Remember the very first time you used the airbrush feature in Painter, Photoshop or SketchBook? It was a revelation, particularly if you'd ever messed around with a real airbrush; here you could get the same gradations without the hassle of dealing with the compressor, the endless masking and the non-erasable overspray.

The Kingspray Graffiti Simulator is even better, as it lets you virtually create spraypainted images on textured brick and the like without the hassle of getting arrested:

The attention paid to detail is brilliant. I love how you can see the spray leaving the can in bursts, and can get dripping if you hold the trigger down too long. I really hope that the actual app will also provide the sound of both the spraying and the marble hitting the inside of the can.

I don't mean this as a knock on anyone, but the images in the Kingspray gallery (created by beta testers) doesn't yet include any seriously Wild-Style-level burners. I'm eager to see how the gallery changes after the app is released, which should be on May 16th.

The Gramovox design philosophy is to reimagine vintage audio design with modern technology. After a successful Kickstarter campaign for their Bluetooth Gramophone, they sought to showcase the record as both art and a medium to produce analog sound. Gramovox, a fellow member of 1871 in Chicago, sought PDT's help in bringing this high-performance turntable that plays records vertically to fruition and it's now on Kickstarter, funded in less than 3 hours!

For the second year in a row, JONALDDUDD is back to disrupt a few commonly held perceptions regarding New York Design Week. Instead of the big fairs and showcases that define much of the design exhibition landscape, JONALDDUDD focuses on featuring emerging creatives who work in the interstitial territory between art and design—and are unafraid to offer a critical perspective on both disciplines through their exploratory, personal work.  

Coordinated by artist/designer trio Chris Held, Lydia Cambron, and Ben Garthus, the show this year features the work of 10 hybrid creatives whose practice uses the language of furniture and housewares to explore formal and conceptual innovations. We sat down with the three on the eve of the show's opening to find out more about their mission and ideas. 

Core77: Give us a little background about JONALDDUDD and how it started for readers who might not be familiar.

JONALDDUDD began in 2015 with its first exhibition as part of New York Design week. The show was conceived as a platform to showcase individuals working in art or design, but specifically those whose practices transcend the boundaries between art, design, and craft.

Quiet Riot by April Childers

Are there any specific themes or ideas running through this year's show?

The theme is always to bring together works of various intentions that, as a group, become an extremely diverse collection of objects and furniture along the spectrum of art/design/craft. The common thread is the variety in approach and material. We appreciate that the diversity and range of concept allow the works to comingle and overlap in presentation. By placing these works in close proximity on a unified foundation/backdrop, the divisions in context are stripped away, and viewers are able to make associations that might not otherwise be seen.

The Journey (Series 2) by Ying Chang, a series of ceramic works and shipping cases—ceramics were sent overseas in these metal shipping cases in order to create a truly one-of-a-kind surface finish for each piece. 

What can we expect to see at this year's JONALDDUDD Show?

Last year we featured the work of 28 artists/designers through open call and some solicitation. This year we selected 10 individuals/studios and invited them to show multiple works. Unlike last year, we sought to exhibit "collections" from each that represented larger bodies of work. Some of the exhibitors identify as designers, and some as artists, while others still lie somewhere in between. This year, as with last year, each exhibitor works with design and furniture––either as their primary subject, or as a point of departure. Our goal is to showcase the variety in practice and approach between individuals, in addition to the form and material diversity among the entire group.

A collaboration by Lighht and Mithras Candle

001 by Lighht

What do you hope JONALDDUDD will offer to the New York Design Week landscape?

The show offers a collection of work from individuals whose practices blur (or ignore) the traditional boundaries between art, design and craft. We've sought out individuals whose practices explore media and subject, but who are seemingly less influenced by commerce and trend driven constraints. Ideally, the show highlights this crossover territory by offering a democratic platform to artists using design language as well as designers exploring the more conceptual niches of their own practices.

JONALDDUDD will be open to the public on Friday, May 13th starting at 6:30 PM and on May 14th-15th by appointment only. 

Sight Unseen OFFSITE kicked off this Friday morning and is, as always, bold and full of fresh energy from young emerging designers. Presenting works from Sight Unseen mainstays along with a number of compelling newcomers, this designer fair for the hip and eccentric is sure to excite.

Here are just a few highlights from this morning's press presentation:

Lost in the Matrix

A staple for Sight Unseen OFFSITE, Print All Over Me presents a truly disorienting immersive installation this year in collaboration with Various Projects and Wallpaper Projects filled with grid-upholstered furniture and dot matrix wallpaper. 

Bathing in Sound

When entering the OFFSITE space, you are immediately thrown into the Twilight Zone with this installation by architecture studio Leong Leong in partnership with ARUP for Ford. The project, a "sound bath" made of thousands of foam rollers and mirrors, picksup surrounding sounds to create a contorted ambient soundscape and an illusory space meant to feel boundless. 

Shelves in Any Size

These ultra-cool shelves by Los Angeles based Norma Studio are a simple modular collection of red oak panels and dowels—the shelves are endlessly customizable so you can arrange them in multiple configurations and all the pieces connect using a simple threading system. 

