The inventive filmmaker/animator known as PES has created a fascinating new short for Honda. Given the complicated task of unfurling the company's long history only through visuals, PES conceived of a crazily labor-intensive form of animation that isn't quite stop-motion, isn't quite flip-book, and doesn't use any CG trickery. Take a look:

The short required the work of "Dozens of animators and illustrators, thousands of original drawings, and four months of work," PES writes. "Everything in the film is done by hand and shot in camera."

As for how they did it, he's posted a behind-the-scenes video that gives you a sense of how involved the process was:

In their business-driven quest to go viral, I hope more companies take note of shorts like these. Since we're going to be advertised to—or rather at—anyway, I'd much rather they hire a team of creatives that will do something new rather than simply cranking out the usual fare.

As hype cycles go, the interest in 3D printing has been waxing and waning since, say, Martha Stewart got her hands on a MakerBot. As other manufacturers have been struggling to find their footing, the upstarts at Formlabs have been expanding on all fronts—settling their legal issues, launching a handful of functional resins—and are pleased to present a brand new piece of hardware: Today sees the unveiling of the Form 2 desktop stereolithography 3D printer.

The Form 1 looked the part when it debuted to the tune of nearly $3 million on Kickstarter in October 2012, as a fully formed, consumer-ready product, in stark contrast to the laser-cut wooden panels of the first Cupcake CNCs and Thing-o-Matics. Indeed, for better or for worse, the Form 2 is instantly recognizable as a Formlabs machine: Characterized by a cube of electric-orange polycarbonate—transparent to the eye but impervious to UV—the build chamber sits atop the familiar aluminum base, its footprint slightly enlarged to the effect that the base looks more like a pedestal than before. The control panel has been upgraded from a single button next to the digital display to a proper touchscreen, but, other than that, Formlabs largely abides by the existing design language for the hardware.

Of course, it's the internals and intangibles that really matter. As one might expect, Formlabs' first new model since their launch boasts improvements across the board: substantially bigger build volume, 50% more powerful laser, the onboard touchscreen to complement various software dashboards, and more. "We went all the way down to the studs and built it again," says Colin Raney, formerly head of IDEO Boston and CMO of Formlabs as of 13 months ago, noting that the prototyping process had entailed 3D printing parts in-house (with the Form 1+, of course).

Raney is effusive about the new machine and its impressively upgraded specs—he notes the 42% larger build volume at a couple of points in our conversation—but he's also a realist (and, by his own admission, "not a big 3D printing person"). Hence, his acknowledgement of what he calls the "dirty secret of 3D printing": "Shit fails a lot."

Just about anyone who has used a 3D printer—hobbyist or professional, FDM or SLA—knows that it is not by any means an exact science. Raney likens 3D printer users to musicians who become intimately familiar with their instruments, where each machine has its own idiosyncrasies. "Once you sink four or five hours into something that fails, you don't have to do it too many times before you're like, 'Screw this.'" Beyond any single feature, reliability is paramount, and Raney is confident that the Form 2 will deliver.

But perhaps the real secret—one that remains largely unspoken—is that 3D printing has *always* been best suited for prosumers, and Formlabs has long positioned itself as such. There are any number of reasons as to why 3D printers never quite achieved the two-cars-in-every-garage phase; Raney, for his part, offers a brief history of 3D printing.

If you back up, 3D printing is 30 years old—they used to come in these really expensive, huge machines, that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you put them in your prototyping shop if you're [a big company like GE or Ford, and you have a technician run them, and all of your engineers make models and send them to the prototyping shop where they print them.


Then around 2009, there were these projects called RepRap and Fabbit Home, and that's when they started to make the desktop FDM machines that ultimately became MakerBot and UltiMaker and all this stuff... so the hobbyists really love the fact that they can build this thing and it's awesome, but then beyond that, this whole thing has kind of stuttered.

Formlabs, then, offers the best of both worlds: "A combination of those two ideas coming together—the really high-end technology and great parts, and the [higher degree of] access, so if you're a designer or an engineer, that thing can sit next to your desk."

Raney drives the point home with an analogy about established prosumer categories, acknowledging that "it's not cheap, but it's the price of a loaded laptop." $3,499 doesn't seem like that much considering that, "someone who gets into photo or video will pay just as much for a camera."

But whereas the average DSLR presents the user with a dizzying array of manual features, Formlabs is looking to simplify the interface—if not to point-and-shoot, then at least to full auto—which is precisely why a couple of the major updates on the UX side might be traced back to the putative ancestor of the 3D printer. You know, the desktop peripheral that you access with a quick tap of Command+P, so ubiquitous that it is absurd to think that 3D evangelists prognosticated that an underwhelming ABS extruder could ever be nearly as widely adopted. 

Formlabs isn't the first 3D printer company to introduce a cartridge system for loading resin, but there's no denying the convenience factor: "One of the biggest pieces of feedback that we got was the resin can be messy, so we put the cartridge in," says Raney. "Like a 2D printer, it will just dispense materials, so you don't have to open it up, you don't have to pour it in, you don't have to scrape things..." The jury's still out on, say, a Keurig coffeemaker, but it definitely makes sense for a 3D printer—imagine if you had to pour ink or toner into your old HP or Epson. (Raney also emphasizes that "it's not a DRM move," noting that users can load their own resin the old-fashioned way, by pouring it into the tank.) 

And lastly there's the fact that the Form 2 is wi-fi enabled, which is commonplace for regular printers but is especially useful for a 3D printer, as it allows for custom notifications and a seamless dashboard experience across multiple devices in addition to simply being able to send files wirelessly. In fact, Raney cites wi-fi as an example of a technology that has long surpassed the point of novelty to effectively recede into the background of everyday life—i.e. you only notice when it doesn't work. "We're moving out of the stage of being fascinated that we can just print—now that needs to be kind of a given." 3D printing needs to become similarly frictionless. "It's kind of like wi-fi, [where] at first we were like, 'Holy shit, there's no wires, this is so amazing!' And now, the wi-fi just needs to work... it needs to become really boring." 

