Without some sort of organizational product, kitchen silverware drawers would be a mess. But cutlery collections can be small or large, and drawer sizes vary tremendously. So what's a designer to do?

Expandable trays such as those from Core Bamboo and Bellemain are one solution. When unexpanded, the organizers have enough compartments for most basic silverware collections—but the two extra compartments, one on each side, will help for larger collections and bigger drawers.

The two halves of the expandable DrawerStore from Joseph Joseph lock into place at the size the user chooses. And a plastic organizer will be somewhat easier to clean than one made of bamboo.

Like the DrawerStore, the OXO Good Grips adjustable organizer has a single expandable compartment on one side. But it also has adjustable dividers on the other side, so sections can be made larger or smaller. Purchasers appreciate the versatility; one created sections for baby flatware and reusable straws. Some users would like more dividers than what it comes with (two large, two medium, and two small); providing an option to buy extra dividers would be a nice idea. 

One more nice feature: This organizer also has non-slip feet to prevent it from moving around in the drawer. It's a thick plastic, and I've seen no complaints about its stability when being moved around.

The OXO Good Grips expandable organizer also has that single adjustable compartment to the side. But, more notably, the adjustable dividers within each compartment allow the silverware to be stacked in alternating directions. That's an innovative way to save some space. However, it does require a bit more fussing when putting the silverware away than simple open compartments do, and for some people that will make this design unworkable.

Some trays aren't adjustable, and they can work fine for those who have drawers that are the right size. One advantage of a tray such as this one from T&G is that it would also work just fine outside of a drawer, if need be. For example, it would be easy to haul the cutlery collection to a party if a friend needed additional tableware. 

The Rubbermaid cutlery trays from the 1970s aren't as flexible as most other products; certain sections can only be used for spoons. But for some people, having the visual cue as to what goes where is useful.

For those with deep drawers, a two-tier tray such as this one from Century Components might work well. However, some people will find that they totally forget about the things in the bottom tier, which they can't see as easily. 

Individual containers sized appropriately for silverware, such as these bamboo ones, are an alternative to a single tray. They provide a lot of flexibility, and can work fine if the set has the right components. However, they can also waste space, since they have more wall space than a single tray would have. They are also unlikely to fit a drawer's width exactly, as an expandable tray can do. But they might also fit into a space where no other product works.

Cut-to-size inserts are an alternative to trays. They use a bit less space in the drawer, since there are no exterior edges. The ones from Rev-A-Shelf can be trimmed with a table saw to the exact size needed.

Not everyone is going to have a fully equipped workspace with a table saw; drawer dividers where you just measure, score and snap will work better for some. The dividers from Lifestyle Systems aren't specifically designed for cutlery, but they could certainly be used that way. 

Orderly Drawer makes it easy to order custom inserts sized to fit a specific drawer. There are over 30 templates to choose from regarding the layout of the fixed walls. The thin movable dividers that fit into those walls allow for quite a bit of adjustment if needs change. (Fixed dividers are another option.) The inserts come in varying heights, too, which can be very useful. 

Another style of drawer organizer, seen mainly for storing true silverware, has the silverware stored on edge, with each piece nested in place. This requires more care and fine motor movements when putting silverware away than some other organizers, so it's certainly not for everyone. 

For fine silverware, another interesting design is the Reed & Barton flatware drawer liner pad with its tarnish-resistant silver cloth blanket. This allows the owner to keep the silverware in a drawer rather than a chest while still providing protection for the pieces.

Those whose kitchens lack a silverware drawer to organize can add one beneath a kitchen cabinet, with dividers already in place.

Starting in the '90s, New Yorkers began spotting an unusual sight on the sidewalks: A lone man or woman in business attire slapping foundation on his/her face, setting up a camera on a tripod, unwinding the microphone cable, and reporting news by themselves. The then-upstart news network called NY1 had pioneered a low-cost, lean method of reporting in the field that had reporters undergo video training, tote their own cameras around and even apply their own makeup.

As the network progressed from fledgling to established, nowadays it's more common to spot NY1 reporters paired with cameramen. But the next generation of lean news networks will probably be using one of these:

That's the SoloCam, essentially just a selfie stick with a microphone attachment. There's no audio cable, as the mic connects to the smartphone via Bluetooth, making this little contraption the ultimate in lean reporting gear.

However, it's not marketed as such. Like all selfie sticks, it's aimed at silly narcissists. It's only been up on IndieGogo for a day or so, but with a relatively low target of $40,000, 44 days left to pledge and no shortage of consumers who love seeing (and now hearing) themselves, it's sure to reach funding. Intended to be retailed for $99, the campaign is selling them for just $49.

Whatever the device's intended usage, you can't deny it's a smart product design: It seems relatively simple to make, features a simple but powerful innovation and provides functionality that end users will certainly want. I hope those end users will be the members of a hungry upstart news network, but judging by the jogger I saw this morning snapping selfies while he histrionically huffed and puffed, I know better.

In recent years automakers have discovered that Millenials are not as interested in car ownership as previous generations. With car-loving Boomers and Gen-X'ers only getting older, the writing is on the wall.

In an attempt to boost sales, Ford is launching, in six urban areas, a rather strange take on car sharing. The idea is that Ford owners that are registered with Ford Motor Credit (the company's financing arm) will be able to rent their own cars out to strangers by the hour, all facilitated by an app and a car-share startup called Getaround. It's something like AirBNB for cars.