The Beauty of Laminate

Designer Brooke Intrachat of LA-based Ouli design studio created a series of furniture pieces for OFFSITE using Arborite laminate—the collaboration between the small studio and the material manufacturer demonstrates the subdued beauty and versatility of the material, and is elegantly paired through the collection with exotic woods and powder-coated steel for dynamic effect. 

Inspired by Type

These exploratory furniture works by New York based designer Brendan Timmins are inspired by linguistic typology forms.

Psychedelic Ceramic 

Trippy works in wood and ceramic by Pat Kim and Julianne Ahn of Object & Totem. 

Shakers in the Modern Age

The pieces created for "Furnishing Utopia", a series of Shaker-inspired furniture and objects by 11 modern design studios, will also be on display throughout the weekend in the OFFSITE space. 

Sight Unseen OFFSITE is now open to the public through Monday, May 16th on the 15th Floor of The GRACE Building in Manhattan. 

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.

Smart Criminals Love Centralized Planning

I've had a newfound sense of logistical wonder for all the police helicopters buzzing over L.A. ever since reading Geoff Manaugh's excellent ride-alongstory about the air-support division of the LAPD. So I was excited to realize that the article was excerpted from Manaugh's recently released book A Burglar's Guide to the City, which takes an in-depth look at how architecture and urban design enable crime. (Pro tip: If you're being pursued by a police helicopter, head for the airport or an urban area dense with skyscrapers—both locations will interfere with the chopper's ability to navigate.)

—Rebecca Veit, columnist, Designing Women

Tool Storage vs. Tool Staging

Today I'm reading about Joe Laviolette's shop organization efforts. Woodworker Laviolette addresses an important question: Ought tools be "stored," or "staged?" The debate is relevant to a lot more than hand tools in a wood shop, and can be applied to virtually anything that needs to have an organizing system designed for it.

—Rain Noe, senior editor

Rebranding Anthropology Textbooks

A short post by 2011 Core77 Design Awards Design Education Jury Captain Dr. Dori Tunstall on a project which juxtaposes textbook art direction: "The aim of the Rebranding Anthropology Textbooks is to offer a critique not just in words, but in counter images that make stark the construction of identities and the owner/subjects of the anthropological gaze in anthropological photography."

—Eric Ludlum, editorial director

What It Means to be Chekhovian: Lively, Innovative, Experimental

Self-betterment often means putting yourself outside your comfort zone. Have you avoided reading Russian writers, thanks to their rap as ponderous and complicated and full of difficult names? You might want to take a crack at Anton Chekhov. As evidence, take the fact that his story "Dirty Tragedians and Leprous Playwrights" is set in the crater of an active volcano, and one of the characters is "a playwright who is on nodding terms with devils, whales, and crocodiles."

—Kat Bauman, contributing writer

The Unreal World

This photo essay gathers a diverse collection of images of things that appear to be real but aren't really—from scale models of the Egyptian pyramids at a Japanese theme park, dinosaur reproductions, wax figures and security drill setups. Seen together, the images reveal how inescapable simulations are in our modern world. 

—Alexandra Alexa, editorial assistant

Leather Backpack With Two-Way Straps and Brass Fittings

This one's a doozy. Here Jimmy DiResta uses an interesting technique to shape leather for a backpack, creates his own latching system out of brass, and designs the straps in such a way that they can be transformed from backpack-style to messenger-bag-style:

Carrying Tray with Locking Wooden Spring Latch

Matthias Wandel builds a serving tray/tote with a very clever handle design, taking advantage of the properties of wood in order to create a locking spring latch:

How to Glue Panels Up--Without Clamps

Izzy Swan is the master of creating inexpensive and effective shop jigs. First off this week, he shows you his clever, low-cost method for gluing up panels without having to buy/use clamps:

Easy-to-Make Wooden Clamps for Holding Workpieces Vertically

Secondly, Swan shows you how to build, out of cheap dimensional lumber, a quick-'n-dirty set of clamps for holding stock vertically on your workbench:

Installing a Shop Air System

April Wilkerson got tired of lugging her portable air compressor around her shop, and is upgrading with a 60-gallon unit that will be stored outside of the main room. Here she shows you how she installed the tubing and fixtures to get compressed air wherever she needs it:

Quick & Easy Lathe Tool Holders

This week Jay Bates, again with an assist from Matt Lane, bangs out a simple rack to hold his turning tools:

Make Your Own Exotic Wood Pencils

Super cool project from David Picciuto, who shows you how to make your own pencils. And handsome ones at that, as Picciuto uses exotic wood scraps. I'm also digging the little jig he creates to sand the hexagonal shape.

