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Is It Possible to Improve on Something as Simple as a Step Ladder?

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Step ladders make great work platforms when used in the usual manner—with the legs folded open and placed on a flat level surface. But many of us occasionally use them like straight ladders, leaving them closed and leaning them against walls, posts, and other solid objects. It's not the way step ladders are intended to be used but that doesn't stop people from doing it.

In a nod to the way people actually use tools on site, the folks at Louisville Ladder tweaked a design and began to produce the Cross Step Ladder (1500 series) step ladders. At first glance they look like any other fiberglass step ladders—until you see the top, which has chamfered corners and a notch in the middle. 

The notch allows you to lean the ladder against a post or outside corner without fear it will slide when you lean to the side. It also forces you to center the ladder. 

The chamfered corners spread the load and prevent damage to walls when you lean the ladder into inside corners. It helps that the front edge of the top is covered with heavy rubber bumpers.

As with platform style ladders, the back legs on this one are not connected to the top; they swing from aluminum brackets several inches down. This allows them to fold tight to the front legs for better (more compact) storage and to create greater clearance when the ladder is leaned instead of opened.

A small but easily missed detail are the catches they added to the back set of legs. When the ladder is new the rivets that hold the back legs to the connection bracket will be tight enough to keep the legs from swinging open when the ladder is leaned. But in time the rivets will loosen and the back set of legs will swing free. The catches hold the front and back legs together when the ladder is closed. If you've ever leaned a ladder and had the back legs swing out and catch before the front you'll know why this feature was added.

A magnet under the top right edge of the top can be used to hold ferromagnetic objects (nuts, bolts, small tools, and the like) in place on the top.


Self-Assembling Burger Hack: Visual Engineer Rigs Up Elaborate Device to Shoot This Commercial

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Steve Giralt isn't just a photographer; the dude is a Visual Engineer, according to his bio, and as you'll see below the title looks well-earned. Check out the crazy automated rig that he built in order to shoot this video of floating hamburger ingredients magically falling into place:

Deconstructed Burger Behind The Scenes from Steve Giralt on Vimeo.

If you live in New York and shoot, by the way, Giralt is the founder of the Image Makers Club, an "open-source creative exploration community in NYC." They meet up monthly over beers to share ideas and help each other solve problems. Here's Giralt explaining what they do in more detail:


Design Job: Calling All CG Gurus—Aniden Interactive is Seeking a CG Artist in Austin, TX

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Question #1: Are you a CG guru who loves every facet of the craft, from modeling to animation? Question #2: Do you geek-out over the opportunity to work with cool new consumer electronic products? Question #3: Do you like BBQ and breakfast tacos? If you answered yes to all three questions, then we should talk.

View the full design job here

The Best Way To "Upgrade" To iPhone 7 Yet

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Minimalism is everything. EVERYTHING. But how do you bravely cut the clutter and cords from your life when your old phone still technically works? The heroic and forward-marching minds at Nicer Studio have studied Apple's technological advances and come up with a fittingly elegant solution. Meet the Apple Plug.

With a single click your hideously outdated iPhone will be brought up to the bleeding edge of tech and design. The slim aluminum Plug addresses the gaping hole in your phone, and in your life.

The installation is simple, construction is rugged, and—best of all—it's permanent. No fussing with those messy headphones that fit you better than Apple's ever again! 

The daring, innovative, and utterly necessary Apple Plug is available in three colorways, and is entirely fictitious. Visit ApplePlugs.com to learn more about this cripplingly overdue solution to your embarrassing ancient tech.

How to Get From Idea to Launch in 30 Weeks

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These days there are plenty of incubator programs promising an express ride for founders from fuzzy idea to the promised land of venture capital. But of the options, very few have targeted designers, recognizing the unique skill set that design practitioners bring to the world of entrepreneurship. In 2014, Google Creative Lab set out to change that by setting up 30 Weeks, a hybrid incubator and education program with support from the continuing education organization Hyper Island. 

Leading the charge is Shana Dressler. As Executive Director of 30 Weeks, she has helped shape the curriculum and mission for the program to equip designers with entrepreneurial skills, knowledge and tech know-how to create products and start impactful companies. Dressler came to the program with a deep understanding of the challenges designers face after years championing and nurturing the work of social entrepreneurs. 

In the conversation below, we talk to Dressler ahead of her keynote for the 2016 Core77 Designing Here/Now Conference about fundamental skills for design entrepreneurs, solving problems for the real world and how you know when it's "game over."

Core77: You have helped lay a foundation for the business of social entrepreneurship through the Social Innovators Collective and the Social Good Guides. Now you're doing the same for designers as entrepreneurs. What are some of the fundamental skills both of these groups need to succeed?