I call the plan strange for three reasons: First, because for the end user—and I mean the ultimate end user who is renting the car, not the penultimate end user who is allowing their car to be rented out—the program doesn't seem to offer any advantage over Zipcar, the dominant car sharing service. Thus Ford's offering seems to have a me-too air about it without offering any real innovation, or incentive to switch, to the ultimate end user.

Secondly, I question whether a car owner would be willing to rent their own car out to a stranger. Some of you will say that if folks are willing to rent their apartments out to strangers on AirBNB, why not? Because during the normal course of operation, cars are subjected to more immediate wear-and-tear both inside and out and, of course, potentially catastrophic accidents. AirBNB has weathered their share of anomalous horror stories, but I think that in today's litigious society, it will take just one well-publicized DUI-related fatality before car owners re-think handing their keys away.

Thirdly, I always assumed that folks in urban areas who needed a car but couldn't afford one would sign up with, again, ZipCar. If the Ford renters are to match their rates, the hourly profit for Ford owners sharing their cars would not seem to add up to a significant amount.

Lastly, you should take my opinion with a grain of salt; you're talking to a guy who was confident the first iPod Mini would be a flop. (It was a tremendous sales success, for those of you that can remember back that far.)

I'm most curious to hear from the car owners among you, as I sold mine long ago and am no longer in your tribe. Whether or not you have a Ford, would you be willing to rent your car out on an hourly basis to strangers, for rates roughly competitive ($12 to $15 per hour) to Zipcar's?

Also, fellow Zipcar users: Are the cars you get clean? Here in NYC, I'd say four out of five times I use a Zipcar, they're reasonably clean. But one out of five times I find at least one of the following:

- Garbage (candy bar wrappers, empty coffee cups, half-drank water bottles, etc.)
- Food crumbs or food stains on seat or dashboard
- Strong cologne or perfume smell
- Cigarette ashes
- The plastic clips drilled into the dashboard to hold the external audio cable have been forcibly ripped out, and the cable is missing
- Sticky or oily buttons, controls or steering wheel

Is it just New York, or have you found this in your Zipcar city as well?

City dwellers among you: Depending on what type of building you live in, above and below you might be dozens of other apartments with the exact same footprint as yours. I'm not talking about your average ten-by-ten dorm room; I mean proper apartments with walls, doors, windows, kitchen sink and outlets all in the exact same places. Yet all of these apartments will have different feels, depending on the decorating, storage and living decisions made by their individual residents.

For those of you living in such situations, would it not be cool to see your own place side-by-side with 30 other versions, to see how the other 29 kitted theirs out? That would make for a killer large-scale photography project, one worthy of study by interior designers. But until someone executes that one, we'll settle for looking at just two identical-floorplan apartments in this "One Floorplan, Two Apartments, Two Style Stories" video shot by Apartment Therapy:

Note that the first tenant said it was "under a thousand dollars"—which makes me think it was closer to $800 than $500--to remove the wall. I know it's Manhattan, but 800 bucks to rip out a non-load-bearing wall that was probably made with steel studs and half-inch drywall? Damn this city!

Many of you took an interest in the Beats teardown post from earlier this week, and we learned a lot about metal being added to a variety of product designs (thanks commenters!). However, a few sharp-eyed readers contacted us with disturbing allegations: Those weren't actual Beats headphones at all, they claimed.

I couldn't get anyone to go on the record, which is a shame, as I would've loved for this information to be directly attributable to a Core77 reader. But here's what we were able to find out externally:

The prototype engineer who did the breakdown, Avery Louie, never mentions what model of Beats he tore down. But he refers to the price as $199, which is consistent with Beats' Solo 2 headphones. However, the color scheme in Louie's photos doesn't match the Solo 2 offerings, indicating he used Beats' discontinued Solo HD, which also retailed for $199. And here's where it starts to unravel.

Louie found just two drivers, one per ear, in his teardown. But the Solo HD contains four drivers, two per ear. So it appears Louie's been given a bogus pair. Audiophile Redditor Vantt1 has gone to the trouble of highlighting some internal differences between real and fake Beats in this Imgur page, which shows a crossover circuit absent in the teardown and other discrepancies.

Image via Imgur

The question you likely have is, how could a prototype engineer be fooled into using knockoffs rather than the real deal? We'll remind you that he's tearing down products precisely because he doesn't know what's inside. One could also argue, however, that he should have been looking for dual drivers if he was familiar with the product description.

Where we can't fault Louie is in supposing these were real Beats products based on the packaging and external appearance. Pirate manufacturers have become so adept at aesthetic duplication that it is shocking. Don't believe us? Take a look at this video, where the TechBreak channel looks at real-vs.-fake Beats Solo 2 headphones side by side:

Imagine that this arrived via delivery and you're examining the packaging. It is nearly dead-on identical. The only giveaway is the extra languages printed on the box (which the reviewer refers to collectively as "Chinese," but which is in fact Chinese, followed by Japanese, followed by Korean characters, followed by simplified Chinese). The real Beats packaging features only Western languages. However, unless you had both the real and fake boxes right next to each other, this would be unlikely to raise a red flag; it's common these days for lots of products to feature Asian languages on the box.

Opening the box, there are a couple of additional giveaways—the plastic wrapping on the fakes and the color of the serial numbers—but again, unless you already had a real pair to compare it to and knew precisely what to look for, you wouldn't realize these were indications of fakery. And even with the real and fake side by side and no idea of what to look for, a layperson would be hard-pressed indeed to spot even minor differences.