Efficient Kitchen Cabinet and Countertop Design

While Ana White's kitchen cabinets shown here are designed for her tiny house, there are a few tricks here that would be applicable to anyone looking to build an inexpensive and space-saving kitchen. She uses drawer slides that obviate the need for drawer sides, reducing construction time, finds a good way to use the space behind the toe kick, and creates an economical countertop with a drop-in that turns the sink area into usable space:

One Day Doc in Honor of Dr. Robert Clagett

Those of you who listen to the "Making It" podcast done by Bob Clagett, Jimmy DiResta and David Picciuto know that Clagett was recently called away to his hometown in Kentucky. Sadly, word had arrived that his ailing grandfather's time was nigh. Dr. Robert Clagett was a skilled maker in his own right from whom the younger Bob learned, and in an effort to honor him, Bob heads into his grandfather's shop to find a project he can work on:

Floating Shelves

Sandra Powell continues to impress with her DIY interior build-out skills. This time she builds floating shelves for a closet space with angled walls, and absent a helper, has to come up with some creative ways to get the bottoms affixed:

Sharpening Chisels

Here Linn from Darbin Orvar shows us (without narration) how she sharpens her chisels. No honing guides needed; Linn has learned to do it freehand, including putting on the microbevel that we can see in the later shots. Also gotta love that the first thing she does is scrape the manufacturer's name off of the handle:

Each day our editors will roundup our favorite sights and projects from New York Design Week. Today we cover Tribeca Design District, Sight Unseen OFFSITE and Maharam x RISD's STEAM Fellowship.

STEAMxDESIGN

Since 2012 Maharam has been funding summer internship opportunities for RISD students to use their design training to affect public policy initiatives around the world. The Maharam STEAM Fellowship in Applied Art and Design places students in governmental and non-profit organizations in the United States and abroad in organizations like the Mayo Clinic, US Department of State and World Economic Forum, encouraging young designers to consider design for social impact while "strengthen[ing] the role of visually acute critical thinkers and problem solvers in helping to tackle large social issues and improve public policy." On a rainy Friday afternoon Maharam celebrated five years of the Fellowship by inviting a group of recent fellows to share their projects, demonstrating the ways that even small drops of design can ripple out and have a transformative impact for both organizations and the communities they serve.

For more information about the Maharam STEAM Fellowship in Applied Art and Design.

All Pink Everything at Colony

For Tribeca Design Night, Colony Design Co-Op opened the airy space to present their Pink pop-up featuring works by the likes of artists and designers such as Hiroko Takeda, Meg Callahan and more. 

Check out the Pink Pop Up at Colony Co-Op, 324 Canal St. 

Object as Sculpture

Patrick Parrish Gallery in Tribeca hosted their curated exhibition of work by designers Pettersen & Hein (pictured above), Kasper Kjeldgaaard and Maria Brunn & Anne Dorthe Vester titled "If It's a Chair"—the show works around the grey around between art and design by "exploring what happens when art operates out of a functional parameter and design works as a mere sculptural presence in a room design". 

"If It's a Chair" runs at Patrick Parrish Gallery on 50 Lispenard Street through June 6th. 

Jose Zanine at R & Company

R & Company's Design Week exhibits presents a retrospective collection of works by Brazilian artist, designer and architect Jose Zanine. Originally working in architectural scale modelling and plywood production, his later years in life were dedicated to creating furniture and architectural works that promoted Brazilian forest conservation—whenever possible, Zanine would either create works from trees that had already fallen or would plant one tree for each one he used. 

Works by Jose Zanine at R & Company, 82 Franklin Street, runs through June 23rd. 

Just for Fun

JOIN Design's "Reflect" Exhibition

Work by Julie Thevenot

Aside from all of the beautiful functional objects at Sight Unseen OFFSITE, there were also some more indulgent must-see pieces within the scope of the show, like this amazing mini credenza (pictured above), part of Seattle-based JOIN Design's "Reflect" installation. Other standouts include artist Julie Thevenot's sculptural objects for the outdoors using what we might call "disco chainmail" (pictured left) as well as the mesmerizing display of many of Tetra's high-class smoking apparatuses (below). 

Sight Unseen runs through Monday, May 16th on the 15th Floor of the Grace Building, 1114 Ave. of the Americas. 

Pipe for Tetra Shop

Each day our editors will roundup our favorite sights and projects from New York Design Week. Today we cover ICFF, designjunction + Dwell on Design, Wanted Manhattan and NYCxSKYMALL.

Spotlight on Steven Haulenbeek

This year's American Design Honors recipient (the award was launched last year and is intended to highlight the work of a promising young American designer/entrepreneur) at WantedDesign is Chicago-based designer Steven Haulenbeek. The experimental, interdisciplinary work of his studio is showcased through old and new projects, including his Ice Cast Bronze work—a unique process he developed that carves bronze using ice molds—alongside more recent work in resin.

WantedDesign Manhattan is on view through May 16, 2016.

Playing With Tradition

Montreal-based studio Dear Human showed diverse works, all made using 100% recycled  paper. The quirky product designs are often inspired by folk furniture, like the milking stool (shown above on the left) which draws on a form of traditional three-legged stools they encountered at an ethnographic museum in Belgrade. On the wall, patterns and colors combine to form a subway-tile inspired panel system.

WantedDesign Manhattan is on view through May 16, 2016.

