Cocktail Kingdom is hiring a full-time in-house Graphic Designer to support both production and design. Our regular day-to-day workflow includes product packaging, marketing collateral for print and web, product photography and retouching, book layout, bar branding, menu design, label design, t-shirts, trade show collateral and photorealistic digital mockups for branded
View the full design job hereThe Ottolock's ultralight take on bike locks is blowing my grumpy mind. It looks like a zip tie, holds up against bolt cutters, and fits in a pocket.
As a neurotic bike lover I often advocate (read: rant) about getting the proper bike/tool for the job, because otherwise you and your bike can wind up disappointed or worse. With locks I tend to assume there's exactly one tool for the job: you need a U-lock, it needs to be layered, super hardened steel, and anything less is willful negligence. Unless you only ride in your basement, or live in a '50s sitcom neighborhood, cable locks can't be trusted.
But what do serious riders use during hard/fun training rides? Some stopping is common, but the extra weight of a u-lock is a cumbersome distraction when you're trying to focus on the road or trail, and a cable lock (as bike thieves themselves say) isn't an actual theft deterrent.
The Ottolock was developed as better option in the lackluster lightweight lock niche. Over the last year pro rider Jacob Rathe (Team Jelly Belly/Maxxis) and Otto Design Works pooled user input and hands-on testing to come up with a little lock that seems too good to be true. The band looks way too slim to hold up against standard tools of theft, but if their user accounts and demonstrations are true... it's burly indeed.
The designers credit layers of stainless, Kevlar, and a Santoprene coating for the tiny lock's tough cred. The locking mechanism itself is a numbered combination, with an undisclosed method for directionally gripping the notched belt.
After security, the Ottolock's most crucial detail is its minimalism. The whole lock fits easily into a pocket or seat bag, and adds just 115 grams/.25 lbs.
Coffee, water breaks, or refueling usually means an anxiously monitored stack of unlocked (and often expensive) bikes, or using a cable tiny enough to fit in a pocket. After working in bike shops for near 10 years I can comfortably say that more bikes are stolen while unlocked or locked with tiny cable locks than in any other situation. And while blaming the victim is pretty easy, U-Locks are prohibitively heavy and large for many types of riding. If it can't be carried easily, it won't be used. Whether I'm interval training or making a corner store run, reliability/portability changes where I'll go and how safe I'll feel.
If the Ottolock's combination mechanism is around as secure as a traditional combo, I wouldn't recommend it for overnight use, or expect it to resist something like a car jack, but I'd certainly feel fine turning my back on it during lunch.
There's a silicone strap for bike or bag storage. The current campaign is offering the lock in three colors and three lengths—18", 30" and 60"—which opens the range of uses up even more. As they suggest, this type of flexible/durable lock could work in a ton of different places, from garage doors to boat mooring to keeping stuff safe at events.
Not every lock needs to be a Kryptonite or Abus…but they should still try. As the saying goes: you don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your friends.
The Ottolock Kickstarter campaign is already solidly over its funding goal, and will run through October 12, 2016.
"If you design a car," ID professor Bruce Hannah used to tell us at Pratt, "someone will use it to rob a bank." The context: A discussion of how we industrial designers should (or shouldn't) be concerned with how end users might misuse things that we designed. Hannah's point was that it's impossible to account for every scenario.
An example of this is NYC's new, free LinkNYC WiFi kiosks, which I first saw popping up downtown in July (at left, the first one I saw). I was excited, as I felt our city was finally moving into the future. In addition to being a WiFi hotspot, the kiosks (designed by Antenna Design) have charging ports, a built-in tablet for web browsing, the ability to make free phone calls and a 911 button.
Here's what I'd pictured:
- Commuters needing a quick phone charge stopping to plug in for a few minutes
- Commuters using the tablet to find MTA-delay workarounds
- Tourists punching up Google Maps to get their bearings
- Groups of younger people using the WiFi to show each other stuff on their phones
- Each of these interactions would last a few minutes only
- People of both sexes would use the kiosks
It's possible that all of those scenarios are happening as the kiosks are being rolled out across the city. But what I observe every morning on my walk down Lafayette, where I pass four of the kiosks, is different.
Here's what I've observed on that stretch of Lafayette:
- All of the kiosk users are male, ranging from their 20s to 40s
- Most appear to be homeless
- Sometimes end users plug headphones in and dance and sing around the kiosk
- End users tend to "camp out" at the kiosk. One homeless fellow had surrounded it with his belongings and was sitting with his back against the kiosk. Another had brought bags and a stool that placed him at eye level with the screen as he browsed the web
That the majority of users of the Lafayette kiosks are homeless is not surprising; there is a Rescue Mission on the corner of Lafayette and White, smack dab in the middle of the kiosks, and many homeless men queue up there each morning to get a hot meal. It also makes sense that the majority of users here would be homeless, as they tend not to have smartphones with internet functionality and by definition do not have home internet access.
