Do you crave the movie theater experience of yore, when you could watch a movie in pitch blackness, undisturbed by ill-behaved fellow viewers? These days, between the seat-kickers, loud-talkers and distracting glow of smartphones from people who are apparently live-Tweeting the movie, going to the cinema is as unpleasant as it is overpriced.

Help is here from Japan. No, we don't mean those expensive Sony goggles; instead a legion of Japan-based DIY'ers have been creating "cardboard theaters" on the cheap, like this one:

The good news is it doesn't matter what the box looks like on the outside:

This one features a plush ergonomic add-on, and what appear to be the theater rules written on the outside:

Here we see an IMAX version:

We're not sure what the thinking is here with the hinged flap, perhaps the builder wanted to save themselves from having to make a troublesome third cut, or perhaps it minimizes light leakage:

This one is trimmed out in what appears to be yellow gaffers tape:

As kooky as this idea is, it seems undoubtedly effective, and I'd very much like to see a version that has had some industrial design applied to it. Maybe something that folds flat for storage, features an internal pillow of some sort, is light-tight, features Surround Sound and has a more precise screen mount. You guys got any time this weekend?

Via Mashable

This year, we frequently heard juries remark about how impressive the student entries were. Speculative leaps often take place in the protective environment of school studios and this year we certainly noticed a trend for forward-thinking, risk-taking and brave proposals from our student honorees. Some of the work even surpassed the professional entries in terms of planning, execution, research and informed intent. Here is a sampling of the most impressive Student entries this year.

IKO Creative Prosthetic System—Open Design Student Winner

Designer Carlos Arturo Torres was motivated to create his work in order to empower disabled children: "To realize they are indeed special was my first thought when I started the project."

"The needs of a kid in disability are not always related to physical activity but often alternatively the social and psychological aspect; sometimes a functional element is everything they need, but some other times it might be a spaceship, or a doll house, or a telescope, or a video game controller, or a swim fin..." explains Torres.  

Designed by Carlos Arturo Torres—who is pursuing an MA in Advanced Product Design at the Umeå Institute of Design—this project proposes an alternative model for children's prosthetics. By empowering children to explore and create personalized prosthetics, the project takes the stance that a missing limb doesn't have to be a disability, but rather an opportunity to play and learn. Jury member Jennifer Turliuk wholeheartedly embraced this positive spin: "In my eyes, this is basically turning kids into superheroes!" Such a personal use of technology at a young age has clear educational potential. As jury member Mark Argo noted, " I think a prosthetic is a design object that is almost as personal as you can get. What they've done is found a way to also make it really fun. How can we take this object that you need to wear for mobility's sake and turn it into an inclusive experience where you can invite your friends over to kind of help you craft some new robo appendage." 

One of the most remarkable aspects of the project is the dedication to take the work from initial idea all the way to proof of concept. The team received guidance throughout the process from their sponsors, CIREC and LEGO Future Lab, and also travelled to Colombia to work collaboratively with two children (Dario is pictured above) and their families on prototypes in order to fully flesh out the potential in this new approach to prosthetics. 

Chirming—Visual Communications Student Winner

"With the machine called 'Cymascope,' sound can be transformed into an image and I was able to find out the sound of each scale...Using this, I have made the center mandala, and for those with more than two scales, I have combined the mandala of each scale. With the mandala in the middle, the number of the first branch represents the frequency of the bird crying. I have checked the scale range with Musebook tuner, and captured the sound once again with Cubase. I designed the image to have more, bigger branches and leaves as the range gets bigger," explains Sukgo of her process behind this work. 

Sukgo's Chirming project has deeply personal roots: "When I was young, I saw a little pretty bird on the mountain. The bird quickly flew away, leaving only sound behind. I looked up in the sky to find the bird, but all I could see was tree branches and forest...At this young age, the bird was the tree branches and big forest to me. This experience led me to visualize the sound of birds like the forest." From here, Sukgo developed a method for translating the frequency of bird calls into mandala-inspired branch structures. Our judges were struck by the beautiful results, but ultimately it was the synthesis of concept that made this a clear winner, "almost as good, or even better than, some of the professional level awards," as jury Captain Astrid Stavro noted. It was not only "beautiful aesthetically, but also had that underpinning, so the form and the function and the research and intent was very well executed," remarked jury member Teal Triggs. 

ANNA-Breathing Assistant for Sedation—Interaction Student Winner

The sleek ANNA uses simple light movement and sounds to communicate with the user, making it easy to use and understand regardless of age or language capacity.

"Although ANNA is a small part of the anesthesia process, it improves user experience in many levels. For kids it helps them go through a scary procedure in a fun and engaging way. Not being afraid is important, as in the long run it helps to associate hospitals with something good rather than scary. Parents can be ensured that their kids are in good hands as the doctors finally can be fully focused on their main duties," explains the design team composed of four students from Umeå Institute of Design. 

The result of a collaboration between the MA Interaction Design and MA Advanced Product Design programs at Umeå Institute of Design, ANNA explores light and sound as problem solving tools in healthcare, through the specific case study of general anesthesia for children. "General anesthesia is a serious procedure. It requires the staff to be professional and the parents to be brave. Unfortunately, the child is required to be both," explains the design team composed of Janis Beinerts, Lars Sundelin, Trieuvy Luu and Sebastian Aumer. Though doctors use various means of distraction when trying to sedate children, the unfriendly mechanics of the process more often than not instill a sense of panic in children and drag out the process even longer. 

The team conducted research at the University Hospital of Umeå and developed a product that will build upon the existing procedures implemented by doctors. ANNA is the first dedicated breathing assistant and it works by helping the user adopt optimal breathing patterns in response to the light and sounds it emits. "It is beneficial, as it not only calms the user down but also speeds up the sedation process. With ANNA, the user can prepare for the procedure by practicing breathing before the operation at home or in the preparation room. This way, they become familiar with the mask breathing technique and will therefore not be unpleasantly surprised when the actual sedation procedure begins," explains the team in their proposal. The simple design and inclusive problem-solving appealed to the judges. "We really liked this project because of the emotional impact that comes from a well-designed design and technical implementation, and that it actually considers all actors involved in the system, from the doctors to the patients and parents," said jury member Ian Spalter. 

Festivine Wine—Packaging Student Winner 

This flexible packaging design uses vinyl stickers inspired by tangrams, transforming the wine bottle into a blank canvas that invites users to create their own labels. 

Each label comes with seven pieces that can be arranged in unlimited compositions depending on the occasion. 

The graphic design of Festivine Wine—designed by Hsiao-Han Chen of Pratt University—stood out for its uniquely interactive packaging system. Each bottle comes with a set of seven tangram pieces in an array of colors which can be composed (and re-composed) by users to create any shape they want. "Festivine was a delightful, easy, light and beautiful product. It really encapsulated the idea of a gift...the packaging is not just something that comes around the product, but something that interacts with the product," said jury member Ayush Kasliwal. 

UNI-Unified Neonatal System—Commercial Equipment Student Winner

Designed to assist premature infants' breathing, the streamlined UNI system contains a CPAP, Humidifier, Water bag, Edi-catheter and 4 Syringe pumps.

"With the UNI system we save space in the room, where there's are usually around 4 infants. So, from a room with 4 incubators along with 16-20 freestanding machines, we now have 4 incubators and 4 UNI Systems," explain designers Cindy Sjöblom & Alexander Turesson.

Because of the high number of hoses and cables typical in neonatal equipment, the mobility and management of this equipment is drastically impaired. The UNI system seeks to simplify the equipment used in Neonatal Intensive Care Units, for a calmer and tidier environment so that premature babies can have the full attention of their caretakers. "There's fantastic detailing and problem solving. We loved the way the components were organized in the top deck and that the top deck transformed into a working tray. Extraordinary resolution on details, the cabinetry work...thinking about how it can be made was beyond student work, quite honestly," said jury Captain Dan Harden. The jury was impressed to see thoughtful details throughout the product. "No one part of it was status quo. Everything was thought of like, 'Ok, this is not just a straight line or an edge. How do I make more of it and how do I make it unified?'" noted jury member Sam Lucente. "Little details like when the cabinet doors close there's just a thin blue band, making it look friendly and gentle which is very appropriate for a neonatal ward especially," echoed Harden.

If you're as impressed by these designs as the juries were, show your appreciation by voting for them to win the very first Community Choice Award. Voting is open until June 22nd! 