Feelin' Mellow

At ICFF this year, Bernhardt debuted the Mellow sofa by Océane Delain—and after testing it out we can say that it is among the most comfortable seats we've ever come across. Made of layered memory foam, the ingenious design features a network of cords that can be activated (see detail below the seat) to customize the firmness of the seating surface. Also on view is the results of a collaboration with ArtCenter College of Art students who were asked to design furniture for adaptable work environments. The result is a playful, clever system of modular soft pieces that can double as seats or tables as well as a set of acoustic dividers that are sleek and abstract enough to look like minimal art pieces. 

ICFF is on view at the Jacob Javits Center through May 17, 2016. 

Sculptural Light

Haberdashery's beautiful Leaf lighting canopy is a delicate, customizable system animated by leaves made out of bone china. The sculptural piece really blurs the line between art and design and casts beautiful shadows below. 

designjunction + Dwell on Design is on view through May 15, 2016. 

tktk

The designers behind Wintercheck Factory, Kristen Wentrecek and Andrew Zebulon Williams, invited 20 of their favorite design studios to participate in a pop-up exhibition exploring design concepts for problems that don't exist. Learn more about the show in our interview with the duo. 

NYCxSKYMALL is on view through May 14, 2016. 

Each day our editors roundup our favorite sights and projects from New York Design Week. Today we cover a few standout student projects from ICFF and WANTED Brooklyn.

KITCHEN 2.0

Ana Arana's "Gali" kitchen is a response to the compact living spaces of urban nomads. This tiny, self-contained kitchen island packs all the bells and whistles of more traditional kitchens—food storage, prep and disposal—but can transform into an unassuming piece of architectural furniture when not in use.

ICFF Studio: Bernhardt Design, ICFF, Jacob Javits Convention Center. Through May 17.

Contain Yourself

In collaboration with the Container Store, Kikkerland hosted a design challenge for RISD students to design a new product to address one of three trends identified by the Container Store: Connected Home, Healthy Food or the "Celebrity Effect." The winning design from Jieying Ni addressed a huge organizational issue—cable management–with an innovative design that not only cradles a power strip, but allows users to wrap multiple cables for the most efficient (and tangle-proof) solution. Cable Loft is now being sold nationwide at Container Stores.

Kikkerland, ICFF, Jacob Javits Convention Center. Through May 17.

Poppin' Office

Office supplier Poppin teamed up with RIT's School of Design industry partnership program, the Metaproject, to prototype new ideas for the contemporary office. From Jordan Stemper's Connect Four-inspired desk divider to Evan Cicotta's "High Rise" hanging organizer, the students created a comprehensive offering for modern work life by infusing a bit of fun and play into the daily grind.

RIT Metaproject, ICFF, Jacob Javits Convention Center. Through May 17.

Playtime

When we popped into the Wanted's Design School Workshop this morning the students were busy putting the finishing touches on their afternoon presentation for the judges. Read more about the theme of this year's workshop, Playtime, in our interview with the Workshop lead Matt Sindall of ENSCI and we look forward to seeing the final proposals this afternoon!

Wanted Brooklyn, Industry City, 274 36th Street, Brooklyn. Through May 17.

Fashion Forward

Part of Design & Flow's presentation of design projects that address challenges for refugees and migrants, Parsons fashion student Maria Jahnkoy creates strikingly contemporary sportswear with upcycled materials like plastic bags woven using traditional craft techniques. 

Wanted Brooklyn, Industry City, 274 36th Street, Brooklyn. Through May 17.

Parallel Times

If today's news cycle doesn't scare you perhaps SVA's Products of Design's newspaper might. For Design Week the MFA students produced future advertisements and news stories from a dystopian future promoting products like Natsuki Hayashi's end of life "cocktail kit" for assisted suicide, Jon Lung's AlphaKIT survival kit and Roya Ramezani's feminist Express Keyboard (above) to leverage the fine motor skills of women, a product that can help close the gender gap in tech.

Wanted Brooklyn, Industry City, 274 36th Street, Brooklyn. Through May 17.

When I moved to Japan in the '90s, the whole country was so hi-tech I felt like I was living in the future. Except for one thing: No one in my entire town owned a clothes dryer. My apartment came with a washing machine…and a bunch of rope and clothespins. My neighbor explained to me that since electricity in Japan was so expensive, no one used dryers when clothespins and patience could achieve the same results for free.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory also realize that clothes dryers are energy hogs, and this week they released a video showing a much more efficient solution they're working on. Rather than using lots of electricity to create heat to evaporate the water, they use a little electricity to create sound. Specifically, ultrasound, using an amplifier. Aimed at wet clothes, the ultrasonic waves essentially shake the water droplets right out of them, enabling them to dry a wet rag in just 14 seconds!

What I found especially interesting was their inspiration for the solution. Last week we Tweeted the following photo (in frustration that we could not determine who created it), and its message is apt here.

That the researchers drew the connection between drying clothes and creating humid air obviously required them to be aware of what exists in the greater world outside of their laboratory. As with the architect who loved skiing, I think it's important for creators to have a broad range of interests, and to often look outside of their own fields of expertise, in order to create new solutions.

Candidate must understand all platforms of packaging: window box, closed box, blister packs, “try me” packaging. They'll design packaging for a wide variety of kitchen products, so they must have a thorough knowledge and understanding of print processes and have knowledge of all Adobe programs. Minimum of 5 years experience!