The Solo 2 is Beats' lower-priced offering. Their Pro model is billed as their top-of-the-line and comes with a hefty $399.95 price tag. These, too, are being knocked off—and again, you'll be astonished at how far the pirates have taken it:

This is very troubling, and a much larger issue than whether manufacturers are trying to "fool" consumers with metal or not. It makes me wonder how pervasive the fakes are, and also makes me wonder if consumers will now question the numerous reviews stating Beats' sound quality is inferior; did the reviewer purchase a real pair in the store, or through the mail? Obviously if you buy a new pair of Beats for $10 on eBay, something's up; but if the fakes have infiltrated an Amazon seller and priced them closer to the real thing, it's possible your average reviewer could have unknowingly attained knock-offs. This doubt can muddy the decision-making process of a potential end user, and I think that's bad news.

However, I also sadly realize that none of this may matter. Whether you're wearing a good-sounding authentic pair of beats, a truly bad-sounding authentic pair of Beats or a worse-sounding pair of convincing knock-offs may actually make no difference; it depends on what your goal is in purchasing a particular product. In the video below, tech reviewer Marques Brownlee articulates what some commenters in the original post hinted at, about why some folks will purchase Beats regardless of reviews.

ZTE's Zubia Z9 smartphone boasts a full-bleed screen, touch-sensitive edges and a novel way—which the company calls Frame Interactive Technology--to interact with the device. Before we can discuss its pluses or minuses, take a look at how we're meant to use it:

Jeez, how many Apple videos did they watch before shooting (and scoring) this one? In any case, let's talk UI. At first FIT seems really cool. But if you can imagine it from an actual usage perspective, does it stand up? The idea of squeezing the phone to activate the camera shutter, for one, seems a bad idea; it's already awkward enough to hold a thin glass rectangle steady for a photo, and squeezing it on both sides will not lend itself to accurate framing.

Secondly, in apps of all kinds, the edges of the phone are where our fingers find the purchase to hold the thing. Do you not imagine accidentally triggering various functions just by holding it and/or shifting it around in your hand? Take the saxophone demonstration—when you're done playing, do you not imagine hearing a bunch of random unintended notes coming out of the thing while you fumble to shut the app down?

I think what has me most suspicious about the UI is that the demonstrator is clearly not holding an actual phone in space, and the video relies on editing and overlays to convey what's happening.

In any case, the Z9 is no mere concept; it's reportedly currently on the Chinese market, where a website called GizmoChina claims "it sold out in just 10 mins! [sic]," with no explanation of whether that means in a store or via online ordering. And another smartphone blog, Android and Me, says the Z9 will hit U.S. store shelves later this year.

Your thoughts? And what in the world is the bizarre press image below meant to convey?

Via Phone Arena

Considering the onslaught of incredible inventions that the march of modern technology has unleashed on the world in recent years, it is perhaps surprising that dreams of the sci-fi staple jetpack have failed to come to more fruition. Of course, we've sat in wonderment at spectacular water jet variety, but ambitions of a practical strap-on flight device remain elusive.

Well, that was until last week when jetpack pioneers Martin showed off what they believe to be the world's first practical commercial jetpack, suggesting that the machine could be available for purchase as soon as 2016. 

Of course, we've been watching Martin Jetpacks with interest for many years – with not too dissimilar claims of market-readiness having been made before. After decades of research which began with the company's founder  Glenn Martin, recent video releases now do seem to suggest that jetpacks could be a not to distant reality.

Made from carbon fibre and aluminium, the latest Martin—in a marketable, aesthetically considered anodised red with bright white frame—employs a 2-litre petrol engine to power two powerful fans that can apparently see pilots reaching heights of 1000 metres, speeds of over 70km/h and airtime of up to 30 minutes. 

Seemingly playing down the millionaire boy-toy market potential (and lets face it, it's not quite as sexy as the fictional back-pack sized versions), Martin execs suggest they have their sights set on emergency service providers (with hilariously faked promo video scenarios to prove it). With vertical take off and landing, the company are betting on the ability of the jetpack to operate in tight spots where other rescue vehicles can't reach.

Strike it rich with two bold summer favorites, together at a super hot price: get the HES-favorite Messer Kat Knife and the all new Hand-Eye black and gold snap back for only $42.00! You'll save a bundle when you grab this blingy combo but, like everything good, this precious black gold is a limited resource. So get it while you can! We know the heat's really coming, so stock up with two of our coolest classics and get ready to relax in style.

The Black & Gold Summer Combo runs through 6.30.15, while supplies last.

It's ironic that most of us will spend all day trying to avoid modern-day advertisements, but will eagerly burn up an afternoon looking at vintage ads. Particularly the designers among us. Upon learning that TimesMachine—the New York Times' project to publish 129 years' worth of their microfilmed newspaper's pages online—had left all of the advertisements intact, Derrick Schultz of Atavist called it "an underutilized design history resource."

Most graphic design objects were never meant to last more than a month, a year. In the case of newspaper advertising, they probably weren't even thought about the following day. But when viewed through the TimesMachine it's possible to see one hundred years worth of ephemera define an entire city's interests, cultural shifts, and history.

Interestingly, the Times also launched a side project called Madison, where they're relying on members of the general public to help them tag—and even transcribe—the advertisements, not just the articles. By clicking on the link, you can see random pages (it's currently covering the 1920s and the 1960s) and answer multiple-choice questions to help them determine what the ad is about.

