Whatever you're working on today, it's less squishy, fun and distinctive than this. But no matter how big or small your aims may be, you deserve a break to watch 1,200 mattress-clutching adult humans falling like dominoes in one of the weirdest team sports imaginable. 

What you're seeing here is the new world record for Human Mattress Dominoes being achieved by employees of Aaron's, an electronics store in National Harbor, Maryland, USA on March 22nd, 2016. It took 34 additional aids and spotters, and the 1.2K (uninjured) mattresses were later donated to a regional non-profit.

This is a feat so stupid and charming that it's hard to imagine attempting it (particularly at work) but you can't help but be glad someone did. It's unclear how long the route design and setup took them, but their 13 minutes and 38 seconds of squishy success look pretty worth it from here. 

Via CBC.

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.

How 'Empowerment' Became Something for Women to Buy

"...I have never said "empowerment" sincerely or heard it from a single one of my friends. The formulation has been diluted to something representational and bloodless — an architectural rendering of a building that will never be built." —Great read on the marketability of women's empowerment.

–Carly Ayres, columnist, In the Details

How to Work Better at the Guggenheim

Fischli and Weiss' work is highly relevant to industrial designers, conceptually and physically, so catching this show one way or another is a must — it closes on the 27th in New York but you can get a curated audio/visual tour on your mobile device by downloading the app for either iPhone, Android or iPad.

—Eric Ludlum, editorial director

App Friendly Skies

If you're a window seat lover like me (i.e. you will happily forego the freedom of the aisle for the cramped thrill of watching the scenery unfold below), then you'll be excited to read more about the Flyover Country app. The app uses geological and paleontological databases to identify points of interest as you fly above and then uses cached Wikipedia articles to explain the features in depth. The best part? It uses GPS data even when your phone is in Airplane mode, no expensive in-flight wifi needed. 

—Rebecca Veit, columnist, Designing Women

Why Women Book Their Business Trips Earlier Than Men

Today I'm reading this Economist article that looks at differences in how men and women execute business travel—as well as differences in how they experience it.

—Rain Noe, senior editor

The Minecraft Generation 

A long but fascinating read about how a "clunky Swedish computer game" became (surprisingly) "an almost perfect game for our current educational moment." 

—Alexandra Alexa, editorial assistant

Multimaterial Illuminated Sign

Jimmy DiResta's back, this time using some surprising techniques to create a commercial sign. We've got a little bit of everything here from CNC work to handwork, incorporating plastic, metal, MDF and electricity:

How to Cut Perfect Miters with a Jigsaw

This is pretty brilliant. Izzy Swan got a call from a friend who wanted to create some picture frames, but didn't have a miter saw nor a handsaw and a miter box. All he had was a jigsaw--and not even any clamps to hold the work down! Thus Swan devised a method for creating freehand cuts with a jigsaw that would get the joints to line up:

Furniture Design Challenge Finalists

Izzy Swan fielded 82 submissions for the 2016 Furniture Design Challenge we showed you in a previous WMR entry. Here he shows you the work of the finalists:

How to Learn Skills Quickly

Jesse de Geest often talks about the value of persistence. In this video he offers some tips for how to pick up new hand skills quickly by forcing yourself out of your comfort zone and sticking with it. The second half of the video is about his ongoing search for a replacement apprentice (See below.)

The Samurai Carpenter Needs a New Apprentice

Breaking news: Jesse de Geest's apprentice has up and quit! Here he explains why, then makes the pitch for those who want to apply for the newly-open slot. He announces both the salary and--don't get too excited, Yanks--the fact that you have to already live in Victoria, B.C. The second half of the vid is some follow-up on the future direction of his YouTube channel.

DIY Shop Air Cleaner

I was going to say that Matthias Wandel went full MacGyver this time, but let's face it, he does that every time. This episode he uses some unlikely materials to create a highly effective air cleaner for his shop:

"Hybrid Wedgie" Adjustable Table Saw Sled

In need of a way to cut consistent and symmetrical angles for bowl-turning glue-ups, Frank Howarth builds an unusual table saw sled designed by Jerry Bennett. Howarth adds his own modifications to render the sled safer:

Metal-Framed Recessed Shelving Unit

Steve Ramsey whips up a recessed shelf unit with an impressively easy-to-do brushed aluminum frame:

Pool Table Lamp

Most of the April Wilkerson projects we've featured here have been pretty utilitarian, but this time she whips out some design skills to create a handsome pool table lamp:

Intro to Spraying Finishes With a HVLP Spray Gun

Here's a good reference video for those of you looking to get into spray finishes. This week Jay Bates pulls in a guest, fellow YouTuber and automotive painting expert Matt Lane, to run down the ins and outs of using an HVLP (high volume, low pressure) spray gun for applying film finishes to wood:

The Pong-Pong Table

A quick build here from La Fabrique DIY as they produce a sort of handheld single-player ping pong table:

Three-in-One Loft Bed Unit

Ana White shows us the design and construction of her three-beds-in-one loft unit for her tiny house, which also has plenty of provisions for storage:

Welding Cart Improvements

Bob Clagett has incorporated viewer feedback in order to improve his welding cart. Here he shows you the suggested improvements that he's implemented:

Entryway Table

Linn from Darbin Orvar creates an entryway table with drawers as a complementary piece to her media storage unit from a few weeks ago:

Ideal candidates have a bachelors of Science in Engineering (Mechanical or Manufacturing) and can perform plastic, component, and assembly specification analysis to ensure function & quality targets. Must have an understanding of injection molding and part design CAD (Solidworks) and the ability to build hand mock-ups and test concepts quickly.