What I didn't realize is that this large homeless user base would prevent (in my limited, admittedly anecdotal observation) women from using the kiosks. Since July I've not seen a single female use the kiosks on Lafayette, and I pass the kiosks each morning. In New York there have been widely circulated news stories about homeless men attacking women with everything from paving stones to human feces, so it makes sense, from a safety perspective, that women would avoid areas or even kiosks deemed to be the domain of the homeless.
Even more unfortunately, bad behavior at kiosks across the city has been reported. I shouldn't be surprised that, in a city where me and all of my native friends have multiple stories about seeing guys jack off in crowded subway cars, this bad behavior would involve guys jacking off while watching porn at the kiosks. In public. In front of kids.
On Monday, the police arrested a man who was seen masturbating at a kiosk at E. 31st St. in Manhattan over the weekend.
City Councilman Corey Johnson, whose district includes parts of Times Square, said porn watching and encampments around the kiosks were a problem "instantly."
[Bronx Borough President Ruben] Diaz said they were also a problem in the Bronx. "People were camping out and stationed in front of these kiosks viewing adult content," he said. "That was not the intent."
Councilman Corey Johnson, a Democrat whose district encompasses Greenwich Village, Chelsea and part of Midtown, said police officials had asked for the removal of "several problematic kiosks" along Eighth Avenue. He said he had observed people watching pornography on the kiosk screens with children nearby.
"These kiosks are often monopolized by individuals creating personal spaces for themselves, engaging in activities that include playing loud explicit music, consuming drugs and alcohol, and the viewing of pornography," Mr. Johnson wrote in a letter last month to officials of the city and LinkNYC.
Yesterday LinkNYC, the consortium that provides the kiosks, responded by announcing modifications. "Based on user and community feedback, we removed the tablet web browser to curb long-term use of the kiosks as we continually find new ways to improve your Link experience."
So: If you were in charge of making the decisions for LinkNYC, what changes would you make to the system? It seems to solve the problem of providing free internet for homeless folks that do not have it, but if that in turn prevents women from using the kiosks, what ought to be done?
(By the bye, for readers who are not sympathetic to the homeless: No judgment, as there's no law stating that you have to be kind or have empathy for the unfortunate, your views are your views. But the argument I most often hear is "I don't want my tax dollars paying to provide for someone who doesn't work," and I have to point out that the LinkNYC kiosks are not taxpayer-funded. They are provided free of charge by the consortium, supported by advertising, and are projected to add $500 million to city coffers over 12 years.)
Running out of toilet paper in a bathroom is something none of us wants to have happen. But where do those spare rolls get stored? Designers have provided end users with lots of options to fit their various needs.
Some people like to keep as much as possible behind closed doors, and that would certainly extend to toilet paper. (Pets and small children can make a mess with toilet paper, too—another reason to keep spare rolls in a cabinet they can't get into.) This TP dispenser won't work in (most) cabinets with shelves, but it makes good use of space in other cabinets. And the dispenser does accommodate the jumbo rolls that are popular with many end users now.
For those who don't have a lot of cabinet space, this spare toilet paper holder has some useful design features. It's intended to be placed near the top of a cabinet door, since the top area in a cabinet is often unused space; the TP rolls are less likely to hit anything when the doors are closed. The smaller one-roll size works well even if there's a shelf. And the higher placement would also help end users who have trouble bending over. It mounts securely with a peel-and-stick adhesive from 3M—so the end user better be careful about the placement, since it's not something that can be moved around.
End users with sufficient floor space could use a canister-style toilet paper holder, such as the Birillo from Alessi. Purchasers say this one is just barely wide enough for jumbo rolls. Some end users might not like having the TP rolls sticking out of the top like that and would choose a canister with a different height. Others will prefer a canister with a lid.
End users who are concerned about getting their double-size rolls in and out of a canister might appreciate a design like the LooTable, designed by Richard Hutten.
Umbra's Slinger is another toilet paper holder that will accommodate any size roll—and if the end user decides not to use it for spares, it can be used for something like magazines. The Slinger would be good for end users whose homes have TP holders in inconvenient places (as all too many do), since it holds the roll in use as well as spares.
End users without floor space (or those with either small children or pets) might prefer wall-mounted designs. Those end users who just need one spare roll handy could use a double paper toilet holder; this design comes from Ferraro Art Design.
The holder could also be oriented vertically, if that fits the end user's space better. This design comes from Hanor Manor. In either case, the one problem I can see is if bathroom users start using both rolls at the same time rather than treating one as a spare—which might mean both rolls run out close to the same time.
The Paper Boy from Martina Carpelan has numbered rolls—but those numbers are covered up when the Paper Boy is full loaded. Still, it's an easy way to store three spare rolls, as each just slips over a numbered bar.