Like his Sisyphus machine, Bruce Shapiro's EggBot also harnesses the science of motion control for the purpose of creating art. But the latter machine's "canvas" is a lot smaller, and potentially more interesting: 

Anything that's vaguely spherical in shape—an egg, a billiard ball, a Christmas ornament, or even the bowl of a wine glass—is fair game for the EggBot. Here it is in action, working on the original object it was designed for:

Here it is doing a lightbulb:

Shapiro invented the machine way back in 1990, and has since created several iterations, including the EggBot Pro in conjunction with Evil Mad Scientist. Martha Stewart invited Shapiro onto her show to demonstrate the various iterations, and you can see the (unembeddable) video here (and flinch along with us every time Stewart calls the machine a "robot").

The entry-level $195 EggBot comes in kit form, and is meant to be a fun way to introduce kids to motion control. But for serious Easter celebrators, the top-of-the-line EggBot Pro is made from CNC-milled aluminum parts and comes ready-to-go. Amusingly, there's also an Ostrich version made to deal with larger-sized eggs and objects. Check out the full line-up here.

We received many entries in response to our call for "furniture and lighting products or systems for private, public, commercial or industrial use." The jury evaluated each entry by asking a series of key questions: What is the object? How good is it at being that object? Does it further design? How good is the presentation? 

Paul Cocksedge, Founder, Paul Cocksedge Studio led the Furniture and Lighting jury as Captain. He was joined by Claire Thomas, Campaigner, Design for 99, David Harvey, Wine Importer, Raeburn Fine Wines, and Luke Pearson, Founding Partner, PearsonLloyd.  

Overall, the jury found little difference between the level of student and professional entries. "In fact, if there were to be a unanimous overall winner, it would have been the student entry which shouted quality: a piece of furniture to live on and with," stated the jury. Though they consider the professional winner to be "most capable of positively impacting its target market." 

Without further ado, say hello to the Winners, Runners-Up and Notables for the 2015 Core77 Design Awards in the Furniture & Lighting category. 

Be sure to vote for the projects that impressed you the most in our first ever Community Choice Award program. Each entry below has a link specifically for it.

Sometimes learning takes place in a classroom and sometimes it grabs us by surprise in the course of our daily lives. One thing is for sure: education is best when it doesn't stop. It's increasingly important to activate the learning space with educational initiatives that look beyond traditional models. We asked for "any educational class project, curriculum or institutional level program or tool that furthers the practice of design education or education about design," and the community responded with entries that excited, and even inspired, our jury.

Mike Weikert, Director and Founder of MICA's Center for Social Design and Master of Arts in Social Design led the Design Education Initiatives jury team as Captain. He was joined by his colleague at the Center for Social Design, Social Design Associate Becky Slogeris, Sarah Hemming, Co-Founder and CEO at Thread and Jess Gartner, Founder and CEO at Allovue. "We were most inspired by projects that not only furthered design education, but were well designed in both process and application," says Weikert. "Entries that topped our list demonstrated authentic collaborations, innovative approaches, and lasting impact. And, most importantly, pushed learning beyond the traditional classroom or institution."

Say hello to the Winners, Runners-Up, and Notables of the 2015 Core77 Design Awards in the Design Education Initiatives category. 

Be sure to vote for the projects that impressed you the most in our first ever Community Choice Award program. Each entry below has a link specifically for it.

In our world, we are constantly exposed to—if not bombarded by—signs and images that aim to tell us something. Visual Communications is a field of design that aims to give shape and context to the dense landscape of signs and symbols around us.  We asked for "visual and graphic design, branding and identity projects for print, digital or physical environments," and received entries from logos and identity systems to infographics and advertising, among others. "Some of the visuals were very sleek and sophisticated approaches, and we also got projects which had very strong research orientation, developing methods and approaches much as one would think of in service design, using communication design to good effect in that way," says juror Teal Triggs. 

Astrid Stavro, Partner and Creative Director at Atlas, led the Visual Communication  jury team as Captain. She was joined by Matt Willey, Art Director, The New York Times Magazine, Pablo Juncadella, Founder at Mucho, Teal Triggs, Associate Dean of the School of Communication at the Royal College of Art, and Author and Illustrator Marion Deuchars. The team found a level of competence across the entries, but "in general it was hard to find things that stand out from the intermediate level," remarks Juncadella. In his view, the more successful entries were able to "take data and turn it into something poetic, something that has extra value." 

Across the board, the jurors were impressed by the student submissions. "A long time ago you could always really tell the difference between student work and professional work," explains Deuchars, "but now students have so much more access to great equipment an thinking that sometimes, actually, it's quite hard to tell the difference between student work and professional work." 

Say hello to the Winners, Runners-Up, and Notables of the 2015 Core77 Design Awards in the Visual Communication category. 

Be sure to vote for the projects that impressed you the most in our first ever Community Choice Award program. Each entry below has a link specifically for it. 

Digital gaming distributor Steam is expanding into physical hardware. The company reckons they know gamers—one estimate has it that 75% of games downloaded for the PC are through Steam—and will have a steady stream of customers for a gaming controller of superior design.

Thus the Steam Controller aims to combine the precision of a mouse, familiar to those who play games on PCs, with the tactility of a game controller, familiar to those who prefer console games. The dual trackpads can emulate a trackball, mouse or scroll wheel with precision, while actuators provide the tactility:

Here's how it's meant to function during gaming:

HD Haptics
Haptic force actuators on both sides of the controller deliver precise, high fidelity vibrations measured in microseconds. Feel the spin of a virtual trackball, the click of a scroll wheel, or the shot of a rifle. Every input, from the triggers to the trackpads, can offer haptic feedback to your fingertips, delivering vital, high-bandwidth, tactile feedback about speed, boundaries, thresholds, textures, or actions.

Dual-stage Triggers
With a satisfying digital click at the end of the trigger pull, dual-stage triggers can be used as analog, digital, or both types of input at the same time. Put your iron-sights on the sweep-in, and then fire with the reliable feel of a tactile switch, all on the same trigger.

The $50 devices are up for pre-sale now, with a limited number expected to begin shipping in mid-October, prior to the official launch in November of this year.

People really will spend anything on their pets. Take the GoPet Tread Wheel:

That'll run you $524 for the small size up to $1,260 for the large size. It's pricey and rather unattractive.

A competing product is the more attractive (and still expensive) Cat Wheel, which goes hubless:

The Cat Wheel is made out of MDF and weighs about 53 pounds. The wheel and base both come pre-assembled. If you want to see how the device works, scan through the following vid (no need to watch the whole thing), where Mythbusters' Adam Savage repairs one for his friend:

The Cat Wheel retails for $900 and the shipping is another $300, so you're looking at $1,200 all in.

Entrepreneur Sean Farley figured he could do better and developed his One Fast Cat design.

Farley's design eschews heavy MDF for molded plastic sections that snap together. The running track is foam. Scan the video below to get a sense of the assembly process and the modular design of the pieces:

Going with lightweight modular components for the structure allowed Farley to get the retail price down to $249—shipping included—and "smart industrial design allows it to ship or retail in a very small box."

In the video below, you can see the product has a bit of flex when in motion, but I don't think that affects the function:

When Farley put the project up on Kickstarter last year, he was seeking $10,000. He wound up with $344,911 instead, and today One Fast Cat is a going concern.

So, those of you ID'ers looking for a design niche with a ready market and products with room for improvement, we'd say pet products are worth looking into.

"We have a large number of customers," says Ole Held, CEO of Festool USA, "going absolutely crazy about Festool. And they want to know everything about the products." I hope the folks he's referring to are reading this, because on our first day at Festool, we were allowed to see something many others haven't: Festool's private museum, which isn't open to the public.

As we got off of the bus outside of Festool's headquarters in Wendlingen, Germany, we were led to an unassuming-looking building off to the side. Inside was housed 90 years' worth of Festool's inventions. I could've stayed in there all day, quizzing the on-hand employee who was familiar with the tools, but our schedule was tight and we only had 20 minutes or so. But 20 minutes was enough to see that the innovative qualities the company possesses today were really baked into the organization from the get-go.

This is their first series of products, the thing that got Fezer & Stoll on the map: A portable, gas-powered chainsaw.

In an era when men chopped trees down with hand tools, this thing must've been a godsend. And it was designed with ergonomics in mind: The blade can be rotated independent of the motor, so the worker can hold the machine at the angle most comfortable for them and achieve whatever angle they wish to cut at. In the video below, you can see some Festool guys in Lithuania not only got their hands on an early model, but managed to get it running; and towards the end you can see the blade-rotating feature in action.

In the museum, the circular saws are displayed on humble wooden stands, placed in chronological order from left to right, resting beneath a portrait of company founder Gottlieb Stoll.

It was interesting to see that the first model (below) had a bolted-on handle resembling one on a hand saw; as the models progress from worm drive to sidewinder motors (see lineup above), the handle becomes more integrated into the design.

