I thought this wasn't going to be funny, then I almost spit my coffee out while watching it. The comedy & gaming nerds over at Rooster Teeth rigged up an immersive "Space Invaders in Real Life" game, using a Nerf gun, paint ballons and a dolly track and cart. Watch and enjoy, but be aware, the language is most definitely NSFW:
The only way they could have possibly improved that would be to have the aliens all doing the Electric Slide.
Via The Awesomer
In February 2013 at Long Beach, I stood on a stage in front of 1500 people, all of whom had paid a lot of money to attend the week-long TED event. Trying to appear casual and confident but nervous as hell inside, I began my talk with the question, "Why is sex so damn good?"
The first time I'd asked the same question was a few years earlier, in a post-coital moment with my then-girlfriend. "Maybe it's because of the five senses," she replied with savvy. And that's how I was introduced to multi-sensory design.
At the time, I was working as a professor of industrial design, a job that required me to teach and think about design (fantastic), and write academic papers (not-so-fantastic). Having spent some time reading these papers I came to a simple conclusion: they are very, very boring and I wanted nothing to do with them. Part of being a designer is that we can use design-thinking to create solutions for almost any problem; this includes making academic research more interesting. So I decided to use the five senses as the basis for my research.
After hearing my former girlfriend's statement on the five senses, I needed a way to test out the theory. To this end, I created a 'five senses diary.' Within this diary, I would record various experiences in my life according to their impact on my senses. However, this would be no ordinary journal. Instead of containing written entries, each experience would be recorded in the form of a graph [see sample graph 1]. The x-axis of this graph lists the five senses. The y-axis records the level of intensity a particular experience has on each sense, on a scale of 1-10. I took to the research with relish, eating great dishes, riding different types of motorbikes, scuba diving in the tropics, and even learning how to fly an airplane. Remember, all this was for the sake of academic research (although admittedly, there may have been a hint of self-interest involved). I also recruited friends and students to contribute their own entries. Over the course of three years I was able to accumulate numerous results for a variety of experiences.
And this is what I found out. The reason why we enjoy pickles and lettuce in hamburgers? Taste aside, that crisp texture and sound as we bite into these crunchy morsels balance out the soft, squidgy experience of the rest of the burger. That the original Nintendo Wii was the first console to really involve the sense of touch to gaming, and helped drive Nintendo's stock values to an all-time high in 2007. That some people still prefer reading from a bound block of wood pulp rather than an e-reader because there's a certain texture and smell that can only come from paper. That the act of free-falling-while-spinning in a light airplane ranks higher on the five senses graph than bungee jumping [see figure 2]. That any experience can be greatly enhanced by including more of the senses.
Corporations have also taken to multi-sensory design. Singapore Airlines developed an exclusive scent that's used in their airplanes. This is a brilliant idea as they really have a captive audience on long-distance flights. Brands like Harley Davidson, Intel and Pringles can all be identified by a distinctive sound, even though this sound has nothing to do with their products' core functions. In Harley's case, they even attempted (but ultimately failed) to patent their machines' rumblings. Audi's design department has a 'Nose team,' a wonderfully named group that sounds like something Willy Wonka would have dreamed up. And they really do design the smell of the interior of Audi's cars.
Core77 has set a design challenge to envision the future of sex toys. This is as difficult a challenge as it is awesome because of the subject matter. Sex is so much more than a simple act of procreation. It's a glorious, powerful activity some of us spend far too much time being fascinated and motivated by (myself included). Our sex drive has even lead to the widespread adoption of new technologies such as the VCR, as it was the first technology that allowed for viewing porn in private. There's also the internet (self-explanatory). And then there's the field of robotics, and along with it, the development of humanoids—a documentary I watched a while ago on the BBC suggested that they would be useful in the sex industry (humanoids, not the BBC). Once again, we see an example of a technology being developed that has a direct connection to sex. It's telling that a whole slew of scientists and inventors are spending inordinate amounts of money and time developing robots that look, feel and behave like humans so that we can have sex with them.
Of all the results I received during my five senses research, only one activity came even close to being the perfect five senses experience: great sex. And this makes sense. It's only during sex that sight, sound, touch, taste and smell are all highly stimulated, making this the ultimate multi-sensory experience. So when designing the perfect intimacy product for the digital age, I can't speculate on what the sex-toy of tomorrow should look like, but I do know what it should feel like. Just like the real thing, it should involve as many of the senses as possible. Because that's what makes sex so damn good.
Jinsop Lee is an industrial designer and winner of the TED Global Talent Search in 2012. In 2013, he gave a TED talk on his design theories about the connection between the five senses and good design.
This article is part of the Core77 Sex-tacular, an editorial series exploring the myriad ways that technology and design are shaping the future of intimacy and sex.
One of the more fascinating challenges for a product designer is creating the UI for something tiny. Aspirin is a good example: The active ingredient is so miniscule that we cannot physically manipulate it, thus its creators wrap it in a pill comprised of 99% powder, or an airy capsule, just so we can pick the damn thing up.
