There are a lot of spots in life where adhesive is helpful, and Fixate is adding a bit more brawn to the normal sticky options. These reusable adhesive pads are designed to adhere to a wide range of surfaces and hold objects up to a few pounds. This opens up many uses not possible with double sided tape or wall putty. 

While they'd be right at home in SkyMall, their functionality seems serious. The formula doesn't appear to leave residue or require suction, and the two shapes offer a surprising breadth of possibilities. A secure skateboard cam? I'm intrigued.

Fixate isn't the first to put this idea out there, but they're the first to make the concept a smash hit. When compared against very similar products (like these), the key differences are minor but meaningful. I'd argue that the most important factors are the shape and color of Fixate's pads: the slim profile and subtle molding makes them feel more intentionally formed and easily moved, while the dark tone hides inevitable dirt and fuzz. 

Real beer fans know this struggle

The ability to hang weightier framed art is a boon, and the idea of sticking up tech is interesting. I might not slap my iPad directly above a gas range as suggested in the video, but I wouldn't mind having it above the work table in my delicate-walled apartment, or next to the tub during a soak. Mounting speakers and other more permanent accoutrements seems like an even better use. 

Romantic

The current Kickstarter pricing starts at $7 AUD (~$5 USD) for one of each shape, with greater savings as you buy in bulk. 

I'd be interested in how they're affected by climate and how well the renewable "stick" really lasts. I want to believe, but if they're anything like these I could wind up with a broken heart... and a broken phone.

Perfection is overrated. In a world of mass production and assembly lines automated down to the smallest rote task, discovering imperfections or mistakes can feel refreshing.

It's those imperfections that Camilla Wedelboe Monsrud is interested in exploring, and what set the groundwork for Inside Out, a series of objects that reconsider errors as sources of unexpected potential and celebrate what can come out of vulnerability, instead of viewing it merely as a weakness. The final works were displayed as part of RE F O R M, a biannual exhibition in Denmark that invites practicing artists, designers and studios to experiment and explore a range of processes and techniques.

Working with people diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in a series of workshops, Monsrud challenged her collaborators to draw a straight line. "The project is about daring to show your weaknesses and incapabilities, when hands are shaking, resisting or moving slowly," Monsrud says. "It is about breaking down taboos. For me as a designer, my assignment is to change these irregularities from being errors to becoming a source of visual potential by using them in a specific furniture design."

The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts graduate took the sketches her collaborators generated and translated them into three distinct ottomans, each symbolizing a specific expression of the drawn lines using foam, paper yarn, wool yarn, concrete, wax, hide and textiles.

"The poufs relate in size in terms of the human body," Monsrud says. "In this project I have worked with making the material the detail and the detail the material." Each ottoman's shape is based on an extruded circle, resulting in a cylinder—a shape that fascinates Monsrud. Finding the right aesthetic proportions to match the function defined the size for each, which the designer based off a comfortable sitting height. Each pouf is 550 by 550 by 400 millimeters.

Two of the ottomans are created from solid comfort foam, making them easy to move around and stack, while the third is composed of concrete with a polystyrene core. "This variation allows new expressions to emerge out of different combinations," Monsrud says. "I like moving stuff around so I don't get tired of it."

While the first two poufs are inspired by slow movement and shaking, the third takes its inspiration from the lack thereof—the feeling of immobility or being frozen—and is therefore less easy to move, clocking in at around 180 pounds. Cement was mixed into a greased mold and vibrated to remove any air bubbles. After 10 to 30 days of hardening (doused with water continuously), the cylinder is separated from the mold and polished.

For one pouf, Monsrud has sewn together patches of primed canvas to create one large swath of fabric with a tone-on-tone pattern. Fabric is assembled to create the exterior skin and then padded around the foam with hidden hand stitching.

For another, a carpet pile was created entirely from hand, from the back of a dense network in which yarn was pushed through with a tufting machine and fastened by a simple loop. All parts were padded with hidden hand stitchings before the pouf was trimmed with tufting scissors to achieve the desired end result. "The long threads are carefully provoked errors as a part of the final expression," Monsrud says. "I have worked with 5 different threads at a time, all in different colors and types, to make the surface more alive. In this case, I have mixed paper yarns, wool yarns and horsehair."

"The project has been an experiment in challenging my own design method to push myself into corners that had previously been unknown to me," Monsrud says. "For me, these persons' actions came as unexpected gifts and gave me ideas I would never be able to think of by myself."

For those eager to see Monsrud's poufs or the work of others in the exhibition, the show heads to Four Boxes Gallery in Skive, Denmark next. In the meantime, they can also be viewed online at re-form.dk

Earlier we posted that Ironhead Studio got zero credit for creating costumes for Batman v. Superman. Will Matt McEntegart get any credit for creating the Joker's supercar for Suicide Squad, the next movie in the D.C. Universe?

What's amazing is that the car didn't come with the six-figure price tag you'd expect. That's actually an Infiniti G35 wrapped in an $11,000 fiberglass body kit and a $3,000 interior designed and created by McEntegart. (Those are the stock prices, anyway; no word on what he charged the studio.) Even more amazingly, McEntegart explains, "I can't draw, I have no design experience, so I just shaped it out of foam."