Also interesting to see was the constant evolution of the early designs. The position of the hinge for plunging the blade is shifted to one side or the other, and ergonomics begin to appear. As you can see in this model below, there's really no provision for manually sliding back the retractable blade guard. The front end of it is rounded so that as it contacts the wood it will move, but if the user wants to do it manually, they must reach below the cutline and grab the guard.

A subsequent model thus adds a little tab to the upper part of the guard (below, dabbed with red paint), so that the user can retract it up top, without needing to reach beneath or get their fingers near the blade.

Something I also found interesting is that some customers had hacked the tools to fit their needs, and Festool made no efforts to cover these obvious modifications up. Instead the tour guide explained precisely why the users had made the alterations; perhaps they left the hacks intact to remind themselves to anticipate unforeseen needs of the user. In the two shots below, we see a slot has been cut into the top of one housing, and the other has a piece of wood jamming the blade guard into the open position:

As our guide explained, the tools had been designed to cut dry wood at inland shops. But what had happened was that users found the tools so convenient that they'd bring them directly to the river banks (in those days, logs were transported by floating them down rivers) and cutting the wood while it was still wet. As a result, the wet sawdust often clogged inside the blade guards. The relief slot and the guard-jamming hack were workarounds.

Whether as a result of these examples or coincidentally, early on Festo (the early name for Festool) formed a habit of listening to their customers and designing to their real-world needs. As one example, the company invented an electric-powered chain mortiser. German timber framing had been done for centuries with mortise-and-tenon, which requires painstakingly carving each mortise by hand with a chisel, and a mortise-cutting machine would be invaluable. But when the first customers saw it, the feedback was critical. "Our customers said 'Yes, this is fantastic, we need this,'" our guide explained. "'But this machine is electric, and we are working by the river. There is no electricity there.'" Thus the company developed this gas-powered version:

In Germany, as we would see during a subsequent tour, it was not uncommon for them to build timber-framed six-story buildings like the one below:

Shockingly, some of these buildings were erected nearly a thousand years ago! Buildings that tall require a lot of staircases, which means German craftsmen had been manually chiseling tread-mortises into stringers for almost a millennia. Festo eased the task with this beastly rail-mounted routing machine:

Here it is in action:

By the 1950s, the company had expanded their attention to finishing and began what would be the first in a long line of innovative power sanders. To kick things off, they invented the world's first orbital sander (leftmost in photo below):

Here's the beauty shot:

The small, circular vibrations of an orbital sander provided a superior finish. And while orbital sanders would remain indispensable for the next few decades or so, part of listening to customers is keeping up with current trends in the industry. By the mid-1970s the customers' needs had begun to change. According to Tools of the Trade's David Frane, "When oil-based alkyd paint was on its way out and acrylics were on their way in, people began to have trouble sanding between coats. Existing sanders left scratch marks so Festo developed a random orbital sander." It is pictured below:

You'll also notice something different about this sander, besides the yellow color (yes, the 1970s had hit Festool too, as it did with Braun): See that silver thing sticking out of the side? Yep, they added a port so that the dust could be vacuumed out on-the-fly. That little innovation would later become a cornerstone of the company, and we'll say more about it in the next entry.

Switching back to the saws: In the early 1960s the company had the idea of guiding a circular saw along a track.

By 1964 they had invented the first track saw. (It's shown here on a short section of track.)

The earliest tracks were primitive affairs, nothing like today's sophisticated extrusions:

By the 1980s, the company had taken what they started in the '70s--their focus on dust collection--and begun integrating it into other products, in a harbinger of the system-based approach to design we know Festool for today. Here we see their track saw has evolved a dust-containing shroud similar to what we'd recognize in today's model:

You'll also notice, by looking at the shape of the handle, that once again the pivot point for the blade has moved, this time from front to back. Because that is what works best with this design and provides better control. In a nutshell, the Festool of today doesn't rest on their laurels, nor do they dogmatically stick to whatever worked years ago; they continue to push forward with the best design solutions they can devise, and as we shall see, they're unafraid to break new ground.

This isn't an easy act to maintain, as you can imagine, and it requires a particular type of thinking and discipline to stay ahead of the pack. In the next entry we'll take a look at the five points that influence everything the company does, as well as how Festool's unique set of circumstances provides them with the freedom to innovate.

Casa Jasmina threw open its (presumably) internet-connected doors on Saturday to welcome the public for the first time into the two-year pilot project in Torino, Italy. A collaborative effort curated by Bruce Sterling and Massimo Banzi with support from Arduino—the Internet of Things home is one of the first of its kind combining Italian interior and furniture design with a long lineage of open-source electronics. 

The vision for Casa Jasmina is sweeping in scale, the space will act as a hybridized laboratory for IoT, domestic space for rent and site for public discourse. The initial idea for the connected apartment came to a head during last year's Torino Mini Maker Faire, beginning as a bit of a joke about where Sterling and his wife, activist and filmmaker Jasmina Tesanovic (from which the home takes its namesake) would live. The idea, proposed as a 'house of the future'—quickly gained traction when the team announced it in Rome last October and sited the project in the same converted foundry dating back to 1919, that houses the first Arduino Office, ToolBox Coworking Space and Fablab Torino.

Since then, the team has been hard at work renovating the space that, until this project, has been home to mostly pigeons. Casa Jasmina is located in what used to be a bustling industrial complex framed by railroad tracks. The location's proximity to the center of Torino and flourishing new initiatives has proven to have the added benefit of revitalizing the area and making it the perfect site for a mini maker revolution. 

Talking with Casa Jasmina Project Manager Lorenzo Romagnoli or Bruce Sterling himself, one quickly gets the distinct impression that the IoT and Maker trend is still lacking a vital element of usability. Sterling himself notes:

Most maker objects today have been for the laboratory, or they have been for the university, or they have been for design school. They haven't really been made for a domestic purpose. They aren't for family, they aren't for young children, they're not for the elderly, for the cat, for the dog, for the houseplant. They are mostly there for the geek who buying the hardware and is in command of the user base. I think its time for the maker scene to expand out of its limits and try to talk to a wider demographic.

Casa Jasmina appears to be on the right track to envisioning a usable 'house of the future' by contextualizing the objects of makers and designers within an actual domestic space. This wide demographic already includes a group of women makers lead by Jasmina herself and the team's plan to have guests living in the space creates an all-to-perfect testing ground for the objects it will house. 

Even as larger companies create IoT divisions, maker culture takes hold outside the United States, and IoT startups amass larger rounds of investment, something is still missing. Casa Jasmina looks to be the other half of the story, bridging the gap between IoT and the Maker movement to explore possibilities outside the more profitable Google Nests of the world. 

The Internet of Things is going to change a lot of what we are used to. We are bringing people [to Casa Jasmina] to be able to discuss and be an alternative to the top down approach of larger companies. It's not about fighting against those companies - it's proposing a different way that is based in values and needs of users.

With such big names and dedicated communities surrounding the project, Casa Jasmina will certainly attract some interesting projects, guests and objects to populate the apartment. Over the next months the Casa will be available to rent on AirBnB as well as hold residencies, talks and workshops. 

The first call for entries to coincide with the opening has passed, however Romagnoli told us they plan to have a rotating selection of projects through the house ranging from connected kitchen appliances to art, toys and anything else you can think of. Among the first projects in the apartment are  open source objects from Jesse Howard, Aker, Opendesk, and Open Structure among others. 

For more on renting Casa Jasmina or to take part in their next call for entries check out their website. 

An element of envisioning the future is inherently part of the design process. This forward-thinking spirit was a component of many of the entries we received this year. Several designers avoided instant gratification and present-focused strategies in their entries, instead shifting their attention to designs that would continue to pay dividends far into the future. They focused on more substantial concerns and issues that have been insufficiently addressed and sought long term impact. These designers acknowledged the future, speculated about its possibilities, considered potential improvements and prepared for the road ahead.

Society of GrownUps—Strategy & Research Professional Winner, Service Design Professional Runner-Up 

IDEO worked together with MassMutual to develop what is essentially a master's program for adulthood. The curriculum covers a wide variety of essential skills, from investing in a 401K to learning how to devise a personal budget to how to pick good, cheap wine. The organization's goals are outlined in the picture above. 

"When it came time to launch, we designed a marketing strategy and awareness campaign, which included video spots, print media, posters and guerrilla tactics. Last but certainly not least, we designed a digital system of financial tools for helping people manage their finances that is more sophisticated, useful and elegant than anything the financial services industry has ever seen."