Printed parts from the Form 2

For now, though, he's excited about both the core audience—industrial designers and engineers—and other less obvious but equally specialized professions, which inspire new challenges for the various teams at Formlabs, from materials science to UI. Just as the Castable resin, launched last year, has been a boon for jewelers, the relatively straightforward interface (and high resolution) appeal to dentists and doctors. "One of the biggest uses of stereolithography is Invisalign braces," Raney relates. "[The orthodontist] scans your teeth and the model works up the individual teeth and takes it through an algorithm to straighten them, so it takes it through all of the stages. They print all of the teeth out and then they vacuum-form the retainer to the top of it." 

It simply wouldn't be possible without the technology: "They have to 3D print it, because you need really sharp detail—your teeth don't have that many indentations to hold these braces—and it's completely one-of-a-kind." In short, "anything that is around the body or the human"—i.e. that which entails personalization—is a potential growth area. But perhaps one of the more unexpected use cases of desktop SLA has been for stop-motion animation: some two years in the making, French animator Gilles-Alexandre Deschaud completed the 3D-printed three-minute short film Chase Me earlier this year. 

It turns out that Formlabs initially found out about Deschaud's project via their customer service channels ("we sent him some more printers and some resin"), an indirect upshot of launching on Kickstarter in the first place. The crucible of delivering backer rewards was a blessing in disguise, as Formlabs found themselves with in-house sales and customer service teams, which has allowed them to sell directly to customers instead of through resellers. 

"We can learn a lot more about what our customers or users are actually doing," says Raney, "and we also have to hear when it doesn't work, which is really good humble pie, because it helps us make the printer better." Whether it's the target audience of prosumers — designers and engineers who rely on 3D printing for their livelihood — or passionate hobbyists like Deschaud, Formlabs remains committed to the end user and the Form 2 is a step towards that frictionless experience. "It's just people trying to run a people-oriented business... that has lasers."

Names: Mette and Rolf Hay

Occupation: Founders of the Danish design company HAY

Location: Copenhagen

Portrait by Osma Harvilahti

Current projects:

Rolf: We have just launched a big outdoor-furniture collection with the Bouroullecs that we've been working on for about two years. It's a collection of metal dining chairs, tables, stools, bar stools, benches, dining benches, lounge chairs, a sofa—it's quite a big arrangement. Of course, as always, it was a fantastic experience to work with the Bouroullecs. They are extremely passionate, and they take on all details. It's very unusual with designers on that level that they have their hands on everything, but they really do.

Mette: I have been working a lot on our Mini Market concept, which we launched at the MoMA Design Store in New York last month. And at Maison & Object in Paris, in addition to the outdoor furniture, we also launched a new mirror collection by Inga Sempé and a new laundry basket by Big Game, and of course a lot of small objects and products made in-house and with different external designers.

Mission:

Mette:Rolf and I met two years before we started the company. We both worked with a Danish company that represented Cappellini in Denmark at that time, and we really loved the way that Giulio Cappellini was creating his collection, and we felt like there were a lot of people who understood this kind of design, these colors, these objects who very often couldn't afford to buy these products.

Rolf: I think from the very beginning it was quite obvious to us that we wanted to do high-quality design products in an affordable context. And that is still our mission—we want to do products with some of the best and most talented designers, but always in an affordable context. I think we've partly succeeded in that.

The HAY Mini Market at the MoMA Design Store in New York. Photos by Scott Rudd

Shoppers at the HAY Mini Market

Background:

Rolf: I don't have any education. I think I can hardly spell my own name. Honestly, I went to high school. That's it. Then I started to work for different design companies in Denmark, and I knew right away that this is what I want to do.

Mette: I grew up in the industry. My parents had been running a design store since I was a little girl. I was 24 years old when we started here, so I don't have so much background, but I worked for different design companies in Denmark before we started HAY.

Who is your design hero?

Rolf: Charles and Ray Eames. There's no doubt about it. They were the first ones with molded plywood; they were the first ones with fiberglass. Charles was extremely visionary, and then he had a good eye and a good sense of proportions. And Ray was at an extremely high artistic level; her sense for textiles and colors was incredible. I could talk for hours about what they've done. They're so dear to us.

Mette: Also, when you look at a lot of the pictures of the studio, it seems like it was such a good time, and very colorful.

Rolf: You could see that they had fun. I know there are rumors that Charles was always taking credit for all the work in the studio, but when you look at the images and hear people talking about that time, you can tell it was a lot about fun. This is also important to us. Designing and developing something is about putting designers, engineers, toolmakers and all these people in one pot, and then developing something together. And the energy comes from fun and passion. This was a big inspiration.

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec's new Palissade collection of outdoor furniture for HAY

Describe your workspace:

Mette: Our head office is in Jutland, where we have all our administration, sales, buying, warehouse and logistics. And then in Copenhagen, we have our design studio, where Rolf and I are based. We work here together with our internal design team, our product developer, and architects who are doing new shops. We're in a very old historical building in the center of Copenhagen, near to our flagship store, HAY House. We have five floors. It's a very nice place.

Rolf: The energy of the city has always been important to us. Mette and I are both from the countryside, and I think if you are from the countryside, you will enjoy the city more. And Copenhagen is a beautiful city—the beauty of Copenhagen has always been inspiring to us.

Mette: And it's very important for us to be near our customers. We have kept this very close contact to our flagship store, and we go there often, sometimes to test a new product, to see it in an environment. It's very nice to go there and see people shopping.

Porter paper-towel holder by Shane Schneck

Edge Notebook

What is the best part of your job?