For more than a year, design engineer Mikael Kjellman has been commuting to work in his self-created vehicle. We use the word "commuting" because we're not sure if he's "driving" or "riding;" in an effort to beat Swedish winter weather, Kjellman has created an enclosed, electrically-assisted four-wheel vehicle that's something like a cross between a recumbent bicycle and a SmartCar.

"It is a fun vehicle to drive and I really like to build things," write Kjellman, who calls his creation the PodRide. "It has proven to be a very practical and comfortable little vehicle." It certainly looks it:

Kjellman is currently trying to raise $30,000 on IndieGogo to fund the production of PodRide kits that end users would assemble themselves. "[One step of the plan] is to make an easy to build complete kit, no fabrication needed (like a [piece of] IKEA Furniture)," Kjellman explains. But what's different about this crowdfunding campaign is that producing the kits isn't the true goal. First off, he's realistic about the obstacles:

It is a complex product and most of the parts have to be specially manufactured. My job is to design and purchasing machine parts but I have no experience in designing and purchasing textile parts. I'm the only fully dedicated team member today. The price on the kit may turn out to be too expensive.

The main motivation for Kjellman to run the campaign is to promote the environmental benefits of a bicycle-car hybrid, whether he mass-produces it or someone else does. "So it is equally important," Kjellman says, "to spread the word, show your friends, share online, talk to your local politicians and traffic planners show that [these] kind of vehicles exist and work."

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.

Monday

Don't miss Creation from Catastrophe, a thoughtful exhibition that closes later in the week. It explores how architecture and urbanism are often radically rethought in the aftermath of disasters and questions the relationship between man, nature and architecture in the 21st century. As Japanese architect Toyo Ito has remarked, "a disaster zone where everything is lost offers the perfect opportunity for us to take a fresh look, from the ground up, at what architecture really is." 

London, UK. On view through April 24, 2016. 

Tuesday

Architectural researcher and professor Mark Wasiuta will trace the history of the prolific west coast media collective, Environmental Communications—a group of young architects, photographers, and psychologists working in Venice Beach, CA in the late 1960s to create a new visual language for documenting the late twentieth-century city. 

New York, NY. April 19, 2016.

Wednesday

Coworking space The Grind will host a sketching bootcamp this week. The day-long workshop will focus on learning to use visuals to communicate ideas. Whether you attend or not, you can also brush up on some basics with our Sketchnotes 101. 

New York, NY. April 20, 2016. 

Thursday

Each year, IIT Institute of Design students host a pecha-kucha style round of quickfire presentations, sharing their ideas, obsessions and observations of design in our world. Check out the video above for a sense of what NOWhaus 2016 will be like. 

Chicago, Illinois. April 21, 2016. 

Friday

San Francisco-based artist Julian Watts is exhibiting a series of new objects at the Boiler Room. Starting with traditional wooden utensils, Watts uses wood carving techniques to push functional objects into the realm of art. 

San Francisco, CA. On view through May 2, 2016. 

Saturday/Sunday

Before moving on to a new location in November of this year, the Design Museum London will showcase their last exhibition in their current space, Cycle Revolution. The exhibit explores the current explosion of interest in bicycles and cycling culture, looking at the where innovations and cutting-edge designs may take riders of the future and even change the ways in which we use our towns and cities. 

London, UK. On view through June 30, 2016. 

Check out the Core77 Calendar for more design world events, competitions and exhibitions, or submit your own to be considered for our next Week in Design.

Sketchmeister Spencer Nugent once told us that students often ask him what type of pen or paper they should use. His answer: "There is no magic pen, there is no magic paper." In other words, it doesn't matter what you use to draw with. What matters is that you learn to draw.

There's no clearer proof of this than the work of Leonardo da Vinci. It's safe to say he didn't have fancy Faber-Castells or an elaborate pencil case, yet he was able to produce a range of line weights, gradations and tones that would be the envy of anyone with a Dick Blick preferred customer card. Here, British conservator Alan Donnithorne demonstrates the primitive, yet ingenious, tools that da Vinci used to produce drawings:

How about that erasable paper?

The video was produced by the UK's Royal Collection Trust in support of the traveling Leonardo da Vinci: Ten Drawings from the Royal Collection exhibit.

Throughout 2016, ten of the finest drawings by Leonardo da Vinci in the Royal Collection will travel to four museums and galleries across the United Kingdom and Ireland in a new exhibition.

The works have been selected to show the extraordinary scope of the artist's interests, from painting and sculpture to engineering, zoology, botany, mapmaking and anatomy, as well as his use of different media – pen and ink, red and black chalks, watercolour and metalpoint.

…There are almost 600 drawings by Leonardo da Vinci in the Royal Collection. They were originally bound into a single album, which was probably acquired in the 17th century by Charles II. Beyond the 20 or so surviving paintings by Leonardo, the artist's drawings are the main source of our knowledge of this extraordinary Renaissance man and his many activities.

Leonardo's drawings are the richest, most wide-ranging, most technically brilliant, and most endlessly fascinating of any artist.

The show is currently running at Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, but only until April 24th. Thereafter it will travel to Dublin, Nottingham and Swansea. You can keep track here.

MIRE sound system is a research project by French studio Alpha Foxtrot focusing on a new ultra-directional sound technology which produces a sound beam that can only be heard when facing the speaker. Bringing this technology from the public spaces to the domestic area, MIRE explores the possibility of directional sound technology in terms of use, but also its distinctive physical properties to offer further functions. The wireless speaker features a compact design with a double rotation, so that it can be easily oriented directly towards the listener, or towards the bi-material screen that interacts physically with the sound, enabling the user to diffuse the ultra directional sound beam to the entire room or to mute it.