Shana Dressler: Successful businesses are built on great ideas that solve problems for people (business to consumer or B to C) and businesses (business to business, or B to B). A savvy entrepreneur is looking for their future customer's "pain points." Essentially what people buy are solutions to real problems: I need to get from point A to point B quickly. I need to have prepared ingredients delivered to my door because I don't have time to cook and I want to eat a healthy meal. I need a system to keep track of my money so that I don't get charged 18% on my credit card when I don't have enough money in my checking account to pay my bill. I bike to work and need a shirt that has advanced sweat absorbing technology because I don't walk into the office looking sweaty.

The problem with most would-be entrepreneurs is that they come up with what they think are great ideas, but they don't test them. They make fatal assumptions. So essential skills in the beginning are learning how to do rapid ideation, prototyping, customer research, marketing, growth hacking, product storytelling. You need to know if you have a viable business before you start to worry about your legal structure, how you'll set up your accounting systems, figure out your brand voice, put up an entire website, etc. If you approach a hundred people who aren't excited about what you want to build you need to change your idea which in business speak is called "pivoting." Basically, to build a business that will support you financially and provide salaries for your team, you need to find a product or service with a sizable enough market of people willing to put down their money. There's something called the entrepreneur's "optimism bias" where founders are blinded by wishful thinking that "if I work hard enough everything will work out." Working hard is only one of the key ingredients to success. It all starts with a great idea that has future customers.

Over the last two years, you've been overseeing the work of the 30 Weeks incubator. What have been some of your biggest challenges and successes?

I think the biggest challenge has been figuring out the most effective way to shift the designers' mindset from an employee to that of an entrepreneur. Employees have job descriptions, specific skills they've developed to do their work, managers above them setting the strategy, making sure they do their work effectively, etc. An entrepreneur starts with a white canvas. Like an artist they start with a vision for something they want to create and are then (often reluctantly) auto-tasked with figuring out how to build it. 

Prototyping MOTI, a smart companion that helps end users form daily habits.

In the beginning designers going through our program want us to tell them what to do, they expect us to illuminate the pathway to success, to give them the "answers." Because the program is built on learning by doing, they experience a lot of push back from us. We have designed a program to teach them methodologies, give them skills and tools, but it's up to them to try things out, make mistakes, "fail" and then try again. Our goal is to empower them to achieve their goals by teaching them how to think and problem solve.

[More about 30 Weeks alums including MOTI, a smart companion that helps you build daily habits. The project launched on Kickstarter today!]

What should every designer consider before launching into the world of entrepreneurship?

Anyone who is considering becoming an entrepreneur should talk to as many startup entrepreneurs as they can so they know what they are about to get themselves into. Building a business is all consuming. It requires endless skills—both hard and soft. They should dedicate significant time and money to learning how businesses work, how they are financed, how long it takes to get one up and running, etc. However, what almost everyone fails to consider is how much money they'll need to pay for their living expenses until they can draw a full salary from their business. The minute you run out of money it's basically "game over."

Learn more about design entrepreneurship at this September's Core77 Conference in Los Angeles. Buy your ticket today!


Tina Roth Eisenberg on What Makes a Co-Working Space Great

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Just above the office of Tina Roth Eisenberg's startup Tattly is a haven for freelancers that bears no resemblance to the spiritless, sterile co-working spaces around the city. "There are a lot of very non-supportive and really sad co-working spaces", says Eisenberg, "now it's like everybody opens a co-working space and these things turn into moneymaking machines and they don't understand that they need to have the people who are the heartbeat, the soul. You can't just have masses of people walking in and out...That doesn't make it a good space." 

A past freelancer herself, Eisenberg was sick of the options available to her: "I looked on Craigslist, and rented out some desks in some really soulless office spaces. I mean first one, I rented out a desk in some Russian computer parts company—don't ask…" So what do you do when you're fed up with what you have in front of you? You fantasize about dream scenarios of course, which is exactly what led to her venture with Friends Work Here

Friends Work Here: Tina Roth Eisenberg's solution to dull co-working spaces for freelancers nestled in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. 

Eisenberg is so passionate about creating a space conducive to great work she looks at her business more like a home full of family—"I don't run Friends like a business… I need to cover my costs, but my ultimate goal is not to make money; my goal is to create what I call my 'happy place', the environment that keeps me creatively excited and stimulated."