Rolf: For me, the best part is the moment when an object goes from being a drawing to the first mockup of a full-size prototype. I'm extremely passionate about prototyping, because there's nothing worse than a bad prototype. You know, sitting with the drawing, looking at the first renderings on the computer, it's always interesting. But the moment where you go to a full-size prototype, that's the best part for me. Of course, it can also sometimes be extremely disappointing. But if it's good, then it is fantastic, this moment when you feel a chair for the first time. Sometimes it's difficult for me to sleep the night before I'm seeing a prototype, I'm so looking forward to it.

Mette: I think the same goes for me, but Rolf is definitely more into this. This process if something that is making Rolf totally high. For me, it may be more about when a designer comes with a proposal, and I see a new or original idea or a clever design.

“I'm extremely passionate about prototyping. Sometimes it's difficult for me to sleep the night before I'm seeing a prototype, I'm so looking forward to it.”

What is the worst part of your job?

Rolf: To be honest, I'm always extremely scared of not being a success. I'm always scared to fail. This is, for me, extremely tough, and has always been. It's not about proving myself to those around me. It's more about the fact that when you employ over 200 people then it is a huge responsibility. It's fantastic to give jobs to so many people but it's also a big responsibility and a burden. So the worst part for me is that I'm constantly afraid of failing. It's quite tough sometimes, honestly.

Mette: Yeah. The more people you employ, the bigger this thing feels on your shoulders. I think some people from outside could say, "How can you have this feeling when things are going very well for you and the company is growing?" But there is this other side to it.

Laptop Brush

What is the most important quality in a designer?

Rolf: I think passion is probably the most important thing. Of course it doesn't work without talent. You have to be able to work extremely hard for a long time and be very focused. But without the passion, there is no mission. For instance, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, they are extremely passionate.

Mette: They think about it constantly.

Rolf: Constantly! That passion makes you capable of focusing on something for a long, long time. And to do a chair, it's a very, very long process.

Analog Clock by Shane Schneck

What is your most prized design possession?

Mette: Rolf, he knows all the furniture in the world. I mean, you cannot show him a chair where he can't name who designed it. But we're not the kind of people who need to own all the things we love. I suppose, from my point of view, I would say my father had one of these Castiglioni bike seats put on a pink pole—the Sella stool. It was standing in my father's office, and I remember as a child I thought it was a kind of crazy object, and I wondered why he bought it. And then for my 18th birthday, he gave it to me as a present. So it's something that is very dear to me.

Rolf: I read an interview with Patricia Urquiola where she said that being obsessed with beautiful things, for her, it is not important to own all these things. For her, it's more important to know that they exist. I think that's very well said. Although we are working with something many people would say has a materialistic character, I think it's also a way of finding a life that isn't only about material things.

When we started the company, an old friend gave me one of the leg splints made by Charles and Ray Eames. It's not a rare object. They have produced a huge amount of these; I think everyone has one in the States. But to me—I like this object a lot.

Paper Porcelain collection by Scholten & Baijings

Plissé archive folder

What is exciting you in design right now?

Mette: That's a difficult question. I am working primarily with smaller objects and accessories at HAY, and I think the design world is more open to these everyday objects today that it was several years ago. With our Mini Market, you can find a very nice small eraser or a pencil or some tape . . . So we are happy to be one of the brands trying to put design into areas where you don't normally find design quality.

Rolf: I'm not sure I have an answer to this question, because sometimes I've had to believe that compared to other industries, the furniture industry hasn't changed a lot, and for obvious reasons. In many ways, the way we live at home is actually very close to the way our parents were living. We sleep in a bed; we have a sofa like our parents'. There isn't really anything new. From this position, the question is, How can we add as much value as possible to the products we are doing?

To me, when you do a product, it's about working with aesthetics and comfort. To do a chair, it's a very long process and it takes a lot of focus. The new thing comes from materials, but in many ways it's exactly the same. I think it's fair to ask for a comfortable chair. I think there are no excuses—a chair has to be comfortable. So it's about improving a little bit. You have to add something. And then I think that aesthetics have a very important role to play in environmental issues, because I think if you care about the beauty of an object, it will last in your home for many years. We should never forget that, and it's one of the most important things for us, to create products that can help for many, many years.

This was the latest installment of our Core77 Questionnaire. In the past, we've talked to Giulio Cappellini, Inga Sempé and Ronan Bouroullec.

Jeremy Burge is the founder of the Emojipedia index, so naturally he'd be the man to discover this: Apple has designed a rather weird emoji, as yet unreleased, but tucked away in the developer preview of the forthcoming iOS 9.1 update.

Emojis are typically designed within the Unicode Consortium, but as Burge points out, this is a custom job apparently designed by Apple. Here's what it looks like:

Burge, Redditors and others are wondering just what the heck it means. To be clear, this is not an icon representing an app; it's an emoji meant to be placed into a conversation to communicate something. But what?

The consensus seems to be that it's an eyeball inside of a speech bubble. The expected jibes have surfaced—it refers to CBS, Sauron, the Illuminati, or the fact that the NSA is watching you, say the jokers—though more sober commenters speculate that it simply means "I see," as in "I see what you are saying." Others think it means "Bullseye," and still others wonder if "Apple might have some forthcoming feature for which this emoji is an indicator."

Any guesses?

I'll never forget a design professor telling us students about the dematerialization of objects. Technology, he said, would enable certain objects to get smaller and others to virtually disappear. Our job as industrial designers was to go along with that, and to focus on the user's experience.

Which is why I think the dematerialization of the TV is one of the best things to happen to the modern-day living room. Up until the 1990s, televisions were gargantuan objects with considerable footprints and an attendant impact on the interior design of a room. The TV my family had in the '80s sat on the floor within its own enormous oaken cabinet. No consumer wanted the cabinet, what we wanted was the image.

Flatscreen technology freed us from the cabinet, allowing us to mount the image on the wall and get it out of the way of our living space. But Samsung is now going back the other way, with their launch yesterday of their new, relatively chunky Serif TV.