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

Brazilian design firm Estudio Campana is known for their imaginative use of everyday and discarded objects and expressive forms. One of the two founding brothers, Humberto Campana, will be discussing the studio's work with Caroline Baumann, director of the Cooper Hewitt during the museum's latest iteration of the Design By Hand lecture series. 

New York, NY. May 16, 2016 at 6:30 PM. 

Or, head downtown instead and join Core77 contributor Bryn Smith and design writer (and Core77 Design Award winner!) Aileen Kwun for a panel discussion about their new book, Twenty Over Eighty. Panelists will include Seymour Chwast, Jack Lenor Larsen and Jane Thompson, who will delve into their personal career trajectories as well as talk about the evolving state of design in New York City. 

New York, NY. May 16, 2016 at 7 PM. 

Tuesday

Learn about traditional Japanese woodworking techniques, get advice on tools (or even buy a new blade for your Japanese saw) or simply enjoy a cup of tea and chat during Mokuchi's Open Studio Evening. 

Brooklyn, NY. May 17, 2016 at 6:30 PM. 

Wednesday

Writer Geoff Manaugh celebrates the launch of his new book, A Burglar's Guide to the City with a discussion of his research into urban planning and heists throughout history, to uncover the techniques used by burglar's to outwit the designed environment and get what they want. 

Washington DC. May 18, 2016 at 6 PM. 

Thursday

Join art historian and curator Barry Bergdoll and architect and professor Joel Sanders for a discussion about the legacy of Artek and Finnish Design. In conjunction with the exhibition Artek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern World, the focus of the talk will be on the Aaltos, exploring their pioneering multi-disciplinary practice and how it blurred the lines between art, architecture and landscape. 

New York, NY. May 19, 2016 at 6:30 PM. 

Friday

Don't miss your chance to submit proposals to the What Design Can Do Refugee Challenge, due this Thursday! Run by the UN Refugee Agency and the IKEA Foundation, the competition asks designers to imagine how design can help cities and refugees adapt to each other by responding to one of five possible briefs: (1) designing to improve shelters and reception centers, (2) fostering personal development for those waiting for asylum, (3) finding a way to allow refugees and host communities to build stronger connections, (4) improving the way essential information is communicated to refugees or (5) developing ways to tap into the existing skills of refugees to maximize their potential contributions to the host country. 

The call for ideas is accepting submissions through May 20, 2016.

Saturday/Sunday

Tauba Auerbach, ZS Letters (3D) (detail), 2015

One of the inaugural exhibitions at the newly renovated SFMOMA, Typeface to Interface presents a selection of works from the museum's permanent collection of graphic design, highlighting the shift from analog to digital in visual communication through works that represent everything from advertising campaigns to more artistic, conceptual experiments. 

San Francisco, CA. On view through October 23, 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.

This week in stuff-you-could-make-yourself-but-won't news: the FormBox tabletop vacuum former just went supernova on Kickstarter by spelling out its potentially hip and profitable uses. Vacuum forming isn't new, it isn't hard, and it isn't expensive, but it is a path into small scale manufacture that many new entrepreneurs haven't encountered.

The FormBox campaign offers a quick introduction to what a sheet of hot plastic can do... that 3D printing can't. Among their proposed uses are custom molds for chocolate, geometric terrarium lids, concrete cacti planters, and what appears to be either loose architectural modeling or really bad tabletop RPG tiles.

If you've messed with forming and molding personally, this looks pretty straightforward. But for those without personal vacuum forming experience, the idea of a super fast method for producing formed parts can be shocking. It lacks the internal walls and resolution of 3D printing, but it can be a fantastically easy tool for prototyping, creating small parts, or developing molds for secondary products. 

As such, the FormBox was developed to fit the "modern maker" niche of new designers who might be tech-savvy but manufacturing-limited. The product is small, easy to use and powered by a household vacuum cleaner. But it is also aimed at multi-mode users, with its Mayku online library of projects and instructions, where users can show off their work to share or sell. (Like a Shapeways platform for manual reproduction.) 

They anticipate that a cool 3D printed design, once printed, might be more replicable, scalable and sellable if combined with quick forming. 

The tools of the last decade totally changed small "maker" business, between online platforms like Etsy and Instructables, and tech like 3D printing and ShopBots. These digital and mechanical tools have aligned to make makerism increasingly visible and achievable to people without formal training, and it's led to the individual-scaling of a lot of processes. 

While this has all democratized certain elements of design and production, it simplifies the products too. The FormBox team explicitly mentions their goal of making both products and tools simpler and simpler, and at least in this case they seem to be achieving it. There are already small forming tools on the market, and enough DIY vacuum forming plans and projects online to fill dozens of Instructables pages, but this standalone tool hit a nerve. 

Can you imagine professional uses for desktop vacuum forming? Are there other types of tools you've wished for on a personal scale?

When Polaroid announced the end of instant film back in 2008, the Impossible Project took up the task of breathing new life into instant film photography. After stepping in to buy the last remaining Polaroid factory only days before it shut its doors, the company has been committed to reinventing instant film, bringing back a range of older models with a modern twist.