A pencil is another example of this. The "active ingredient" here is just the graphite in the middle, but with no way to hold something so small, we need to wrap it in a cylinder of wood. This is wasteful, particularly when you get down to the end of a pencil. I toss mine once they shrink to three inches or so, as it becomes too short to effectively wield. Then that otherwise-still-good three inches of graphite and wood go into the wastestream.
Now a Japanese company (of course) called Nakajima Jukyudo has solved this problem with their Tsunago sharpener. The company has been making pencil sharpeners for three generations, but this one is different: Amusingly, it does not function as a regular pencil sharpener, but instead has three "operations" that prepare two pencils for joinery.
Hole #1 bores a mortise into the butt end of a pencil; hole #2 turns the tip of another pencil into a sort of pointy mortise; hole #3 then cleans up the shavings on the mortise. With the joinery thus created, the pencils can then be attached. Here's how it looks in operation:
I love inventions like this that skirt that fine line between silly and brilliant, and I got a kick out of watching the "glue-up." Speaking of which: How long until this company invents tiny little bar clamps to hold everything together until the glue sets?
Another relevant factoid that I found amusing, courtesy of the Spoon & Tamago entry featuring the Tsunago: In Japanese "a hole and a protrusion [are] often written as dekoboko." While the literal translation of that term is "bumpy" or "uneven," check out the characters used to write it:
Pictographic script FTW.
Data Cocktail is a synesthetic way to consider digital data.
Now, you can actually drink Twitter: when a cocktail is desired, the machine will look for the five latest messages around the world quoting one of the available ingredients. These gathered messages will define the drink composition.
Data Cocktail not only provides a unique kind of drink, but also prints the cocktail's recipe along with the corresponding tweets— a gift you can take with you.
If you're wondering whether a tweet about Santa Claus in Winnipeg in Canada can take part in generating a cocktail in Nantes, we say yes! Data Cocktail is a machine but that doesn't mean it isn't polite—once the cocktail mix is realized, Data Cocktail will thank the tweeter's account who have, without knowing it, helped at realizing the mixture.
This is one of those concept designs that I find horrific, yet I realize it is the target market's estimation that counts more than mine. And as a non-parent I am not the target market. Before I say any more to prejudice you, have a look at this thing:
Now as to why I find the concept repellent:
When the weather's nice in NYC, it's not uncommon to see a lone parent running with a stroller, particularly along the bike path bordering Battery Park City. Every time I see it I smile; I think it's awesome that the parent is getting their exercise and bringing their baby along for the experience, and I imagine one of that baby's earliest memories will be whizzing along the boardwalk with their mother or father pushing them.
And even if the baby isn't cognizant that they're being pushed, I can't help but feel that that pushing is the key part of the connection. The baby is propelled along by the parent who is physically connected to the stroller, and they both move together.
The idea that this would be accomplished via Bluetooth and a motor seems it would break the bond. Also, the notion that a parent would entrust the safety of their child to a bunch of wires and invisible waves seems crazy to me.
I do appreciate that this object would lessen the physical load on the parent. You only need to watch one lone mother struggle up a subway staircase while carrying a stroller to realize how demanding urban parenting is. However, and this is the most damning part to me, using a smartphone alarm to remind you not to wander too far from your baby is, I think, lessening the wrong load. I would think any responsible parent would have an internal, mental alarm for such a thing. Instead of staring down at your phone, oughtn't ones eyes be in the vicinity of one's baby at all times?
I'm curious for feedback from actual parents, particularly parents who exercise with their child in tow. Am I underestimating the physical demands you face, or overestimating the importance of the physical and spiritual connection?
The Smartbe Intelligent Stroller, as it's called, is up for funding on IndieGogo. At press time the $399 object had garnered $58,751 towards an $80,000 goal, with six days left to pledge.
Core77's editors spend time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite stories from the World Wide Web.
Designers should obviously always be thinking about the bigger picture—for example, how to design for social impact and better other humans' lives. On the other hand, considering style is such an integral part of what designers do, it's funny that 'beauty' is such a taboo word in design right now. The Cooper Hewitt Triennial, confronts this strange paradox through expert examples of astounding, thought-provoking and, dare I say, beautiful design. The Times this week gives a good synopsis of the idea behind this show, now on view in New York.
—Allison Fonder, community manager
I found? this piece via my dear friend and boss lady, Kiana Pirouz. While a lot of startups and businesses are creating content around what they sell, Square has launched a publication centered around female engineers. They hope it will become a guide to other businesses, and are hosting in a GitHub repository for others to contribute their own thoughts.
—Carly Ayres, columnist, In the Details
David Remnick's conversation with artist, filmmaker and journalist Laura Poitras is the perfect primer for her recently opened exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Astro Noise. She reveals how the installation expands upon her work documenting the post 9/11 security state in a new medium: "What I'm trying to do is make people not numb to information. To reach people in a different way, to actually move them more."
