks are placed above their reach (which wouldn't be the normal location).

The ZJUP shoe holder from LoCa, designed by Harrit-Sørensen, was designed to accommodate shoes of all shapes and sizes—and Nicolai Sørensen says it should indeed work for about 95 percent of shoe types. KJUP was also designed to protect the walls from muddy or wet shoes. (Any shoe rack accommodating wet shoes would need to be placed over appropriate flooring, obviously.) The plastic bar holding the shoes in place is a non-spring loaded bar, so it exerts no pressure on the shoes. Because each ZJUP holds just one pair of shoes, it can fit in places where a multi-shoe rack could not.

The Shrine shoe rack goes with a vertical orientation, so it will fit into spaces where a horizontal rack would not. This one won't work if the shoes are wet, though, since the top ones could drip onto the lower ones. The shoes are more on display here than with the previous racks, which will appeal to some users.

We've mentioned the Rakku shoe wheel before. But having seen one of these in person recently, I noted that it's actually somewhat awkward to get the shoes in and out, so it's not a product I would recommend.

This shoe tower is basically a lazy Susan for shoes, and that's a pretty nice idea. It's not totally clear, though, whether most men's shoes are going to fit into a single cubby; if not, this wouldn't be a good storage solution for those with those larger shoes.

I've seen photos of numerous shoe ottomans and shoe storage benches, and the ones from The Sole Secret impress me the most. The rectangular shape makes better use of space than a round one (where the center space doesn't hold any shoes), and the cubbies seem easier to use than the pockets used in other designs.

The ShoeTrap takes the idea of shoe boxes and creates a configurable storage unit. Since the boxes have drop-front windows rather than lids that lift off, they can be stacked and still provide easy access to the boxes at the bottom. And the glass front means it's easy to tell what's in each box. There are also multiple sizes to accommodate different types and sizes of shoes. This will work for users who are concerned with keeping their shoes dust-free, and who have enough space for this type of storage.

This shoe tree from Fashion for Home, designed by Mark Hark, is certainly eye-catching. It's going to require a decent amount of space, though. And from my experience, the users who are very into shoes and would enjoy a product like this also have many more pairs of shoes than would fit in this tree. But I'm glad to see that the shoe boxes used in the tree have windows, so users can see what's inside.

The Spin from Germania is a slender cabinet that keeps the shoes hidden but still readily accessible. The mirror is a nice touch, since the places where the Spin is likely to be used (the entranceway or a bedroom) are also places where mirrors come in handy.

Remembering all the important thoughts we have during the day is next to impossible, so organizers will advise using some sort of note-taking tool. That could be an app on a smart phone, but many people prefer paper. Fortunately, there are many designs that help users with paper note-taking when they're away from their desks.

Notebooks that can fit into a pocket are one such design. The Capelino pocket notebooks, with 48 pages measuring 9 cm by 14 cm, have been called the French Field Notes. They come in four versions—ruled paper, graph paper, plain paper and dot grid paper—so there's something for any need or preference. The ecologically concerned will appreciate that the notebooks are made from recycled kraft paper that's been paste bleached without chlorine and carry the FSC label.

Many users are big fans of Post-It Notes, and the Noteshel gives them an easy way to use them on the go. It's a refillable holder for 3-inch by 5-inch Post-it Notes, which are a decent size for note-taking. The case comes with a pen that has a magnetic casing to keep it in place. The shell is made from a polycarbonate alloy and has a colorful rubber covering.

The Noteshel was designed to be easy to hold while taking notes. Notes that have been written could be stuck to the other side of the case, keeping them from getting crumbled up or lost.

Another alternative to the notebook is a case that holds index cards, and Levenger's Pocket Briefcase line has a number of designs that do just this. The one above would often be used purely as a note-taking tool, although it could be a mini-wallet if you used one of the three pockets for ID, credit cards and cash; there would still be one pocket for spare cards and one for used cards. I've used this as my note-taking tool for years, quite happily.

Other versions incorporate the card holder into a more conventional wallet or a phone case. This allows users to carry fewer things, but might mean they need to compromise on their ideal wallet design.

The PicoPad is a design for users who want the tiniest of note-taking tools; it's so small it will fit into a credit card slot of a wallet. Many users already have bulging wallets, so this wouldn't work for them. And the very tiny pen will be hard for some to hold—and easy to misplace. It holds 15 sticky notes which appear to be a custom size—another drawback.

The advantage of sticky notes and index cards over notebooks is that each note can be dealt with individually; the notes can go into the user's inbox to be handled with along with the mail and any other incoming paper. Users can get that convenience with notebooks that have perforated pages, such as the pocket size Ecosystem notebooks. These come in three versions: lined, grid, and plain pages.

Left-handed users who prefer notebooks over other alternatives will appreciate designs that open from the top rather than the side, such as the Moleskine Reporter Notebook.

Users who need to take notes in the rain or snow will appreciate notebooks that are designed for that. We've written about Rite in the Rain, but another design is the Expedition notebook from Field Notes. The notebook is printed on Yupo synthetic paper, a water- and tear-proof paper extruded from polypropylene pellets. Users agree that the Expedition is practically indestructible; the main drawback they mention is that not all pens will work on the pages. The pages are dot-ruled; if you're going to have just one page design, that's probably the most flexible for meeting varied needs.

For users who want to capture their thoughts while in the shower, there's AquaNotes. Each pad has 40 perforated sheets of waterproof paper.

Sometimes it's the design of the pen, not the paper, that helps a user take notes. The Night Writer Pilot's Pen has an LED that allows users to take notes in the dark.

Users with a pocket notebook who are forever scrambling for pens might find the mini journal bandolier to be a solution. The creator wrote: "Broken pencil points and lost pens drive me mad so I made myself the first journal bandolier. When people kept asking where I had gotten it, it occurred to me that I wasn't the only one looking for a better way."