Their latest effort is no exception. This time around, Impossible Project teamed up with Teenage Engineering to design a brand-new camera from scratch. Released earlier this month and now available for pre-order, the I-1 is an analog, instant camera with app-enabled controls built specifically for today's needs.

"We've always supported vintage Polaroid cameras with new instant film," says Oskar Smolokowski, CEO of Impossible Project. "But to ensure a future for the medium, we wanted to make a new camera—one entirely designed with current realities in mind. We wanted to preserve the magic of a fully analog camera, but use the advances and technologies of 2016 to give it more features." 

Looking to the current state of photography and the convenience of cellphones that come fully-equipped with 4k, 12-megapixel cameras, Smolokowski knew he wanted to make a camera that could tap into existing technologies and compete with products already on the market. "Photography is a form of expression that's very strongly tied with technology," Smolokowski says. "When smartphones with great cameras came along, they really changed the landscape of photography, making it more accessible than ever. We wanted our camera to be conscious of this new connected world, and we needed to be relevant for today's consumer."

To achieve this, Smolokowski collaborated with Jesper Kouthoofd, CEO and co-founder of Teenage Engineering, to bring the camera to reality. Smolokowski got in touch with Kouthoofd in 2013, after he reached out via customer support about creating film that could store music files within photos. Kouthoofd wrote back personally the next day. "I went to Stockholm the following weekend and we started brainstorming about getting this musical instant photo working, but somehow we got to talking about cameras," Smolokowski says. "And here we are, 3 years later."

The team wanted to reimagine the instant camera, in a way that would be compatible with many of the digital technologies we use today. The I-1's app integration and Bluetooth connectivity allows users to control the settings of their shot (no previews) to produce one, unique instant photo. Although the I-1 doesn't produce a digital file, it combines the analog nature of taking an instant photo with the precision and control of digital settings, allowing users to experiment with light painting, double exposure and more.

"Manual control in the app is a particular favorite of mine, which is the more advanced photographic feature we have in there," Smolokowski says. "I love setting up a tripod and a scene and just getting that full control of the shot. If I want blur I'll put on a longer exposure, if I want shallow depth of field I'll get the aperture open. Everything is possible and you can be sure it will work."

Working with the team at Teenage Engineering, Smolokowski began with a few sketches, but the majority of the work was done directly in CAD, allowing for quick prototyping and rounds of feedback. "Jesper wanted to completely redesign the classic Polaroid model rather than follow the traditional instant camera cues," Smolokowski says. "All the connections to the vintage Polaroid cameras are purely functional."

The camera's form is derived from the amount of space needed to take in light coming through the lens, focus it on the film plane and process the photo coming out of the camera. "It's the most minimal shape following the light path," Smolokowski says. For the I-1, the joint design teams had to be able to fit a mirror at a perfect 45 degree angle, a constraint which, along with the film processing unit on the bottom, formally ties the I-1 back to Polaroid cameras of the past.

Where the camera deviates a bit from Polaroid cameras of yore is with its circular flash, a distinct design element of the I-1. "The ring flash is known for creating great portrait light, and that was a big focus while designing the camera," Smolokowski says. "Most Polaroid cameras can't get close enough for portraits (limit is 3-4 feet on most models), so we wanted to completely get rid of this limitation in this new camera. You can go as close as 1 foot [from the subject]."

Inside the I-1 are a series of complex, moving parts including precise stepper motors, a DC motor, carbonfeather shutter blades, a mirror, a lens disk with 5 different lenses on it, 7 different PCB's and surgically precise stainless steel rollers—just to name a few.

Assembly for each I-1 begins with the subassembly of the shutter, attaching the two stepper motors that control the motion of the shutter blades and the autofocus disk, powered on to be perfectly timed when the shutter blades are placed. Sensors that sense the position of the shutter and the autofocus disk are then mounted in place before the shutter is closed with blades inside. The focusing lens disk is then pressed on with a pin and washer to allow for the ideal level of play in the system.

Upon pressing the shutter button, the shutter opens, allowing light to enter the camera via the lens. That light is then focused onto a mirror in the back of the camera that bounces it down into a strip of Impossible I-type or 600 type film containing layers of light-sensitive chemicals. "The light cone starts by attaching the first surface mirror to the plastic molding, at a 45 degree angle," Smolokowski says. "Precision is important." The initial shutter subassembly is then mounted, and a light baffle is placed on top to seal the assembly from unwanted light.

Next is the film processing unit itself, a complicated gear train of 7 gears, assembled to transmit the power of the DC motor to the rollers at the right speed—one of the biggest challenges of the project. "The spreading system—getting the camera to evenly spread the paste that is located at the bottom of each photo is particularly hard—the whole thing has to be surgically precise," Smolokowski says. As light hits, the image is exposed and ejected through rollers, which break up developer paste pods in the base of the photo frame. One of the gears pulls what is called the 'picker' along with it, pulling the photo into the rollers and kicking off the spreading process that starts a chemical chain reaction to develop the instant photo and shields it from light.

Twenty years after the original instant format, the I-1 is making its debut, available online from Impossible Project for $349.99, or through the MoMA Design store for $299.00.