—Alexandra Alexa, editorial assistant
Jacob Weisberg's review-essay probably won't tell you anything you didn't already know — i.e. that, with digital media, we're engaging in a giant, real-time experiment in rewiring our brains, mostly to the detriment of our social skills and emotional maturity — but it's still a compelling summary of a few new books on the subject. Most troubling is his discussion of Nir Eyal's Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Reading it, Weisberg writes, "you may come to feel that we're in the middle of a new Opium War, in which marketers have adopted addiction as an explicit commercial strategy."
—Mason Currey, senior editor
This week I'm leafing through Henry T. Brown's "507 Mechanical Movements: Mechanisms and Devices." It was originally drawn and written in the 1860s, though the copy I have dates to 1903, and the book covers the then-newly-invented mechanisms of the Industrial Revolution. It's fun and brainteasing to look at the diagrams without reading the descriptions and try to figure out how this assemblage of parts converted linear motion into rotary, rotary motion into oscillating, etc. Read this book before bed and you'll have dreams about pulleys, levers and gears.
—Rain Noe, senior editor
The extraterrestrial-loving folks over at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory just released a series of travel posters advertising 14 cosmic locales. The best part about these retro-flavored graphics for the future of travel? Each high-resolution poster can be downloaded for free from the comfort of your earthly abode.
—Rebecca Veit, columnist, Designing Women
The exhibition now on view at the Science Museum, London has been hailed as "Colossal," but there's scant coverage on the web and it's only up for another month—is it time for a mission to London?
—Eric Ludlum, editorial director
Last summer I was entertaining a no-nonsense Belgian acquaintance when we began eagerly discussing beer. He said IPAs were starting to gain traction in his hometown, and he'd liked the few he tried. I proudly pulled my 'fridge open and offered him a Torpedo Extra IPA, my favorite; he took one swig and looked like he wanted to spit it out. "No," he said, unapologetically wiping his mouth. "No, this is much too bitter."
That we all have different tolerances for bitterness isn't surprising. But one microbrewery, Quebec's Farnham Ale & Lager, came up with a surprising way to reflect that at last year's Quebec Beer Festival. They contracted local creative agency LG2, who devised a vending machine that dispenses beer when you scream into it. The louder you scream, the more bitter the beer it provides. I know it's a Friday, but turn those speakers down before clicking on the vid:
I want to see a version of this for wine and opera singers. There'd be broken glass everywhere.
Anyways, I have to finish my story from above. The next day the Belgian gent returned and proudly presented me with a bottle of Belgian beer. I tried it, smiled, and secretly felt that it tasted like apple juice.
Bob Clagett continues to amaze with Part 2 of his epic arcade cabinet build. This video, which is every bit as dense as Part 1, contains clear explanations and some great examples of both careful forethought and improvisation to overcome something not fitting right.
Jimmy DiResta delivers another of his Tips videos, compressing forty years' worth of efficiency tricks into one video. This time the subject is routers: What you need to check for in a bearing-guided flush trim bit, even a new one? What's a good way to cut circles without the cord getting tangled? What should you do with the other collet to avoid losing it? And plenty more. There are also some cameos from both Spike the Cat and Mr. Troll.
We get two videos from Izzy Swan this week and they're both quick. In the first here he shows you how to make a leather hinge. What's it for? You'll see in the vid, but let's just say that those of you who sharpen at the grinding wheel might find this handy.
In the second Swan video we get to see his prototyping-on-the-cheap process. Here he goes over the "discovery build" for the three-way piece of furniture he showed us last week:
When it comes to self-made workbenches, craftspeople are all over the map: Some favor making utilitarian ones out of inexpensive wood, others are fine with a solid-core door on sawhorses, still others build high-labor Roubo replicas. Jesse de Geest's position is that his workbench will be a family heirloom, and here explains why he's building it the way he is:
Matthias Wandel continues with his metalworking bench, fabricating and adding the drawers this time. What's great about this generation of YouTube makers is that they often show you the mistakes they make in the middle of a project, and demonstrate how they overcame them; here Wandel has to tackle some mis-cut mortises and tenons to get his drawers back into square.
Frank Howarth brings us back to his kitchen remodeling job, revealing the component that's been left unfinished for several months. Here he begins the process of finishing up the family's breakfast bar, and he takes the time to add a bit of Howarth whimsy.
No build from the busy Jay Bates this week, but a couple of announcements: The first is for those of you that'd like to meet Bates and will be in the Atlanta area in early April for The Woodworking Show, and the second is that he's started up a podcast along with fellow makers Nick Ferry and April Wilkerson:
Speaking of April Wilkerson, she's back in her shop this week and cranks out some quick, easy clamp storage using nothing but cutoffs and scraps. While this system won't work for those of you with sheetrock or cinderblock walls, if your walls are plywood or OSB this oughta do the trick:
Ana and Jacob White continue building their tiny-house-on-a-trailer, this time framing out the walls, then muscling them into position and tying them all together. This is a great look at basic construction principles, with the Whites explaining why things are done the way they are and in what sequence.