Is it worth putting in a few minutes to help organize content that will only be made available to paid subscribers? It depends. It's kind of fun to see, say, old architectural icons when they were considered new:

Or the absolutely horrific home fashions of eras past ("Scallop loop fringed vinyl window shade with the look of antique satin," anyone?):

Or the way we used to board planes before we all got too out-of-shape to carry non-wheeled suitcases up a flight of stairs:

Or the sheer mechanical inefficiencies of the '60s—and the brazenness of copywriters—that a 400 cubic-inch (6.6 liter!) V-8 could be considered an "economy car:"

It's a Friday, so if you want to pitch in a few tags—or just peruse the gallery without helping—the link is right here.

Lindsey Adelman has made a name for herself creating luxury chandeliers that delicately balance the organic and the refined. With her latest collection, however, the lighting designer is applying that aesthetic to an entirely new range of objects, as seen at the exhibition Show Me now on view at the auction house Wright's Manhattan gallery.

For Adelman, who founded her New York studio in 2006, Show Me was an opportunity to share more of the story behind her work, highlighting the visual tension in each piece. "I've really enjoyed being able to elaborate on the meaning behind my work and develop it further, really pushing an idea through the process of making," she says. With her first-ever music video, on view at the Wright exhibition, Adelman puts that tenuous balance on full display with a performance by Laura Young featuring choreography by Danielle Matinelli and an original track by Leo Madriz. It was the process of making the video, which was shot last summer, that informed the mirrors, candelabra and jewelry that Adelman created over the course of the following year.

One of a few different mirrors in the exhibition. "If you really just need to see yourself, you could probably buy something else," Adelman says. Photos by Lauren Coleman.

"I would say the overarching theme is really about letting oneself go, finding this place within oneself that's a balance between the analytical mind of gauging our actions and monitoring ourselves with letting the wildfire run free and not trying to control it," Adelman says. "A lot of the work has all those elements of the free part, the wild part, as well as boundaries and structure." In another first for the designer, the mirrors and candelabra are one-offs. "That is an entirely different way of thinking for me, as opposed to designing pieces that are meant to be ordered over and over," Adelman says.

"These pieces feel like much more indulgent, sculpturally-driven functional objects. It's about opulence and over-the-top-ness and pleasure. They also have function, but they're not practical, I wouldn't say, even though they are built for longevity."

The process of designing the objects in Show Me began with a series of sketches. (As with most of her projects, the designer first created a binder with dividers, which she then filled with sketches and notes as the ideas developed.) Drawing upon themes of growth and decay, control and chaos, Adelman represented motifs through physical manifestations of fungi, which sprout up in golden growths across the finished pieces. For the mirrors, Adelman approached a traditional frame-making company that had been in business for over 60 years, bringing them her binder and preliminary sketches to start a conversation. The relationship grew from there, as Adelman would bring back additional pencil drawing with dimensions, calling out specific sections or details of the design.

A sketch of one of the mirrors—the final version is below.

"Their process is the same as it's always been," Adelman says of the frame maker. "They have one room with all the men carving wood and another room with all the ladies doing gold leaf." Adelman created wax pieces of fungus that she would then hand-place onto wooden frames provided by the frame maker on-site. "Almost like a kid playing with blocks, like wooden toys, we would have a dummy frame cut out and I would place all the fungus myself," she says. The wax fungus worked as a looks-like model for Adelman to communicate on a one-to-one ratio particular details of the design; the frame makers would use those models to build positives out of wood. The positives were then cast in plaster and the final product was gold-leafed. Other chemical processes were used to make the mirrors appear aged. "It was really fun to learn about an entire process and then design for that process while guiding them through these shapes that they had never done before," Adelman says.

One of the fungus-covered candelabra in the exhibition

The Show Me series presented many new challenges for Adelman and her team as well. "There are so many objects in this collection that aren't part of what we do normally in our studio—pretty much every single one," Adelman says. "That's challenging because there are 29 people at the studio now and everybody has pretty full days already, so it's a challenge to introduce a lot of new work where you can't predict how much time it's going to take. You have never done it before, so all these weird surprises come up along the way."

Adelman considers this series a deeper foray into decorative art, straying away from the standard product-design mentality that she had been perfecting since graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1996. "These pieces don't feel like industrial design to me," she says. "These pieces feel like much more indulgent, sculpturally-driven functional objects. I don't know how to describe it. It's much more about opulence and over-the-top-ness and pleasure, in a way. Then they also have function, but they're not practical, I wouldn't say, even though they are built for longevity." In other words, these objects were a welcome opportunity for Adelman to stretch the boundaries of her practice. As she says of the music video that launched the entire collection, "There's nothing practical about it, which is something I had a real craving to do."

Show Me will be on display at Wright's Manhattan gallery, in the historic Parke-Bernet Building on Madison and 76th Street, until August 1.

I keep vegetables in the crisper drawer and put the eggs in that thing that's shaped like eggs. Other than that my refrigerator is a total free-for-all, with the beer, meat, snacks, beer, leftovers, milk, beer, and juice all just wedged wherever it will fit, usually centered around the beer.

I had heard that dairy is supposed to be stored in either the top or bottom of the 'fridge, but couldn't remember which. And I overheard someone saying that how you store your food in the 'fridge directly impacts how long it will last. Myth or fact? There are a lot of videos on YouTube spelling it out, and I admit that I chose this one to show you, by Karl the Bosch Engineer, because he's got an awesome German-and-British accent:

During Core77's Festool trip in Germany, our hosts brought us to a massive power tool dealership and showroom called Miller Maschinen und Werkzeug (Miller Machine and Tool). This company sold everything from hand tools to monster-sized CNC machines, and had a selection so insanely deep we were told that customers would travel hundreds of kilometers to patronize it.