So what did we learn after an insightful meeting with such a passion-driven designer and businesswoman? That it takes a lot of heart to make a creative space not just good but great. Here are a few things we picked up from our conversation with Tina: 

Seek out space mates like you would a romantic partner—with care

The fact of the matter is, if you want to be constantly inspired you should probably make an effort to surround yourself with the people who inspire you. This is how Friends runs their vetting process for new freelancers to join their group. Eisenberg tells us,

"[Our selection process is] basically like dating. We have people who reach out—we look at their work, first and foremost. I just realized, when you surround yourself around people who have really high standards with their work, you set your standard higher, which is really remarkable. Their goals become your goals, their measures become your measures. So we want to make sure the people are super talented in here. It sounds elitist, but you know, I want to look up to the person who sits across from me. So there's that, and then it just comes down to personality. Like humility: people who are kind, resourceful, helpful. I look at Friends as a community, a very intentional work community."

Shared work space should be about building a community

Image credit: Friends Work Here

The thing that makes most co-working spaces so stale is their focus on the individual as opposed to harnessing an environment that works to create interactions between individuals working in the space—this is one of the biggest problems Eisenberg saw in previous models. "To me it's about the community," she says, "that's my first goal. A lot of people here who have actually worked in the more well-known co-working spaces, they come here and they go like, 'oh my god, finally a community that looks out for each other.'

The hard truth, as Eisenberg puts it, is that "being a freelancer is terrifying. It really is," and in order to succeed you have to be tuned-in to the community around you that would be receptive to the work you're doing. And from what she's seen, the Friends Work Here founder says this structure really works: "[one of our freelancers] said within two months of working here it paid off. She gets so many gigs just out of being here in this ecosystem. She says she's got more work of this than any other networking… And she feels like she has a home now, you know? So that's cool."

Eat lunch together

Eisenberg calls it the 'lunch train'— "you know when somebody's like 'hey we're hungry let's go", and then we walk out, we get lunch, and we have lunch together." In her eyes, this is one of the best opportunities for someone in their workday to find fresh new wellsprings of inspiration. 

Friends Work Here organizes a potluck at least once a month and Eisenberg swears that it's exactly where the magic happens: "[Lunch is] where I start talking to Tika, who I haven't seen in a while and I'm like, 'What are you working on?' you know, it's just so beautiful. When you work in a company where everybody works on the same thing, it's not as exciting as when I can talk to you and you can tell me about what article you're writing and it's so refreshing to have outside conversations not just within your company all the time."

Help those around you—it pays off in the end 

Ultimately a healthy work environment isn't about having a picture perfect space (although it's certainly a perk at Friends Work Here), it's about having a group of people around with a fantastic attitude who willing and able to help their peers. Eisenberg gives a tip on how to maintain a good balance in shared spaces: 

"I think I've learned to very quickly nip it in the bud if somebody wasn't kind of part of the value system. Like, if people were arrogant or not helpful, I think I let it slide longer in the beginning, and now I just very kindly—and it just comes from the heart—I pull people aside and say, "hey if you're part of this community, just you know, look out for each other. It's interesting, when you nip it in the bud right away, and also by just showing… We've had some people where I felt like they were [a bit]...entitled? But then they start noticing how kind everyone was, how helpful and how generous and then, you could tell how they were like, "Oh. Oh ok." And that makes me super happy to see that."
Read more about alternative co-working spaces including a museum-led incubator in New York City, here.

Reader Submitted: Receive a Blunt Visual of Your Financial State Through This Minimal Device

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In the age of digitalism, short and fast transactions are a part of our daily life. We are used to paying with intuitive finger gestures in a few seconds with banking apps or with credit cards.The payment possibilities are immense, but at a certain point, we lose track of our finances.

Flux is a project which translates digital data from the bank account into a physical output without the use of numbers. Fluxis an attempt to change the user's understanding of their personal finances— it gives them the opportunity to influence their own money matters in a positive, easy way.

View the full project here

Holy Cow: An Affordable Desktop Waterjet Cutter

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We live in incredible times for fabrication, where everything from CNC mills to 3D printers to laser cutters have been shrunk to desktop size and made affordable. But one machine I never expected to see added to this category was waterjet cutters.

Well, here it is: The Wazer. Now you can cut steel, stone, glass, ceramics, carbon fiber and other hard materials with something that fits on a workbench:

The reason that abrasive waterjet cutters are expensive is because of the five-figure high-pressure pumps required. The secret sauce that inventor Nisan Lerea and his team of engineers have figured out is how to get good cutting quality at a much lower pressure (i.e. with a cheaper pump). In doing so, they've effectively created an entire waterjet cutter that's cheaper than the pumps alone that you'd see in an industrial model.

The Wazer's expected retail price will be $5,999, but at press time there were still some $3,999 early-bird specials left on their Kickstarter campaign. Funding has been successful; the developers were seeking $100,000, and are currently at $522,382 in pledges.

On their campaign page you'll find answers to a lot of the questions you probably have (i.e. material thicknesses, abrasive costs, amount of water required, et cetera).



Should You Set Up an LLC for Your Freelance Design Work? 