Freestanding TP holder designs can also be replicated in wall-mounted products, as with these holders from Blomus and Zack.
But some designers have created more unusual products. Bertrand Jayr of Lyon Baton created the Cloud Toilet Paper Holder, which is made of concrete. The shape is perfect for holding TP rolls securely. (But the jumbo size rolls won't fit, one purchaser reports.) Of course, it's very heavy and will need to be well secured to the wall, which may be challenging for some end users.
Ruche Shelving has a unit which fits toilet paper rolls quite well. It's made from recycled cardboard, which will appeal to many environmentally conscious buyers. (There are also aluminum versions.) This small size will hold 22 pounds, so storing some TP in it won't be a problem. The one problem would be using a cardboard item in a bathroom, since the shelf shouldn't get wet; wall-mounting the unit should help prevent mishaps.
The PatriQ Junior from Marileme uses the current toilet paper roll to hide the box where three spare rolls are stored. This would look much less cool with normal toilet paper, so anyone using this would probably want to splurge on upgraded TP. And end users with playful cats would want to be careful about the positioning, because that sure looks like an intriguing cat toy.
Weather technology company, BloomSky, released its next generation wireless camera weather station featuring the SKY2 and the accessory STORM. The complete ecosystem is designed as a solution to the problem of inaccurate weather forecasts— it creates a next generation, crowd-sourcing community that shares accurate, hyper-local weather information and images from places all over the world.
"Translating concern into action is the challenge." - President Barack Obama on the devastating evidence of rapid, global climate change in an interview with the New York Times, Sep 8 2016.
Sly Lee doesn't just want to save the oceans; through the technology non-profit The Hydrous, he is recruiting an army of citizen scientists from across the globe to join forces with him, collaborating on a mission to revitalize the coral reefs.
Here's a surprising statistic: Although coral reefs only constitute about .2% of our oceans, and nurture somewhere around one million unique species, including fish, invertebrates and algae. In the past decade, scientists have discovered an alarming rate of reef degradation. NASA's Earth Observatory estimates that nearly one-third of the world's reef now shows signs of potentially irreversible damage. The danger? A dying reef means the eventual extinction of untold numbers of species.
Through The Hydrous, Lee and his co-founders Nora Hall and Erika Woolsey are disrupting traditional ocean conservation by bringing innovative design thinking to a traditional field of science. For the Hydrous team, change starts with improving how we learn about the reef and then communicating that knowledge to scientists, policy makers and a general public to empower people to act in the face of a global crisis.
It starts with a tape measure. The traditional method for studying the reef for many years has been for divers to literally take tape measures underwater and use the data they collected to create two-dimensional maps. How effective, though, is extrapolating from 2D measurements these vastly complex, multi-dimensional worlds?
It just wasn't enough to understand let alone implement real solutions to the changes they were seeing. With his designer's eye, Lee and his team at The Hydrous realized that 3D modeling could start to answer some of the more critical questions.
Using Autodesk's ReMake tool, The Hydrous captures high-definition images of the coral reefs and converts the images into 3D models that allow scientists to observe the conditions in more vivid detail. "We didn't invent the hardware or the software, but we're inventing the way to harness it for our use," Lee explains. Their process is also known as photogrammetry—the use of photography in surveying and mapping to measure distances between objects.
Then by rapid prototyping of the 3D models, the team can deliver data almost immediately to a larger network of scientists and collaborators so they can respond in real time to the urgency of the crisis.
Through an iterative process, The Hydrous discovered a surprising development—transplanting the 3D models to the reef can stimulate re-growth. So the tools of study have become tools for renewal and an active example of how design can fuel change beyond expectations.
Autodesk technology is supporting The Hydrous movement, investing funding and tools that empower innovation. Collaborating with Lee and his team even helps drive the evolution of their design and innovation tools. Tools like Fusion 360 bring powerful 3D CAD/CAM to product designers who get to experience the true symbiosis of thinking and making. With Fusion 360, innovators like Lee can work rapidly and accurately with collaborators across the globe and also have the freedom to experiment with form and function.
The technology allows teams to design, test and fabricate in a single tool, enabling collaborations with multiple teams just about anywhere.
"Sly, whose work over the past couple years 3D modeling the coral reefs using our software, articulates our ongoing examination of how creativity, design and innovation can bring about meaningful change." - Paige Rodgers, Director of Partnerships for the Autodesk Foundation
While innovation may begin in a lab that leverages digital fabrication tools to inform the science behind remaking coral reef ecosystems, the greater potential lies in empowering global citizens to carry on the mission. With only about 10% of global reefs mapped, marine scientists need citizen scientists to do their part. The Hydrous' greatest resource for driving meaningful change is to empower people with information, motivation and the right tools. With more data and more accurate information, they can drive policy decisions and how people interact with the oceans—from where and how fishing can occur to issues of waste disposal and ocean tourism.