Credit: Samy Rio - AF

Credit: Colombe Clier - VIA

Credit: Samy Rio - AF

Credit: Samy Rio - AF

Speaker detail - Light pearlescent coated aluminium and Kvadrat® fabric

Credit: Samy Rio - AF

CNC-milled aluminium body

Credit: Samy Rio - AF

All the parts

Credit: Samy Rio - AF

It's 2012. Laurence Sarrazin and Eric Ludlum (Core77's Editorial Director) have dreams of finishing a "tiny house"—a 280 sq. foot home for a family of four. They've run through prototypes and workshops, designed a structure and bracket system, and a 28' x 10' trailer is custom built by MS Metal Works in Mollalla, OR.

Then the fall rains came, and the tiny house hopeful was not rolled out, but rolled in, covered in a tarp, and let down for a little trailer sleep. And as project fate would have it, it would not wake until another Eric/Laurence project matched up, and Core77 and Coroflot growth demanded the trailer's proposed intentions be reimagined.

Last year, having sold the land that was Eric's childhood home, Laurence and Eric had the opportunity to fell the second-growth trees from that plot. They seized the chance to repurpose the Douglass Fir's, the very same ones Eric climbed in his wee-days in Tigard, OR (then an unincorporated part of Washington County), and the resulting lumber is the 5000 board feet that now sit in our garage—destined to be built-in furniture, shelving and flooring of the newest addition to the Coroflot office. Just as Hand-Eye was born out of Core77, so was Coroflot, which, as we know, has come to be one of the most fruitful web hubs for design opportunities and portfolios.

So with fresh lumber, a trailer frame, and a need for more office space, Coroflot's new office takes up residence in the garage of it's other sister: us!—Hand-Eye Supply.

Follow along here, on the HES blog, and stop by Hand-Eye's Design Week Portland Open House this Thursday, April 21 from 4-7 pm to see the in-process project and talk about the build. We'll surely have a Ft. George brew in hand.

Written by Jeff Rutherford, originally for HES.

Each day our editors will roundup our favorite sights and projects from Salone Milan Design Week. Today we look at highlights from some satellite shows in Brera, San Gregorio and Largo Isarco.

Bathhouse Luxury

The students of Creative Academy, the design school of the luxury goods group Richemont (their portfolio includes Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Piaget and Montblanc), presented a capsule collection based on wellness in the stunning setting of the Albergo Diurno-designed bathhouse located at the subway entrance of Piazza Oberdan. Working in collaboration with Italian artisans working in textiles, natural sponges and soap, the students designed an impressive array of spa ready goods including olive wood soap dispensers, horn-handled sea sponge shaving brushes and waffle weave cotton bath robes fit for the runway.

Vestae by Creative Academy, Albergo Diurno Venezia, Piazza Oberdan

The Nature of Motion

Nike's incredible installation celebrating the evolution of the Nike running shoe—from their technical and material innovations behind the flyknit to the origami-inspired soles debuting on the new Nike Free, Nature was an experiential exhibition in two parts. Housed in a warehouse space down the street from Fondazione Prada, the first space included seven projects that were inspired by the theme, "The Nature of Motion." Lindsey Adelman, Zaven, Martino Gamper, Greg Lynn, Bertjan Pot and Clara von Zweigbergk & Shane Schneck each interpreted the themes creating design objects that played with ideas of balance, human resilience and sound. 

The second half of the exhibition invited Nike's in-house designers to showcase how material inspiration can come from anywhere. At the intersection of craft and digital manufacturing, the design team at Nike imagined a future where materials could be reused and readapted through an installation where footwear emerged from rolls of paper, etched and gathered using origami techniques and 3D printing.

The Nature of Motion, via Orobia 15

Fat Furniture

Students from German design school HfG Karlsruhe present kkaarrllss, their 7th edition of limited-edition objects and prototypes from the product design program. Above, Anne Tonsmann's Fat Cabinet was inspired by the Finnish photographer Iiu Susiraja's self-portraits where she poses with various objects attached to or wedged between parts of her body. The "cabinet" stores objects between the soft fleshy foam folds on a steel frame.

kkaarrllss, Largo Claudio Treves 5

Color Theory

A decade ago, Vitra began collaborating with Dutch designer Hella Jongerius and what began as an exploration of color evolved into a rich Colour and Material Library that leverages Vitra's textile colection. At Casa Vitra, the vibrant rainbow was on full display—visitors could experience the inspiration and development of the library with color wheels executed on a grand scale using Vitra's iconic collection of seating, get their nails done in Virta colors at the polish bar, or experience domestic vignettes ranging from living rooms to garden seating.

CasaVitra, Spazio Edit, Via Pietro Maroncelli 14

Hotel Handmade

Wallpaper*'s annual design showcase pairing emerging designers with established brands focused on the luxury travel and hospitality space. This year's brands included a poetic light wall by BCXSY and Philips, a Future Facility electric toothbrush for Braun, and the lovely Ironing station by Vera & Kyte for La Cividina and Nya Nordiska textiles.

Wallpaper* Handmade, via San Gregorio 43

The Spectacle of Hay

Hosted at La Pelota, a former Milanese ball court in the middle of Brera, the Hay presentation was definitely a spectacle of sorts. On plinths, the Danish brand displayed new furniture from Doshi Levien (above), Stefan Diaz and Sebastian Wrong. In the sunken court, a maze of vignettes showcased Hay's full range of homewares ranging from stationary and writing implements to tableware, vases and clocks. Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec debuted their Palissade Collection of outdoor furniture in the courtyard of La Pelota.