McEntegart's company, Vaydor Exotics, is a Florida-based outfit that uses pros from the marine industry (i.e. guys who know fiberglass) to produce the eponymous kits. Here's a look at how they tear the original car down to get it ready for the graft:

You'll notice that there are shots of McEntegart and team crafting the parts, but no footage of them doing actual assembly. That's because, interestingly enough, they only sell the kits and do not build the cars.

Anyways, those of you in ID school now, particularly you Transportation Design majors, know you won't get much credit for not being able to draw. But it is interesting to see that McEntegert was able to ovecome that deficiency in the model shop. He might not have the drawing capability, but he's certainly got the eye for 3D and the hands for carving.

It might not occur to you that a deep-sea fishing trawler can simply dump their old, worn-out fishnets over the side. After all, no one is watching them out there. And as those nets sink, they can continue to trap ocean life and stay on the ocean floor for centuries, needlessly ensnaring even more fish.

Italian textiles company Aquafil has figured out how to turn this problem into a win for the planet. Led by visionary CEO Giulio Bonazzi, the company spent years figuring out how to completely depolymerise nylon, then repolymerise it. This means they can essentially create new nylon from old, "with no loss of quality" and without the need to suck any new petroleum out of the ground. After perfecting the process, which they call Econyl, they then needed to find a readily-available source of old nylon.

Aquafil found out about the fishnet problem, and began sending divers to collect them. Another ready source of raw materials for them is discarded carpet, and the company set up a "reverse supply chain" to gather and harvest it. In this manner, they are literally able to use what would otherwise be garbage as a viable raw material. There's no word on how their equipment is currently powered, but if it is or will be a sustainable source of energy, and if the system is scalable, nylon manufacturers could vastly cut their requirements for crude oil by scouring the plant of nylon garbage.

Take a look at the Econyl process below. What I found most interesting was Bonazzi recounting that had they known how difficult the process would be—others told him he was "crazy"—they might never have embarked on the project. But luckily for the planet, they did:

For designers and architects who want to learn more about the material and how to spec it, they've got information here.

Last Thursday marked the opening of the 10th annual Trailer Park Festival showcasing the the best of emerging music, art and technology against the backdrop of Copenhagen's indoor skatepark. Last year, the Trailer Park team took the leap to reshape the festival's program not only around the incredible music line-up and art installations but incorporating technology into the event by way of Trailer Park I/O. 

I/O flourished in its second year—drawing dozens of creative presenters to show their work over the course of the day. Head of Trailer Park I/O Kaave Pour opened the event discussing the 5 themes I/O would be tackling: The Spying Society, Virtual Worlds, Conversational Interfaces, Computational Creativity and Responsive Materials. 

Run by Peter Valkanoff included in 15Folds collection

The themes unfolded through talks, labs, installations and exhibitions with highlights including a presentation by founders of the animated gif art gallery 15Folds, Margot Bowman and Sean Frank Johnson. Bowman and Johnson detailed their path to creating and curating the online gallery and showed a selection of their favorite gifs that exemplified the art form. 

On the other end of the spectrum, Paris-based Studio Appropriate Audiences showcased their 3D printing Tattoo machine 'Tatoué. The machine—consisting of a hacked makerbot has gone through several iterations since the beginning of the project in 2014. The machine, which sits squarely between ingenious and grimace-inducing has gained so much attention over the last months that the team has released a guide on how to hack any 3D printer to create your own tattoo machine. 

From the VICE-curated film selection on one stage to the morning interactive labs - Trailer Park I/O showcased a true excitement and sense of humor about the technologies of today - and tomorrow.

For more on Trailer Park and Trailer Park I/O visit their website. 

Trailer Park I/O

Now it it's 10th and final year, Trailer Park takes over Copenhagen Indoor Skatepark

Photo credit: Teshia Treuhaft

Ascetic Aesthetic - Leila Byron, Charlie Gedeon, Nicolas Armand and Monika Seyfried of CIID

Ascetic Aesthetic explores not only how AI in the home will adapt to our lifestyles but how we will be forced to adapt to it. The team for CIID looks to spark discussion around the possible futures within AI with their suite of speculative objects.

Photo credit: Teshia Treuhaft

Circular Product Development Lab with KPH Projects, Creature and Incita

The Circular Product Development Lab challenged attendees to create new usable products from trash, leftover materials and junk. Participants showed off a number of new uses for old bicycle parts, scrap metal and more during their show-and-tell session.

Photo credit: Teshia Treuhaft

Circular Product Development Lab with KPH Projects, Creature and Incita

The Circular Product Development Lab challenged attendees to create new usable products from trash, leftover materials and junk. Participants showed off a number of new uses for old bicycle parts, scrap metal and more during their show-and-tell session.

Photo credit: Teshia Treuhaft

Circular Product Development Lab with KPH Projects, Creature and Incita

The Circular Product Development Lab challenged attendees to create new usable products from trash, leftover materials and junk. Participants showed off a number of new uses for old bicycle parts, scrap metal and more during their show-and-tell session.