Designed by the brothers Bouroullec, the Serif—which looks like a capital letter "I" in profile—breaks the "form follows function" convention. It is purposely beefy, with "its slim body broadening to form a flat surface like a small shelf at the top." The design is meant to "[move] away from the logic of ultra thin screens. Its presence is like an object; you can turn around and manipulate it. It can stand anywhere—even on the floor using the legs."

My question is: Why? Do we want to stack things on top of a television? Do we want to move our televisions around, to physically manipulate them? And do we want to see the wires? Take the optional legs shown below, which do not feature any cable management:

With the TV in such a configuration, we would then see the cables dangling below the screen as they run back to the outlets and other components, no?

Other design publications are swooning over the design, with some even calling it a "masterpiece," but I simply can't see what it is that they see. To impose typography onto the design of a television set feels like design for the sake of design to me. But perhaps, in this day and age, that is precisely the point that I am missing?

What do you think? Do you want to physically interact with your TV, and/or notice it as an object beyond what is on the screen?

The years after World War Two were a hectic time for the housing market in the United States. Virtually no housing had been built in nearly twenty years as the country transitioned from the austerity of the Great Depression straight into the rationing of World War Two. When American soldiers started coming home after the war they needed a place to start new lives with new families. 

Many companies looked for ways to capitalize on the technologies developed for the war effort as well as utilize the surplus of industry available to them to satiate the nation's new demand for housing, cars, and consumer goods. Tupperware was making plastic food containers in lieu of their chunky, unsealed glass predecessors. Spartan Aircraft made sleek, high tech camping trailers designed after and built of the same materials as their airplanes. 

1948 Spartan Manor by Spartan Aircraft. Photo Cred: Flyte Camp

Carl Strandlund was one such entrepreneur who made an attempt at entering the new consumer market and taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by the housing shortage. Strandlund had developed prefabricated gas stations that could be assembled onsite out of steel panels coated with baked on vitreous enamel—the same stuff that your blue speckled camping mugs are made of—but war rationing on steel put the kibosh on any progress. Seeing the need for housing, Strandlund teamed up with Chicago architects Roy Burton Blass and Morris H. Beckman to reformat the enamel gas stations into ranch houses.

Strandlund took his idea for an all steel home to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a federal agency from the depression era that had taken to solving the post war housing shortage by selecting three housing manufacturers to subsidize. Strandlund was granted a 12.5 million dollar loan to start the Lustron Corporation, as well as a $428,000 annual lease on half of the dormant Curtis-Wright aircraft plant. Strandlund would come back to the RFC in the coming months to request more loans with the promise of making 100 houses a day with a price tag of $7,500 each. 

Strandlund wasted no time in spending the government's money. Lustron homes went into production in 1948 with model homes being shown in major cities all over the Midwest and East coast. The Newport, Meadowbrook, and Westchester were the first (and ultimately only) models manufactured. All three were to be made entirely of vitreous enamel steel panels inside and out, the only exception being the concrete slab they sat on. The entirety of a Lustron house can be wiped clean with a wet rag or simply hosed off inside and out. The Lustrons are fire proof, rodent proof, and never require paint. The steel shingles never need to be replaced as long as they are kept clean and in good repair. All houses were modestly styled on the exterior, differing from their wooden suburban brethren mostly in that they glinted in the sunlight. Their real visual eccentricity was on the inside.

All living spaces were generously adorned with built-ins, such as a steel vanity in the bedroom, steel bookshelves for the living room, and steel bathroom cabinetry and fixtures. The kitchen was a masterpiece of Machine Age efficiency, with its stainless steel trimmed cabinetry and hidden combination dish/clothes washer. The houses were equipped with radiant heaters which heated up the ceiling panels. Lustron suggested it was not dissimilar to having the sun overhead. The houses had a serial number tag riveted to the laundry room wall for quick identification.

A year into production Lustron had drummed up 234 licensed dealers for their homes on a franchise system. The homes were delivered via specially designed truck, flat packed with an assembly manual. There were about 3,000 parts depending on model. Not unlike a monster predecessor to Ikea furniture. 

Unfortunately Strandlund overshot quite a bit with his 100 houses a day promise. It didn't take long for the RFC to lose confidence in Lustron. It needed to make at least 50 homes a day to break even, but was only making 26. The houses were more expensive than traditional wood houses. For those willing to pay for a Lustron there were long wait times to receive your home. It also didn't help that increasing pressure to foreclose on Lustron was being put on Congressmen by contractors and trade unions who felt threatened by potential competition. 

Lustron had only been making houses for a bit over a year when it was shut down. The defunct company left a shattered Strandlund, 2,680 houses manufactured and sent all over the eastern US, a long list of unfulfilled orders, and 37.5 million dollars of debt to the federal government. Strandlund died in relative obscurity in the 70's, but it can be argued that of all the most lofty housing solutions proposed in the post war era, his was the most successful.

The domes of Wallace Neff were too weird and Buckmister Fuller's Dymaxion houses were all together too much. There are still over 1000 Lustrons standing, many still in very good condition with little to no maintenance having been performed to them over the years. Most that have been torn down were simply not appreciated as houses or were in the way of new development. After over 60 years the Lustron has proven itself as a valid and functional design. Thankfully they have started to gain a devoted following. Lustrons have been designated as histroic buildings as well as displayed an the MOMA next to the work of the legendary designer and architect Jean Prouvé. Perhaps Strandlund's houses came too soon, or perhaps there really was no larger role for them in American society, but It can't be said that they aren't functional dwelling machines

Remember Reinier de Jong's expandable REK bookcase? The Rotterdam-based designer's super-chunky construction made the nesting function visually obvious:

Reinier de Jong's REK

Now Japan's Nendo has unveiled a sideways-expanding shelf series, the Nest Shelf, with a considerably more airy design.