Hay, La Pelota, via Palermo 10

OMA WIP

And what better way to end a week in Milan than a pilgrimmage to Fondazione Prada and the house that Rem built. The Swiss architect transformed the stark silhouettes of this former distillery on the outskirts of Milan into a temple of geometry, stillness and architectural wonder. The final piece of the art center is still under construction—a multi-story white box to house the permanent collection—but the mystery of the construction just adds to the beauty of the space.

Fondazione Prada, Largo Isarco 2.

With blow molding or injection molding, a single unit of molds will eject thousands of parts during a production run. In other words if you need 1,000 bottles or 1,000 caps, you don't cut 1,000 molds that each produce one part; there's no economy of scale there. So I was fascinated to see that the production of rubber and latex gloves has a 1:1 mold-to-part ratio per batch. Which is to say, every single glove in the batch requires its own mold.

That's because they're made via dip molding, a technique you'll recognize if you've ever seen candles being made. I thought this video of the technique would be boring, but it's actually quite interesting:

Also, I'm probably dating myself here but the footage of them test-inflating the gloves...

...reminded me a lot of Howie Mandel doing his original thing. (Millenials among you, this is what passed for standup comedy in the '80s.)

Finally, an aerial photography option for people who don't care about drones but do like throwing their equipment around! 

Do you go to interesting places and do fun things, but get bored with pictures of your friends and face taken from the same old angles? If so, Birdie is a fledgling design that might put some wind under your photographic wings. Birdie might be the very first badminton-based actioncam equipment to hit the internet, and its design is pretty fun.

Instead of a stick, a string, or a tiny helicopter, Birdie straps your GoPro Hero 3 or 4 into a projectile with the interactivity of a nerf football and the aerodynamics of certain winged sports equipment. Set your frame rate nice and high, grab the plastic spines to fling it upwards and let gravity drag it down camera first. Or just grip the head and toss it sportily to a friend for flattering No-Wait-I-Think-I-Got-It action portraits. 

Though your ability to throw and catch elegantly could impact the quality of your shot or footage, the ability to get a high-level view is intriguing. The bumper system seems to provide decent impact protection, and the materials add buoyancy that could make for fun shots when paired with a waterproof camera.

The designers also identify that a lot of our picture-taking potential lies in our personal lives. They suggest use at the beach, during hikes, and around other people-centric activities. Who knows, tossing the ol' camera with friends could add a more collaborative (or competitive) element to your standard selfie cycle.

While I can't say I've personally been hurting for overhead pictures of my squinting face, Birdie explores a fun niche within the existing GoPro and action photography world, and might spur some creative work in the right hands. 

The campaign is up on IndieGoGo now, and runs through mid-May 2016.

This is a couple weeks too late for April Fools, but I'm having a hard time believing this is real. Apparently Spanish mattress manufacturer Durmet has created Smarttress, a sensor-embedded mattress that can tell when people are having sex on it. "Smarttress sends an alert to your mobile phone whenever someone is using your bed in a questionable way," the company writes. As depicted, the Smarttress' "Lover Detection System" (I swear I'm not making this up) creates a disturbingly graphic 3D map of whatever lustful forces are being exerted on your mattress, then sends it to your smartphone:

Apparently Spain is, statistically speaking, a hotbed of extramarital naughtiness, and the mattress was designed to combat this:

The Smarttress, which will reportedly retail for around USD $1,700, is meant to be discreetly ordered online; presumably you sneak this into your home when your S.O. is out of the house, maybe working out at the gym with that really attractive personal trainer. Hopefully in a couple of weeks, you don't get a message like this:

Of course, the Smarttress isn't a perfect solution. If the company wants to stop all home-court adultery they'd have to branch out into other products, creating the Smartcouch, the Smarttable, the Smartkitchencounter, et cetera. The heart wants what the heart wants, folks.

So what do you think? Is this the latest viral marketing gag, or the real deal?

Ideal candidates have an understanding of the relative market, an eye for identifying volume styles and an ability to translate high-level inspiration into relevant designs and price points for mass-market retailers. Applicants should have 3+ years experience and the ability to design concepts and products for multiple brands and genders.

There are a rash of companies selling these handsome brass key hooks. A sort of low-tech carabiner alternative, they have a nice, classic look that signals their nautical provenance.

Those photos above are from Snake Bite Co., which sells them for 22 bucks, or $24 with the ring. They're made in the USA.

They appear to be made by Indiana-based foundry Standard Pattern, judging by these Instagram shots on Standard Pattern's Tumblr.

Curiously, Standard Pattern also sells the hooks themselves on Etsy, for a bit less ($20 including the ring):

Interestingly enough, in the same batch of Etsy photos--i.e., being sold as the same item--is a shot of what appears to be a slightly different design. You can see here it features an evergreen tree and the words "Norcross Co.":

On their own website, clothing and accessories company Norcross Co. sells their Brass Key Hook for $32.

So, I'm not sure what's going on there. I assume there's some kind of licensing agreement between the foundry and the two retailers.

An Alaska-based accessories company called Loyal Stricklin also sells such a hook, also made in the U.S.A and also for $32. I couldn't find any connection to Standard Pattern.