Photo credit: Teshia Treuhaft

Trailer Park I/O

Attendees gathered for the first talks on the main stage nestled between two half-pipes in the center of Copenhagen's indoor skate park.

Photo credit: Teshia Treuhaft

Developing Wearable LED's Lab with FabLab RUC

FabLab RUC guides attendees through the core elements of developing wearable devices.

Photo credit: Teshia Treuhaft

Drone Graffiti by Jesper Vega

Drone Graffiti is not your typical drone used for war or delivering Amazon packages - it has been fitted with an open source solution to be used for graffiti as an extension of the artist.

Photo credit: Teshia Treuhaft

PyroGraph

PyroGraph by Bjørn Karmann, Lars Kaltenbach & Nicolas Armand of CIID is a large-scale plotter that uses a soldering iron to burn images pixel by pixel into paper. The machine was inspired by traditional thermal printers used for shop receipts.

Photo credit: Teshia Treuhaft

Image of the Future

Image of the Future allows two people to communicate through the creation of a single artwork. The machine releases droplets of paint onto soapy water to create a marbling technique which is then transferred to paper.

Photo credit: Teshia Treuhaft

While they never carried the same punch as, say, a Kevin Hart show, Hallmark cards used to be these things you'd buy to make people giggle. Set-up on the front, pithy punchline inside. Hallmark card number 25KB 915-6 from the year 1970, for instance, said "Happy Birthday to a Good-Looking Relative" on the front, and inside stated "(save this card. You can sent it to ME on my birthday.)"

This particular bit of copy had at least one unexpected consequence: "Over the past 47 years," writes Redditor LincolnsLostSpeach, "my fiancee's uncle and his cousin have been passing [this] same card back and forth."

"[I] should also mention," s/he continues, "the card only cost $0.25 when it was purchased in 1970."

Little bit of Scotch tape and it's good as new.

I like how you can see (where the names are signed) brown ink in use in the early '70s, and by the '80s they get into red and green.

Fred & Friends, a division of Lifetime Brands, is looking for a clever and highly-skilled Senior Graphic Designer to join its expanding, RI-based creative studio. Since 2004, Fred has created products that put a smile on your face. We design, import, and distribute fun and clever gifts!

Simple as it is, the already-funded Gr2 Storage Sphere taps into a popular interest: everybody likes cool spots to hide goodies. What the campaign lacks in attractive, design-minded photography they make up for in simple, attractive design. 

These stealthy balls are machined from solid aluminum, anodized, and fitted with threaded brass and copper caps with a contrasting mirror polish. To access the storage compartment they include a silicone suction handle to aid your twist and to help keep your filthy fingerprints off that blingy lid. 

They also include a tacky acrylic stand to keep your sphere upright like a friendly metallic eyeball. It does the job, but marks a missed opportunity to use a more interesting or luxe-feeling material to match or contrast the metals of the sphere. Left to its own devices the weight of the ball balances with the cap side down, making a minimalist desk ornament out of your sexy stash box.

For $30 early bird supporters get a Gr2 of choice, along with the chintzy stand, silicone handle, polishing kit, and a foam insert to convert it into a gift box. Not a bad price for a lightly functional design object with strong notes of Tom Dixon. 

Stare into the Gr2 and the Gr2 stares back

I just read a scathing critique of the lack of copyright protection for industrial designers: Australian journalist Joe Aston's "Industrial designers deserve [the] same copyright treatment as Hollywood." In it, self-professed design-lover Aston sounds extremely pissed off, takes shots at both America and Asia, and makes some points you've heard before, some you haven't:

How is it a gross moral and commercial trangression to download a film or an album from a file sharer, denying the filmmaker or songwriter rightful compensation for their work, yet the purchase of a blatant rip-off of a designer's original chair or table or lamp is a misdeed we sanction?

I'd argue that Hollywood studios have put systems in place to detect illegal downloads, and that these systems can be operated by people sitting at computers. Spotting and tracking knock-off furniture, in contrast, must be performed by people in the field doing physical inspections. If the knock-off furniture is coming in from overseas, ports make good choke points to deploy them, as Norway has shown; but how do you catch domestic pirates?

Aston's take on the "design should be for the masses" argument:

Proponents of ripped-off furniture argue that good design should be accessible to the masses. But there's a clear difference between accessible style and stolen style. Which is why a developed economy prohibits High Street shops from selling fake Louis Vuitton luggage. Leave that to Thailand and Indonesia. Otherwise, what other possessions should people have a right to that they can't afford? A Porsche? Bang & Olufsen TVs?

That seems like a bit of a stretch to me, but I'll let him have that one. Here's the bit I found most interesting:

There is plenty of good, affordable and original furniture available today – and regulating against fakes would only ensure there is more still, to satisfy that transferred demand. It might be Eames and Philippe Starck and Hans Wegner who're copied, but it's the young designers whose work the fake market devalues.