Festool had brought us there to see what might be the world's most comprehensive Festool showroom—Miller seems to stock every single thing they make—but the showroom also had plenty of other brands. I was so busy drooling over the Festool stuff we can't get in the 'States that I walked right past this Makita tool on display:

That was shot by Tools of the Trade's David Frane, who's not only a tool journalist, but has actual working experience in the trades (he was previously a carpenter). Do you know what that tool does? Some of you have undoubtedly noticed the pivot on the side:

Yep, it's a freaking miter saw that flips over and can then be used as a table saw. "This particular saw is from Makita, but many tool companies sell similar products in Europe," Frane explains. "Machines of this type were available here [in America] in the 1980s and 90s; I worked with a carpenter who had one from Elu.

"The idea of converting back and forth between table and miter saw did not appeal to me but my coworker liked it because he drove a small SUV and it fit the back with space left over for many other tools."

I just had to find a video of the thing in action:

This model is called the Makita Flipper, and while we Americans can't buy one, here's an English-language brochure for it.

Thanks David!

Save the date, folks! Our second annual Core77 Conference is happening on October 23rd, 2015 at the beautiful Vibiana in Downtown Los Angeles. #CoreCon2015 is shaping up to be an even bigger event than our inaugural conference last year. 

This year, the full day of inspiring speakers and presentations will be bookended by a pre-conference mixer the night before, exclusive tours of LA venues (that may or may not involve jet propulsion) and a picnic lunch with a beautiful view. We'll have great food and drinks throughout the event, and no matter what corner of the design world you call home you'll be sure to leave with fresh perspectives, ideas, insights and a few new friends.

As if you needed any more incentive to attend, we're offering 50 tickets to join the fun at a nicely discounted price—$200 off, to be precise. The only catch is you have to sign up in order to buy these tickets during an exclusive 24-hour sale. Here's how it works:

1) Sign up to receive your pre-sale invite on the Core77 Conference website. 
2) Keep an eye out for your invitation to the one day pre-sale on July 15th.
3) Buy your steeply discounted tickets early on July 15th, because once those 50 tickets are sold out, they're gone. 

Even if you don't want to save money, signing up keeps you in the loop for conference updates on speakers, workshops and tours as they are added.  The pre-sale is only two weeks away, so sign up and mark your calendars today! 

A traffic light is designed to provide three pieces of information: Red, yellow and green. But a subset of impatient drivers want more information. Thus we do the trick of memorizing the amount of milliseconds that will transpire between perpendicular traffic's new red light and our forthcoming green light. Or at intersections with side-shrouded lights, twitchy drivers can watch for the flashing Don't Walks to subside, then time their gas-stomp accordingly.

Interestingly, in the early days of traffic lights there was a design alternative to the one we all know that would have obviated the scenario described above. In 1936 Australian engineer Charles Marshal developed this clock-like design, whereby a sweeping hand indicated stop-and-go status and allowed the end user to see the progression:

In this video showing a restored Marshalite and the Melbourne Museum Victoria, you can see the pace of the hand:

Around the same time, and apparently independently, German inventor Josef Heuer designed something similar. His Heuerampel ("Heuer traffic light") was also rotary-based, though it featured no yellow section and a rather strange quadrant design, which I find harder to read than if the circle were merely bisected.

Both the Marshalite and the Heuerampel were locally implemented. The Marshalite served some Australian roads beginning in the 1940s, while Heuer's design saw service starting in the 1930s in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

By the 1960s Australia decommissioned the Marshalites, and Europe pulled the last Heuerampel down in 1972.

They were axed not because their UX was deemed inferior, but because of their technological underpinnings: The signals could not be quickly reprogrammed, as modern-day signals could, to deal with changing traffic conditions.

Name: Moses Aipa

Occupation: VP of brand and creative at Incase

Location: Southern California

Current projects: We have a ton of things going on right now. The biggest thing that I'm working on is the expansion of some key categories outside of device-driven products and accessories—everything from camera bags to luggage and other packs designed around the users that we serve. But I'm also involved in the brand and creative side of the company, and I'm spearheading some launch projects and a special collaboration project coming up in August for one of our brand ambassadors, Kelly Slater. That will be a new brand environment popping up in Los Angeles, and our first fully-dedicated brand space in the U.S.

Mission: Well, my mission is to be happy. The Incase brand mission is to design solutions centered on protection and mobility to meet the demands of today's creatives.

We also have our brand mantra, which is "A better experience through good design." That applies to everything we touch. We eliminate the superfluous, we edit down to what's necessary, and we aim to achieve a universal design language that transcends both age and demographics. Through that, we're able to create solutions that allow users to have a better experience pursuing their passions.

Moses Aipa

Incase's Action Camera Pro Pack

When did you decide that you wanted to be a designer? I was born and raised in Hawaii, and I was exposed to surfing at an early age. My uncle was a surfboard shaper; through that, I was exposed to how you would design an object to serve a function. I was super intrigued by all the little nuances and subtleties that go into making a surfboard, and how those affect the rider in the end. So that was the start of thinking about design.

Education: I attended a joint degree program of the California College of the Arts and the University of San Francisco, with a major in graphic design.

First design job: My first job was actually at Incase. I started working here during my senior year in college. They brought me on as a freelancer to design a brochure, and I guess the rest is history. I signed on full-time the second I graduated.