We all know that sound travels in waves, which we can't see—but can certainly feel, given enough bass. Sound designer Ricky van Broekhoven and Eindhoven I.D. grad Olivier van Herpt have exploited this phenomena by connecting a speaker rig to a 3D printer; by playing music during the printing process, they can create objects that have the sound visibly captured within the striations, creating patterns and textures that combine the organic with the technological.
Their project is called "Solid Vibrations," and we caught a glimpse of it several months ago at Dutch Design Week. But hearing and seeing this video below will give you a better sense of how it works. (If you're in an office, you may want to turn your speakers down.)
This phenomenon, by the way, was discovered by accident:
Olivier had noted previously that the printer produced Moiré patterns naturally. This error was an interesting one. Rather than eliminate it, he turned to sound designer Ricky and teamed up with him to see if they could make objects from sound waves.
The result is that "A moment in time, a song, a sound, they can now become objects that encapsulate the moment forever." What would be fascinating is if they could create a device that could read the objects and play the sound back. Three-dimensional, 3D-printed LPs, anyone?
In ten years of running a photography rental studio, I've learned to pick out the inexperienced shooters immediately. Here's a dead giveaway: They tell you that they want to start off with the Super White backdrop, then change to Fashion (light) Grey, then change to a Thunder (dark) Grey, even though each change costs $20. The pro simply sticks with the Super White, then stops their camera up or down along with the lights to turn the white background into whatever shade of grey they want.
To do the latter requires an understanding of aperture/shutter/studio lighting. For those of you bred on smartphone photography whom are looking to switch to single-lens reflex, and don't know your f-stop from your L-train, here's a handy reference guide that will at least get you started:
That was thoughtfully put together by Daniel Peters of the Fotoblog Hamburg.
By the bye, aspiring SLR photographers among you: If you require more explanation of how you can change a white backdrop to grey just by monkeying with your set-up, you can watch photographer Robby Ticknor figuring it out and explaining it below. (While he doesn't go as dark as Thunder, he gets it past Fashion Grey for sure.)
Furniture designers need chair bucks, and fashion designers need dress forms. You've undoubtedly seen the armless wireframe torsoes that the latter uses to create patterns and test how fabric hangs and fits. It's an indispensible piece of kit for fashion designers that don't have patient, unemployed roommates.
The problem with dress forms is that we're not all the same size. Some feature some measure of adjustability, like collapsible shoulders, or dials you can turn that draw the internal components tighter or looser to change shape.
Other systems come with a series of pads that the user can painstakingly add in order to mimic a particular body style.
But the bottom line is, if you're a fashion designer hoping to cater to a number of different sizes, you must purchase a lot of different dress forms.
A professor from Hong Kong named Dr. Allan Chan hopes to change that. Chan, who works at Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Institute of Textiles and Clothing, spent five years collecting anthropometric data from around the world, then designed a single mannequin that could embody an extremely wide range of sizes. Check this thing out:
Imagine the process of taking a single dress on and off of a half-dozen different mannequins to see which it will fit, versus simply putting it into Dr. Chan's i.Dummy, as it's called, and adjusting it on-the-fly. The i.Dummy is obviously faster, as it takes no more than eight seconds to morph from any given size to any given other size. It's also more precise, as a multitude of dimensions can be individually dialed in.
Perhaps it's no surprise that the i.Dummy was invented in Hong Kong, which is notoriously tight on space. If they switch over to Dr. Chan's invention, "workshops or shop-floors won't have to stock mannequins of different sizes," he says, "which often take up lots of valuable working space."
In addition to the space issue, I think the i.Dummy could be a boon to the individual small-shop fashion designer seeking to develop an online custom couture business. If a customer in a remote location had the means to accurately measure themselves, then e-mailed those dimensions to the designer, the designer could then use an i.Dummy to craft clothing with a perfect fit, and ship it off to the customer with no in-shop visit required.
However, I realize that fashionistas are picky about fit and particularly how garments hang in motion. Clotheshorses among you: Would you be confident enough to send your dimensions along for remote manufacture, or do you feel you'd still need to try something on to check the fit?
The Designer will design/develop volume and single hanging underwear programs from inception to market. This position will oversee all seasonal color development from start to finish. The Designer will work to ensure all deadlines are met, as well as ensure fit/specs are correct. Updating tech packs/boards and sales SMS required.
View the full design job hereThere's no doubt that self-driving cars are coming, but every designer has to be wondering: How will the user interface be handled? When something that weighs nearly 5,000 pounds is hurtling along at 65 miles per hour, how do you safely, seamlessly pass control back and forth between human and machine?
Since it's Tesla that's leading the self-driving charge with their "software series 7" update, let's look at how their designers have handled it:
From a UI standpoint, I'm not sold. The first sticking point for me is activating "Smart Speed" by flicking the lower stalk once, and flicking it twice to engage "Auto Steer."
When a single interface point is meant to be engaged either once or twice to achieve different results, I feel there's ample opportunity to screw this up. When I'm trying to do something as simple as pause or advance a track on my iPhone by pressing the mic button once or twice, I'll screw this up on a fairly regular basis.