If you've ever felt even the slightest bit of panic about how to balance "adult" tasks, the Society of Grownups was designed with you in mind. The Society emerged as a sort of Master's program for adulthood, with both an online platform and brick and mortar location providing a host of classes and services to cultivate knowledge on any number of topics, from investment basics to how to organize a cheap wedding.   "The health of the financial services industry depends on an engaged and financially literate population of "grownups," but no one else in the industry was working to educate this audience of 20s, 30s, 40- somethings and develop a relationship of trust in this way—with a rich combination of meaningful in-person exchanges and classes, and a suite of digital, personal financial planning tools unlike anything out there," explain the designers.  

The project emerged out of intensive research and has taken on a life of it's own with "the potential to inspire a movement." Our jury lauded the comprehensive solution. "Not only is this a needed service but also the process went through all the aspects of good service design from designing a brand identity, digital platform, physical location and the teaching content itself," said jury member Cathy Huang.

Ultimately, the resolution of Society of Grownups is more than a design solution, but also an attempt to resolve an extensive cultural problem. "Seeing a complete delivery of a new concept/new venture that's designed for our time tuning into the nature of the culture as it exists now just shows the power of the human centered design approach to business strategy and to the development of new business models," remarked jury member Hugh Evans. 

Back to School 2015—Design Education Initiatives Professional Winner 

"Through questioning their environment, collaborating with their classmates, iterating on their ideas and communicating with the client, we took students through the design process that we go through every day. We invited students into this process, because they have lived the better part of their life in the classroom – and they face the problems the products should solve for everyday. So, if they use these products in the classroom, why should they not design them?"

"We used a set of ranking criteria to determine success. First, the product must be exciting, generating emotional appeal and creating delight. Second, the product must be feasible, and have the ability to deliver on the features and functions the design promises. Finally, the product must be innovative, utilizing new forms and functions that are original and highly differentiated."

Aruliden collaborated with Staples and invited middle school students to learn about the design thinking process while developing a set of products for Back to School 2015. The students formed an integral role of the design process, learning problem solving skills that allowed them to develop a series of distinct products relating to their unique needs. The team led the students all the way from initial research to iterative prototyping and the final results will culminate in seven actual products that will be available at Staples nationwide in the summer of 2015. "This is an initiative where everybody wins," said jury Captain Mike Weikert. The positive influence of this success story is infectious, as jury member Sarah Hemminger commented: "It excited us as a jury. We engaged in a dialogue about ways the initiative could be improved upon, sustained, and scaled. We wanted to be a part of it." Through the design process, the students were able to gauge the significant real world impact of the abstract skills they learn in the classroom, and gain a sense of how to "make more happen."

Museum of Future Government—Speculative Concepts Professional Winner, Built Environment Professional Notable, Interaction Professional Notable

The Museum of Future Government explores the future of government in the UAE through exhibitions centered around 5 main themes: Future of International Travel, Future of Healthcare, Future of Education, Smart City and Digital Public Services. 

An augmented sand table with projections allows visitors to explore concepts of topography, weather and flow principles in a very direct, tactile experience.

Tellart was comissioned to design and direct an exhibition that would explore and inspire the future of government services in the United Arab Emirates. The project culminated in an exhibition at the 2014 Government Summit in Dubai, a gathering of thousands of leaders from the Middle East. With guidance from partners such as Institute for the Future, Fabrica, Superflux and Near Future Laboratory, a high-tech, interactive exhibition was mounted. The success of the show has led to plans for a permanent Museum of the Future, meant to serve as a permanent space where prototypes of government services will be explored. Given its far-ranging scope, our judges in the Speculative Design category unanimously declared this project the winner. "This goes back to the idea of projects that are speculative and do deal with the imagination, but also have real world implications. This to us was a super exciting kind of avenue for where speculative design can really make an impact on the world," explains jury member Cher Potter.  "A great thing about this project was that it involved a number of designers. The concept of the project itself was directed by one company, but within the speculative space a number of designers have been represented. It was a collaborative future space which plants it quite firmly in the world of professional practice and speculative design."

SimPlay/The Future of Medical Simulation—Interaction Student Runner-Up, Speculative Concepts Student Notable

SimPlay was developed over the course of 4 months as part of designer Valeria Gaitan Vallejo's diploma project at the Oslo School or Architecture and Design. Her passion for Medical Industry design led her to collaborate with Laerdal Medical on this project. Laerdal Medical is working to further develop the solid concept into an fully implementable design. 

"Most of the existent simulation tools are focused on improving technical skills (Ex. better ways to simulate surgery, ventilation, etc). However, there are almost no existent tools in the market which focus on improving non-technical skills (Ex. communication and behavior change), which are one of the most important needs that medical teams face in the daily basis. Improving the latter is almost the only way to reduce human error during the clinical performance," explains Vallejo. 

Simulation is an invaluable tool for learning how to handle emergency scenarios, but if there was a way to track the impact of this common practice, it could really be streamlined for maximum benefit. That's where SimPlay comes in. The project develops a two-pronged approach: it's both a video debrief system that allows practitioners to track simulations and provide feedback, and an online platform for easy dissemination of best practice findings with other hospitals. "This is a really audacious and ambitious project. We really admired the impact and the value this might bring when it's brought to maturity," said jury member Matt Jones. "We were really impressed by both the range of data it captured and the range of ways it visualized data to really hopefully bring some improvements to the situation."

If you've taken a science or workshop class any time between now and 1935, you're probably plenty familiar with safety posters. We wanted to update our favorite vintage morbidity warnings with a contemporary creative bent, so we asked 10 Portland artists and designers to reinterpret their favorite safety poster ideas as 3-color graphics. The result is Collective Caution, the first limited edition Hand-Eye Supply poster collection. 

These new prints debuted at the packed Portland, OR opening, and now they're available online... and going fast! Each design was screen printed in a run of 20 by the pros at Seizure Palace and signed by the artist. 50% of sales goes to support the Portland YouthBuilders. 

Grab them while you can to keep your walls and creative wiles as safe as possible. $30 on Hand-Eye Supply.

All Bad Days; Justin "Scrappers" Morrison

Lyndsey Faulkner; Keegan One-Foot Wenkman

Nathan Yoder; Craig Wheat

Tyler Segal; Olivia Britz-Wheat

Brad Simon; Tobias Berblinger

DJ The Beatles

Attendees of last month's Sight Unseen OFFSITE exhibition during New York Design Week may have found themselves transported back to an easier time, one filled with colorful blocks for building and playing. Adult-size versions of the popular children's forms filled an interactive installation by Katie Stout, the New York–based designer-slash-artist who recently made national headlines when she took home the gold from Ellen's Design Challenge on HGTV. Not conventional by any means, Stout's work is always a crowd favorite, and her exhibition at this year's OFFSITE was no exception.

But when she first received Sight Unseen's invitation to participate, Stout wasn't sure what direction to take. "I wanted to make these wearable cone things, but then I started thinking about the way we interact with rugs," she says. "I thought it could be so cool if you could build out of rugs." Stout went to work sketching potential designs for an immersive space where viewers could build and construct scenes from large blocks—finally arriving at a drawing similar to the one below.

"I copied the form of the building blocks I had grown up with," Stout says. "At first, I was making all these random shapes, but they didn't look good together. The building blocks that I had grown up with looked great together. So I used those."

For producing the individual pieces, Stout reached out to Colonial Mills, a braided-rug manufacturer in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Stout first began working with the company in 2011 while she was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design. Back then, she had an idea for a project called Bump in Your Rug, and enlisted the manufacturer to help. "It was nothing like we were used to doing here," says Meredith Thayer, creative director at Colonial Mills.

Since then, Stout has reached out to Thayer and her team for numerous projects that push the limits of what braided rugs can be. "Because we have worked together for so many years, we've been able to develop a pretty strong understanding of each other," Thayer says. "Katie typically will talk me through what her ideas are, and provide sketches for what she's hoping to achieve. We generally have multiple conversations back and forth about what can work, what needs to change. She really has a good understanding at this point of what we are capable of and how the process works, so that her ideas are usually very attainable."

For the building blocks, Stout had a tight turnaround time: a little under a month and a half to get the pieces designed, manufactured and shipped to New York. "We had a number of projects we were working on with her, so we just planned everything according to due dates and based it around other things we had going on in-house," Thayer says. For this installation, Stout mocked up prototypes of the blocks in Rhino, initially based on a system of 12 inches. "I gave them a very specific drawing," she says. "Usually, I send them really rough crayon drawings. I still might do that for something like the Bump in the Rug, but something like this was very specific and I was very specific abut the ratios, so I sent them CAD drawings."