Nendo's Nest Shelf

Whereas de Jong's piece was made from laminated MDF, Nendo has gone high-tech with the materials, using carbon fiber for the verticals to achieve an extraordinarily thin 3.7mm thickness. The interior horizontals are slightly more complicated, consisting of an aramid fiber-made honeycomb sandwiched between two layers of carbon fiber, and also coming in at just 3.7mm thick. Both the horizontals and verticals are clad in larch veneer.

The sliding action is enabled by simple slots in the verticals.

Fully compressed, the unit is just 650mm (25.5 inches) wide, and expands to 1300mm (51 inches).

The Nest Shelf was unveiled at Somerset House during London Design Week. No price was listed on Nendo's website at press time.

As I've said time and again, I hate that talented smartphone designers produce beautiful glass rectangles that we have to bury inside bulky protective cases, obscuring the design details they slaved over. I'd much rather the protection was built in from the start. I take no joy in "individualizing" my phone with a protective case; I just want the darn thing to work, and to not break whenever it flies out of my butterfingers.

For the phone not to break is more important to me than slimness. Which is why the following concept design from Sweden-based industrial designer Jungha Lee is looking pretty good to me. Lee asked himself: "Can we make a better mobile phone for use on construction sites?" He then set about conceiving what a Hilti-branded smartphone would look like:

I'm digging the physical slide button and the big-ass, presumably loud speaker on the back. The curved shape of the body looks like it would fit better in a pocket on the body. And this looks like something I could drop down a staircase with no ill effects.

If the screen size looks dated, that's because it is: Lee conceived of the project back in 2010, when he was an ID student at Sweden's University College of Art. I wish his design had gone into production back then, and that the style had taken root; can you imagine how cool the ruggedized phones we'd have now would be?

Breaking News: Americans have, like, totally lame garage doors.

Brazilians, on the other hand, have awesome ones.

Here's your typical American garage door:

Bor-ring.

Down in Brazil the garage doors have considerably more panache. In São Paulo alone there are a host of companies offering beautiful (and fully automatic) designs, like these models from Tok Door:

These open-air models are by LK Portoes:

Portec has got horrible photography that doesn't do their designs justice:

I'm also impressed by how little space the automatic mechanisms take up compared to the typical rigs we've got up here:

What do you think, my fellow Statesies—would these ever fly in America? My first instinct was "No" due to our high crime rate and the fact that a lot of these designs let you see inside, but São Paulo's no stranger to the rough stuff either, yeah?

Following the hullabaloo around the now-infamous Beats teardown debacle, we're excited to announce we've got our own teardown series in the works—this one done by a seasoned industrial designer! We're not yet allowed to say what the first object we're tearing down is, but we can tell you it's a tool many of you use.

If you ask the general public what tearing a product down is about, most will say it's about figuring out how much an iPhone actually costs in materials. But to those of you learning industrial design, teardowns can be an incredibly useful way to accelerate your education: Why is the housing shaped like this on the inside? What does this little spring clip do? Why is there a supporting rib here, but not over there?

Professor James Billing, who's a Senior Lecturer of Design at the UK's Nottingham Trent University, sees teardowns as having even more value than that: They can teach students about how to design more sustainable items. 

Image via Joe Parker

In the following video, produced by the Autodesk Sustainability Workshop, Billing explains what his students can glean by taking cheap toasters and electric kettles apart:

Photo by Daniel Byrne, Car and Driver

It is with unbelievable sadness that we share the news of Phil Patton's passing. He was one of the most prolific and respectful writers on design, cheerleading its importance while maintaining an ever-critical eye. Many of us would look forward to his articles in I.D. Magazine, Esquire and of course The New York Times and Sunday Times Magazine, and his sharp wit and generous spirit shone through in pretty much every paragraph he wrote. Phil was also a faculty member in the MFA Design Research program at SVA, and wrote many books. The Times has a beautiful obit up written by William Grimes, where he mentions the long-seminal article by Phil on the design of plastic coffee cup lids. I (and probably every other design teacher on the planet) have referenced that piece myriad times, and we treasure it as a reminder that cleverness spans many embodiments and across cultures. That piece, incidentally, first appeared in I.D. Magazine in 1995—the same year Core77 was born. I think the last thing I'll mention is what a sweet, honorable, prince of a man Phil Patton was. A stalwart popularizer of design, ever gracious, and ever humble, he will be missed and remembered by legions of readers and fans—both in the design world and well outside of it.

People with a collection of boots—dress boots, Wellingtons, riding boots, work boots, etc.—need a good way to store those boots. Most regular shoe racks just won't work, but there are many other purpose-built designs that do work.

It's no surprise that the U.K. is a source of many wellington racks. Boot&Saw makes racks in various sizes, from 2-pair to 6-pair, and there are also racks sized for children's wellies. It's a simple but effective design, allowing boots to dry easily and limiting the chance of having bugs crawl inside the boots when it's used outdoors.

Boot&Saw also has more elaborate designs, which incorporate a single or two-tier shoe shelf. Some of them also sacrifice some boot storage space to provide a seat the end user can use when taking the boots on or off. Again, these are available in a range of sizes. It's a useful design for end users in shoes-free homes, especially those with a covered front porch or an appropriate entryway or mud room.

This boot rack from Whitmor would be fine except one major problem: numerous purchasers say it's too lightweight and therefore tips over too easily. As Michael Lentz wrote: "This is mostly plastic. I have to stand the rack up against the wall in my closet, otherwise the weight of 3 pairs of boots tips the whole rack over." 

Honey-Can-Do's boot rack has an interesting space-saving design, with the alternating top and bottom loading. It's 27.5 inches wide and holds 6 pairs, as compared to the Whitmor rack which is 22.2 inches wide and holds 3 pairs. It would be slightly more complex to load than the prior designs, though, which will deter some end users. Also, I would expect the top of some less rigid boots might flop around when in the bottom position.