Contemporary luxury is about more than a price tag—Talma is a breakthrough product for Italian luxury furniture brand Moroso that offers an entry-level armchair to appeal to a new consumer demographic. The innovative upholstery technique reduces the supply chain and production costs and delivers a sustainable cradle-to-grave product that exemplifies luxury.

To celebrate the U.S. debut of Lattice, a kilim rug designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Nanimarquina, Core77 spoke with Ronan about the role of design week presentations starting with the importance of the Salone del Mobile in Milan to the balance of craft and industry.

Lattice kilim rug by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Nanimarquina.

Core77: When was the first time you showed in Milan?

Ronan Bouroullec: It's terrible because it was more than 20 years ago. I'm 44 now and this was our 23rd Milan fair. So for 23 years I've been attending the fair. At the beginning I came as a student and then began to show a few years after. The first show was for Cappellini. We had some small objects for Cappellini but it was so incredible. At the time, Cappelini was the most interesting company to work with, it was like a young African soccer player coming to play for AC Milan or Real Madrid, like being taken out of the countryside and going to Milan.

Erwan (left) and Ronan (right) Bouroullec

What did it mean for you to show during Design Week then and what does it mean now, 20-odd years later?

It was marvelous during that period. There was a big difference during this period because the Salone del Mobile was in the city—all the companies were showing in the city and the fairground was quite near. There was more of a connection between the city and it was probably more romantic during this period—less people. It was a bit slower but the speed of the world has changed and the fair is a reflection of this situation and translates that.

What is quite interesting is that Milan has always been a sort of picture of what the design world is doing—from students to established companies to new companies arriving, the map is always moving and changing. The amount of energy to build all that and the number of people working for the fair is incredible.

I like the atmosphere of being surrounded by so many designers and so many people—it's very very specific. I don't like meting designers during the rest of the year but during this period it's quite nice. It's also a competitive discipline so it's quite nice to see new things. I like competition in certain ways.

Your new rug with Nanimarquina is a contemporary approach to a very traditional technique. Tell us about the process of designing the piece:

Samsung's Serif TV designed by the Bouroullecs.

Our work is quite large, from very industrial things like the television for Samsung to furniture. For Nanimarquina, it is a very specific technique we work with. I like kilim, which is a very old technique that hasn't changed for centuries. And I was quite interested in developing some carpets and Nanimarquina is a good platform for that. I like that each carpet is different, it's very craft-driven. I think the world needs a mix between very machined oriented projects that can afford a certain price and perfection, but at the same time you need the opposite, the vibration of something that is not exactly a line, to experience the vibration of colors.

It's subtle here. We did two carpets for Nanimarquina, the Losanges carpet that was quite brutal—I like that project a lot—and the Lattice carpet is more delicate. For both projects there was a mix between the motif and the way of cutting the perimeter of the carpet. So there is the bond and the line so you can cut it at different levels. The idea with this system is to have many different variations. The same with Losanges, it was designed so you can cut it in many different ways, it is almost always beautiful regardless of what size you decide on for the carpet.

The Losanges rug designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Nanimarquina

And this is the danger as well. Similar to when you blow glass, for example, it's a marvelous process and a piece of glass is nice by itself. But to do something that is higher than just a good thing, it is more complicated. 

As a system and a final product, it's quite lovely and very poetic.

There is something quite common [about Lattice] in a certain way, but I think it has a good level, I'm quite happy.

You can see more from Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec at the Vitra and Axor Showroom including Lattice for Nanimarquina, the Axor Bouroullec collection inspired by, "imagination, interaction and individual expression," along with the US Launch of Artek's Kaari Collection, the first collaboration between the Bouroullecs with the Finnish design company. 

Vitra & Axor Showroom, 29 Ninth Avenue. Through May 17.

Expanding foam insulation is amazing stuff for sealing gaps. The hazard is that it can, as it expands, distort the door or window frame you're trying to seal, which is why they sell low-pressure, low-expansion variants for that application.

Moving in the other direction is an expanding foam called PolyLevel. The stuff is designed to intentionally move whatever's adjacent to the gap it's being sprayed into. Specifically, heavy concrete slabs that have settled over time and are in need of raising. The following video shows how dramatically effective this is. (Warning, turn down your speakers if you're in an office environment.

As designers, we ought be curious about how the world around us is constructed—and how materials can fail over time. To learn about how concrete slabs can fail, check out this video:

Via The Awesomer

Minimalist, hardcore campers among you might scoff, but it's a lot of fun to see a walk-through of a luxury camping tent. A significant amount of thought went into Danish company Outwell's Tennessee 5 tent, which boasts panoramic windows, adjustable shades, a dining room and the ability to withstand 55-mile-per-hour winds while you dine on braised pheasant inside:

The only part about it that seems weird to me is having to travel around with those two mannequins. They seem like they'd take up a lot of space, and I'd be creeped out if I had to share a sleeping bag with one. (On the plus side, they don't snore or need to be fed.)

Alas, it appears the Tennessee 5 was not a popular model, as it was eventually discontinued. But Outwell itself is still going strong, and you can see their massive selection of tent designs here.