Making the blocks at Colonial Mills

Stout wanted the blocks to be huge, yet comfortable to sit on as cushions. "I also really wanted the arch in the arched block to be 24 inches wide, which would sort of be wide enough to sort of sit in," she says. Due to the size of the foam Colonial Mills had available on hand, Stout had to scale the blocks down to a system of 10 inches, making the largest rectangle blocks 40" W x 20" H x 10" D. "I think that ended up being more manageable and therefore perfect," she says.

With CAD drawings in hand, Thayer and her team sat down to decide the best possible approach. Their process begins with creating the initial braided yardage of rope, which requires winding yarn onto multiple bobbins. These bobbins are sent to the braiding machine, where they are braided together around a filler that provides the necessary width and stability. Next, a sewer starts at the bottom of the block using an industrial PFAFF sewing machine, and sews from the center to construct the diameter. Then, the piece is turned on its side to add the height. Once this is completed, the sewer will attach the top piece with a zipper, leaving space for the foam to be inserted.

With the less curvaceous shapes, the bottom and top pieces are created separately, cut to the correct size and serged to finish the edges. The sewer then adds the sides of the block to the bottom piece and attaches the top piece much like with the round version, sewing a zipper in and leaving enough room for foam to be inserted. For Stout's building blocks, the foam had to be cut to a specific size in order to be fit into the block.

Photo by Allison Fonder, from our Sight Unseen OFFSITE gallery

"Some of the biggest challenges are around the sewing of the specific shapes," Thayer says. "Just keeping the dimensions accurate. We are very lucky to have such a talented sewer, Fatima, who works on all of Katie's projects." Thayer adds: "After so many projects, we know what to expect with Katie and have figured out how to create some pretty interesting pieces, so that now it doesn't take us as long to figure out some of her stuff." Once started, it took Colonial Mills five days to complete Stout's blocks.

The final pieces were installed at Sight Unseen OFFSITE inside four walls of beige braided carpets to provide the perfect setting. "I'm so happy about the way everything turned out," Stout says. "It was so fun watching everyone splay the boxes and seeing what sort of things they came up with, how open they were to really building something and being a weirdo." Stout sold half of the blocks straight from the exhibition at Sight Unseen, but hopes to produce more and make them available for others to purchase.

When I asked Thayer if Colonial Mills collaborated with other designers like Katie, she had to laugh. "There is no one else quite like Katie—and I mean that in the best way," Thayer says. "She certainly pushes us."

This year's Design Schools Workshop, held annually at WantedDesign, focused on the theme, "Design Forever." Conducted by Sebastian Ocampo and Moises Hernandez of Centro Mexico, participating Schools were Centro (Mexico), Art Center College for Design, (Pasadena, USA) and Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, USA).

The workshop took place at the new WantedDesign Brooklyn in Industry City, with the final public presentations held in the Conversation Lounge at WantedDesign/Manhattan.

Core77 was proud to be the media sponsor for the event, along with presenting sponsor USM, Visual Magnetic and Shapeways.

About the Brief

Students were mixed into four different teams, and over the course of four days, each responded to the brief inviting students to think about the lives of objects—to design with the idea that what is being made will last forever. Here's more from the design brief:

In nature there is no such thing as rubbish, no waste. Instead, things gain a new purpose: The dead branch that gave fruit becomes moisture for the land, and so on. The environmental degradation as a consequence of economic success and rapid urbanization is resulting in transforming the world into a giant garbage bin. Analysts project a rise in the amount of waste—from 1.3 billion tons per year today to 2.2 billion tons per year by 2025—and raising the annual global costs for waste disposal from $205 billion to $375 billion. So what do we throw away? Why? What becomes of it? Who takes care of it? What makes an object disposable? Is it the materials, or the use/function? Or is the technology that's inside out of date. This workshop is about designing forever—taking a common object with a relatively low life expectancy and making it last. Students will try to understand and pinpoint the aspects that make an object disposable, and imagine innovative ways of designing a world with no waste.

Below are project descriptions and reflections in the participants' own words, along with project images and snapshots from the event.

EON
Designers: Arturo Neuman Slomovitz, Francisco García Cinta, India Hillis, Shawn M Horsey

We began by trying to understand the meaning of forever. We thought of forever in terms of a human's life, and then in terms of transcending generations. We discussed objects that we felt represented "forever," and ones which we felt were ephemeral and disposable. Again and again the forever objects shared distinct qualities—they were simple, useful, fundamental and meaningful; the temporary objects were complex, frivolous and without meaning. Many of the forever objects were things like tools: A tool has a purpose but also can be linked to important memories and relationships. However, even a tool as simple and elegant as a wrench will not be forever. Eventually we will have no need for nuts and bolts, one could argue, and the wrench will become obsolete. We then began to think of forever—not in terms of human time, but in term of life-of-the-universe. Humans play only a tiny, nearly insignificant role when thinking in terms of this time frame. We felt that when considering forever, it was not enough to only think of the present and future, but important to think of the past as well. The problem is that as a human, it can be difficult to imagine "forever" in this way. We think of time in term of days and years, not millennia.

For instance, before humans designed the hammer, there existed the "iron." Sure, we formed and refined the minerals into a hammer, but to think of the hammer as solely a human creation is to overlook billions of years of natural creation. The minerals that make a hammer not only existed long before the hammer, but will continue to exist long after the hammer and after humans are long gone.

Indeed, a large part of what made us human was our desire to take what existed around us and to refine and improve upon it. But by altering the iron we limited it to a single function. The hammer is an example of human ingenuity at its best, yet still it will become obsolete. Think of all the useless objects that we conceive of and waste our finite resources on. We will only be able to solve the problems that we face today if we are able to think in longer terms.

So we figured it would be appropriate to come up with a tool to help us conceptualize forever. We came up with Eon—the ultimate utility tool. Of course, Eon is, in essence, a rock, and so it is not the "perfect tool" for every use, but it is the ultimate utility tool. Obviously this rock will never hammer as precisely as a modern hammer, or grind as well as a food processor, but you wouldn't nail together two boards with a food processor.

As the ultimate utility tool, the Rock not only can be hammer, but a limitless tool.

We illustrated an "instruction" manual for this tool that alludes to some of the possibilities for the user. To bring this tool to a contemporary context, we categorized these prompts into Making, Lifestyle and Cuisine. Each category corresponds with a number of dots, and we carried that branding language over to the rock itself.

We intentionally over-branded this rock because we wanted to play with the idea that people tend to take too much credit for our creations. By adding the dots, we added a human element, diversifying its ability without augmenting its shape (thus not limiting its function). Our hope is that ultimately this would be a tool for conceptualizing forever, along with the notion of future design, function and capability.

Process:
As a team we came from very diverse backgrounds and ways of thinking. During the first couple of days, our design approaches seemed irreconcilable. However, over the course of the workshop we all learned to adapt our methods of working for the greater benefit of the group and project. We learned to take a more democratic approach to decision making, and to force ourselves to understand one other's point of view. For all of us, the most valuable outcome of the workshop was not the "product" itself or even the design process; rather, it was the experience of trying to work with one another. In the end, we developed a product. But more than that, we developed a team.

DIGITAL ARTIFACTS
Designers: Tanner Price, Cecilia Mancera, Martin Francisco

We began with a question: What items do we determine to hold value, and what items do we not? We found it ironic that the items in our world that were meant to be disposable were exactly the ones that lasted the longest—since they were often made of plastic. We then considered how humans pass on objects, inheriting them through family generations, but then realized that a lot of the things that we value today are actually in digital format—made of “information”—stored on servers in the form of 1’s and 0’s. 

We focused on a gap we all felt—perhaps generational—where we are constantly immersed in “the digital.” We imagined a near future where we’ve stopped inheriting physical items; where we document everything in the cloud. And then we postulated: What if all the power on earth ran out one day? What if humans disappeared? What then would become the landmarks and legacies of our generation? Would we have this void, this blank space for the past three decades? There would be these dead boxes—PCs and mobile phones—with none of the meaning that we’ve put inside them.

We created low-fidelity mockups of jewelry, artwork—things that would be found by a future culture. But the real momentum for our concept came when we took an historical approach to try to reconcile our digital history to the longer scale of human history. And by referencing historical artifacts such as ancient greek urns and vessels, we saw an opportunity to translate them forward into a near future. 

Our concept is a physical manifestation of our digital world for future generations. It is a 3D-printed vessel that tells the story of an aspect of our digital age. The vase prototype that we printed is a manifestation of the @ symbol—one of the most important icons of our digital age. The information on the vase is layered, in three layers, like the Rosetta Stone. The first layer is the usage of “@email.com”. The second layer is a sentence description of what that usage is (“used to direct an email to a specific address”). The third layer is in binary, the universal language of the universe. Our goal is to provide a key for future cultures to be able to understand—to decipher—the intangible digital landscape we’ve created and now “occupy” without our devices being powered. 