Who is your design hero? It's really hard to pinpoint one. But here at Incase we often refer to Dieter Rams's ten principles for good design. We even developed our own list of eight brand-design principles, based on his ten principles.

From a graphic-design standpoint, I'd choose Otl Aicher. He worked with Dieter Rams at Braun; they had a really tight collaboration. I'm a graphic designer by trade, but I've evolved at Incase to the point where I have my hands in essentially everything. So I really like that idea of bridging the gap between product and graphics.

Inside Incase's headquarters in Chino Hills, California

Aipa in his office

Describe your workspace: It's really collaborative. We have a fairly small team here— about 18 people total on the creative side— but everyone plays a super-critical role, and collaboration is key. There are not many walls, and a lot of them are shared. There are a lot of communal tables and open workspaces, and a lot of open discussions result from that. It's critical for us to have everyone on the same page and for everyone to understand the brand they're working for.

Other than the computer, what is your most important tool? The whiteboard. Going back to that idea of collaboration, I think that's when I'm most productive with everyone here, when we're all hanging out in front of the big whiteboard talking about the next big project.

What is the best part of your job? The people. I work with a great team, and the company also has a group of influencers and ambassadors we call the SYNDCT, including Kelly Slate and Ken Block and a slew of other guys. Working closely with them and picking their brains about how they actually use our products has a major influence on what we do here.

What is the worst part of your job? Time—just not having enough time to do everything I want to do. I was just experiencing this last night; I was pulling together some stuff and I was on a roll and I was like, "Oh my god, it's 3:00 a.m. now?"

Incase's ICON Backpack

The ICON Sleeve with a 13-inch MacBook Pro

What time do you get up and go to bed? I get up at a pretty consistent time, at 6:00 or 6:30 every morning. As for going to bed, it's really all over the place. I'm usually a later-night person. Sleep isn't much of a priority.

How do you procrastinate? I love eating. My girlfriend just happens to be a food blogger, so I'm her test subject and biggest fan. When I'm not working on work, I'm helping her out in the kitchen or helping her take photos of her food. That's my downtime.

What is your favorite productivity tip or trick? I really don't think too much about my productivity; I just try to address things the minute I need to address them. The trick of being able to prioritize your day at the beginning of each day—or your week at the beginning of each week, or your year at the beginning of each year—is the biggest thing that helps me be as productive as possible. If you're able to identify the big things that need to happen and really focus on getting them done well, all the small things will fall into place.

What is the most important quality in a designer? Passion. Passion for achieving your goals, and for paying attention to the small details that no one else would really get or pay attention to. The fact that you're putting something out there that you feel is perfect, or as close to it as possible, keeps you moving forward.

What is the most widespread misunderstanding about design or designers? I really don't think too much about misunderstandings. But the stereotypical portrayal of what a designer looks like or who a designer is—you know, you picture someone wearing all black with a pair of glasses. I guess that's my biggest thing. You can be an amazing designer in a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops.

The EO Travel Backpack and EO Hardshell Roller

What is your most prized design possession? My first surfboard. I helped my uncle design and shape it, and I've kept it ever since. It's totally torn to shreds but it's so special for me.

What is exciting you in design right now? The people. Consumers today are becoming so much more educated about what good design is. And I think that's pushing designers to make better designs.

If you could redesign anything, what would you choose? Packaging—just packaging in general. There's so much waste. There's got to be some overarching, macro mission for the world to create better ways to deliver things to people.

This was the latest installment of our Core77 Questionnaire. Previously, we talked to the London designers Jay Osgerby and Edward Barber.

Formlabs are continuing to create new resins for their Form 1 3D printer. Last year they rolled out their Functional Resins in "Flexible" and "Castable" flavors, and this year they're adding "Tough Resin" to the line-up. So what makes this one different?

Tough is durable, adaptive, and impact-resistant. Perfect for engineering challenges, this sturdy, ABS-like material has been developed to withstand high stress or strain. It's ideal for snap-fit joints and other rugged prototypes.

"Durable: Sturdy prototypes that will deform under pressure where other 3D prints fail."

"Responsive: Parts that absorb force; flexing and returning to form."

"Rugged: Prints that can tolerate mechanical friction and strain."

To demonstrate what the Tough stuff can do, the FormLabs team printed up a little demo a la Rube Goldberg:

While they apparently haven't scaled production up to the level where they're willing to give out free samples, as they do with their other resins, you can currently order a 1-liter bottle of the stuff for $175 (and with a one-week lead time). For now it only comes in the teal-ish color you see in the photos and video.

More than a few press outlets have called this product design a "genius" invention, but it's left me scratching my head.

Inventor Tamas Fekete has designed the Vector scissors, which have the following features: The left side of the blade including the pivot screw is completely flush, and the handle has a molded lip that's perpendicular to the blade:

The idea behind it is that you use the scissors the same way you'd use a track saw, but the edge of your table is the track:

Here's where this doesn't make sense to me. Most people I've seen who cut paper as part of their job use a straight-edge, an X-acto or matte knife and an appropriately-sized cutting mat with a grid on it, like the one Fakete used in the video. When dead-90 is required, the operator lines the edge of the paper up with a horizontal line on the grid, then makes the cut vertically by following the grid at the desired position. This saves you the step of having to mark the paper itself.

The notion that one would try, as shown in the video, to use an architect's scale that didn't span the width of the sheet to completely bisect it seems crazy. It also doesn't make sense to me that he lines the sheet up with the edge of the table to establish 90—but then must slide it forward before making the cut to let the handle contact the table. In moving the sheet forward, hasn't he just lost position and true perpendicularity? It seems the object was designed for precision, but is not demonstrated in a manner consistent with precision; and if accuracy is not the goal, why not use a pair of regular scissors?