Boot trees are often a good alternative for end users looking for a freestanding organizer. They take less horizontal space than other racks, but wouldn't work as well for wet shoes, with the top boots possibly dripping onto (and with some designs, even into) the lower boots.

Hammacher Schlemmer has a nicely designed bilevel revolving boot rack with a weighted bottom; purchasers note how stable it is.

Household Essentials supplies this adjustable shoe/boot tree; it can be configured to have two tiers just for boots, or three tiers with one for boots and two for shoes. That provides a nice bit of flexibility if the end user's needs change. The bottom is weighted and the tiers revolve independently. However, some purchasers have noted one significant problem: The boots sometimes slide off the boot shapers (which come with the tree). And it's the loop on those boot shapers that goes over the hook on the boot tree.

The Ultimate Boot Tree from C & G Woodcraft has many nice features. The tree rotates, and the placement of the pegs is adjustable. It will store a lot of boots in a small amount of horizontal space, although it does require about five feet of vertical space. Some end users don't like to use clips, though, because they've had clips leave marks on some boots or had heavier boots fall off of the clips.

Boottique makes its own boot hangers and says: "The hanger clips are lined with a special plastic and rubber blend that will not damage, deteriorate, or leave permanent impressions on boots. The clip is set at a tension strong enough to hold the heaviest of boots, yet gentle enough to avoid leaving marks on the softest of suede." And purchasers agree. These are the hangers Boottique uses on its own boot rack. 

Boot racks, like shoe racks, can also be designed to go on the back of a closet door. This boot rack from Real Simple looks like a nice easy-to-use design. However, some purchasers said it wasn't sturdy enough for their boots.

Boottique uses its special boot hangers with its boot valet. The boots aren't as visible as with other designs, but may work well for end users with very limited space (and a limited number of boots). 

The Boot Butler is an intriguing design for hanging boots from a closet rod while using a minimum of space. It comes in 3-pair and 5-pair sizes and it's a modular design. That allows it to hang from any rod, including a double-hang rod. 

Wall-mounted racks will work well for some end users, especially those with limited floor space and those with pets who like to chew on shoes and boots. This one from Rack'em holds a wide variety of styles and sizes—and like the floor-based racks that hold boots upside down, it's good for drying wet boots.

This boot rack uses the same general approach, but includes a ledge to help shelter boots from the rain or snow (or the sun, which can damage rubber boots).

The poles on these Wellyracks are removable and can be stored in the pocket at the bottom, which is a nice touch. It's a compact design intended for either indoor or outdoor use. The company provides shorter poles for hiking boots or small wellies upon request.

The Welly Store is a design for those end users who want to keep their dirty boots outside but don't want them exposed to the elements. It won't work for tall dress boots, but it would be fine for work boots, wellingtons, hiking boots, etc. It's intended for indoor or outdoor use, but seems like overkill for indoors.

Earlier this summer, Nexcare Brand set the tone for adventure-filled days with a humorous contest, "What Will Nana Do Next?" The campaign featured their gutsy heroine, Nexcare Nana, as she considered launching into a series of daring challenges, whether it be swimming with the sharks or braving the fast-paced world of motocross. Consumers were then invited to brainstorm and imagine what Nana's next antic might be—the more adventurous, the better, in order to showcase the superior performance of Nexcare Waterproof Bandages, whose technology guards against water, dirt and germs to create a barrier between wounds and everyday activities.

The contest received over 13,000 ideas from participants across the country who were inspired by Nana's fearless spirit. The winning idea comes from Robbie S. of Indianapolis, Indiana, and features Nana bravely going through a car wash in a convertible with the top down. The onslaught of bubbles and scrubbers did nothing to derail Nana. The endearing character stood up to the challenge—as did the bandages—and can be cheered on in the video below:

Pickup trucks are great for hauling heavy gear, but loading and unloading heavy/bulky objects is nearly impossible for the lone worker. One solution is to get a boom crane installed in your truck bed, which requires you to sacrifice a good chunk of bed space. A more flexible solution would be to install this wicked Fold-A-Way Bumper Crane, captured on video at this year's Work Truck Show by Tools of the Trade:

They're made in the U.S.A. by California-based Western Mule, which has been retrofitting trucks with lifting solutions for over 30 years. Here's a demo of some of the Bumper Crane's applications:

Their beefiest model will lift a whopping 2,500 pounds, enabling one man or woman to haul huge items without requiring a helper. We're impressed with how little space it takes up, and how quickly it deploys and stows away. American ingenuity FTW!

The drill-wielding apple peeler was a silly bit of fun. But it turns out there is actual market demand for an object that will quickly peel apples. One product reviewer on Amazon writes of needing something "to help me get through 147 lbs of apples" in order to make "apple sauce, apple butter, apple pie, strudel, you name it, every fall when the harvest is in." Another speaks of preparing applesauce in 30-pound batches. That's a lot of apples to peel and slice.

Enter the product they're reviewing, the Pampered Chef Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer:

The design is undeniably clever, with the inverted-U-shaped blade able to follow the irregular contours of the apple as it's supported on a spring-loaded arm that provides pressure. If you cannot work out how or where the helical cut occurs, this view from the side should make it more clear:

The device isn't idiot-proof, however, and there are YouTube videos (not worth posting) showing mechanically-challenged folks who cannot figure out how to operate it correctly. This Japanese-designed device below appears a bit easier to use:

However, as you saw it requires a manual tool at the end to perform the coring and separating function, and it does not have the thin-slicing functionality. For that you'd need to return to the first object.

That Pampered Chef machine takes just seconds to perform what would take minutes by hand. Multiply that by 30 or 147 pounds' worth of apples and you have a valuable labor-saving device. But the gent below has figured out a way to make this contraption even faster using, you guessed it, a power drill:

Of course, there are faster, industrial-grade solutions…

…but somehow those aren't as fun to watch.