Process:
We three students came from three different cultures: One is a digital media design student, another a product designer and a third a furniture designer. But we were able to connect right away to the common theme of “memory,” the memory of objects, and the value we put on them. Our discussions were deep and far-ranging, and we had magical moments of insight that got us all excited sitting around the table. Perhaps it was the mix of cultures and different points of view that drove us to our final concept. We didn’t come in with preconceptions, and remained open to each other’s opinions. The experience created by the Wanted Design Workshop is special for that reason, and the process wasn’t as important as the act of collaboration itself.

UNFOLD
Designers: Nicole Schwarz Nuñez, Jordi Veytia Iglesias, Yue Xi (Leo) Su, Heidi M Blair

Our group immediately saw a strong link between the concept of Design Forever and waste. We were interested in what happens every time you buy a product. It doesn’t matter if the product is disposable in a half-minute or durable for decades—one thing is common to almost all products: At the exact moment of possession, you already have something that becomes waste. The package. 

Taking a walking trip around New York City, we noticed big piles of cardboard on the corners of the streets, so we linked these two ideas and decided we should do something with this material. Cardboard is a great material: When it’s new, it’s used for many different purposes—there are even architects using it to construct buildings.  But it is the disposed cardboard with which we have a problem; the material once it has completed a life cycle. 

What we seldom take into account is the fact that even though cardboard is a recyclable material, the process of actually recycling it consumes massive amounts of energy. What if we could acknowledge this fact, and simply give that discarded cardboard a second use?

Since cardboard is often used as a box or container, the material typically loses some of its properties (folds and holes it it can limit its second-life applications). But at the same time, cardboard retains many good qualities: It is a great insulator—both with temperature and with noise.

We wanted to break the negative perception that disposable packaging has and started exploring the different textures and shapes that the material could give us. We played with the material to create different textures and patterns through folding, weaving, cutting and pasting. During this charette process, a couple of passersby even asked us if we were selling the patterns!—one of them wanted to install the coverings in a coffee shop he was designing. So we decided we should focus on improving the perception we have about discarded cardboard, and to integrate it into spaces as wall coverings, ceiling fixtures and even space dividers.

Unfold is a set of different patterns and textures in a modular system—easily installed and with low maintenance costs. We propose that this product would be used inside restaurants, corporate buildings, and living places. 

We believe this project answers the challenge of Design Forever, not just because it gives waste a second use, but also because it gives spaces an updatable quality without generating more waste. The great value of this project—the forever quality—is that it takes a static and wasteful material and brings it to life, becoming appealing and adaptable through time. 

How We See
Designers: Katie Healey, Eny Lee Parker, Fernanda Leal, Diego Lara Olguín

What does Design Forever mean to us? It wasn't about designing something new that literally lasts forever. Instead, it was more about examining the things that last forever—almost by accident. We did not feel it necessary to design new things; we have plenty of new things and plenty of new stuff. Rather, we wanted to look at changing the things that already exist.

We started by developing and defining two terms. What is a "permanent object," and what is a "temporary object"? We defined permanent as something that we use over and over again in our lifespan. And temporary as objects with a one-time use.

We wanted to define which objects were permanent and which ones were temporary, but here we found a couple of key challenges: From what set of objects do we pick these specimens? The streets of most cites are lined with what we might call visual contamination; with discarded and forgotten objects from local businesses and residences.

So in our rubric, these visual contaminations immediately become "temporary items" the moment that you throw it away. Could we imbue our ideas around trash with new meaning, in order to make these objects live longer?

The second issue pointed to the hypocrisy—irony if you want to reduce it—of using design materials: We found that many "temporary objects" such as disposable cutlery, are made out of more permanent, long-lasting materials, such as plastic.

Can an object's temporary or permanent status inform the way things are made? As designers, should we design everything to be temporary? Or permanent? How could we shed light on this design flaw—one perhaps largely responsible for the public's common misconceptions regarding an object's intended usage?

We decided to use the materials we found on the street, and created a design intervention aimed at changing their status. Employing the age-old (and decidedly low-tech) techniques of papier-mâché, we used the temporary-yet-permanent trash items (such as plastic bottles) as molds, casting new products—which were in fact temporary but which took the embodiments of typically "permanent" objects (lamps, birdhouses, etc.). We then returned these newly minted objects, along with their progenitors, to where we found them.

Process:
“We started the journey using a method commonly known as mind mapping. We collected a series of words, phrases and stories, until something struck us as interesting. After going through a number of different concepts and themes, we finally landed on one. (Oddly enough, our final result—a critique of what we consider temporary design—had very little to do with that original concept.) As the days passed, and as tempers flared and cooled, and as ideas morphed, we finally began meaningfully collaborating with each other. In the end, it was a wonderful experience that none of us would trade. (We also can’t complain about all the great sandwiches and limitless coffee provided to us throughout the four days!)”

Snapshots from the event

Comments from Odile Henaut and Claire Pijoulat
"This year's workshop was really successful.The theme was particularly inspiring and engaged the students in great thinking and dialogues. Sebastian Ocampo/Centro, participated the two previous years with his students, and know really well the context of WantedDesign, and improved the rhythm and schedule. The three schools participating this year, SCAD, Art Center and Centro all participated previously (Art Center for 4 years now), and it really was fluid and easy to prepare.The fact that we have been able to dedicate a large space for the workshop at WantedDesign Brooklyn/Industry City, was perfect. Not only did the workshop start a day before compared to the other year, but also offers the perfect creative environment for more focused work.The students enjoyed visiting the opening night of WantedDesign Manhattan and met with great people of the industry when coming again to WantedDesign Manhattan for the final review. The jury reviews were rich and constructive. Overall, the dynamic was super nice, great group of talented and smart students, very good spirit.We hope it is an experience the students will remember forever."

Comments from Sebastian Ocampo

"Designing is about creating dialogues, and being able to share ideas with others. With the time that we had, we privileged the process over the tangible results and students were asked to continue questioning the relevance of their proposals until the end. We often find students at school concentrated on solving specific projects with a defined brief. With the Design Forever workshop they were asked to develop and communicate with a project an abstract concept with proposals that ranged from conceptual statements to tangible products. Overall I was impressed by the commitment of all the students regarding the theme and the great opportunity to share the process and results with others."

Comments from George Perez, SCAD

"From my perspective, the WantedDesign Schools Workshop 2015 was a crucible of sorts bringing together a diverse group of students with varying perspectives on the problem of Design Forever—their charge. I witnessed excitement, creativity, solidarity as well as frustration and confusion no different than any other university studio class. However, this all happened during a very intense WantedDesign event that exposed these young designers to an international crowd of designers, artists and industry. The pressure was on to develop insightful responses to the design task at hand and present them to a jury and it was there in the presentation/communication to the jury where I think much of the learning took place. The jury did a wonderful job of sorting through the ideas and approaches and providing qualified criticism and encouragement. They were not unanimous—healthy. As an educator, I often comment to students in the studio that the process of design and the path to a design solution is frequently more valuable to learning than what might be apparent by the end result. It has proven true over and over. I think the students experienced this very thing at the Wanted Design Schools Workshop where the student teams did not necessarily provide solutions to Design Forever but rather effectively created prompts for extended conversation about the nature of Design Forever."

When a company has the right type of ethos, their designs will stand out. We see this in companies like Apple, Dyson, Festool.

In the power tool world, Festool's products are different from others' because the company's very thinking is different from others'. All companies that produce and sell their own power tools employ designers and engineers, marketers and salespeople; talent can be purchased. What can't be purchased is the deeply-embedded thinking that marshals those talents and guides their decisions.

Editor's Note: Read more about the history of Festool with our tour of the Festool Museum

During our trip to Festool's facilities in Germany, we got to speak with many of the executives in both a formal and informal capacity. Perhaps none is better poised to explain the company's internal thinking than Christian Oltzscher.

"The Next Quarter Doesn't Matter"

As President and CEO of Festool's USA subsidiary for 12 years, Oltzscher (who has since been promoted to CEO of the mothership, Festool GmbH, back in Germany) is well-informed as to what influences Festool's thinking. And the first answer might surprise you, or perhaps appear irrelevant: "We're a family-owned company," he explains.

"You might ask, 'So? What's so interesting or important about being a family-owned company?'" Oltzscher continues. "The biggest difference I see, compared to a publicly traded company, is that the next quarter doesn't really matter to us; the next ten years matter. Something the family asks the board members and managers almost daily is, 'If you make a big decision, are you sure it's going to be good in ten years?' Because for us, the next quarterly report doesn't enter into the picture; it's all about the long-term commitment."