"Replicas", as is their Orwellian descriptor (it's like referring to "rape" as "sex"), also devalue the classics, so in fact do not make good design accessible. They do precisely the opposite.

They kill it. Take Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's 1929 Barcelona chair. It's beautiful. But given the proliferation of fakes in corporate lobbies, and bogan homes, it's now untouchable for anyone serious about architecture, art or design. Which is a travesty.

Our market is flooded with product – like Eames by Aldi – that breaks and scratches and falls apart and, basically, looks like shit. Thus in the mind of the next generation of consumers, what was once a classic feat of creativity and craftsmanship is now a piece of shit.

I thought he went a bit too far with the "rape" analogy—you can tell the man is angry—but I can't argue with his point about the Barcelona chair. When you see it, or LC2 knockoffs, everywhere, the design seems less special, does it not? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

What do you think of his points, and should good design be for the masses? If so, at what cost? Also: Do you think van der Rohe and Le Corbusier would be elated, or disgusted, to see their designs so widely "distributed?"

This is the latest installment of our Designing Women series. Previously, we profiled the prolific French designer Charlotte Perriand.

Lilly Reich, date unknown

Although she studied with Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte in 1908, Lilly Reich went on to develop austerely modern designs that bore little similarity to the decorative styles of the Viennese movement. Which is not to say that Reich rejected Hoffmann's focus on craftsmanship—far from it. In 1920, she was appointed to the Deutscher Werkbund board of directors, becoming the first woman to help lead the German association of craftsmen. The group advocated for superior design and craftsmanship in mass-produced goods, and in support of that mission Reich organized a number of exhibitions showcasing German product design. Her exhibition designs established her reputation in German design circles, and from 1926 to 1939 she and fellow architect and Werkbund member Ludwig Mies van der Rohe had a close working relationship. Although they kept separate design studios, they collaborated on furniture, exhibition and interior design and "exchanged artistic ideas constantly," according to scholar Christiane Lange. Not surprisingly, however, Reich never became as well known as her famous male collaborator (an all-too-familiar story in this column). So, in an effort to tip the scales a bit, here are five things you might not know about Lilly Reich's long and varied design career:

Reich's tubular-steel cantilever chair (LR120), from 1931. Image via the Museum of Modern Art

1. She got totally tubular

Like many European modernists working in the late 1920's and early '30s, Reich had a strong interest in using new industrial production techniques and materials. She is credited as being the only woman at the time to design a full series of furniture made from tubular steel (although Charlotte Perriand was undoubtedly also a master in this field), which was manufactured and sold by Bamberg Metallwerkstätten. Her designs included bed frames, chairs, tables and daybeds, and she combined wood and tubular steel to great effect, as seen in her elegant 1931 Garden Table (LR500).

Tubular-steel furniture designs by Reich and Mies, as shown in the 1931 price list for Bamberg Metallwerkstätten. Reich's designs are indicated by model numbers that begin with "LR." 

Reich's design for a tubular-steel bed frame (LR600), from 1930

A reproduction of Reich's 1931 Garden Table (LR500), which combined wood and tubular steel to great effect. Image via the Museum of Modern Art

2. One of Mies's most famous designs might actually be hers

As with many of design's great collaborations, there has long been speculation over Mies's and Reich's individual contributions—and it's no surprise that history has played out in Mies's favor, with Reich's influences being largely overlooked. This may especially be the case with one of Mies's classic furniture pieces, the Barcelona Couch, which is still manufactured today by Knoll. Although Knoll does not credit Reich, many believe she was at the very least a co-designer if not the actual author. Tracing the daybed's original design back to an apartment in Berlin that Reich and Mies designed together, Christiane Lange points out that "the daybed Reich designed for the Crous apartment in 1930 is the first model of the daybed on tubular steel feet, which became one of Mies van der Rohe's most famous pieces of furniture after the Second World War."

The base of the first daybed designed by Reich in 1930 for the Crous Apartment in Berlin

Reich's original design for the apartment's daybed had individual back cushions and a divided seat cushion.

In 1930, Philip Johnson commissioned Mies and Reich to redesign his apartment in New York; they installed a version of the daybed, this time with a bolster pillow and tufted cushion, as part of their furnishing plan. It is now marketed by Knoll as a Mies design; however, its true author may actually be Reich.

3. She made her mark at the Bauhaus

In January 1932, two years after Mies was appointed director of the Bauhaus, Reich joined the school and took over instruction in the weaving workshop and also the interior finishings department, which included cabinetry, metalwork and wall painting. Her position as a master (or head instructor) was significant, because she was only the second woman to hold that title since the school opened its doors in 1919. And according to Adrian Sudhalter's chronicle of the school, Reich "also manage[d] much of the daily administration of the Bauhaus for Mies" during this time. Her tenure was short-lived, however, as Nazi officials forced the Bauhaus to close in the summer of 1933.