And I consider myself able-bodied. For someone with arthritis, or even someone who's just come from a strenuous workout at the gym where the joints are a bit numb, I'm not convinced they can nail something as seemingly simple as one or two flicks every time.
These are features that I'd really want dedicated, big-ass buttons for. Though I understand that Tesla cannot do that out of the factory, as these updates come after the car has been physically produced, and functions must be assigned to whatever interface devices are already available within the car. And in this case that's the lower stalk.
The second sticking point is the method in which these systems are disengaged. Should it be difficult, or easy? Tesla seems to have hedged their bets here and done both. For instance, to disengage the autopilot the user has three options:
1) Push the button on the stalk. This requires some measure of fine motor control and I'm not convinced I could do this, at least not initially, without devoting some attention to it. Perhaps that is the point, so that it is not accidentally deactivated.
2) Push the stalk forward. This seems mechanically simple and I'm confident I could do this ten times out of ten.
3) Press on the brake pedal. Again, this seems impossible to fail at.
The conundrum is that #1 above requires some precision, #2 is a little easier and #3 is stupid-easy. In fact I'd say #3 is too easy. My worry: If a driver fell asleep with Autopilot on, wouldn't it be easy to accidentally hit the brake pedal while unconsciously shifting around during sleep? Does anyone want to wake up at 65 miles per hour to find that the car is suddenly under your control?
Tesla's answer is undoubtedly that no driver should be sleeping while the car is in motion. However, no driver should be texting while driving either, and people do it all the time. Do you trust your fellow drivers to remain vigilant?
Lastly, the Autopilot feature is designed for highway driving. It seems obvious because this is far easier to manage than urban driving. However, city driving--particularly during rush hour--is where I'd most want a car taking over for me.
Every day I see the brutal traffic crawl on Broome Street in Manhattan as thousands of motorists vie to get into the Holland Tunnel. Observation indicates that most of these drivers are totally checked out: They leave enormous gaps between them and the car in front, which leads to cars behind them to block the box. Or they selfishly lurch ahead through yellow lights, wantonly blocking the box in an effort to get ahead. Horns blare. People yell. Tempers flare. Exhaust fumes swirl.
If every car had autopilot in this situation, it would be an amazing boon. Spatially-aware cars would know exactly how much distance to maintain to keep intersections clear at all times. By "talking" to cars much further ahead, they could detect how long a particular wait was going to be and shut the engines off. Drivers would have no need to lay on the horn if they understood that the cars were taking care of the traffic, and that they were going to get to the tunnel as fast as physically possible.
But this would be techologically difficult to pull off. Highway-based autopilot is easy in comparison. Which makes me wonder: As with assigning functions to an existing stalk, are we doing what is easy first, rather than what would be better first? Any thoughts?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: rugs are incredibly underrated, and I’m thrilled to see more and more designers starting to pay attention to the humble textiles underfoot. This week we have another example: colorful squirted-foam rugs made by the designers at Nightshop, an experimental product studio in Rotterdam. In this case, the inspiration was not floorcoverings themselves but those nubby anti-slip mats often found under rugs to keep them in place.
“They feel kind of nice,” says Adriaan van der Ploeg, who founded Nightshop with Ward van Gemert in 2010. “Apart from that, they look cool.” That was enough of a starting point for the designers, who begin a lot of their projects with a hyper-intense focus on an everyday object.
In this case, van der Ploeg and van Gemert next began searching for the material used for those anti-slip mats, eventually finding a soft urethane foam that seemed like a match, and that also offered UV resistance. When asked the name of the urethane, however, the designers are hesitant to say more. “We searched long and hard for this material, and a lot of people always ask us what it is because they also want to use it,” van der Ploeg says. “As you might understand, we keep this one close to the chest.”
After a slew of material studies, the duo decided that they wanted to make lampshades out of their newfound material. “We modified an old centrifuge and poured the foam in,” van der Ploeg says. “It was a disaster.” A few prototypes proved fruitful, but the designers had trouble recreating anything more than once. Putting the project on hold for a bit, the designers eventually came back to it with new vigor and a new output: carpets.
“It was a natural process,” van der Ploeg says. “When we made a couple, we became quite skilled at just pouring the foam by hand. This makes the carpets also a bitmore ‘rougher’ and, in our opinion, cooler.” The designers would mix each color themselves, adding pigment to the urethane and pouring it across a table; once the creations dried, they simply peeled them off. But as they began to execute more complex designs, they found themselves needing more control over the material. Looking for a way to make thin lines, van Gemert and van der Ploeg turned to large plastic syringes, filling them with the different hues and slowly squirting the liquid foam across a flat surface. “It took a lot of practice,” van der Ploeg says.
Because the foam begins to expand and solidify shortly after leaving the syringe, the designers have to work fast—which suits them just fine. “We really like working quick and making quick decisions,” van der Ploeg says. “All our new projects and products we made last year share this way of working. Also, the material both helps in this way but at the same time limits your choices. You can’t work really detailed and you have to work really fast.”