A Massachusetts-based company called Buckle Guy sells similar hooks, in a variety of finishes: Natural Brass, Antique Brass, Gunmetal, Nickel Plate and Nickel Matte. Compared to the others they are shockingly inexpensive, at prices ranging from $5.45 for the Natural Brass up to $7.97 for the Gunmetal.

Schoolhouse Electric & Supply Co. sells a Brass Keyhook for $40. The form appears slightly different from the ones seen above. They say theirs is made in the USA as well.

Etsy seller Gadreel Studio also makes a brass hook, though more heavily polished and with a slightly different eyelet detail, in two different sizes. I couldn't confirm the price because at press time they were closed for the Songkran Festival, a holiday in Thailand, where they're based.

Online retailer Rakuten sells this brass hook, reportedly made in Japan, for USD $31.55. I'm not sure why the photo says "High Quality Leather" without there being any leather in the photo, but that wouldn't be the strangest Japanese ad copy I've seen.

Another for sale on Rakuten, and also apparently made in Japan, is this rather sexy variant that sells for USD $18.73:

It may or may not be the same, but several years ago Sweden-based Nezumi Studios was selling this brass hook. They'd only say that these were "handmade in Japan by a craftsman [we] became friends with a while back." Sadly, it's since become discontinued:

In any case, brass hooks like these seem to be a "thing." There's an absolute rash of them on eBay (at prices so low as to make you suspicious of the manufacturing quality).

Game of Thrones' title sequence depicts a wonderful, whimsical world of shape-shifting structures and gloriously winding mechanical gears. That it then leads into some truly horrifying tales of murder, rape, incest, violence and betrayal is not the point. How about those nifty little buildings! The modelers among you are undoubtedly curious to take a closer look at them, and now you can—sort of.

HBO has released a 360 video of the sequence, and while you can rotate the camera and hit the pause button, you don't have any actual control over where the camera travels, only its angle. Still, it's kinda neat:

I found it a little difficult to navigate (haven't had the morning coffee yet) and often found myself inadvertently rotating the camera straight up. Including when the camera sweeps under the skirt-wearing "Colossus of Rhodes"-style statue spanning the bay entrance. I actually caught a glimpse of the statue's junk.

I was also interested to see that the continents are laid out inside of a globe, rather than on flat land. Modelers among you, do you suppose they did it that way purely for economy of motion on the camera's part?

This is the latest installment of our Core77 Questionnaire. Previously, we talked to Studio Job.

Name: Mauro Porcini

Occupation: Chief Design Officer, PepsiCo. I'm in charge of defining the brand design strategy and the innovation strategy of the company, by leveraging the mindset, the processes, and the tools of the design world.

Location: New York City

Current projects: We have many projects across three categories: beverage, food, and nutrition. We have projects active in any category from redesigning the brands in our portfolio, to designing experiences. For instance, we are finalizing Kola House which we're going to open in the next few months in Manhattan. It's about telling the kola nut story inside our product categories, and we're going to create a variety of different experiences that transcend the beverage world. Essentially facilitating a collision with the world of music, art, fashion, design and sport with a series of activations and programs—we're going to experiment. 

We had a space in Zona Tortona for Milan Design Week; we're a sponsor of the UEFA Champions League in Europe; we have a concept car collaboration with Fiat. These are just some of the activations. This is one of the most exciting parts of my role—the ability to access so many different worlds.

Pepsi's Mix It Up installation in Zona Tortona for Milan Design Week.

Mission: The corporate mission is leveraging design to grow our business. My primary mission, and the one that drives me no matter the company I work for, is creating moments of fun, pleasure, safety and comfort in people's lives. As designers we have this ability to create, to prototype. We are thinkers but also doers, so we have a lot of power within this big organization to reach millions of people. If we are all driven by the primary goal of creating something good for society, we have the ability to build a better world.

When did you decide that you wanted to be a designer?

My family is creative. My father is an architect and has been painting all his life, my grandfather worked in finance but also painted, and my mother's passion was literature. I was surrounded by art. I wanted to do something either in the arts or architecture world, or something humanistic like writing. I decided to start with architecture and the day before the exam, a high school friend called and told me they opened a new course called industrial design. For me, it was intriguing because it was something completely new.

If we are all driven by the primary goal of creating something good for society, we have the ability to build a better world.

So I started not really understanding what I was doing. I thought I was going to design industrial machines and I was like, Ok if I really don't like it, the second year I can switch to architecture. During the first few months I was like, Oh my god, this is what I always, always wanted to do. It was my dream job, but I didn't realize there was even a university to teach you something like this. I was lucky.

Education:

The Politecnico di Milano. I did also a year in Dublin at the National College of Art and Design. I started the year computers got introduced to the design world. The first two years we didn't use them, and by the third year we started to use very advanced computers. The fourth year I went to Dublin, and it was all very manual—we were sketching, making mock-ups. So for me it was a very interesting mix of experiences, from using the most advanced technologies in Milan, to almost craftsmanship in Dublin.

Rendering for Pepsi Prestige barware by Karim Rashid

Because it was the first year of the program, it was a mess. Up until this point, all the famous Italian designers studied either architecture or engineering. But for us it was really a mix. One course was semiotics; semiotics applied to design is really the study of the meaning of signs, from a graphic standpoint and from a 3D industrial standpoint. But our teacher was coming from literature, so he had no idea what semiotics meant in the design world. So I did my thesis for my semiotics class on the irony of Madame Bovary, just to give you an example.

It was so broad. But for me, it's been an amazing experience because it totally opened up my mind and prepared me to be a thought leader.