Photographer Spencer Rutting was volunteering for a youth organization when he had an activity idea: To organize a race where the kids would build their own self-powered vehicles. It was a success, as "The kids loved building real stuff and they were really creative with the material that was available." (Example below.)

Rutting wondered if he could take the concept further, and brought it up with his brother-in-law Sander Letema. He couldn't have picked a better person to bounce the idea off of: Letema was an engineer who worked for a tool manufacturing company, and the idea struck a particular chord with him. That's because Letema was raised in a house without a TV, and when he asked his father why, the answer was "You shouldn't look at people who are doing things, but do fun stuff yourself."

Rutting and Letema then launched Infento, which produces modular kit vehicles for kids:

"All parts that were developed first had to comply with two crucial criteria," the duo writes. "They needed to be super safe and they needed to be extremely durable. We only took the next step in development when they fulfilled these two demands."

Every part can always be reused for another ride or structure. Year after year Infento material can be transformed into new shapes. Wouldn't it be great if you could hand over your Kit to your grandson or granddaughter eventually? Well that's exactly the goal we set for ourselves in terms of quality.

Below you can see an example of our thinking in terms of safety. In this picture you see we chose a tooth belt instead of a chain. Why? Well, a tooth belt is much safer for children than a chain.

The overall idea behind Infento is alluring as it not only invests children in their possessions by empowering them to build them, but also provides pretty good bang for the buck: A $300 kit contains options for six different vehicles, a $500 kit yields nine vehicles, and the top-of-the-line $600 kit yields eleven.

To get things going they launched a Kickstarter campaign, and the response was overwhelming. At press time they'd garnered $282,659 on a $50,000 goal, and there are still ten days left to pledge.

Ultimately we hope the company will expand into other youth-based products based around their very attractive philosophy: "[Infento] empowers your family," writes the company, "to be makers instead of consumers."

The fascinating world that is Maker Faire will open its doors in New York City this weekend. Since its founding in San Francisco in 2006, the self-proclaimed "greatest show-and-tell in the world," has been bringing together designers, tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, engineers, science clubs, artists, students—just about any and everyone driven toward invention. Since navigating the aisles of this "part science fair, part country fair" can be nothing short of bewildering, we're introducing you to three stand-out projects that express the fair's celebration of making.

Dynamism of A Hand Waving - 3dTrio

Created for Eyebeam's Computational Fashion Master Class—a workshop interrogating the intersection of technology and fashion—this sculptural dress cites the silhouettes of Cristobal Balenziaga as a reference, but it could never have been created with traditional draping methods.

The team was inspired by the workings of the Jacquard machine, a loom developed in 1801 which used punch cards to structure a series of operations. These machines were an important precedent for the first computers and the team explored how the same logic of weaving structures can now be manipulated and transformed with the use of digital technologies and 3D printing. "These powerful tools allow infinite possibilities to manipulate the warp and weft, in x, y and z—all 3 dimensions," they said.

The asymmetric form arose from a motion study of a hand moving through space. 3D printed in white nylon, the team agrees that this probably won't be the most comfortable thing in anyone's closet, but they consider that further research will make 3D printing a viable solution for some of the problems facing the fashion industry, like material waste and a way to approach mass customization.

Solar Crafting - Team Neiro

Last May, NASA announced their Centennial Challenge and asked entrants to design a system for developing 3D printable habitats on the surface of Mars. The selected finalists will enter the next stage of the contest at this weekend's Maker Faire, when they will be tasked with creating a full-scale prototype of their idea.

One of the finalists, Solar Crafting, is a fantastic yet practical proposal. The project proposes the use of a hot air balloon to house a 3D-printer's extruder. The large balloon would collect sunlight and focus it into a highly-concentrated solar energy beam, sintering the printing materials into a solid object, layer by layer. This would create the structure's outer dome, which would be combined with two other elements, a structural central core inserted during the printing process, and a Living Space Module, an inflatable shell creating the final, uncontaminated and pressurized living space.

This fascinating process would eliminate the need to send any building materials to Mars, allowing the creation of an entire colony of habitats made by sun and sand.

WildGrid - Krystal Persaud and Hirumi Nanayakkara

Wildgrid is a project about finding ways of moving off the grid by capturing the untapped power in the elements that surround us. "We get most of our electricity from plugging into a socket on the wall, but there is so much energy that is unused! Bacteria, heat, motion, and sunlight just to name a few," explain the designers.

The designers, both of whom explore the power of DIY electronics in their day jobs at littleBits, presented early prototypes at MakerFaire last year. The project was met with much enthusiasm from visitors who were invited to charge their phones at the booth and see first-hand the power contained within simple dirt. Since then, the team has focused on refining the idea through research and optimizing the product's user experience. "Our first focus is extracting power from the microbes in soil. Our immediate goal is to use electricity in soil to charge cellular phones and we are currently researching the most efficient way to harvest electricity from organic matter."

Do you sleep well at night? Studies increasingly show that many of you don't. Part of the problem can be diet—I found that since I stopped drinking coffee in the afternoons and cut down on processed sugars, I fall asleep faster and sleep much better—but a lot of it may also have to do with the lighting in your home.

You've probably heard that using tablets or smartphones prior to bedtime makes it harder to fall asleep. That's because they, along with the CFLs and LEDs illuminating our spaces, put out a lot of blue light. The sun also puts out a lot of blue light. When it hits receptors in our eyes, this blue light essentially games us into thinking it's still daytime and that we shouldn't be powering down for the night just yet.

Enter the Lighting Science Group, a company founded by Fred Maxik, a pioneer in what they're calling "biological lighting." Twenty-five years ago Maxik was designing special lighting for NASA, to help astronauts fall asleep in outer space, and nowadays LSG has made the technology available to the consumer market.