Planning the patterns for the rugs is an equally rapid process. “Usually one of us has a vague idea,” van der Ploeg says. “We quickly draw it on a piece of paper and adjust it a little bit or a lot.” Typically, within five minutes of the conception of an idea, the two dive into working with the material itself.
“The material limits your choices. You can't work really detailed and you have to work really fast.”
The final rugs measure roughly 5 by 8 feet, but the Nightshop owners are currently working on smaller versions, building them directly on sheets of aluminum. “That way you can easily hang it on the wall,” van der Ploeg says. This is a presentation style that the designers encourage, given that the finished foam rugs are actually not so functional as rugs. “The carpets are more objects than usable objects,” van der Ploeg says. “They’re experiments in pattern and color and material.”
Given that experimental nature, van der Ploeg doesn’t see the rugs going to mass production anytime soon. “We didn’t start with the intention to make a product," he says. “We started out by wanting to make something cool.… The thought of making a real product for mass production never crossed our minds.” That attitude seems to be paying off—van der Ploeg and van Gemert will be showing one of their rugs at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in early March, followed by a larger showing during a solo exhibition at Robert van Oosterom Gallery in Rotterdam.
Design Indaba kicks off tomorrow in Cape Town, with three days of speakers on making “a better world through creativity.” One of those speakers is Benjamin Hubert, who presents an interesting case study for the independent designer looking to do more than just bring nifty new products into the world. In 2010, at the age of 26, he founded Benjamin Hubert Studio and began making a name for himself with high-end furniture and housewares for brands like Cappellini and Moroso. Then, last fall, he announced that he was changing the studio’s name to Layer and would be focusing on “human-centered” rather than “style-centered” projects. Recently, we spoke to Hubert to find out more about this change of direction and what he’s learned so far about making products for the greater good.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Well, I’ve been doing the furniture side of things and the more luxury, stylized sort of things for the last five years. And I do enjoy it. But it comes to a point where you start asking really hard questions: Do you want to do just this type of work for the rest of your career? Or can you take the skills that you’ve built up and actually use them for the better? So, yes, that’s the point I came to.
The rate of consumption society has now is obviously unsustainable, and it becomes more and more difficult to justify introducing new products—particularly in categories that have been looked at a lot. For example, we solved the problem of sitting down comfortably a long time ago. But in this industry there is a big focus on continuously producing chairs. We like designing chairs, and we will continue to do one or two. But we want to move toward finding real needs, and projects that have a meaningful impact on people’s lives. You don’t always get the opportunity to find those projects, but increasingly we’re in a position to have those conversations with the brand partners we work with.
It depends on how you approach it. Some things we are doing are at the grassroots level in developing parts of the world, and often those types of projects are not big commercial projects. We’ll be working with a not-for-profit or a charity, and we do those because we want to actually use design to help people.
But other times the projects are with big corporates, and the things that we’re weaving into the projects are about reducing the amount of material, making things more accessible, having really smart functionality—so if you have a convergence, then people don’t need two products, they just need one. There are ways to weave this kind of “greater good” approach through what seem to be more commercial products.
We were asked to do an acoustic system by a brand that does acoustic products. But we wanted to make sure we did something that, environmentally, trod much more lightly and that was super-modular—that could be flat-packed, could be shipped out easily, and was made from sustainable materials. So it was making sure—no pun intended—that we were building layers of value into the work. And it doesn’t matter whether, aesthetically, you love it; it’s about the hard values that people can’t argue with, the holistic values having to do with: Is it super functional? Does it work really well? Is it responsible and sustainable and does it belong in the world and supersede everything that came before?
Only when it comes to cost. It’s never a hard sell as long as you can make things the same price or cheaper. Then everybody wants all these values and everybody wants to do good, ultimately. Our constant fight and the thing we’re really focused on is making sure we can deliver these values competitively. Everything is like a game of trying to get as much into the conversation and through the other end, whilst maintaining a competitive product that makes everybody money.
It got huge pickup, actually. I was quite surprised at how broad the interest was, and very pleased, because that was the aim of it. It’s a polarizing subject. Some people are very much like, “When can we get it? Sign us up.” And other people question it and say, “Do I want another thing telling me what to do?” And that’s what we wanted to happen; we knew it was going to be a conversation-starter. And for us, really, it’s about understanding how to take a project like that forward.
One thing at a time. The vision that we set out was complex, and we knew that. We wanted to start with bigger, broader ideas and then focus in. Part of the reason that we published the project before it’s ready to be fully used—although parts of it are being prototyped and beta-tested at the moment—was to find out which are the more valuable parts, which are the superfluous things, which are the things where partners come forward and say, “We can help you with this.”
In addition to the beta testing, now we’re having conversations around investment—so getting venture capitalists and others interested in potentially backing it, because it needs a reasonable amount of financing to get it to be really meaningful. There’s no point launching it on the market and not having the support for it, because it will just disappear. So we’re trying to understand which elements of it are really worthwhile and really meaningful and that people will actually interact with. And that process is not an easy one. But it’s exciting.