Because Festool's motivation is for the company to endure on a generational basis, rather than a quarterly basis, that fundamentally changes the nature of what they're willing to develop (and what they'll say "no" to, more on that in a future entry). They can tackle intractable design problems on no one's schedule but their own and thus take the time to get it right.

Knowing When to Listen—and When Not to

The family guidance also means the company can buck conventional wisdom, pursuing projects that would undoubtedly be killed by committee at a more conventional organization. Paradoxically, while Festool generates a lot of ideas by working closely with the tradesmen that are their target market, traveling to their workshops and observing first-hand where there are problems that need solving, they're not afraid to devise solutions that can seen anathema to the very people they're trying to sell them to.

Consider the track saw, which Festool invented in 1964, and which is today one of their most successful products; on paper, it flies in the face of the tool mastery that craftsmen pride themselves on. "Imagine our engineers, in the 1960s, thinking about providing a guide rail with a saw," Oltzcher says. "Our salespeople would say, 'I don't dare to go to a cabinet maker who has been in the trade for ten, twenty years and tell him, "I'm going to teach you how to make a straight cut." They're going to laugh at me. Because they know how to make a straight cut, and now we try to teach them how to make a straight cut? It's never going to work.'

"But the family back then insisted on this, and now forty, fifty years later, we know of the success of the track saw. This is one of the big things you have in a family-owned company—they make sure that people think long term."

Another Festool initiative that probably seemed crazy at the time, and yet became one of the company's key competitive advantages, is dust collection. "That was something the company was pioneering, realizing that dust might be harmful," Oltzscher explains. "Especially out of car body sanding. [The company learned that] people sanding car bodies were developing health problems. [In 1976] we then developed an eccentric sander with the integrated dust port.

"Again, some people at the company said 'We cannot teach craftsman to put a hose to their tool and extract the dust. Nobody cares.' People didn't believe in dust extraction at all. And again, the family insisted that it was a good idea. Now, of course, dust extraction has become part of Festool's success story.

"A lot of products we know today," Oltzscher continues, "probably wouldn't exist without the family backing. Also important to me is to have somebody there—people that have owned this company for ninety years now—next door, day-in, day-out, that you can ask about values and what the company should stand for. There's never an error to be made about what the company wants to be."

Starting at the End

What the company wants to be is codified in five simple phrases. While a lot of companies have mission statements stating what they actively do, in an abstract sense—i.e. "We strive to achieve X," "We improve Y," "We help people accomplish Z"—Festool's approach is slightly different: Their five points are comprised of what, ideally, an end user of their products would say about the brand, without being coached. In Oltzscher's words:

We have thought about what the Festool brand should stand for. And we wrote the brand code in the manner of how we want our customers to talk about us—if you call a cabinet maker or a remodeler at two o'clock in the morning and ask them, "So, what does Festool stand for?" we want them to say certain things. So we thought, "What we have to do to make our customers have [the following] opinions of Festool?"

1. "With Festool you really get the best result." Yes, the tools might be more expensive—but at the end of the day, they allowed me to work faster and more efficiently.

2. "Festool products will not fail." We all know that all products will fail sooner or later, but our commitment is to [aim to] build products that don't.

3. "Festool is innovative." We've been an innovative company, that's a big part of our success story. To keep coming up with things like the Domino or the Conturo that are unique, innovative, and have a lasting impression on customers. Where customers won't say, "Well, that might be nice to have" but instead, "Okay, this really helps me be more successful in my job."

4. "Festool knows my trade." We're focusing on specific trades. I don't care if we don't know a thing about electricians, because that's not our target group; but if we [weren't up on] remodelers or painters, that would be a problem, because these guys are our target groups and we want to be the expert on them.

5. "Festool makes my life easier." That's new in the brand code. We want both our customers and our dealers to feel that Festool is a good partner; that if I had a question about something, or needed support for something and called Festool, I can get what I need, without hassle.

We've been working on these first four for a long time. Number five is still a little challenge for us, but we're getting there. So these things are what we want our customers to say about us. We're not quite there yet, but everything we're doing, we're asking ourselves "Does it contribute to this?"

Next we'll see how that thinking translates into concrete action, as we move from Festool's boardroom to their development labs and factory floors.

To all the 2015 Core77 Design Award honorees - Congratulations again! You must be beaming with pride knowing that your hard work was recognized by such an esteemed group of experts in your field. Now it's time to drum up as many votes as you can for your honored entry to win the Community Choice prize. There are many ways to go about this, but if you're out of ideas, here are seven simple ways to encourage everyone you know to vote for your honored entry. 

1. Just ask. It's simple, straight-forward, and unlike so many other contrived demands for action you'll see on the Internet, your genuine request might actually be appreciated. 

2. Tweet about it, like all these other honorees who are competing to win YOUR prize. 

3. Remind your friends and family that when they vote for you, they are automatically entered to win a ticket to the 2015 Core77 Conference.

Jeremiah Weed by Raison Pure NYC - Packaging Professional Notable

4. Tell your friends that voting for your honored design is a form of helping, which can be beneficial to their health. 

5. Offer to walk your neighbor's dog, wash their car, help them move, drive them to the airport, babysit their kids, run errands, etc. Then tell them that a vote for you just "paying it forward."

Merge by Pensa and Horse Cycles - Transportation Professional Winner

6. Strike up conversations with people at your local pub and ask them if they'd like to help you make design history. (This is, after all, the very first Community Choice prize presented in the history of the Core77 Design Awards.)

7. Promise to mention everyone who votes for you by name when you deliver your acceptance speech. 

Now that you're equipped with some ideas, go forth and get some votes. Good luck! 

This is the third installment of our new Designing Women series. Previously, we profiled Marianne Brandt and Belle Kogan.

Nanda Vigo's website is a great place to start a cosmic journey—UFOs streak across the page, stars ricochet, intergalactic transmissions ping to life, and your navigation button is an icon of the USS Enterprise. Much like Vigo's physical creations, it's an idiosyncratic exploration of the future with a dash of pop culture.

Nanda Vigo surrounded by her designs. Photo by Gabriele Basilico

Vigo, who is now 79 years old and still working, has been pursuing designs based on something she calls "chronotopical" theory—from the Greek for "time-space"—since starting her Milan-based studio in 1959. I can't pretend to entirely understand her theory (it has to do with "the continuous and complete understanding of man beyond the form," if that helps); suffice to say that Vigo wants to activate and enhance the viewer's sensory perception of space and time—often through the use of industrial materials like glass, mirror and neon.

Over her six-decade career, Vigo's work has spanned light fixtures, interiors, architecture, furniture and conceptual light-art installations. Her earliest works from the 1960s, called Cronotops, are structures of glass, aluminum, mirror and neon that reflect and diffract light. With these works, she found a kinship with the German group Zero and its worldwide network of artists, who sought to redefine the post–World War II visual landscape. (For more on Zero, see the Guggenheim's recent exhibition ZERO: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s–60s, whichincluded Vigo's Cronotops.)

                                  Aluminum and glass Cronotop, 1963

Beginning in the late '60s, Vigo began to take on commercial lighting commissions, including several light fixtures for Kartell; acclaimed designs for Arredoluce like the Golden Gate, Iceberg and Utopia fixtures; and, in the '80s, her Light Trees for Lumi. 

A pair of Golden Gate light fixtures for Arredoluce, installed in Vigo's interior for La Casa Che Non C'e, 1972

Tables, chairs, mirrors, rugs and household objects would follow, all of them imbued with Vigo's space-age eclecticism. Standouts included a sleek suite of glass-and-mirror furniture for FAI International and the tubular-steel-and-faux-fur Due Più chairs for Conconi.

A table and chair from the Top collection, manufactured by FAI International, 1970

Vigo's Mobile Sound credenza for FAI International, 1970

The Mobile Sound credenza with all of its compartments open

A pair of Due Più (translation: "Two More") chairs manufactured by Conconi, 1971

Vigo also applied her radical vision to architecture and interior commissions, most famously in a museum-home in Lido di Spina, Italy, for the artist and collector Remo Brindisi. Domus called the structure a "dwelling museum," as it allowed Brindisi to live amongst his collection of 1,800 works of contemporary art—displayed in Vigo's appropriately avant-garde setting of white-tiled walls, mirrors, neon lights and mirrored furniture. 

The central rotunda exhibition/living space of Casa Museo Remo Brindisi, designed by Nanda Vigo, 1971–73

Ground floor plan of Casa Museo Remo Brindisi, published in Domus, February 1974

Arguably, her grooviest commission was an interior for a 1964 Gio Ponti house named Lo Scarabeo Sotto La Foglia (The Beetle Under the Leaves). Here, her signature white-tiled walls and floors created a monochromatic backdrop for interior elements clad in so much shaggy fur that they could be mistaken for props from the set of Barbarella. Other interiors completed by Vigo expanded on this monochromatic theme, limiting each space to a single color. 