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On the journey of quitting a 9-to-5 to start a business, I'm sure that many have underestimated all of the details one must be aware of in order for the ship to run smoothly—how to get the word out to possible clients, the best way to invoice so you can automatically keep track of your income...the checklist can be endless. 

In the Core77 discussion boards, an aspiring freelancer in 2009 asked an age-old question that still has freelancers scratching their head: is setting up an LLC for your individual business a good idea or unnecessary? manty1311 asks,

"I am a recent graduate, I've been doing freelance work for about a year now and I haven't set up anything legally as a business, although I did pay taxes on my income last year. Can anyone tell me what is the best way to go about this or if it's even necessary? I've contacted local small business administrations and they haven't really helped me on how this works for the design field.

Thoughts?"

We may not be lawyers or accountants here at Core77, but we can give you a simple 411 as to the benefits and costs of an LLC and how best to investigate what's best for your own personal situation (we welcome any thoughts from tax or law savvy readers!) 

_____________________

The Basics: Sole Proprietorship vs. LLC

Many freelancers will begin their self-employment journey as a sole proprietorship—the long and short of this means, you are personally tied to your own business and are entitled to all of the company's profits. Your freelance profits are reported within your personal tax return. This is the easiest way to deal with your small business and its corresponding taxes: simply register your name under a DBA and any other local business licenses and you're ready to go. On the same token, if your business goes under, you will personally be responsible, i.e. your assets both professional and personal will be at stake.

An LLC, or a limited liability corporation, offers a few different advantages:

Pros

An LLC helps you protect your personal assets from creditors if you go bankrupt—in a sole proprietorship, you and your business are seen as the same entity. This being the case, any business failures can affect your personal and professional finances. With an LLC, your business is a separate legal entity, meaning you are most likely not liable for any debts brought upon by your business. The only risk you pose in an LLC structure is losing your personal financial investments, but your own personal assets won't be up for grabs by creditors.  This freedom might also allow you to make riskier, and perhaps ultimately more profitable decisions. 

LLCs allow for multiple owners and members- which means this business structure is best suited for companies involving partnerships or several founders or startups projected to phase into S-corps in the future (although there are a few benefits to forming a single member LLC). 

Tax options are flexible- one nice detail about an LLC when it comes to tax time is you still have the option of being taxed as either a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation. 

An LLC can be sold and live on past you- unlike sole proprietorships, which tie your business to your own name, an LLC is separate and therefore much easier to pass along to other parties if need be. 

Cons

Money- On average, setting up an LLC will cost you about $1,000(but this is a price well worth paying if your business is at risk of acquiring debt that you would be responsible for as a sole proprietor) 

It's much easier to upgrade from a sole proprietorship to an LLC or S-Corp as opposed to the other way around- it's important to do your homework about the difference between these business structures, otherwise you could find yourself in a situation that's hard to get out of if it isn't a good fit. Simply put: if you're starting a very small business with limited financial risk involved, it's certainly best to start off as a sole proprietorship. 

Pay structure is more complicated- owners of an LLC cannot draw money from their own business as freely as a sole proprietor would; they must either pay themselves a salary or record payments as "owner's withdrawals". This isn't necessarily a deal-breaker, but it does make paying yourself a bit more involved. 

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(Ultimately, we understand this is a highly complicated topic, so before making a final decision it's important to talk to a capable legal or financial advisor—but the more you know, the better questions you'll have for these trusted individuals.)

We want to hear from you who have wavered with this decision and your thoughts on the matter—what business structure is better for different designers? What did you choose for your business and why? Tell us in the comment feed below or on the original discussion board post


"Metamaterial Mechanisms:" 3D Printing Singular Objects with Mechanical Function

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"Metamaterial Mechanisms" is a research project out of Germany's Hasso Plattner Institute. What they're doing is 3D-printing grids of cells, having used modeling software beforehand to determine how those cells will deform when particular forces are applied to them. By doing this, they can create singular objects that are both hard and soft throughout their constitution. By tweaking the geometry, they can thus institute primitive mechanical functions within these objects. Observe:

Study authors Alexandra Ion, Johannes Frohnhofen, Ludwig Wall, Robert Kovacs, Mirela Alistar, Jack Lindsay, Pedro Lopes, Hsiang-Ting Chen, and Patrick Baudisch explain the project:

Recently, researchers started to engineer not only the outer shape of objects, but also their internal microstructure. Such objects, typically based on 3D cell grids, are also known as metamaterials. Metamaterials have been used, for example, to create materials with soft and hard regions.
So far, metamaterials were understood as materials—we want to think of them as machines. We demonstrate metamaterial objects that perform a mechanical function. Such metamaterial mechanisms consist of a single block of material the cells of which play together in a well-defined way in order to achieve macroscopic movement. Our metamaterial door latch, for example, transforms the rotary movement of its handle into a linear motion of the latch. Our metamaterial Jansen walker consists of a single block of cells—that can walk. The key element behind our metamaterial mechanisms is a specialized type of cell, the only ability of which is to shear.
In order to allow users to create metamaterial mechanisms efficiently we implemented a specialized 3D editor. It allows users to place different types of cells, including the shear cell, thereby allowing users to add mechanical functionality to their objects. To help users verify their designs during editing, our editor allows users to apply forces and simulates how the object deforms in response.