A Reich sketch for her LR120 tubular-steel chair, saved in the Lilly Reich Collection, Mies van der Rohe Archive at the Museum of Modern Art

4. Architectural historians owe a debt to her good instincts

During World War II, Reich had the foresight to box up 3,000 of Mies's drawings and 900 of her own, giving them to her friend Eduard Ludwig to hide in his parents' home in East Germany. Her good instincts saved their records from certain destruction in Berlin, which was bombed heavily by Allied forces. (Indeed, the documentation that Reich had held back with her in the city was destroyed in 1945.) Although the drawings were inaccessible for decades after the war, Mies was finally able to negotiate their release from the Eastern Bloc in 1964. Just before his death in 1969, Mies donated the trove of drawings to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, ensuring both of their legacies.

A drawing for a cooking cupboard that Reich designed for the 1931 German Building Exhibition, The Dwelling in our Time, in Berlin. Image via the Museum of Modern Art

5. Nazi Germany ended Reich's career

Much like fellow Bauhaus designer Marianne Brandt, Reich decided to stay in Nazi Germany instead of fleeing as many of her male colleagues did—and profoundly hindered her career as a result. "I have had a few smaller jobs, but now again there is nothing," Reich wrote to a colleague in 1935. "It is not a pretty situation, but we are so helpless to change it." During the war she was conscripted into a military engineering group and would later work in the office of architect Ernst Neufert. Throughout this time she would also tend to Mies's business matters in Berlin (he left to teach in Chicago in 1938). Despite her best attempts to continue her own office, her illness and death in 1947, two years after the end of war, meant that she would never have a chance to fully revive her own practice.

A later design by Reich for the Telefunken Record Player, 1938. Image via the Museum of Modern Art

Tubular-steel chair LR 36/103, designed by Reich between 1936–1938 and used in the Crous Apartment in Freudenstadt, Germany

Bonus: Andy Warhol would have loved the beer exhibit Reich and Mies designed in 1929

Three decades before Andy Warhol lined the walls with his Campbell's Soup Cans canvases, Reich and Mies brought a Pop Art sensibility to their design for the Hackerbrau beer booth at the International Exposition in Barcelona, proving they were aesthetically well ahead of their time.  

Magno is a 2mm lead mechanical pencil that uses magnetic propulsion technology for ease of use and to get rid of attachments that most other pencils have.

When you need to get a complicated pattern onto a 3D surface, dip coating is a good way to go, provided your object is submersible. You can do some pretty complicated shapes, even those with undercuts. And in our "Texture Mapping in Real Life" post, we saw a rather stunning advance in this technique called computational hydrographics, which we'll get to in a moment.

The central problem with dip coating is that you're transferring a 2D image onto a contoured 3D shape. Thus graphics get distorted on whatever surface is not completely flat and parallel to the original pattern. However, with computers and texture mapping, it's possible to reconcile the 2D and 3D beforehand. Here's how a team of researchers used that idea to create a new process:

Computational Thermoforming

Pretty neat, no? That was presented at this year's SIGGRAPH. But I reckon that the aforementioned technique of computational hydrographics, which ironically was presented at last year's SIGGRAPH, has them beat in some ways:

Computational Hydrographics

Both techniques are valid, of course, and Industrial Design 101 says we ought be aware of both, and able to distinguish which has an advantage over the other in any given situation.

So, which process would you use, and for what? If your object has undercuts, of course, the decision is automatic. If your object doesn't have undercuts and doesn't require a base, it seems to me the hydrographic method will certainly be more time-consuming and expensive if you're going for mass production.

That's because the hydrographic method will require you to mold, 3D print or otherwise fabricate 100 of your objects prior to dipping in order to get 100 finished products. Whereas with the thermoforming method, you only need to fabricate one piece, then drop sheets of polystyrene onto it 100 times in a row.

And of course, the time required for the printing and transferring of the images would have to be factored in, too. If the hydrographics method is printing directly onto the PVA film, obviating the transferring step demonstrated in the thermoforming method, that then skews the speed results in favor of the former.

What do you guys see as other cases where you'd clearly use one over another? The thing we love about seeing new production methods like these is that it often takes a bunch of brains looking at it before some killer applications start to emerge.

Roboticist Mike Rouleau has constructed, apparently for no reason other than that he can, a self-balancing stick. Observe:

Rouleau calls it a Dual Axis Reaction Wheel Inverted Pendulum. To explain, self-balancing, inverted pendulums are a "thing" among a subset of roboticists and tinkerers, but they typically operate like Segways, where the base moves around to keep the top steady. (This guy even stuck his on a quadcopter.) Rouleau's innovation is to move the correcting mechanisms up top, keeping the point at the bottom perfectly still.

My first idea for an application: Scale it up to create self-balancing wind turbines to generate electricity! (Of course, the energy they collect will all be spent driving the balance wheels to keep it steady, and that's if they don't interfere with the turbines in the first place. Maybe this is why I didn't get into MIT.) 

Okay, how about:

- Instant volleyball net supports that don't need to penetrate the ground surface!

- Easy-set-up flagpoles!

No, wait a sec, what am I thinking? Of course the killer app is Selfie Sticks! You wouldn't have to hold it, just set it up a few feet away from you and stick your camera/phone up top. Now you've got a self-balancing monopod, the world's thinnest cameraman, allowing you to record your self-important monologues while being able to gesticulate with both hands. Just bring lots of batteries to run those balancing wheels.