To be honest, the jury’s still out for me. I’m not sure. I think it was a hook for people to write about it and talk about it; it was a tangible thing. It’s like everything’s crowdsourced these days, so you sort of have to be able to talk through those terms in order to spread the word, and it was a great tool for that. But like you said, it’s really young, it’s a really new form of communication, and I think it’s got a way to go. Both the platform and the way it’s handled need to mature before it becomes really, really powerful.
Well, we’re having conversations with some really big charity organizations that do some great things, and one of the challenges with that is trying to get products on the ground. So whether it’s disaster relief or the refugee crisis or water sanitation, to actually get products on the ground and used in really tough environments, that’s one of the areas where we’re facing some challenges. We’re looking for those opportunities. And it isn’t a commercial decision in any sense. We’re saying, Hey, we’ve got a skill set here, and we’ve got a lot of experience, and we want to get products on the ground that change people’s lives. It’s like an open call, really. And we’re talking to a lot of people about it.
The refugee crisis is front of the mind at the moment, and the crisis around refugee housing. Can we get things in people’s hands that help with sanitation? That, particularly, is an issue we’re talking about in the studio. We’re working on a lot of digital solutions—apps and things like that—but quite often it’s really simple analog hardware that solves problems, and I think that’s one of the things we’re trying to work out: How can we create something super simple, super low-cost that works in really inhospitable environments, that actually makes a small difference? Or a big one, hopefully.
Well, the first thing is, these organizations are huge and complex. So getting enough of the right people to say yes to things and to work with you—you know, it might be a UNICEF or something like that—they’re super multilayered and really complex, and one of the biggest challenges for us is working out who to talk to and getting the right people in the room to enable things. It’s not just about getting the person to ship it and deliver it and distribute it; that’s a logistical issue.
Everybody wants to do it, yes. There’s no shortage of will. I think it’s about people that can really deliver it. Also, I’m quite sure we’re not alone in terms of being a design company wanting to do this and give back and provide the support that we can here. So it’s a tendering process as much as anything, and it’s not a traditional tendering process, where everyone is trying to make a commercial gain; it’s where everyone’s trying to help the world, and who can be the most helpful. It’s a weird sort of process.
So—design is a broad church, right? Lots of people are designers and create many different things that have very different values to very different groups of people. But I think the heart of design is problem solving. And maybe there is a branding piece of work that needs to be done there. If I talk to anyone about being an industrial designer—nobody knows that industrial design is. But that is the best term to sum up what a problem-solving, entrepreneurial designer that can engineer things is.
So I don’t know. At Layer we talk much more readily in entrepreneurial terms, and also in business terms, to be completely honest—design for business more than designing the beautiful end commodity.
A lot of this is: you learn along the way. All the theory in the world is not necessarily going to point you in the right direction. You know, problem solving for me is about solving the problems of business as much as the ones of function and making things more beautiful and delightful. You’re either geared up for it and you think like that or you don’t.
I think if you want to do something, if you want to solve problems or you have a particular issue in mind that you think you can resolve, then I don’t think it matters what you study. I think that it’s about that will to do something and make change—it will get you to the right place ultimately, whether you do it directly hands-on or you work with people who can. So I’m not sure what you study really matters in the end.
Jumpstart your week with our insider's guide to events in the design world. From must-see exhibitions to insightful lectures and the competitions you need to know about—here's the best of what's going on, right now.
LA-based landscape architect Mia Lehrer will present a sampling of her diverse practice, which includes both private and public projects. In Recalibrating the City: Advocacy by Design, Lehrer will speak to her emphasis on working closely with local communities and stakeholders to create works that transform parks, streetscapes and campuses into spaces that "meet the diverse needs of the people who will visti them."
New York, NY. February 16th at 7PM.
Opening at Storefront for Art and Architecture this week is Closed Worlds, an archive of 41 historical prototypes of closed resource regeneration systems—think, space capsules, submarines, etc. By charting these projects, the exhibition draws attention to the larger trend of synthetic naturalism, where the laws of nature are displaced into buildings and cities.
New York, NY. On view through April 9, 2016.
In honor of the upcoming exhibition, Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony (which will include a display of more than 300 of Sachs' handmade porcelain tea bowls), the Noguchi Museum is exhibiting Isamu Noguchi: Functional Ceramics, a selection of his more "functional" ceramics: plates, bowls, trays, and other traditional forms.
New York, NY. On view through July 24, 2016.
The Drawing Center's gallery will transform into a simulated studio for the next month, highlighting the graphic design process in Please Make This Look Nice. Throughout the run of the show, a variety of professionals will set up shop in the space temporarily, working in unique design assignments and engaging the audience in discussion.
New York, NY. On view through March 20, 2016.
Designers in all fields can stand to benefit from learning an architectural approach to problem solving, and that is just what you can glean from DIY Like an Architect: 11-Step Method. Through a series of brainstorming exercises, collaging and diagramming, you'll learn how to move through the ideation process from concept to solution.
Pasadena, California. February 21 and 28, 2016 at 1 PM.
It's not quite Tesla's Autopilot, but Nissan has been developing a automotive feature called Intelligent Parking Assist. The system was developed with the thought that drivers would be tired after a long journey, and could benefit from having the car take care of the last few feet. Frivolous? Perhaps, but leave it up to quirky Japanese engineers to see a parallel between a self-parking car…and a messy office.
Operating under the idea that office workers are too busy or tired to tidy up after a meeting, Nissan's engineers amusingly rigged up a bunch of office chairs with their system:
The inventor of The Clapper can't be happy.
So how does it work? You saw the diagram with the Wi-Fi, what does that have to do with it? Here are some more details, as well as a demonstration of how it works in a car:
Okay, so perhaps "Intelligent Parking Assist" is a bit of a misnomer, as the ultimate locations must be pre-programmed. But it's hard not to love the spectacle of chairs bustling back to their designated spaces.
What we think Nissan oughta do next: Combine the self-parking chairs with Roombas. Then the office would be really tidy.
With an eye to old school, traditional mechanic's bags, we welcome more utility and class to the family of custom HES gear. The new Hand-Eye Mechanic's Bag is built for a long life on the road or in the garage.
Our workshop tech, Luke Murray, and his 1965 Volkswagen Riviera Camper met the new bag last week for a little test drive. The bag features eight easy-access pockets for all your quick-grab tools, natural vegetable-tanned leather grips that mature to a dark honey, and brass rivets for strength and durability.
The 18 oz. thick canvas duck bag, synched by an oversized brass YKK zipper, features a flat, double layered bottom, which means your tools, toys, or threads stay put through any level of hustle and bustle.
Fill 'er up for just $120.00.
Dan Chen, a MIT Media Lab Research Assistant, inventor of RIT (Robot Intimacy Technology) and 1-Hour Design Challenge Sex Toy judge, takes inspiration from a variety of sources and individuals—amongst those is the curmudgeonly comedian Larry David.
"I got into Curb Your Enthusiasm by Larry David and he's just got [this knack for] observing real world situations", he says. "He was hugging someone in the TV show and after hugging them for too long he got an erection. He's got this funny face which the person couldn't see when they're hugging each other so I thought, 'what would happen if I revealed the other person's face when I'm hugging them?'" Chen ultimately gives David credit for inspiring one of his creations, the Intimacy Machine, which allows you to hug someone without breaking eye contact:
Chen is interested in creating these objects to facilitate social experiments and see how robotics can transcend normal notions of what humans need in order to feel loved and comforted. "I realized it all comes down to mental projections...you don't really need to add a face to [a robot]. You just need little hints for people to mentally attach and project their humanity onto things." So through engineering, a field perhaps considered cold and indifferent towards human emotion, he explores topics like vulnerability, social comfort and discomfort, and the healing power of touch (whether real or simulated).
"I realized it all comes down to mental projections...you don't really need to add a face to [a robot]. You just need little hints for people to mentally attach and project their humanity onto things."
Chen says he finds himself feeling somewhat awkward within certain social situations—something I'm sure we all can relate to. Ironically, he says his ultimate motivation for creating robots is to find a way to express himself and his care for others. "I constantly think about that, like, what are those scripts that we use everyday that establish that sense of connection? Sometimes I will use those scripts as part of my robots...and these scripts translated into robotic actions may seem sort of cheesy, but when you actually use the device, when something's touching you and you feel that sense of pressure…You can't help it, in your mind you physically feel this sense of togetherness."
Who knows if this is the future of intimacy and technology, but after speaking with Chen, it's hard to ignore it as a very distinct possibility.
"I actually got this idea when I was in the shower. I was just thinking, what is the most vulnerable moment in our lives where we need intimacy the most, and what if I take that and swap it out with robots? This explores the idea that not only are humans slowly being replaced by robots, robots are also evolving to be more and more like humans."
"For this project, I was thinking about the DIY community culture where people make things instead of purchasing them to solve problems...You sort of give life to this thing that you program to grant yourself a sense of intimacy. People in the world are sometimes afraid to ask for help, and this is supposed to enable or empower them, to give them this idea of 'oh, I can help myself'—almost like self-help. But it's also this weird boundary between something making you uncomfortable and making you happy."
"In the corporate setting, during icebreakers and all that, there's this thing about putting hands together to give that sense of intimacy and facilitate interaction- it's so scripted, we know that, but it works when we perform it. So the Team Spirit Generator sort of speaks to, why are we performing these small interactions to give that sense of togetherness? And at the same time it's also asking, why does this even work? "
This article is part of the Core77 Sex-tacular, an editorial series exploring the myriad ways that technology and design are shaping the future of intimacy and sex.
Can you dream up concepts and ideas that will surprise customers and perfectly match their needs, creating sketches, models, and full-size mock-ups that can be seen. Applicants must have excellent use of relevant software applications (CAD, Photoshop or Alias) and a Bachelor's degree (ideally with an emphasis in transportation design).
View the full design job here