Lee outlines the central irony concerning one of our most precious, shared, global resources: "Because we all have access to the oceans, no one actually wants to take responsibility for it."
Lee and Nora Hall want to empower anyone exploring the ocean—recreational divers, ocean enthusiasts, surfers—to capture photos of the reef with a smartphone and send them to The Hydrous where they use tools like Autodesk ReMake and Fusion 360 to create 3D models for further study.
This is "Open Access Oceans," a concept developed by The Hydrous to mobilize meaningful global action.
On an upcoming trip to the Maldives in November, The Hydrous will host 18 citizen scientists who represent a vibrant cross-section of skills and interests; among them, marine enthusiasts, artists, educators, conservationists and members of the Autodesk technology team. Using an underwater VR camera, they aim to capture the reef at an even more granular scale, bringing the experience closer to home.
The Hydrous is actively working on this mission, shaping the next generation of ocean conservationists beginning by making personal connections. "There are few things more powerful than evoking an emotion with another person, which I believe can lead to education, empowerment, and ultimately engagement," Hall offers. "What keeps me going every day is my loved ones, and the curiosity to understand with compassion. I want the oceans to be there for my nieces and nephews. I want generations after them to live in a world that offers the opportunities I had and have. Humanity is the core of The Hydrous and my engine."
The next steps for The Hydrous is to engage a larger societal shift to set up the next generation with the tools to initiate meaningful change as a matter of routine. The smartphone generation begets The Hydrous generation, bridging intent with action and transforming lives.
For designers who have a big idea but feel disheartened by the challenge, Hall advises, "Simplify your perspective. A college professor once told me, 'Bring your loved ones to the beach.' I refer to that simplicity when I get tangled in disheartenment." Adds Lee, "I believe each and every person has the potential to enact change. Sometimes just the right impetus is required. Surround yourself by people who talk about ideas."
I'm building a tool cabinet right now for the final semester project at my Hand Tool School. I was going through a stack of rough sawn Cherry, matching color and grain and assigning each piece to a part of my build. I came across a 10 by 50 board that had a small knot right in the middle, about 2/3 of the way down the length. Not really a big deal. It would make hand planing the board a little more difficult but I figured I was up to the challenge.
I flipped the board over and that little knot had bloomed into a canyon on the opposite face. Probably a branch formed at this point on the tree and then had broken off leaving this chasm. What to do here? The grain around the knot of course begins to swirl like water down a drain and in order to cut out the knot and leave straight grain that would match with the rest of my piece, I would need to sacrifice quite a bit of material leaving me with two much shorter pieces around 26 and 12? long. These two pieces would fit within the dimension I need for parts in my build and I could move on happily without the defect.
Maybe this "defect" is really just an opportunity. I think that there is a way to embrace this knot hole and make it a feature in a table top. Imagine creating a spot for a built in Ikebana style flower arrangement growing right out of the top. Or fill the hole with clear resin and encase something within it. The swirling grain around the knot makes me think of a Zen rock garden so I have visions of turning the knot into a tiny Koi pond and highlighting the grain around it. Even just leaving the knot open and planing the board until you get a through hole would make for a real point of interest in a top while making it clear to the casual observer that this piece came from a tree. You could use this as a door panel that provides a sneak peek of what is inside the cabinet. Maybe I have been reading Nakashima too much lately, but I'm really excited by the opportunity presented by this "defect."
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This "Hand Tool School" series is provided courtesy of Shannon Rogers, a/k/a The Renaissance Woodworker. Rogers is founder of The Hand Tool School, which provides members with an online apprenticeship that teaches them how to use hand tools and to build furniture with traditional methods.
The new features of Apple's much-ballyhooed iOS 10 are supposed to be "more expressive, more dynamic, and more fun than ever. Thing is, I don't want my phone to be expressive, dynamic or fun; I want it to work for the things I need it to, and right now iOS 9 does, more or less.
For those of you brave souls that did upgrade, what do you think of the new interfaces? Media reports are what you'd expect—love, hate, gushing, complaining—but we want to hear from our design-minded readership: Is losing the swipe-on a UX improvement? Does having to re-learn where Notifications is annoy you, or is it minor, and ultimately an improvement? Is Siri now as smart as they claim? Does the Maps integration finally live up to Jobsian standards?
I stopped being an early-adopter of iOS upgrades after bricking my phone twice, so I'll wait until the bugs are gone—and after hearing your crucial designer feedback. Please let us know!
Articulated furniture can be fun as hell but it's hard to pull off. We've featured a lot of sculptural quality work from the likes of Sebastian Errazuriz, and tables that expand like mysterious wooden kaleidoscopes, but here's simpler concept. Wave Bench is a seating system that stands upright until "activated" by the user.