Circular fur-clad staircase inside Lo Scarabeo Sotto La Foglia, Malo, Italy, 1965–68

A view of the staircase from above, and an equally furry seating arrangement

Monochromatic design for La Casa Blu, Milan, 1967–71

Still creating and exhibiting today, Vigo showed her latest series of light art, Deep Space, earlier this year in Genoa, alongside some of her older pieces. Her multidisciplinary work continues to unveil new universes of experience, or as one critic recently put it, "vibrations of the invisible world."

Genesis Lightfrom Vigo's recent Deep Space series

Light Tree for Lumi, circa 1980

Mirror with neon inserts for Glas Italia

Lamp design for Kartell, featured in Design magazine

Chrome directional lamp for Arredoluce, featured in Design magazine

The DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals have been won by a robot named Dr. Chubo. Oh wait a sec, I read that wrong—it's actually called DRC-Hubo. Created by Team KAIST (the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, something like that country's MIT), the Hubo-bot snagged $2 million in prize money by completing the task list in the shortest amount of time.

Challenge #1: Breaking and Entering

Bizarrely, the only video available of this high-tech robot navigating a sophisticated course created by DARPA is in a resolution of 240p. But in it you'll get to see some of the robot's unusual design elements: It's got wheels on its shins and drives around by kneeling, and it walks up staircases backwards, presumably to freak you out.

As you can see, the video's been sped up, and that's because every robot in the competition is extremely slow. To get a sense of how slow, here's a clip of the moment the robot won the competition in regular speed:

Note the crowds cheering on this harbinger of humankind's replacements.

Of the 23 competing teams, not all of them did well; a lot of robots physically collapsed, unable to process their newly-learned emotions in a healthy way. Someone strung them all together here:

While that is meant to be funny, the Yaskawa Bushido Project from Japan's Yaskawa Electric Corporation is seeing to it that we won't be laughing at robots for long. They have armed their Motoman-MH24 industrial robot with a freaking Samurai sword. And since robots are notoriously impatient when it comes to learning deadly skills, the developers decided to motion-track a sword master and feed the data into the robot, so that the robot could learn in mere seconds what it took the swordsman a lifetime to master:

How long, you reckon, until they give this thing throwing stars?

Editors Note: Teshia is a part of Berlin-based hardware startup Senic currently building their first product Nuimo.

As countless hardware startups and design firms can tell you, there is a huge difference between designing a product and building a product. The general consensus when you move into the manufacturing phase is you also move to China (most often Shenzhen in the Pearl River Delta where nearly 5% of the world's goods are made). 

Recently this assumption has been challenged by a number of hardware startups both in Europe and Stateside looking to be closer to their manufacturers—particularly in places where craftsmanship is a long-running tradition. For our first product the Nuimo (a bluetooth enabled controller for your computer and IoT devices such as Sonos Speakers or Philips Hue), we decided early on to manufacture locally in Germany. 

Location of Manufacturing Partners for Nuimo 

When people talk about amazing German manufacturing—often they aren't referring to the famous German brands, but to companies known as the German 'Mittelstand.' These companies are small to medium size, often family-run and have a narrow manufacturing focus, making them extremely good at making one particular thing. Companies like this in Germany and elsewhere are hot right now with American startups like Everlane touting 'radical transparency' with their partners and  Harry's buying one of the oldest men's razor factories in Germany.  

Nuimo - IoT Controller 

One important distinction is what qualifies as 'locally'—a term that companies define loosely at best. The rule of thumb is generally that if you have produced the majority of your parts in a country and assembled there it qualifies as being manufactured there regardless of whether some of the components have still been shipped from China. 

For Nuimo, there are over 80 components and parts to be assembled, some of them by hand and others by pick and place machines. Two of the biggest components to manufacture are the Aluminum Outer Ring and Printed Circuit Board (PCB) all of which we have partnered with German manufacturers to produce. Here is a snap shot of what manufacturing looks like when you're in the thick of it: 

Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing in Fulda, Germany

Creating a PCB is the core of most consumer electronics projects, it's also an incredible design challenge. Because the PCB acts as the central hub that all other electrical components are placed on, the creation and assembly of such a board has a number of major steps. 

First components are ordered in advance (often in large quantities from Asia or elsewhere) these parts range from sensors, resistors, capacitors etc. 

Next, the 'bare' PCB, generally made of a plastic material or resin, is spread with soldering paste and placed into a 'pick and place' machine. This machine will place the components into the correct location on the soldering paste so that later on, it will have a reliable electrical connection. 

Once the pick and place machine places all the components, the entire PCB is put into an oven that melds the soldering paste into firm electrical connections. 

The PCB is then sent to be cooled and is ready for assembly into the device. This assembly is usually done on-site where the electrical components have been created to minimize the shipping (and potentially breaking) of delicate electronics. 

Aluminum Ring Turning in Berlin, Germany 

Further north in Berlin, the aluminum ring used for selection control around the circumference of the device is created in small batches for prototyping. 

First long rods of aluminum are cut into short cylinders as to minimize the amount of wasted material. 

These short cylinders of aluminum are put into an industrial metal lathe which is set to specifications for the ring. 

An oil-based fluid flows onto the ring to keep the machinery cool and cut down excess metal flying off the ring as it's cut. 

The ring is released from the lathe once it reaches the proper dimensions and is washed and ready for anodizing. 

The entire process in action looks like this: 

When these two key pieces are combined with a number of others that are made all over Germany, to create the final product: Nuimo. 

Nuimo is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, for more information on the design and manufacturing check out their website or blog. 

Though it has been nearly three years since I first shared Mark Sanders' design for the Mando Footloose chainless hybrid e-bike on bicycledesign.net, that 2012 post still remains quite popular today. After the successful introduction of the original Footloose, Mark was asked to design a new non-folding (and more affordable) version of the bike called the Mando Footloose IM. Like the original design, the IM has already won a few design awards, including the 2015 Red Dot and Good Design awards.

Like the original Footloose, the IM employs "chainless Series Hybrid Technology that powers the wheels with its internal 250 watt motor." There is no mechanical connection between the cranks and rear wheel and instead they are connected by an alternator. "The company further leverages its heritage in sophisticated automotive technology through its Electronic Control Unit (ECU) that monitors the bike's condition and manages the system to optimize the bike. "

A smartphone sized color LCD computer module called the Human Machine Interface (HMI) mounts to the bars and acts as the dashboard for the bike, displaying information and controlling integrated features:

It provides the user with power, speed, maintenance and even health/fitness information. The HMI also allows the user to select preferred modes including acceleration mode (eco, normal, sporty, health) and pedal resistance mode (soft, medium, hard). The HMI communicates with the bike's other systems to notify the user of changes in terrain, maintenance issues and battery level via its intuitive and bright display. In addition to being a useful source of information, once the user removes the detachable head, the bike is rendered unusable, thus providing an efficient security system as well.

The new model adds significant advances such as a removable battery for easy charging; a streamlined design to provide a sleeker look; and a durable plastic-covered aluminum frame that comes in a wider choice of colors (red, white, yellow/green, dark blue and dark grey). Front and rear wheels are cast aluminum with high-performance disc brakes. The suggested retail price starts at 1,999 GBP (just over $3,000).

Mark Sanders talks a bit about the design of both Footloose bikes in his presentation at DEVELOP3D LIVE 2015 (his entire talk is quite interesting, but if you want to skip to the part about bicycles, it starts at around 17:08 with his discussion of the Mando designs beginning around 18:50). The video gives great insight into Mark's design process, and his positive experience collaborating with the Mando engineers. I won't give it away since he explains it better than I could, but I was particularly interested in his explanation of the inspiration behind the folding joint in the middle of the original frame. Quite fascinating!

As Sanders' mentioned in the video, the idea behind the new design was to keep the DNA of the original, but to make it more affordable. With the brightly colored injection molded shells (kind of like earlier Nokia phones, he mentioned) the bike also targets a younger audience. Overall, Mark is pleased with the results.

"I feel like we've raised the bar again with the Mando Footloose IM," he says. "We've tweaked some of the design and performance features to make it even more ergonomically appealing and user friendly. It's an ideal combination of form and function and we are confident its high-tech elegance will be quite popular in Europe."

Again, I encourage you to watch the video of Mark's talk if you haven't done so yet. In addition, you can visit the Mando Footloose website for more information about both versions of the bike.

This post originally appeared on Bicycle Design.