First design job:

When I was 18, my very first year in university, I met Stefano Marzano, the chief design officer of Philips at the time. I remember like it was yesterday. The passion Stefano had for innovation, for changing things. What he was doing as an Italian in a multinational corporation—it really inspired me. Ever since that day I started following Stefano, and I turned him into a mentor without him even knowing it. I used to write to him. Then we became friends, and peers. Long story short, I did my thesis with Philips and then I started working there one year after graduation.

What was your big break?

I have two mentors that really shaped my mindset and my way of thinking and working. One is Stefano—his passion for innovation, the way he was running design in this big corporation, and also the way he was thinking about the future. Not just designing stuff for tomorrow but really driving innovation. 

Stefano Marzano at Philips and Alessandro Medini for Alessi created a new design language for kitchen appliances in this collaboration between the two companies in 1994.

The other is Claudio Cecchetto, who is one of the most famous Italian producers of music. I met him when I was at Philips and he was working in the digital world. The guy is a talent scout, he sees a talent and he invests in it. He saw me and a couple of friends and asked us what we do. We told him we wanted to create a studio together, and he was like, Ok do it with me. A month later we were creating a company with him, and we worked together for 3 years. I was 24, and it was a dream for me to work with such a celebrity and with so many talented people. We were managing the image of famous people, mostly working on digital technologies. The idea of creating something that has endless value because it's totally new and no one's every done it before—that was his mantra. Every day was like this. And this is also what I took with me—everything I do needs to be innovative. Even if it's the tweak of a packaging or a brand, it needs to be something that nobody did before, or is adding value to the consumer. We always need to be driven by this kind of mindset.

My professional breakthrough?

3M S10 Projector designed by Pininfarina

Probably when I entered 3M. I was very young but entering a company like that, with the responsibility of managing design for the european business was a breakthrough. Then getting some projects right, like the redesign of the S10 Multimedia projectors that we did with Pininfarina. That really changed my trajectory, and put me in the position of reaching Chief Design Officer, first at 3M and now at PepsiCo.

Describe your workspace:

The office for me is something that's very important. Both at 3M and at PepsiCo I really pushed for creating a space for designers. The reason is that we need a space that inspires creative people. Not just designers, but marketing, R&D, everyone. A space that really facilitates connection and collaboration among people. One of the big problems of many corporations today is the unwillingness to take risk. So a space that by definition is already future-forward, that is already inspiring, can build confidence inside your organization that the ideas you're generating can be accepted by society.

At PepsiCo Design HQ in Manhattan. 

In Manhattan we have 40,000 square feet. We took a raw space and totally redesigned it. Keeping it open but with a variety of what we call project rooms, where we bring the projects to life. We dedicate the rooms to different important designers. The furniture—lights, tables, chairs—are designed by famous designers like Karim Rahid, Naoto Fukasawa and Philippe Starck.

What is your most important tool?

My phone. I have the big iPhone so I can look at things, and so I can write very easily. Essentially I'm connected 24/7. The phone is very important for me because I'm always on the go, always traveling. And then any pen that I can find, or any tool that I can use to sketch on any surface; it could be a napkin, a piece of paper.

Solar Power Cart enables vendors to deliver PepsiCo products and provide solar energy on the go.

How do you procrastinate?

The way I work is very blended with my life. I don't really have a working time—I can't say I start work at 9:00 a.m. and finish at 5:00 p.m. So even if I procrastinate, it doesn't feel like I am because I cannot divide work and life anymore. I do need time to focus and concentrate, which I'm very very effective at doing. I balance moments where I need to be by myself and think, with moments where instead I'm totally connected—I strongly believe in teamwork. There are moments where the procrastination is more about finding time for yourself even if people push to be with you.

What is your favorite productivity tip or trick?

Focus. I am very good at focusing. In an A.D.D. society I am the opposite. Focus is the most powerful trick that there is. For people that have a problem with focusing, they should know that they can improve the ability to focus. Any technique—hopefully not drugs—but techniques like mediation or other tools you can use to focus. Your productivity will just rise to the stars.

Lumio Lamp

What is the best-designed object in your home?

Lumio. It looks like a book and then you open it and it's a lamp. The beauty is that it's very intuitive. Essentially you can open this book completely, or just a little bit to regulate the spread of light. It's so, so simple—it's really design to the extreme. This idea that you don't need any explanation, any manual of instruction. You just open it and immediately you understand how it works. Design is also about magic, the surprise of something that you don't expect.

PepsiMoji

What is the most important quality in a designer?

Curiosity without any shadow of a doubt. It's curiosity that pushes you to read, to travel, to ask questions. One of the biggest challenges of designers, creative people, and innovators is really about understanding people and society, and always asking the right questions. So curiosity is really what drives you to be an ethnographer, an anthropologist, a researcher. That's the key characteristic.

What is the most widespread misunderstanding about design or designers?

That design is just styling. It's a typical problem that we find every time we try to build design in corporations. Everybody thinks, Oh wow, it's just styling on a product. Or that design is involved at the end of the innovation process. There is somebody driving the process—R&D, marketing usually, and then at the very end, well let's make it cute. Even for us as designers and the design community it's obvious to us that it's not like this, but still in society and in many corporations, design is thought of as pure styling. We need to get over that idea.

Gatorade's new tracking system helps athletes hydrate.

What is exciting you in design right now?

Because of the role of social media in society, we've essentially connected everybody in this never-ending flow of communication and conversation. Digital and web technologies are enabling essentially anybody that has an idea to get access to funding and local manufacturing. You no longer need the access of a big corporation to go to market and be successful. Because of this consumers are changing completely. They are much more savvy. While brands are now on stage 24/7. It's now important for brands to build stories that are authentic, and activations that are consistent across every touchpoint from the product to the packaging, to retailers, and events. Pepsi, for instance, needs to behave the same way when it's in the aisle at Walmart, as when it's in the hands of a model at fashion week in Milan. We need to be different but consistent.