Airbus 3D Printed An Electric Motorcycle That Looks Like An Alien

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When is an ambitious concept bike more than a concept bike? When it's made by aerospace engineers. Innovation giant that it is, Airbus has a lot of side projects and one such project is the Light Rider. They call the Light Rider the first* 3D printed motorcycle, and its design boasts all about it. 

This skeletal bike was developed and executed by Airbus subsidiary APWorks, to show the structural offerings of their cutting edge 3D metal printing and additive methods. It's made from the company's fictional-sounding material Scalmalloy, which is nearly as strong as titanium and resistant to corroding. 

While the frame looks like an impossibly airy student drawing, it is strong and stiff enough to handle the torque and load of a sporty ride. The 6kW electric motor gets up to 80kph in seconds, it can last around 60 km on a battery, all while weighing just 35 kg/77 lbs. It's certainly no race bike, but they claim its power to weight ratio puts it on par with supercars...which sounds cool, though I doubt this initial design has been put through quite as many speed, handling and safety tests.

Meep meep! To the Autobahn!

And the webby, ALIENesque style isn't just fanciful futurism. The design's organic look was created with algorithms based on naturally occurring structures with impressive strength-to-weight ratios. Think bird bones, or coral. With lower weight and less restrictive manufacturing, electric bikes might get more attractive and bizarre looking than ever.

The first run is limited to 50 outrageously expensive bikes, but APWorks hopes to produce further iterations. They anticipate refining the design to make it cool and affordable enough to putter on from your space job to the space bar, like a sexy space Vespa.

(*As per usual, it isn't exactly first. But it's still impressive.)

Design Job: Create Unorthodox Solutions to Major Design Projects as Montaag's Senior UI/UX Designer in Berkeley, CA

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Hello. Here's the deal... US: Superfantastic Berkeley, CA team within a superfantastic, award-winning Scandinavian-American design agency. YOU: UI/UX designer experience designing digital interfaces and leading design projects for world class brands. Design fundamentals are part of your vocabulary, and Adobe Creative Suite, an extension of your being.

View the full design job here

An Innovative Design for a Folding Chair

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Most folding chairs look like, well, folding chairs. But Dublin-based Tierney Haines Architects has come up with this unobvious design:

That's the Palfrey Chair and my first reaction, upon realizing that these are renderings and not photography, was to wonder: Would this design work? My eye was initially drawn to the X-hinge connecting the seat supports:

At first glance it appears that sharp edges 1 and 2 would collide point-to-point as parts A and B are swung outwards:

But if we zoom in on the photo—sorry about the resolution, these are the only images THA has posted—we can see the location of the hingepin. Placed where it is, we can now see that edges 1 and 2 wouldn't meet; rather, surface 3 would come into contact with surface 4.

It's a handsome design, and I'd love to see it in production.

Towards a Contemporary Design of Assisted Suicide

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For her Masters Thesis at the SVA MFA Products of Design program in New York City, Natsuki Hayashi undertook a year-long pursuit to investigate how design could respond and contribute to the increasing legalization of assisted suicide in the United States. In the conversation below, she talks to Allan Chochinov, chair of the program and a thesis advisor on the project. You can view the entire thesis project and read the thesis book at http://productsofdesign.sva.edu/blog/masters-thesis-sincerely

[Editor's note: This subject is near and dear to our hearts, as IDEO's Dana Cho will be discussing similar end-of-life issues at this year's Core77 Design Conference coming up quick on September 29th. Reserve seats here.]

Allan Chochinov: Natsuki, when you first proposed working in the area of assisted suicide back a year ago, it was clear that you were moving into a delicate area...to say the least. (I think the term someone used in class was that you would be "playing with fire.") Can you tell us the genesis of your interest in bringing "design" to the world of end-of-life issues?

Natsuki Hayashi: Last summer, I was listening to a podcast, Criminal, and one of the episodes was about "Final Exit." In the episode, the host interviews a woman who is (or was) an "exit guide" from an organization called Final Exit Network. She travels around the country helping people who are terminally ill and want to end their suffering. Essentially, her job is to provide information and be a mental support for those who are going to commit medically justified suicide.