While it seems cool to slide the scissors along a table, for true accuracy it would require you to mark the paper—a step that's handily obviated by those using a gridded cutting mat and a straight-edge.

We've all seen products that are designed for professionals, and products that are designed to make amateurs/hobbyists feel they can get professional results. The Vector seems to fall in the latter category and I'm not convinced it would prove useful in real-world use, for the reasons mentioned above.

But, I'd like to hear from any readers that have to cut lots of paper accurately. Would you use this over the established method? And how do you envision the workflow going?

As for the Vector's future, last week its IndieGogo campaign fell short—just $4,290 pledged against a $38,000 goal—but following strong press interest, Fekete will be relaunching the campaign today.

During a recent trip to the Philippines, I had the great pleasure to encounter some amazing people working within the fields of social innovation and development. One of these people, Aisa Mijeno, is a female entrepreneur and engineer whose first hand experience living with an indigenous tribe in the Philippines led her to identify a serious social problem and then create a business to solve it.

Like in so many other areas of the world, there is a lack of efficient light sources in regions without electricity in the Philippines. Aisa teamed up with her brother Raphael, and together they developed SALt (Sustainable Alternative Lighting). Below, Aisa shares the story behind founding SALt, the challenges of finding the right investors, and learnings from developing a product from idea to launch.

Founder Aisa Mijeno with the SALt light.

Core77: Tell us a bit about your background. What lead you to the path you are on right now?

Aisa Mijeno: I am a part-time engineering instructor and have been teaching for almost 6 years now, but before that I used to work for Greenpeace Philippines. There I learned so many thing about the effects of climate change. Ever since then I've been dreaming of creating something that would somehow help minimize carbon footprints, but didn't have enough time to really ideate due to numerous campaigns I was involved in.

This one experience though, made me realize something. When I was still working for Greenpeace we made this case study.

And what was that?

A few of the common things we noticed in marginalized island communities are the staple supplies of salt, water and rice. Almost all of the household we have been stationed in consist of these common elements in their homes. I just hadn't figured out what type of application I should create out of it, until I did a personal immersion with the tribe in the northern Philippines.

Buscalan, Kalinga, the Philippines

The foster family who let me stay in their home for almost a month is literally living on top of a mountain. These families do not have access to electricity. They use fuel-based lamps as their main source of lighting. There I learned that people had to go down the mountain and continue on their journey to the nearest town about 30km away on foot because they do not have the financial capacity to ride public transportation just to get kerosene for lamps.

And even before that, we have also studied and made observations with the living conditions, developing the correlation between geographical location, status quo and the use of fuel-based lamps, we have come up with a hypothetical conclusion that the practice of using such light sources had been passed on from generations. Thus, these people never deviated from using fuel-based lamps. The method of refilling kerosene in lamps (according to a native southwest of the Philippines) brings about emotional security despite its many cases of fire accidents caused by tipped over lamps and candles.

Why did you decide on focusing on this issue?

The link and conceptualisation of the lamp is very personal and deep because I experienced the hardship first hand. I connected the dots between salt and water and the act of filling liquid into the lamp and made an application so important it may affect the country's economy.

These encouraged me to develop a lighting system that runs on the very basic items seen on every household—water and salt, or for the islanders—seawater.

How did you develop this idea into a product?

Ever since the realization of an application based on saltwater as the main catalyst, I have been working on it in my university lab. The influence of making it into a product actually happened after Ideaspace, a local incubator, went to our university to held a competition in which we were selected. This incubator made us realise that turning it into a product and building a startup would be the best path for our innovation and we will be able to help more people with it.

Why did you find it so important to create a light source to begin with?

There are over 7,000 island in the Philippines, most of these islands do not have access to electricity, and kerosene had become a commodity to households in marginalized communities without electricity. In places like these, all activities usually end before the sun sets and people are unproductive at night—children cannot do their homework. After going to class, these children have to help their parents earn money in the afternoon until the sun sets so the only time they could do their school work is at night.

We also wanted to decrease fire accidents by replacing kerosene and candles as the main source of lighting. We found out that kerosene lamps are dangerous to children's health. When I was in Oriental Mindoro, most of the Mangyan kids were afflicted with lung disease and this might be a cause of kerosene lamp's black carbon.

Now that you have developed a lamp, what sort of response do you get from people you have developed it for?

We haven't launched the product yet. We plan to launch it before the year ends of first quarter next year but so far we are overwhelmed with positive response.

Have you been out and worked together with the people living in these sort of conditions?

We reached out to a few barangays (villages) who expressed their willingness to become one of the beneficiaries of the lamp.

What our business model looks like is we will partner with NGOs, foundations and local government units to purchase the lamp from us and distribute it to communities they are supporting.

But we also handpick communities to receive certain lamp units. That will come from the retail sale—similar to TOMS' model of one for one. So for every lamp you buy, we give one lamp to a family who needs it.

What was the process from idea to product?

Being a hardware startup is hard as what most people involved in product development say, and yes, it is really very challenging. One thing is you need to raise more capital.

Finding investors in the Philippines willing to take risks is very challenging.

Aisa and Raphael Mijeno at Ideaspace Manila

A couple of other startups and VCs we've met during our international excursion told us that we shouldn't get anxious to set a higher value of the startup. That's the tendency of most SEA startups compared to startups in the US and Europe.