The two-wheeled "hoverboard" trend appears to be over, at least in NYC. Last year they were a common sight on sidewalks here, but the whole spontaneously-bursting-into-flames thing appears to have hurt sales, and I haven't seen one in months. Perhaps the MovPak will be the next trend in alternative personal transportation:

The 17-pound MovPak will carry a 240-pound person, or at least that's what the developers recommend as the maximum weight capacity. The range is 10 miles, presumably helped along by the regenerative braking. The lithium-ion batteries reach full charge with two hours of plug-in time.

Seventeen pounds sounds like a lot to carry on your back before you've even loaded it (unless you're one of these guys), so it's clever that they've designed it to be rolled around like a carry-on bag. The developers are claiming that the bag has ample storage space alongside the board and motor…

…though the amount of call-outs they're using does make you feel a bit suspicious, like a blind date reciting their entire resume:

Nevertheless, 150-plus IndieGogo backers have no doubt that this is a good solution, and at press time they'd received $103,510 in funding on a $50,000 goal. The $599 object is projected to ship in September of this year, and there's still a month left to pledge.

(One caveat: The MovPak was developed in sunny Florida, and those of you that live in Oregon are S.O.L.; read the fine print and you'll see the MovPak cannot be ridden in rain or where there is water on the ground.)

American black walnut is a wood that's prized by many. It's relatively stable, easy on the eyes and has that beautiful chocolate-y color that looks so good that I sometimes want to eat it. 

It's no surprise that it's become the go-to wood for many a furniture designer, and Shannon Rogers, the man behind our latest Introduction to Wood Species series, reports that recently boatbuilders have even been using it to replace teak for interior trimwork. (While pricey, walnut is still cheaper than teak.)

Like many wood species, walnut is susceptible to bugs. Certain types of bugs like to burrow into trees, eating the sugary goodness inside and laying eggs. 

This can be disastrous when said bugs are carrying disruptive payloads. Walnut is susceptible to an ailment bearing the attractive name of Thousand Cankers Disease, or TCD, which can be spread when Walnut Twig Beetles have picked up a dusting of spores from a fungus called Geosmithia Morbida. As the beetles burrow into the tree, they thoughtfully carry the spores inside with them. The fungus then begins colonizing the tree, disrupting its natural internal processes.

The result is that the tree starts developing cankers, and since the disease is not called Dozen Cankers Disease, you can probably do the math.

Until recently TCD was, like the Kardashians, just a west coast problem. But sometime around the 1990s the disease began to spread—theories suggest it was from wood or firewood containing the beetles being transported interstate—and by the 2000s was present in California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. This is where we were at in 2009:

Then, in 2010, the disease popped up as far east as Tennessee. (Some reports say 2011 was the year of the Tennessee outbreak, but the date on this video suggests otherwise.) By 2015, here's how far the disease had spread:

As you can see by the image credit, yes, there's a website called ThousandCankers.com. Bet you URL squatters didn't think of buying that one up.

The map reveals that Core77's New York headquarters (which is admittedly not located within a copse of walnut trees) hasn't yet been hit, but TCD "could come into New York at any time," Karen Snover-Clift, Director of Cornell University's Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic, told Syracuse.com. "If it can survive in Pennsylvania, I'm sure it can survive in areas of New York." While TCD has not been detected to date in New York State, which does in fact have walnut trees, Snover-Clift points out that the disease can take ten years to manifest, so it is possible that it's already present but undetected.

So what does this all mean for those of us that work with wood? Is it panic time, will buyers start making a run on walnut? Rogers, for his part, isn't worried—and that's a good thing, as he sells wood for a living. (Rogers is Marketing Director at lumber supplier J. Gibson McIlvain.)

"[TCD] hasn't been an issue with any of our suppliers," Rogers says. "Plus we're talking about walnut, which is already a high-defect species. Because it's such a gnarly tree, walnut doesn't deliver as high of a yield per log as, say, maple or oak, so it's already expensive. It's premium enough that as long as that demand stays where it is, price will always be the controller."

The bottom line is, it's hard for us to gauge what the impact is without being able to study hard numbers, which are not currently available, at least not in a place that we can find and access. We know that there have been walnut "die-offs" associated with the Walnut Twig Beetle and TCD in the past twenty years in the aforementioned western states and Tennessee, but without seeing percentages over time versus the total amount of trees, it's tough to draw conclusions or make forecasts.

If TCD does start to make a numerical impact on the supply of black walnut, perhaps that would be Mother Nature telling woodworkers to switch to something else. Interestingly enough Arizona walnut, a/k/a Juglans Major, is completely immune to TCD, according to Ohio State University's College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Unfortunately, those 50-foot trees are not the 100-foot black walnut, a/k/a Juglans Nigra, that we use for timber (though it's just as pretty, as you can see below).

Sadly, the type of walnut most susceptible to TCD is in fact Juglans Nigra, according to the University of Arkansas' Division of Agriculture. So we'll have to hope for the best. As OSU points out, "There are no known effective treatments for trees affected by TCD. As a result, management efforts focus on disease prevention and sanitation."