Then I remembered years back, a good friend of my mother died in a nursing home alone. She had Alzheimer's and age-related health issues. Before she passed away, my mother took me to the nursing home for a visit. On our way home, my mother said to me, "If I ever become like that, just kill me." It was a difficult and strange conversation to have with my mother. I didn't want to hear her talking about dying, but she wanted me to know that she doesn't want to have a lingering life, depending on other people and possibly machines.

And I realized that death is inevitable, but how we die is within our control, and I have a strong point of view on end-of-life issues. I believe that we all should have options and control over how we die—even if it means choosing to die. So, I wanted to dedicate a year of my graduate study to people like mother, who want to have control and dignity at the end of their lives. As a designer, I felt the urge to understand the issue and to possibly do something about it.

"Whether or not this practice is legalized, seriously ill patients are asking us to talk about it; they're asking us to consider it seriously as designers."

I remember clearly your resolve around investigating a place for design in end-of-life issues, and your maturity in addressing the subject overall. What were some of the initial discoveries that you made, and did any of them change your thinking around the subject?

I knew there were two sides to the debate, so I listened to and learned from both sides. For a while, I was actually scared to express my point of view through my work because I didn't want to offend anyone, and I wanted to respect people who are not on the same side as me but helped me throughout my research. But when Dr. Timothy Quill at the University of Rochester said, "Whether or not this practice is legalized, seriously ill patients are asking us to talk about it; they're asking us to consider it seriously," I realized my work is for people who are seeking control and dignity in death; that perhaps the work isn't supposed to be pleasing for everyone. That was a turning for me in the process.

I think for me, the first prototypes you created are what made this work very real and very serious. I remember feeling very conflicted as a design teacher around supporting "good design", encouraging your daring around transgressive subjects, and, well, coming to grips with some of the imagery you created. Did you have similar challenges?

Well, after I prototyped some product concepts, I discovered that creating imagery around this subject was really difficult. Putting my speculative products in a real-life context, and taking photos of them, made me realize the potential consequences of my work and the responsibilities that are associated with these ideas.

Earlier on, I tried taking photos using myself or my classmate as models, but those photos just looked wrong. They had different messages and aesthetics, because the people in them and the environments were not appropriate for what I was trying to convey. In the end, I hired an older actor and actress to model for me so that I could create images that were as close to real-life scenarios as possible. I think the imagery of peaceful "suicide" is almost a new genre and very disturbing for many people. Our eyes (and brains) are not used to seeing things like that.

I couldn't agree more. After class I would go home and wonder, "Are these images really too much? Are they in some sense 'offensive' or disrespectful?" Or is it merely the case that my mind had never seen anything like them before, and that there was a new kind of cognitive processing going on. I guess I'd like to ask what the professional actors in the scene thought?

Well, they knew in broad strokes what they were getting into. But they said it was still a very strange experience. Since the objective was for them to "act like they were committing suicide in a very peaceful manner, and with a sense of relief," they reported that the experience made them think about how they would want their the last moment to look like.

And they had some product design feedback as well, right?

Yes. They both said that they got warm and felt a little claustrophobic inside of the bag, which of course is understandable. But then they brought up an interesting idea that I'd never thought of. They said, "With this product, the last thing you see from this world is a ceiling through a plastic bag." That comment made me realize that I could—and should—consider the view from the user's point of view, which is hard since that frame of mind is so difficult to truly empathize with—someone who has chosen to end their own life. Nevertheless, perhaps design can provide more than just a view of a blank ceiling filtered through a sheet of clear plastic.

Did you have any ideas with what might be? I guess clichéd sunsets and mountaintops is probably not the way to go?

I think it really depends, of course, on an individual's preferences. "Dying" is such a personal thing, and should they have the option of "choosing," everyone has a different picture of what they'd want their last moments to look like. From my research and interviews, the most common desire was to be surrounded by the people you love—family and friends—so the last thing people would want to see are the faces of their loved ones.

The political impact? I obviously hope that more people will support bills to legalize assisted suicide and change the policy that punishes people who help their loved ones end their suffering.

Throughout your year's work, I know you've heard many people worry or express concern about the objects you created. What are your thoughts now that the work is complete?

There are limits, of course, to anticipating any of the effects that any design work can have. My intention with the work was to provide some compass points for people interested in what is involved in choosing a peaceful suicide, and creating some speculative products and services about how those choices might be responded to from a design perspective. I wasn't interested in prescribing techniques or "how to's"—there are plenty of those available online and elsewhere. Rather, it was important to me that design get ahead of this social movement, and using a graduate school thesis as an opportunity was an ideal place to ask "what if?"

If my work means something to people who are suffering at the end of life, or to my mother—who wishes to have options for herself at the end of her life—then I think it has value.