How did you solve this little, but important, obstacle?

We were able to overcome this by really screening out willing investors who would give value to what we do. Fortunately, we found one and their contribution to the process is really very huge. They are a local manufacturer—100% Filipino owned.

It's easy to find investors, but hard to find ones who are willing to go all the way with your startup. You have to find someone who shares the same vision, morals, intent, and someone who can contribute to really developing your product, not just contribute and give you capital and funding.

What has been your most important lesson throughout this process?

Important lesson: follow your gut instinct and never second guess yourself. Never decide on things when you are filled with emotions, sleep on it and let emotions pass. Have the grit to keep on pushing forward no matter what the hurdle is. Be optimistic at all times, but still know when to give up.

You mentioned that you were seeking a solution that minimizes the carbon footprint. Do you feel like you have reached this goal with SALt?

I guess I can say I did my best and am doing everything to make it happen. The only time I feel that I will have achieved the goal when people finally use the lamp and make it a staple item, and seeing the effects of using our product to hopefully make their lives a little better.

Is anything you would like the reader to know about SALt, the Philippines or yourself?

I guess I just want to say that there are so many remarkable and creative people in rural Philippines. Their resilience, no matter their condition in life, motivates me to overcome all hurdles. We just need to give these people the chance at life through education by providing them the basic things: the means to provide food to their family, clean water and light.

Follow SALt on Facebook, Twitter  and Instagram, or contact the SALt team directly via info@salt.ph

In a bid to better understand how their vehicle technologies hold up in real-world conditions, Toyota has launched the Five Continents Driving Project, whereby they send their engineers on epic road trips through varied terrain. The upcoming North American leg, which they're calling the Ever-Better Expedition, "will tackle some of the continent's most challenging driving environments, from the summer heat of California's Death Valley to the icy roads of an Alaskan winter, and from the steep ascent of Pikes Peak in Colorado to the urban congestion of New York City."

However, they're not rolling out in stock Camrys and Priuses; it looks like the engineers have had a bit of pre-trip fun, creating customized vehicles that will serve as rolling test-beds for whatever the road may throw at them. Check out this bad-ass ride that Car & Driver calls an "SUVan," a Sienna minivan body dropped onto a ruggedized Tacoma pickup chassis:

Perched high atop the chassis of a Toyota Tacoma pickup, this former mom-mobile now rolls on ultrawide, off-road tires and features cool, rear-hinged front doors. Fender flares and a new front bumper—both seemingly formed out of flat sheetmetal panels—add to the utilitarian look, while a front-mounted winch, auxiliary lights, and dark-tinted headlights create a sinister vibe. The SUVan is finished in matte black, naturally.

The North American journey began last week. Here's what they're expecting to do on the 110-day, 16,500-mile trip:

This is actually the second leg of the trip, by the way. The first was in Australia, where 50 engineers spent 72 days traversing 12,500 miles:

Toyota promises to update the U.S. trip's website with info on all nine specialty vehicles they'll be using, but thus far that page is still blank. Perhaps they sent their web folks on the trip too?

When the wine shop across the street from me packed up to move, I saw a new dumpster out front and a huge stack of empty wooden wine cases inside the store. Doing the math, I asked the owner if I could scavenge some of the boxes before they went into landfill.

"Well, I can sell them to you," he said. "This wood is from Chile." He said it like the boxes were exotic.

"But it's...pine," I said. Found out or not, he still wouldn't budge and wanted $10 per box.

Being able to distinguish pine from teak didn't do me any good in this case, but for the designers among you that work with wood, learning to identify wood types by sight is as important as it is basic. For newbies among you, you'll find identifying the common breeds is easy; just read our Wood Series and you'll have a good start.

But that's assuming you have a whole board to look at where you can easily read the grain/figure/color. If you've got a small piece, a weathered piece or a situation where only a small part of the wood is visible, to figure out what that is you can go more scientific. The Bible on this topic is R. Bruce Hoadley's Identifying Wood: Accurate Results with Simple Tools, where he teaches you to ID 180 different breeds of hardwoods, softwoods and tropicals using your eyes and a loupe or microscope.

Then there's the seriously scientific way to tell wood types apart. As NPR reports, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab in Oregon—the world's only such facility—has a man named Ed Espinoza as their deputy lab director. A few years ago, an investigator asked them to ID a confiscated shipment of wood that was under suspicion of containing an endangered species. Espinoza somehow figured out that they could use a freaking mass spectrometer to calculate the breed.

Photo by Jes Burns of Earthfix

The mass spectrometer they use is a sophisticated machine called a DART-TOF (Direct Analysis in Real Time – Time of Flight) mass spectrometer.... Espinoza shaves off a small sliver of the wood. With tweezers, he feeds a sample into the DART. It needs just seconds to whiff the compounds and identify agarwood's unique chemical signature.

In April, the lab became the first and only facility internationally certified to tell law enforcement that one sample is, say, legally traded Amazonian rosewood, versus contraband Brazilian rosewood. Shelley Gardner, the illegal logging program coordinator for the Forest Service, says the new DART technology gives law enforcement a better chance to stop illegally harvested wood from becoming someone's guitar or a new dining room set.

There's no word on what the DART-TOF machine costs, but we're guessing it ain't cheap; I wonder if Hoadley's microscope method would be equally effective. In any case, there's bound to be a demand for technicians who can identify different wood breeds. "International timber trafficking is a huge global business," says the article. "Interpol estimates it's worth up to $100 billion a year." Anyone fancy a side job helping to nab wood traffickers?