The bench was designed by Brian Lee. Its jointing allows sitters to nestle in place while the surrounding sections flare out softly, giving the more of a hammock vibe than most wood benches offer. From the back and front the seat takes on a temporary wave pattern around the user(s) that disappears once vacated. The weighting/resistance seems to be light enough that small kids and grans were comfortable using it, easy enough to activate with your legs alone if lying down.
Quite fun as a proof of concept, but taken as-is the principle could seem a bit uncomfortable—you have to hover-push your butt out before anything solid shows up to support it. The discomfort may be a mental block primarily, but one based on self preservation. Those gaps also seem less ideal for kiddo fingers, but then it's all about picking your audience. Maybe his kids don't have hands. These quibbles aside, Lee's other work uses a similar principle in more adventurous ways.
In his series of Furnitecture he explores flexible walls and spaces. Made from thinner jointed materials than the bench, these would also the capacity to respond to human pressure while maintaining a larger presence. The notion of a room divider that could change shape to double as seating is artistic, but inspiring.
Between the C Wave and T Wave patterns, I can imagine several applications for this type of articulation in interior architecture and further furniture design. I might never be Christopher-Walkin-on-walls cool, but sitting in the walls would still feel pretty groovy. More photos and CV over on his site.
With studios in Los Angeles, Munich and Shanghai, Designworks provides full service design solutions for premium brands worldwide. Our history spans nearly forty years, and continues to earn numerous awards and industry accolades along the way. Designworks thrives in a climate of true cross-fertilization, advancing its observations, research and experiences
View the full design job hereWe don't want to spoil this if you haven't already seen it:
Reading Joel Moskowitz's recent piece on building flatpack furniture reminded me of my first encounter with plywood furniture that could be built with a minimal number of tools. I had been given a book called How to Make Furniture without Tools, which contained designs for simple but functional tables, chairs, cabinets, and beds.
Published in 1975, it was written by Clement Meadmore, a famed Australian metal sculptor who was greatly interested in modern furniture. The book stood out for a couple of reasons, the furniture could be assembled without tools and each design utilized 100% of a sheet of plywood.
The only waste was the sawdust generated while cutting the pieces—which would be done at the lumberyard on a vertical panel saw. This was before the era of the big box store, when the neighborhood lumber yard would cut plywood and sheet goods for a nominal charge.
I was a novice woodworker and did not know much about building furniture, but could tell Meadmore knew even less. And that was fine, because I was more interested in learning the dimensions and proportions that worked for furniture than I was in using Meadmore's methods of construction. He said to assemble the pieces with butt joints and carpenter's glue, and to weight the joints in lieu of clamping.
Carpenter's glue is great stuff, but not for a butt joint, which in the absence of fasteners or joinery (dado, mortise, biscuit, etc.) is terribly weak. Meadmore probably knew better but it would have spoiled the title of his book to call it How to Build Furniture with a Hammer. When I built his designs I nailed and glued or screwed the joints. If I were to build it today I'd probably use biscuits and/or pocket screws—or with interlocking thru joints if I had access to a CNC machine.
I thought of this furniture as disposable, using it for however long I needed it and then taking it apart and reusing the plywood. Over a period of years I built platform beds, chairs, and tables based on Meadmore's designs—doing my own cutting and altering dimensions and details to suit my needs.
I built several versions of the arm chair on the cover of the book, which with its low seat, sloped back, and wide arms reminded me of the Adirondack Chair patented in 1905. My favorite modification was to widen and brace one or both arms so they functioned as built-in side tables.
It wasn't until years later, during a trip to NYC, that I discovered the source of Meadmore's design. I was at the Museum of Modern Art's permanent furniture collection when I saw a colorful chair with the shape and proportions of the one I had built so many of. It was Gerrit Rietveld's iconic "Red-Blue" chair. Designed and built in 1918, the original was made from unstained beech. Rietveld later produced versions that were painted or stained black or white. It was not until 1923, when inspired by the work of fellow Dutchman Piet Mondrian, that he painted it red, blue, yellow, and black.
The chair was intended to be mass produced but was never produced in anything more than small batches. I have no idea how many such chairs were made at the time, but the design continues to be produced to this day. Google "Rietveld Red-Blue Chair" and you'll find all manner of originals, reproductions, kits, and construction plans for sale.
And that leaves out all the designs inspired by the original—like ones made from Lucite or ones where some of the pieces are turned on a lathe. Design Within Reach sells a miniature display version of $290, which strikes me as funny because for that amount you could buy the material to build a dozen Meadmore chairs.
I've never sat in a Red-Blue Chair but can tell by looking that the flat unpadded seat would be uncomfortable to sit in for long periods of time. Meadmore's version included a pathetically thin seat pad. I put an old couch cushion in mine.
Friends use to scoff at the looks of my chair, until they sat in it and found out how comfortable it was (with a padded seat).It has been years since I recycled the plywood from my last Meadmore Chair but I remember the design fondly, as it got me started at building furniture and unwittingly gave me a connection to Gerrit Rietveld.