Design and design leadership needs to play a completely different role than in the past. You need a very holistic approach. The world of industrial design, graphic design, interiors, digital, architectural, innovation, and strategy—they all blend together. A more holistic approach to design that society and business is requiring, equals beautiful opportunities for us. And a seat at the table in these big corporations —the ability to influence innovation from the very top. It's an opportunity and a challenge for our community.

With laser sintering, lasers are aimed at various points of a bed covered in powder, fusing the powder solid at the point of contact. Once a layer is completed, the bed drops, a new layer of powder is added, and the laser fuses the next layer. Rinse and repeat.

The Lasertec 65 3D machine takes a different approach, using what's called laser deposition welding. In this case the powder is sprayed out of the same nozzle housing the laser, and material is laid down, visually at least, in the manner of a typical fused deposition modeling 3D printer. The Lasertec 65 3D's manufacturer, German-Japanese company DMG Mori Seiki, reckons this is ten times faster than the powder bed method.

But that's not the crazy part. These engineering maniacs have outfitted the machine (which is five-axis, naturally) with milling capabilities. The toolchanger swaps out the laser for a variety of bits, giving you both additive and subtractive abilities:

This has huge implications for creating parts that were previously impossible, or at least prohibitively expensive, to manufacture. Imagine, for instance, that you needed to create a complicated, hollow metal part where the insides needed to be machined to precise tolerances. Whenever it's impossible to machine the inside of something, i.e. where it is impossible to insert a milling tool, the piece must be made in two pieces and joined together. But the Lasertec 65 3D could do it in one part, by laying down a few layers, switching heads, machining them smooth, switching heads, laying down more layers, et cetera.

The machine also provides a huge benefit for producing more simple parts that would typically be milled from stock: Reduced waste. Imagine machining, say, a spoked wheel out of a solid block of metal, and how much of that block is transformed into shavings. The Lasertec, in contrast, can simply spray down precisely as much as is needed to create the part.

Via Reddit

Title image by John Seymour.

Whether you've had a love of 3D rendering that spans decades or are new to creating product visuals, there's a sense of satisfaction and excitement that comes from creating photographic quality renderings and animations of 3D geometry. Maybe it's the challenge or maybe it's how one tool in particular makes getting results extremely fast. Luxion's KeyShot 6 is the tool of choice when it comes to product visualization and has the ability to generate that excitement and some very impressive results for those who use it to create their concept, design, engineering or marketing visuals.

A lot of people say they love KeyShot—we have over the years. There's likely a story in itself about why people would love a software program so much. Once we go over some of the features in the new version of KeyShot 6, you may understand that better. Each version has seen a lot of new features. Maybe too many to keep up with at times. People tend to use a software the same way after they get a process down. But software grows, KeyShot certainly has, so we're going to point out some of the new features in KeyShot 6 that you definitely need to add to your toolset along with some existing features you may not have known about.

Before we dive in, it's important to mention a couple of very important differences with KeyShot. At its core, KeyShot is real-time, CPU-based rendering. It's built around this. And since it's not a mode that you go in and out of, all the material changes, lighting, camera, animation and rendering all happens in real-time—you see what your final rendering is going to look like as you create it. Keep that in mind as we go through these features, as real-time viewing applies to them as well. KeyShot also has free plugins for a multitude of CAD and 3D software and support for more 3D formats than we ever knew existed. Here we go.

Interior Lighting

Each major version of KeyShot has had improvements to the interface to help speed along the rendering process. This is demonstrated best in KeyShot 6 with the addition of a new Lighting tab in the Project window that contains pre-configured lighting presets. Whereas before you set up your lighting for each scene, you now have six new lighting modes and the ability to create custom lighting modes that can be reused on other scenes. The lighting mode you want to pay attention to is 'Interior' mode. The KeyShot lighting algorithm was optimized around this for speed with complex interior scenes, and while it does that, it also makes a big difference with lighting product shots as well.

HDRI Editor

Now, if you are set on using only the HDRI lighting presets in KeyShot, the HDRI Editor in KeyShot Pro is an absolute must have. This takes you from searching for just the right HDRI environment to adding and editing lights or using the built-in Sun & Sky system. With the HDRI Editor open, you can select points on your model where you want to add highlights, adjust them, add blur, rotation, or color. The HDRI lighting can be used as your main light source or supplemented by dropping in a sphere or plane and setting it as a physical spot, area or IES light profile. And the lighting modes can be used right along with the HDRI environment you choose or physical lights you add. This interior by Sonos (below) is not only an example of how KeyShot handles interior spaces, but shows how product design shots can benefit from KeyShot's lighting as well. (Read how Sonos uses KeyShot here.)

Material Graph

If you look through the KeyShot 'Amazing Shots' forum and what has been created with KeyShot 6 on their dedicated Pinterest board, it's obvious there are a lot of changes in KeyShot 6. The beta testers and users jumped on this next feature with such fervor, it deserves to be among our major highlights. Magnus Skogsford said, "The material graph has really taken the software leaps ahead of its predecessors." And Designer, Eric Brock said, "I love the how the Material Graph allows such spontaneous creativity with immediate visual feedback."