How would you sum up the potential socio-political effects of the work?

Well, I hope that that the social impact may be that this thesis can be a step forward in removing the negative images associated with assisted suicide, and shifting people's perceptions about end-of-life care...and choices. The political impact? I obviously hope that more people will support bills to legalize assisted suicide and change the policy that punishes people who help their loved ones end their suffering.

This project has connected me to so many people who are so kind and supportive. They shared their personal stories with me, and that changed the way I look at the world of death and dying.

And the potential economic impact of the projects?

The economic impact is more complicated. We spend incredible amounts of money keeping a person who is dying—and wants to die—alive, every day. And most medicare expenditures are used up during the last two months of patients' lives—often with no significant impact. So, if assisted suicide were legal, people who wish to die in peace could have planned their ideal death with their loved ones, and avoided the dreadful end-of-life healthcare costs. I'm not arguing that it would be "cheaper," or that people should choose assisted suicide for financial reasons, but this is certainly a topic that we as a society need to talk about.

And finally, what about the impacts on you. How has this project changed you as a designer, as a learner, and ultimately as a practitioner moving forward in your career and in creating a future body of work?

I used to shy away from expressing my point of view; I often tried to find a middle ground so as not to offend anyone. But this project has pushed me to step out of my comfort zone and to not be afraid of having an opinion and expressing it through my work. I also learned a lot by doing. Sometimes we need to get out of our head and into our hands, so that we can discover things and then iterate from there. I see the value in looking at controversial and difficult issues through design lenses, and I hope to be able to get involved in projects like these more in the future.

On a personal level, this project has connected me to so many people who are so kind and supportive. They shared their personal stories with me, and that changed the way I look at the world of death and dying. I feel grateful for everyone who has contributed to the project for all sorts of reason, but certainly also because they helped me grow as a designer.

See the entire thesis project, Sincerely, Toward a Design of Assisted Suicide, here. See other thesis projects at MFA Products of Design. Learn more about Natsuki Hayashi at natsukihayashi.com.

Is There a Perfect Pen for Design Sketching?

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In this episode of Coreskills, Spencer Nugent shares three of his favorite pens for design sketching and walks us through how and why he uses each implement. Want a quick and dirty sketch? How about a light sketch working towards getting a form right? What about a versatile pen that can create varying line weights? Find out in Coreskills Episode 3.

What pens do you prefer to use in your sketching practice? Why? Tell us in the comments below.

Spencer is squeezing seven years of leading workshops and sharing sketching tutorials at Sketch-a-Day into some great tips for upping your design sketching skills—from warmups to practice exercises—to get you into prime shape for visually communicating your ideas.

Learn more about design sketching from Spencer Nugent at this September's Core77 Conference in Los Angeles. Buy your workshop ticket today!



Packaging a Power Lock Extension Pole

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Sherwin-Williams approached Balance with a new game-changing mechanism for their painting extension pole. The new pole, deemed Power Lock, is stronger, easier to use, and more reliable than other painting extension poles on the market. Our challenge was to take the new mechanism, and package it in a highly ergonomic and aesthetically functional way, while keeping manufacturing constraints and brand language top of mind. From the new longer rubberized grip to the mechanism housing and release lever, Balance tied in crucial ergonomic considerations while infusing the Purdy brand language into every detail. We not only carried the Purdy brand over to a new product successfully, but contributed new elements to the brand language, providing a true evolution.

View the full content here

The KarlBox: A Massive Pencil Set Designed by Karl Lagerfeld

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Remember those over-the-top anniversary pencil sets? Here's another to add to the list: The KarlBox, designed by none other than Karl Lagerfeld.

The exterior of the case looks suitably Lagerfeldian:

Karl Lagerfeld has broken the drawers up by color:

Karl Lagerfeld has provided two tiers within those drawers. The top holds two types of pencils, the bottom, markers and pastels.

Karl Lagerfeld has selected 350 items in total.

Okay, I'll stop using his full name. Faber-Castell is only selling 2,500 of these. Also, the video is…interesting:


Tools & Craft #14: Observe and Learn from the Built Environment Around You

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Designers and architects should, more than most, understand the built environment that surrounds us. And how you can learn from it, particularly if you look at older buildings. When a layperson stares at a building detail, they see a simple corner. But if you look at it closely, you can see a design lesson, a problem solved.

This is the previous warehouse complex Tools for Working Wood was located at, the enormous Bush Terminal Market, built in 1907:

It's a transitional design, made of poured concrete with wood and cast iron details before the "Bauhausing" of architecture streamlined and simplified everything in the 1930's. My building was larger than a football field.

Over the years most of the warehouse doors leading out to the loading docks have been covered in ugly painted tin sheets, but a few are original. Their construction represents an example of sturdy, industrial construction that was never meant to be fancy but is. The doors are frame-and-panel construction. (They have to be, the doors are BIG). Each frame has edges that, if they had sharp edges, would quickly get dinged and splintered in normal use. So here's how the designer or builder solved that.

A fancy molding profile would be out of place in a plain building like this, so they used a standard industrial detail. All the frames have stop chamfers on the interior edge.

What's a "stop chamfer?" A chamfer is a bevel, usually at 45 degrees on the side of a board. Its main purpose is to soften the edge, both visually and more importantly to strengthen the wood corner against dings and donks. When building something with square edges that people will interact with, you want to break the edges with sandpaper so that they aren't sharp and don't cut the user. The "stopped" part of "stopped chamfers" means, you guessed it, that it doesn't extend the entire length of the panel. 

With a frame-and-panel, you have a few choices. You can chamfer the entire length of the board. This extends the chamfer along the rails so that the join between rail and stile is accentuated. You see that detail in some modern cabinets. I find it hideous. Another approach is to assemble the frame and panel and run a router with a chamfering bit all round the frame and panel after it's glued up. This gives you a rounded corner which tells everyone you used a router, but this approach is pretty common today in factory made furniture.

You would not want to run the chamfer around the frame and panel until after it's glued up; if you do it on the pieces prior to assembly, it's easy to end up with slightly misaligned parts, which look horrible. And if you want square, not rounded, corners from a router you need to do some chiseling, and by hand it's nearly impossible to do the detail after glue-up.

The simple solution is to "stop" chamfering before you get to the corner. This is easily done with hand tools - a chamfer plane and a chisel, or with a router. And most important you can do it before glue-up because you are avoiding touching the joint part of the frame and panel. It's easy, quick and I think it looks very elegant in a sturdy sort of way. And this is why they did it on the doors. It's an easy way to get rid of the sharp edges. If you look closely I think the chamfering was done by machine on a shaper (the portable router was a later invention).

But that's not all. The stop chamfer was also used in wooden warehouses on columns. It was a standard way to break the corners so that if bumped into over time they would not splinter and get damaged. I don't have a picture of this but you will see it all the old wooden warehouses. Bush Terminal Market was one of the first concrete warehouses and was built when concrete warehouse design was mimicking the old wooden warehouse. Look at the top of the concrete column - there is a stop chamfer an all the corners. Later warehouses used round columns.

So, look around you: What details do you see, and why are they that way?

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This "Tools & Craft" section is provided courtesy of Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood, the Brooklyn-based catalog retailer of everything from hand tools to Festool; check out their online shop here. Joel also founded Gramercy Tools, the award-winning boutique manufacturer of hand tools made the old-fashioned way: Built to work and built to last.

How Many Dots Can You See in This Image, All at Once?

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If you scan your eyes across this image, you'll see there's 12 dots. But how many of them can you see, all at once?

My vision varies between three and four dots at once. I tried moving closer and further from the screen and it made no difference.

As for what's going on here, a J. Ninio, the inventor of this illusion, explains:

When the white disks in a scintillating grid are reduced in size, and outlined in black, they tend to disappear. One sees only a few of them at a time, in clusters which move erratically on the page. Where they are not seen, the grey alleys seem to be continuous, generating grey crossings that are not actually present. Some black sparkling can be seen at those crossings where no disk is seen. The illusion also works in reverse contrast.

So, how many can you see?

Via Sploid


Move Over Standing Desk: NiceBalls are the New Cure for Work Stress and Late Capitalism

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Finally, finally, they've made a pair of prosthetic balls for your desk. Why? Because you can't telecommute from your truck, and exposing your workspace to exposed pink lumps is great for de-stressing. Maybe you're exhausted by the creative industry grind, fed up with chaotic freelance juggling, or just stressed out by rampant structural sexism in the workplace. Get you a set of the ('impossibly limited edition') NiceBalls suction-stick cojones and with a few quick death grips you'll be feeling right as rain! At least you will if you can also afford healthcare.

Stress relief balls have been around for decades, and this streamlined pink set updates them for an edgy modern audience who can't take enough vacation time. Hard to believe it's taken so long to give the simple self-soothing system the high design frat boy treatment. Literal stress relief balls! Wow!

The witty creatives at Imaginarte suggest that NiceBalls are a groundbreaking opportunity to get an immediate escape from work and finally make it 'possible to be productive while touching your balls'. Boy, can I relate!

Is it a coincidence that all the models are female? Ha ha! Shouldn't be, since women in Spain are still making an average of 17.8% less than equally-credentialed men, and we're at ~20% less in the US. So yeah, squeezing a pendulous reminder of unequal treatment (from the genitalia to the boardroom) might be just the thing to take the edge off.

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