Sometimes you need an adhesive bond that gives you the right amount of stretch AND a strong hold. We're sure you have a couple of projects you're trying to wrap up this weekend and with 3M's VHB Tape, you can get a solid bond without the stress of rivets and screws or the messiness of liquid epoxies. In this video, Jimmy shares some tips and tricks for using VHB Tape from how to prep your substrate to how much tape to use. Bond different materials with no problems—metal to glass, plastic to metal, painted wood to painted wood—the possibilities are endless.
For more info on 3M VHB Tape, check out 3M's site.
For over a decade, the team behind PAX Labs has been steadily reimagining what it means to vape. Once a novelty confined to the fringes of smoking culture, vaporizing has emerged in recent years as a more refined experience for those who enjoy loose leaf pleasures and e-cigarettes mainstream alternative to cigarettes.
What started as a thesis project at Stanford's product design program, PAX was introduced in 2012 as a simple, portable loose-leaf vaporizer—an elegant alternative to the desktop models and overdesigned options on the market. Dubbed the "iPhone of vaporizers" by TechInsider, PAX Labs has been on the forefront of defining a design aesthetic for smokers beyond head shops and seedy underground coffee shops traditionally associated with smoking marijuana. In a nascent market with huge potential, PAX Labs is leading the conversation with their thoughtful approach to packaging, storytelling and design engineering. With the introduction of their e-cigarette JUUL and a smaller, lighter PAX2 in 2015, the company is making strong headway in reinventing the overall experience for smokers.
Below, we speak with Core77 Conference keynote speaker and PAX Labs co-founder and Chief Product Officer James Monsees on how he decided to take hi student thesis project from concept to market, how the vaporization market has changed over this decade-long journey and what the future might hold for PAX Labs.
James Monsees: Adam [Bowen] and I graduated from the Stanford Product Design Program. I worked at the d.school after graduating while also working on Ploom. We saw a huge unmet need and resonance with friends, family and team members who used early, low resolution prototypes of our product. The big question at the time was whether or not investors would understand the opportunity, given it was in a space that wasn't frequently pitched. We prototyped that question with some early meetings and built some confidence, knowing that while financial support would be a difficult challenge, it could be achieved. From there it was game on.
Diverse! This is a complicated business. We have all the hurdles and challenges of several companies all rolled into one. We manage the complete product and brand architecture, research and development, manufacturing, distribution, customer service, compliance and regulatory affairs and more. It is a dynamic environment where people with vastly different backgrounds work and play together to solve what we all believe is an enormous problem and opportunity.
The look and feel of PAX was an early bet we placed. We believed that there were a lot of people who resonated with vaporization but not with products and brands that were marketed and designed towards more advanced, experienced users. We believed regulatory changes were on the horizon, which would help facilitate broader conversations amongst people who were rapidly becoming more personally engaged with technology they carried with them. We recognized our technology had a unique place in the quiver of stuff that people would carry and value…it should be the most fun thing you can have in your pocket. The team got really into that idea and started adding a bunch of little surprises, and we all loved it.
There have been incredible changes in the industry over that time. When we got started, a vaporizer was predominantly a desktop appliance and e-cigarettes were novelties not yet available in the US. These days, vaporization is a household concept and we like to think we have played an important role in making that happen. We fully expect the pace of change to continue. We expect a near term future where burning things and inhaling them is viewed as just as silly as it sounds.
We have a lot of ideas up our sleeve. In general it's all about the consumer journey for us. The markets we play in are still at fairly early stages of the big evolutionary pushes we're seeing right now. We're a company with too much opportunity. Our plan is to retain focus on our two brands (PAX and JUUL), to expand and to improve the consumer experience with each of these brands, and to offer new experiences that push the bounds of what these products can do for people. If we succeed in continuing to offer magic to consumers, we expect smoking to become clearly antiquated by contrast.
Looking to add a modern, functional pet accessory to their line, ModPet chose us to create an item that invokes sophistication with an affordable price tag. The Pet Grass Pods add a stylish décor piece to any floor or table top, with its glossy exterior and soft, radiant overhead lighting. The Pods demonstrate that you can keep your pets happy and healthy without sacrificing household beauty.
View the full content hereIt may slip our minds from time to time, but the overall objective of design should be to create a better world. Driven by the desire to approach problem solving holistically, eight years ago engineers from Brown University and designers from Rhode Island School of Design formed a partnership and founded the student-run conference, Better World by Design. Hosted across the two adjacent college campuses, the conference is not purely a collegiate affair. Designers, creators and innovators of all sorts will gather in Providence from September 23-25 to learn from professionals just how they too can create a better world through design.