You all know KeyShot has hundreds of material presets. What you may not know is that these materials are based on material types. You can edit any material you dragged onto your part (double-click any part) and see what material type it's made from. The material type is the foundation, on top of this you can add textures (image or procedural) and labels. With KeyShot 6, you get the Material Graph. This is an advanced material editor accessed from the Project window's Material tab.

Material Graph in Keyshot 6 helps visualize connections between material types and textures.

Now, the Material Graph opens in a separate window and displays materials, textures, labels and more as nodes (boxes with connectors) to visualize connections and relationships between material types and textures. While it might look complex, it's quite intuitive. To see how it works, open it and change some materials, add textures and apply labels as you normally would. You'll see it update and see how the connections work. With the Material Graph, the combinations of materials are unlimited. You can layer materials, modify their settings and even animate materials. Above is just one example by organic jewelry designer, Nacho Riesco, to illustrate how he set up the Material Graph and the type of affects you can achieve.

Sugar Skull by Nacho Riesco.

Materials on Labels

With the flexibility that the Material Graph brings to KeyShot Pro, it makes sense that new material capabilities would be seen for all version of the software as well. The ability to add materials on labels doesn't require the Material Graph, but is an incredibly powerful addition to KeyShot. Labels in KeyShot are really a way to layer texture maps and thier materials, with the labels acting as sort of a blended material. Whereas before, a label would look smooth when applied to a material with a rough texture, it can now take on the same rough properties of that material or even have a completely independent material applied to it. There's a really great example of this, with Martin Kamminga's Glenlivet Whiskey Bottle rendering. 

You can see the complete Material Graph breakdown and how he set up the labels here. As he describes it, he divided the elements of the label into different layers, so he could assign a different label material to each. The result is amazing.

Material Animation

From Materials on Labels we want to jump quickly into Material Animation, another feature in KeyShot Pro. Perhaps you have created visuals in the past that faded between different color configurations, had some parts fade out or displays different levels of texture possibilities. These are the types of renderings this tool is for, cutting out the huge amount of post work necessary to create visuals like that. There are two types of Material Animations that capture the options you would need, Color Fade and Number Fade. Color Fade controls material colors, while Number Fade controls material settings. Think of Color Fade as a transition between colors and Number Fade as a transition between settings you can control with numbers, like light power, roughness or scale. While these effects are put together using the KeyShot Animation Timeline and the Material Graph, you still see everything happen in real-time, whether it's adjusting the settings in the Material Graph Node or scrubbing the timeline of the Material Animation you just set up. I think the best way to demonstrate this is with a recent Quick Tip Luxion published, that explains all this feature does in about four minutes.

Geometry Editor

Now, we're sure you've opened a model to render, only to find the surfaces a split up or a chamfered edge or a face that needs to be a different material that the rest of the part. Before KeyShot 6 you would need to rework the model in the 3D modeling software, but with KeyShot 6 Pro, the new Geometry Editor lets you do that inside KeyShot. It happens through the new Geometry View—a secondary OpenGL viewport. This dockable viewport, which can be synced with the real-time viewport, does a bit more than provide a simple shaded view mode (and has a lot of space on the toolbar, perhaps for future functionality). This viewport is where you select the button to Edit Geometry. Here, you can select the faces you would like to split or merge. Once finished, materials can be applied as needed, without having to go back into the modeling software to modify the geometry. Though this is the first iteration of this tool, it already combines the ability to split surfaces, split objects, close meshes, edit normals, and view and edit camera paths—features that make it the best option for a streamlined rendering process. This example from designer Will Gibbons shows how he split out faces for a project he was working on.

There's a lot more to KeyShot 6—multi-layer PSD, Shift Lens, Scripting and responsive KeyShotVR (see below). We just touched on five features that demonstrate the ease and the power at the core of the real-time rendering software. We recommend looking over the What's New page and grabbing the guide to see everything included and how it works. One last important change to note is that KeyShot HD now includes unlimited real-time and output resolution, and KeyShot Pro now includes KeyShot Animation, both at no extra cost.

There's certainly something to be said for software that is useful enough to stand aside and let you work on the design, not on wrestling the interface or guessing at settings only to have to wait to see the results. The idea that a designer can dream up virtually anything and within hours have a 3D model and a photorealistic rendering is nothing short of mind boggling. Luxion has crafted awe-inspiring rendering capability with a user experience that makes the software disappear from the thought process altogether. It is, without question, a must have in the product development workflow.

Spring has sprung here in the Northern Hemisphere and we're fully embracing the emergence of the new—ideas, materials, projects and presentations. With all the buzz surrounding spring presentations, design weeks, conferences and the like, we thought this would be a perfect opportunity to chat with a select group of experts about sustainability practices driving innovation.

Join the Core77 editors (@core77) and Eastman Innovation Lab (@Eastman_EIL) for a lively discussion about how sustainability practices are driving innovation. We'll be joined by Nanette Stowell of @Patagonia, Heidrun Mumper-Drumm (@hmumperdrumm) of Art Center, Dawn Danby (@ecoworkshop) of Autodesk and Nathan Jones of Fluid Technology Solutions (@ftsh2o) who will share their thoughts on sustainnovation and material R+D for the future.

Thursday, February 18th at 1PM EST

From Patagonia's Worn Wear program, encourages repair as a radical act in a fast fashion market

Have questions about your own approach to sustainable innovation? Interested in learning more about sustainability and innovation practices in the world of business and design education? Send us your questions. 

Tweet us questions using the #EILConvos hashtag between now (and even during) the Twitter chat and we'll pick our favorites to ask this month's panel of experts. And join the conversation on Thursday! We look forward to chatting with you.