The thinking behind LSG's Good Night Biological LED Lamp is that if you can create the illumination we need to say, read at night, but filter out the blue light, we can still grow as sleepy as we should at that hour. Here's how the science works (warning, bad acting ahead):

Here's what the product claims to do:

At $60 a pop the bulbs aren't cheap, but the company is betting you'll notice the difference and become a convertee within a month; they're offering a 30-day full-refund return policy. And the reviews on Amazon are effusive.

This is astonishing. The guys over at sustainable product company Janulus have developed a portable, 12-inch, 1.5-pound wind turbine that can suck energy out of the air and charge your iPhone—three to four times over.

On the UI front, there isn't a lot of fuss: You unfurl the blades (increasing the device's height to 35 inches), set it on the ground and turn it "on." With the wind charging the internal battery, you simply plug directly into it.

While this would be a godsend for campers or those living in developing nations, Janulus is thinking even bigger. In addition to the Trinity 50, the dimunitive unit described in the paragraph above, they've also developed the Trinity 400, 1000 and 2500, each getting larger and able to store more juice. 

Amazingly, the 1000 and 2500--which weigh just 17.6 and 42 pounds, respectively--can be used to help power your home, with no technological prowess required on the user's part: One simply plugs the device into an ordinary socket, and the unit feeds the juice right into the lines! Alternatively, you can plug it right into your Tesla:

­

Here's the pitch video for their Kickstarter campaign:

Demand is apparently strong, as the Trinity line has already been funded. At press time it was at $83,000 on a $50,000 goal with 30 days left to pledge. Units are expected to begin shipping in April of next year. Click here to read the tech specs and capacities of the different units.

Not all of you reading this are designers, but all of you have workspaces. And we want to see yours! Whether it's a desk, a studio space, a workshop, a laboratory, a kitchen, et cetera. Send us some photos marked with call-outs or annotations explaining your work-related objects in the photos, and you'll be entered to win one of Joey Roth's laser-engraved Woodblocks (details below). Four of you will take home a prize!

This contest is not industry-specific, and any Core77 reader can enter. Since I no longer have a design studio space, I've photographed my sewing machine repair workstation, below, as an example of what you can submit and how you might want to present it. I just whipped this up a few minutes ago, so surely you can do better than that!

Overall description of the workspace:

This self-made workstation is where I repair vintage sewing machines. I have over 40 machines and some of them weigh 30 pounds, being cast-iron, and I may have up to six machines on the bench at a time, thus it needs to be sturdy. I didn't have much money so I built it out of 3/4" ply affixed to a 2x3 ladder-frame for strength. So far it doesn't flex. I hit the front edge with a 3/8" roundover bit to break the edge. For pedestals I'm using four metal file drawer cabinets that I got for free on Freecycle. The benchtop is so heavy and unmoving that I did not even screw it into the drawers.

Tools and materials whose use is premeditated are all tucked away in the card catalog drawers. Tools that I often need in a hurry are stuck to the magnetic knife rack on the wall for easier access. The rack is located higher than ergonomic sense dictates, because there is often a machine sitting right underneath it and I need clearance space. Though I work sitting down, I don't mind standing to retrieve a tool.

The swing-arm lamps are wall-mounted for clearance. I often need to get light on the front of a machine, very close to some parts that have tiny screws, and this is the only set-up that works for me. Because of shadows cast inside the machine, two lights coming from two different directions are required.

Cleaning old grease is messy work, hence the little desktop wastebasket. I use self-made clear plastic bags; in case I accidentally throw a screw or something I need in there, I can shake the bag and look through it instead of digging around inside to see if the part is there.

The Coalesse Power Pod is great because it tucks away under the circular holder. I need power on the desktop for when I'm testing motors. I can quickly hit the center-mounted Off button to kill the power if something goes wrong with the motor.

The Muji stackable trays are indispensable when you're removing a lot of small parts and need to remember the sequence they came off in; just put the first batch in the bottom tray, the next batch in the second tray, et cetera. They get dirty quickly but the smooth plastic is easy to clean.

The magnetic rack primarily holds my scraping, inspection and grasping tools. I often grab and put them back in a hurry so they are in no particular order.

The Stack-On drawers are for those small random parts that defy easy categorization. The clear drawers make it quick to easily find what you're looking for.

All of the tools/materials whose use is premeditated is located in the card catalog.

The drawer shapes are not ideal for holding differently-shaped items, but it's do-able.

The heart of the "system" is my hollow-ground gunsmithing bits (made by Brownells) and assortment of drivers. The stubby driver and ratchet are essential for tight spaces, the medium driver is what I typically use, and the longer driver is for when I need more torque or ratcheting functionality.

Because I often only have time to work on machines late at night, and the lighting in my apartment is lousy, that side of the room gets quite dark...

...so I installed a fluorescent light over the right bank of file drawers, which hold spare parts.

It's mounted beneath the front lip of the worktop so it doesn't cast glare into my eyes when I'm sitting at the bench.

It makes it a lot easier to see into the drawers.

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So, that's it for the sample entry. Think you can do better? Sure you can!

And four of you will win something for your troubles:

As part of his "Inspiration" series, industrial designer Joey Roth is producing a limited run of laser-engraved Eastern Hard Maple blocks. And these aren't like the other laser-engraved items you've seen; Roth and his production partner have achieved a stunningly fine, virtually char-free precision.

The run will consist of just 1,000 blocks divided into four designs. Out of each batch of 250, Roth is reserving #77--you know, for Core77--for the winners of the Workstation Challenge.

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Rules for Entering:

Please e-mail your photos to core77editors *at* gmail -dot- com, subject line "WORKSPACE CHALLENGE."

1. Please include your name (or an alias)

2. Please tell us where you're from (can be as vague as a country name or region)

3. Please provide a sentence or paragraph describing what type of work you perform at this workspace

4. Don't forget those call-outs or annotations!

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There is no limit to the amount of images--or amount of workspaces--you'd like to enter, but please note that images should be no taller than 1,000 pixels, and no wider than 1,400.

Good luck!