This year the conference will operate around the theme of Interplay, which emerged from the interdisciplinary backgrounds of the 2016 BWxD team. Major areas of interest initially felt seemingly disparate and included healthcare, food, urban planning, digital media and speculative design. After some research the team realized that each of these fields utilize multidisciplinary thinking, interacting with each other. The common thread between all of these fields? Design.
"We found companies and individuals redefining longstanding designs, industries, and methodologies, no matter their area of expertise," says BWxD Content Team member Evan Boyd. Between "food businesses rethinking the relationship between producers and restaurateurs, health companies constructing new kinds of patient interfaces and architects reconceiving public space," the most crucial players in each process are the designers and innovators who understand the necessity of interdisciplinary design, "bringing previously unconnected entities into the same conversation or space." So the theme of Interplay was born—"inter" capturing the notion of creating new connections and "play" enforcing the freethinking and experimental spirit that accompanies successful design.
Over the course of three days themes of Micro, Meso and Macro will be explored. Each day examines the scale at which interplay is occurring, from small interactions between a person and object to massive interactions operating on a global scale. Through thirty-five presentations, workshops and discussions, presenters will tackle ideas of ownership, boundaries, community and the capacity of technology and virtual connections to enact massive cultural shifts.
Micro - Ayodamola Tanimowo Okunseinde and Salome Asega of The Iyapo Repository
Current Eyebeam Creative Residents and New York based designers and researchers Ayodamola Tanimowo Okunseinde and Salome Asega co-created The Iyapo Repository, an archival library, museum and workshop space, to examine race and plurality while affirming and representing a future for African diaspora in media as in reality. The two designers met while graduate students at The New School's Parsons School of Design, where Okunseinde is now an Adjunct Faculty Member. Okunseinde works with a wide range of media, from painting and speculative design to physically interactive works and explorations of Afrofuturism, and has participated in acclaimed residency programs, such as Finland's Invitation to Helsinki and IDEO's Fortnight. Celebrating dissensus, multivocality and exploring an interest in how interactivity and installation can be used to tell the stories of border citizenship, Asega works collaboratively through participatory research to build interactive installations and to develop odd wearables. In addition to co-founding The Iyapo Repository, Asega is the co-host of speculative talk show Hyperopia: 20/30 Vision on bel-air radio, the Assistant Director of POWRPLNT, a digital art collaboratory and Co-Creator of Candyfloss, a team of technologists who co-create with musicians.
On "Micro" Friday Asega and Okunseinde will discuss how artifacts and museums can preserve and enforce narratives of identity while addressing how designers must ensure individuals have agency over the designs that affect them.
Meso - Hannah Chung of Sproutel
After identifying a need in the medical community Hannah Chung created startup Sproutel, known for Jerry the Bear, which comforts and educates children with Type 1 Diabetes about their disease, and for being awarded $150,000 in federal funds through the Small Business Innovation Business Program. In addition to co-founding Sproutel, Chung is known for co-founding Design for America, a national student incubator-style organization in which students solve social problems through design, was named one of the "Top 15 Women to Watch in Tech" by Inc Magazine in 2012 and won the Perfect Pitch competition at the Fortune's Most Powerful Women 2013 Summit, and was one of 50 makers honored by the White House in 2014. A renowned speaker, Chung has been a presenter at many conferences including Design and Emotion, ACM Creativity & Cognition, RISD Mindshare, IFTF, and Women@TheFrontier by Singularity University and NASA. Primarily, Chung is devoted to simple and intuitive unions of design and technology that enhance education and system design.
On "Meso" Saturday Chung will present "Sprouting Sproutel: Designing for a Growing Business" in which she will explore the process of creating a sustainable business model for an impact-driven organization.
Macro - Dhairya Pujara of YCenter
Founder and CEO of YCenter, a global experiential education enterprise, Dhairya Pujara recognizes classroom-only education is not sufficient in creating real-world, sustainable solutions. After obtaining his Master's in Biomedical Engineering in the US, Pujara moved to the African country Mozambique to work in a rural hospital—an experience that revealed systematic problems and led him to found YCenter. Shifting conversations from donation to collaborative solutions through technology and social entrepreneurship, Pujara works with his organization to improve social conditions through healthcare and education system design.
On "Macro" Sunday Pujara will present his organization's projects in Mozambique and Mumbai driven by design-thinking. Following the presentation he will hold a hands-on workshop emphasizing the importance of research, action, prototyping and implementation when creating community solutions.
With such an engaging speaker lineup, this year's event is sure to amaze. Some of the other engaging conversations and workshops to look forward to are "Pneumatic Masonry," a workshop held by design collective Pneuhaus in which participants will collaboratively explore the configuration of predetermined structures using pressure systems that create semi-permanent and rigid structures.