I think I nailed it, unless you've got something better.

In related stick-balancing news, here's a man of considerable physical fitness trolling the inventor of the pogo stick:

It's been a while since I've fallen down the rabbit hole of a single person's portfolio, but this here is the guy. To say Art Director Tatsuya Tanaka's imagination is fertile is an understatement, and his attention to detail borders on fanatical. 

Whereas the designers among us might touch an object and become fixated on a parting line, a unique joinery method or a particularly artful weld, Tanaka sees entire worlds in the tiniest of details, and sets up miniatures to help us see what he sees. Tennis ball seams are biking trails; 

a protractor, a blackjack table; 

an F1 pit stop where the "F" stands for "Footwear;" 

a stack of magazines become nighttime snack stands in Hong Kong.

My favorites are the ones that specifically reference life in Tanaka's home country of Japan. A dishwashing sponge becomes the natural carpet of a hanami (cherry blossom bloomtime picnic);

a tameshigiri practioner produces penne;

a circuit board becomes a partially harvested rice paddy;

Muji notebooks become a cityscape;

Pocky become lighsabers;

a dumpling skin becomes a Sumo ring;

high heels become the entrance to a Tokyo train station.

Which is not to say the non-Japanese-specific ones are not also fascinating.

Most amazing of all is how prolific Tanaka is. Since April of 2011 he has released one new photo a day, every day, in a calendar format. Be careful if you're at work--you can spend hours clicking through his set-ups.

As you've likely heard, Kanye wants to take his unstoppable visionary design genius to the next level: your bedroom… And he wants IKEA to make it happen. After a March visit to the Swedish megacompany's head offices Mr. West tweeted about being inspired to design furniture, and rumors of flatpacked and overpriced beige homewares began to swirl. 

They definitely got meatballs after the tour, right?

This week the subject came up again in an interview with BBC Radio, where Kanye positioned himself as an ideal designer of minimalist dorm room accoutrements. The official IKEA line has hovered between quiet and dismissive on a potential partnership, but this time IKEA Australia responded to the divisive rapper-designer along with a bed design fit for Yeezus: 

The flat-packing YEEZY bed would build out to fit the crowd of celebrities in Kanye's newest video, Famous, while maintaining the simple lines and assembly fans of both brands expect. It lacks the apocalyptic, pre-destroyed flair of Kanye's fashion line, but hey, they're just spitballing.

The real icing on this tasty post was the caption:

Hej Kanye, we'd love to see what you'd create…we could make you Famous!

You don't have to be a Taylor fan to get a tickle out of that. But is this the end or beginning of a dark twisted design collab fantasy?? 

THRIVE is growing and looking for an up and coming world-class Industrial Designer. That’s why we’re reaching out to you. We are currently seeking an Industrial Designer with 0-2 years experience.

According to UN Habitat, more than one third of the global urban population lives in informal or unauthorized settlements. The lack in documentation of informal communities leads to unprecedented political, social, and infrastructural challenges. Ahmedabad, the 7th most populated city in India, has the second largest informal population in the state of Gujarat. The city exists as a unique case study—one where incredibly innovative slum-upgrading projects coexist in a complex web, tangled with problems not yet addressed by redevelopment efforts.

An aerial view of Ahmedabad.

Initiatives that set national precedents, including ones from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and various NGOs, have made significant progress in addressing many needs of the city's informal population. In fact, there has been a large push to redevelop areas like Ahmedabad so that residents are rehoused in the same area instead of displaced. However, the nature and needs of these settlements are constantly shifting and evolving. With funding from the International Development Initiative at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jie Zhang and Susanna Pho, two architectural designers interested in exploring these complexities, set out on a one-month service trip to Ahmedabad in early 2013.

The slums in Ahmedabad were previously documented to varying degrees of resolution and completeness. Compounding this problem, the agility of many settlements meant that accurate maps were constantly changing and in need of regular updates. Up-to-date documentation would allow for more precise resource delivery from governmental agencies. It would also allow informal settlements to be fully recognized in a cultural context where residents are often marginalized. The opportunity arose for Zhang and Pho to work with informal settlement residents to find ways in which they could have a voice and active role in redevelopment through self-mapping.

Ahmedabad resident holding the mapping kit.

Building upon and utilizing open-source resources from Public Lab and the MIT Center for Civic Media, low-cost aerial mapping techniques using helium balloons were designed, tested and implemented. The balloons were created in partnership with local non-profits and community groups, further benefiting the settlements. Kite mapping was Zhang and Pho's original plan, as it would eliminate the need to pay for buoyant gas. However, housing density and impenetrable power line networks eliminated that option. The intent of the aerial mapping was to promote grassroots mapping as a useful tool for creating visibility. Through self-documentation, those living in informal settlements were able to increase their ability to engage with governmental stakeholders. The process also allowed documentation of the ever-changing state of the informal communities for future planning, architectural and service endeavors.

Little did these designers know, their self-mapping process would lead to quite the beautiful discovery. The mapping kit's alien presence, consisting of a 5-ft diameter weather balloon elevating a point-and-shoot camera encased in a stabilizing harness (made out of a plastic soda bottle), attracted very large crowds. As a result, the continuous take from the battered Canon PowerShot A2300 documented exactly what they wanted—productive aerial views of the most informal and impoverished communities of the city. However, they also ended up capturing, from curious happenstance angles, small glimpses of the people living within the unauthorized settlements.

Impressed Ahmedabad residents watch as mapping kit begins to fly.

Discovering these honest accidents, three years after they were initially discarded as irrelevant, was a pleasant and inspiring surprise to Zhang and Pho. The images capture less deliberate moments that document life at two scales—that of the human and that of the human settlement.

"In the banality and crudeness of these shots taken from a swinging bottle in flight, we found an arguably more valuable reflection of our trip—a panorama of a lesser chronicled part of Ahmedabad embedded with intricate vignettes of an often invisible population." 

Even though the images are happenstance, they depict lives and mechanisms rarely acknowledged from a refreshing vantage point.

Back in May we discussed China's Transit Elevated Bus concept, which is something like a catamaran crossed with a double-wide bus. The idea is that the vehicle would not interfere with the regular traffic passing beneath it.

Incredibly, what was presented as being in mere miniature-model stage just months ago has now been replaced by an actual 22-meter-long, 7.8-meter wide, 4.8-meter high prototype. A 300-meter test track has been constructed in the city of Qinhuangdao, and yesterday the vehicle was unveiled to the public.

The idea is to run trials to to evaluate the vehicle's actual required braking distance, drag coefficient and power consumption, along with "the relationship between people and cars," according to a computer-translated version of a press release from TEBtech, the company that built it. Our guess is that the latter statement means they are evaluating how people move through and interact with the actual bus interior, which can hold 300 people.

The central issue I have with the concept, which I referred to as the turning radius problem, has not been addressed. Indeed, as Wired reports, "The bus didn't navigate any corners on its inaugural test run or deal with any tricky bits of road infrastructure such as crossroads, bridges or traffic lights."

Indeed the actual shape of the test track has not been mentioned, though in the video we catch a glimpse of this map:

It's not clear if the map is speculative or the actual test track itself. But should the TEB be relegated to a racetrack-shape course (in a single-carriage, non-articulated form) with the roadways, buildings and infrastructure on the ends modified to accommodate the large radius required, the TEB could prove an effective way to ferry a lot of people around quickly, something like Tokyo's circular Yamanote line.

It is no mean feat to alter a cityscape to accommodate such a radius, but if anyone can do it, it is probably China, with their strong centralized government. (Imagine, for instance, trying to coordinate and clear a large racetrack shape in Manhattan or Chicago; it would be impossible.) The TEB could also be an excellent transit choice for a new city, where the infrastructure can be pre-planned to accommodate it.

I still think it unlikely that the vehicle will be able to execute the serpentine turns depicted in the concept videos shown in May; as rendered it is physically impossible. But it is possible they'll jettison the original idea of having several cars attached with articulating joints, and proceed with the singular vehicle we see here. Should the concept reach fruition, Manhattan motorists will look on in envy.

It is no secret that Design Thinking and Service Design have been around for a while and are slowly becoming mainstream strategic approaches. Also, as I've covered in my previous article, it became a fact, backed by non-stop news and numbers, that the design firm establishment has lost its sweet spot as a one-stop-shop for large organizations that want to tap into the realm of real, delightful and meaningful innovation. From acquired to acquihired, design firms are seeing and feeling the impact of the Design Thinking evangelism they preached to the same companies that are now on the pursuit of an auto-sufficient Design Thinking mode. 

It makes sense that large organizations like IBM are finding their way through incorporating Design Thinking as an intrinsic cultural value asset, after all, real design is never about advices and tools. Design is only as good as the amount of human-centric attitude you have ingrained in your culture. People can't create a well-designed chair just because they know how to operate AutoCAD or paint a Monalisa just because they have the necessary tools at their disposal. Attitude, vision, dare, human-centrism all must surface in order for amazing new services to be born. And those quasi-spiritual traits can't be taught with a canvas.

Small Business-Centered Design

So, long story short, we had 30 years of design firm-centered design thinking and now it seems like we are getting ready for 30 more of large organization-centered design thinking. Good for them. But what about small business-centered design thinking? And most importantly: Do we care?

Attitude, vision, dare, human-centrism all must surface in order for amazing new services to be born.

Yes, we care. Or at least I care. And I guess you will too after reading here that 99% of the existent businesses in the US and 95% of the operational business that are live today in this blue planet called Earth are small businesses. Not convinced yet? What about this statement found in the Kauffman Foundation Research report entitled "The importance of Startups in job creation and job destruction":

"Startups create an average of 3 million new jobs annually. All other ages of firms, including companies in their first full years of existence up to firms established two centuries ago, are net job destroyers, losing 1 million jobs net combined per year".

Yep. I know. Scary sh*, right? So, bottom-line is: Yes, it matters if Design Thinking is not grass-rooted into the heart of small organizations and this should be of concern to every designer out there. Let me put it differently. Say we are in 1995 and you are a specialist in "recyclable thinking," making money by working for a consultancy firm that provides training in the fields of sustainability and environmental practices to large organizations. Would you feel ethically compelled to advise your local bakery, family doctor and local coffee shop on how to separate the trash by type? I bet you would.

Isn't Design Thinking as important? I believe it is. After all, the power of design has proven many times to be the differentiator that separates companies building relevant, meaningful things from, well, those ones spitting useless garbage.

Take also into consideration that these small shops and businesses may be statistically considered tiny but they are definitely not small in the impact they have in our lives. It would be depressing to work all day long teaching companies how to recycle their trash and then come home to see wrongdoing and awful waste disposal practices all around. Well, that's exactly how I feel. The large majority of places I visit every day, and from which my life really depends on, have no clue. Zero. And I don't say this because their services are necessarily bad (or good as a matter of fact), it's just that they run operations that are, for the most part, blind to the perspectives of the people they are serving. And what is more important for a small business than keep it lean and get better every day? Like Dieter Rams would've put it:  "Less but better." 

The Dutch, a local favorite near Core77 HQ in NYC.

That sweet bakery, the coffee shop, the preferred restaurant, that trustable vet hospital, all have a huge, and I mean huge, impact on our quality of living. They are the real ones orchestrating the vast majority of touchpoints we have to deal with when performing our daily activities. And let's not forget the small, fast and furious startups. The small giants "crazy enough to think they can change the world." They are the ones striving to create the needed bridges into a better and more sustainable future. 

Can Design Firms Service Small Business?

After writing The Service Startup: Design Thinking gets Lean, a book aiming to democratize Service Design, I decided to move one step further in my quest to democratize design and started to ask myself what could I really do about it.

Back then the challenge was, and being the CEO for Livework in Latin America I knew this first hand, the current design firm model, cannot fit the bill for designing for small businesses. This is not related to how amazing these firms portfolios can be. It's just that steering their practice to serve a different scale of a large number of small-sized clients would require the ability to run many small projects at the same time, instead of the classic big bulky ones. And this is bad news. A pivot to this model would demand a brutal increase in team size and structure, at the same time that it would result in price per project reductions, resulting in a deep cut in the revenue per employee indicator. In other words: bad weather, all day long.

The fences are there and they were not moving, that was crystal clear. Whatever I was up to, in order to succeed, would have to carry values like: Globally spread, democratic (not consultancy-like), exponential instead of linear (costs could not follow growth), decentralized (no central "savior" figure) and self-developed, relying in continuous auto-learning and improvement.

Service Design Sprints

Today, exactly a year after its foundation, servicedesignsprints.com is a fully autonomous service design community that checks all those boxes. The community has been bringing design-grade change to SMB's worldwide and it has currently spread through four continents, including key cities like Tokyo and São Paulo and melting pot regions like Silicon Valley. Its community members are called Sprint Masters because of their ability to execute fast-paced accelerated and accessible projects using a model which is a combination of Service Design, Design Thinking and Lean Startup called MVS, Minimum Valuable Service model. The model is open source and it can be downloaded for free here. It was designed to equip small un-resourceful teams to run fast-paced Service Design projects.

And this is exactly what the SDS community has been doing.

Small coffee shops to, yes, vet hospitals, small bookstores, parking lots, mom and pop stores, small franchisees, you name it. Ah, and, of course, startups. Sprint Masters are out there, to the hundreds and growing, fostering real change, palpable, implemented transformations in services that affect, for real, our daily lives. You can read about their transformation stories here.

Sprint Masters in action in Japan, Netherlands, Brazil and the USA. 

Not only that but, in an unexpected twist, as the servicedesignsprints.com community organically grows and extends its reach it ends up, unofficially, embracing the culture of large organizations. One great example is Cisco. Recently I designed an internal early stage accelerator program for the iconic connectivity company, based on service design sprints and the MVS model. Cisco, along with other large enterprises are intentionally joining the service design sprint community, only in their case they are creating their own internal army of service design Sprint Masters.

A Service Design Sprint in full swing at Cisco.

It's a new model. One that is very organic and full of surprises. I confess I don't particularly know exactly where this will lead us. Many changes, adjustments, learnings that are pretty different than the traditional design firm model. Oh, that I know for sure. 

Like I said, SDS is completing one year this month, and with over one hundred projects, hundreds of sprint masters spread globally, companies like Cisco joining the movement and more than fifty open-published case stories, it would easily sit on the podium as the largest growing service design firm in the world. If it were a design firm. Which it is not and never will be. That I also know for sure.

The future of Design Thinking and Service Design does not belong to agencies and it can't be restricted to fancy schools, universities or large enterprises. Instead, I truly believe it has to be open-source, accessible and democratic. And on that, speaking in the name of the whole servicedesignsprints.com community: we are thrilled to be able to contribute somehow to pushing Service Design Thinking into this direction. 

#weDesignForThe99%