News of the 2016 presidential race is hard to escape. With this year being a unique time in history for American politics, designers must consider our roles and creations within this moment in time. Better World will be holding events addressing this, such as a talk by Dana Chisnell of Center for Civic Design about the Anywhere Ballot, a new way to make voting in elections more accessible by letting voters use their own devices, and a conversation "Why Designers Need to Run for Congress" with Leah Chung of US AID about why designers are uniquely qualified for public office.
In addition to the diverse workshops and lectures, Better World breaks down the barrier of accessibility between presenters and attendees with a wide variety of networking events, parties and (thankfully) provided snack breaks. Tickets are anticipated to once again sell out, get yours before it's too late.
For a movie with nonstop exploding cars and a CGI-altered central character, Mad Max: Fury Road took a shockingly practical approach to effects. Its physical FX and stunt work has been applauded throughout the internet and festival circuit for more than a year, but every release of badass original footage shocks all over again.
This new supercut of the film's pre-production action shots is so exciting I changed my evening plans to watch the full movie directly after. The video, put together by space150 for Warner Bros., captures the tactile glory of why practical effects still matter...and the mind boggling amount used.
Director George Miller and production team members estimate that over 80% of the movie's effects are physical. There are a lot of dramatic landscape additions and an entirely fabricated lightning storm, but for an apocalyptic action film the majority of the edits are comparatively tiny.
Cars are arguably the central theme and real backdrop of the story, and the film used (and crashed) over 150 real ones, giving undeniable realism to a fantastical story. The Doof Warrior's guitar shot real fire! Action movies will never be the same!
If you hunger for more before and after details, check out the in depth FX Guide breakdown and watch Iloura's beautiful reel of their work:
Core77's editors spend time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite stories from the World Wide Web.
Did you realize that the Statue of Liberty's color is not a paint job but instead a rich copper patina built up over a 150 year period? According to this article, Lady Liberty's hue "is considered a type of perfection for this kind of metal", a prime example of oxidation copper manufacturers have attempted for years to recreate. The color is beautiful and its chemistry mysterious, which must make you contemplate if our wonder for this icon of freedom lies more heavily on its green tinge than we may think. Through and through, Ian Frazier's tightly written reflection reveals the coincidental patriotic symbolism behind a happy accident.
—Allison Fonder, community manager
—Eric Ludlum, editorial director
Are election season polls grinding (and then melting) your gears? Are you sick of weirdly conflicting statistics shared by overenthusiastic social media friends? This heartening interview with stats wizard David Spiegelhalter touches on how to be less mislead and overwhelmed by number data, without giving up completely.
—Kat Bauman, contributing writer
This article explains how 200 years ago, some smart folks solved a materials-and-environment problem with a solution we still use today.
—Rain Noe, senior editor
Most of this article gives me anxiety, but I can get behind the idea that science and art should merge more often to create better species, structures, etc. to benefit the planet. Is making chickens model in galleries really art though? Did the chickens sign contracts? I'm concerned.
P.S. If you're in Detroit later this month, you can witness the breeding yourself. In an art gallery.
—Emily Engle, editorial assistant
This is such a cool project! Laura Kampf is tricking out her bike, and her first step is to make handles that double as removable, usable screwdrivers:
John Heisz makes a handsome split-top box that latches by means of DIY spring buttons:
Jay Bates, in his immaculate shop, efficiently builds a bookcase for his immaculate home:
Really cool: Daughter-of-the-Year April Wilkerson builds and plumbs an outdoor shower for her folks, who live in hot-weather Texas:
Jimmy DiResta cranks out a sturdy series of workbenches for a makerspace:
A very cool detail—Matthias Wandel shows us how he made a curved box joint in order to create a sort of desk shield:
Izzy Swan is a man whose shop will still be running after the apocalypse. Here he figures out how to make a functional miter saw powered by a cordless drill:
Last week Izzy Swan showed you the device he invented for drilling curved holes—this week he explains the application. He also leaves a mid-project failure in the edit, which we always appreciate for the sake of edification:
Here Bob Clagett shows you how to pour the casting in the mold he had made from his own head a couple weeks ago:
Here Izzy Swan gets an assist from non-tool-user, Mrs. Izzy, to show you how to make jigsaw cuts more accurately:
Marc Spagnuolo builds a set of fold-flat pet steps that can also be converted into a ramp:
Jesse de Geest shows you a combination sandpaper/whetstone sharpening method:
Another one from de Geest, who builds a dadoed and through-tenoned wall-mounted shelf system to tidy up his shop:
Another shop organization project—Linn from Darbin Orvar turns some bonus plywood into a rolling workstation to house tool overflow:
David Picciuto batches out a bunch of pencil holders that he'll sell at an upcoming craft show:
Ron Paulk is selling plans for his new, compact breakdown workbench:
This one is short but sweet—Ben Uyeda builds some shelves in an unusual way, utilizing common cheapie shelf brackets in a way that accidentally creates a mid-century modern aesthetic:
