As designers we often have to present our work, whether through presentation boards, renderings or physical models. The highest achievement of this art form is if you can express a complicated concept that the viewer can grasp in seconds—and it's even better if you can do it wordlessly, eliminating any language barrier.

This simple demonstration put on by U-Haul at the recent Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance Conference might be the best-designed presentation we've ever seen. Their task was to demonstrate how the weight distribution on a loaded trailer affects driving dynamics. To do it, they used an RC Ford Mustang running on a treadmill:

The principle is easy to grasp and provides more data than, say, having a bystander witness an actual trailer crash:

We've all seen charts like the following, which indicate how tall one thing is in relation to another:

And you've undoubtedly seen a photo of, say, some tiny electronic component with a quarter placed in the photo for scale. But college student and Photoshop wiz Kevin Wisbith has a different way to present relative size. "I've seen a lot of images just cut out and placed side by side," he writes on Reddit, "and it just isn't as impressive to me. Being able to see [objects compared] in a real life environment just does so much more for me."

To that end, here are some shots from his "A Quick Perspective: Sizing Up Reality" series.

The Titanic. When it was built the Titanic was one of the largest ships built. It's total length was 882 feet and 9 inches long. Since then ship building has come a long way. The United States aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan is 1,092 feet long. If the Titanic was placed on the deck of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan the ship would have 210 feet of deck room left.

The 2.6 Trillion Dollar Rock. The Dionysus asteroid is part of the Apollo asteroid belt. The Dionysus asteroid is estimated to be 1.5 km wide or 4921.26 feet. The value of the resources estimated to be within the asteroid is around $2,600,000,000,000. If the asteroid was placed above the Golden Gate Bridge, it wouldn't even surpass the bridge span.

The Pulmonoscorpius kirktonensis or (Breathing Scorpion). Prehistoric bugs were larger than average day bugs due to the higher oxygen levels. The Pulmonoscorpius kirktonensis was a species of scorpion that grew to 24 inches long, or the size of a normal house cat. Personally, I'm glad I these things don't exist anymore. I'd never go outside ever again if they did.

The Mir Mine. The Mir Mine located in Russia is one of the deepest mines in the world. The official depth is 1,722 feet deep. If the 2nd tallest building in the United States, the Willis or Sears Tower which is 1,729 feet tall was placed in the mine, the tip would only stick out 7 feet past ground level.

B-2 Bomber. The B-2 Bomber is one of the worlds most advanced and most expensive airplanes in the world. What most people don't realize is how big these things really are. The wingspan of a B-2 is 172 feet which is 12 feet wider than an NFL football field.

Worlds Largest Oil Tanker. The largest oil tanker ever produced was the Seawise Giant which spanned 1,504 feet. If placed in the main lake in New York's Central Park it would only have 350 feet of extra room on the front and back.

Burj Khalifa. The Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest standing structure in the world. It measures in at 2,722 feet tall. If placed in New York it would stretch almost 1,000 feet past the One World Trade center and almost 1,300 feet taller than the Empire State Building.

The Death Star. Although the Death Star doesn't exist in reality, it's truly the biggest and most bad-ass machine ever conceived. The Death Star's estimated width is around 99 miles across, or around 1/4th the length of Florida.

Note that the captions are Wisbith's. The wording on the last one is a little weird; he seems to imply that the Death Star never existed, when many know that it did but that Rebel forces successfully destroyed it, as recorded in a 1977 George Lucas cult documentary. In any case, Wisbith has also created video installments of the series that can be viewed here.

Via Kottke

I can't figure out why Pinuccio Sciola isn't a well-known name. If you find inspiration in organic sculpture, interactive installations, material exploration, or unusual musicality, his work likely offers something to learn from. 

Sciola was an innovative and prolific Italian sculptor who passed away this March at the age of 74. He is best known for his mind-bending series of "sound stones": carefully sculpted rocks that produce eerie music when touched correctly. 

Some sound stones were behemoth boulders, others would fit into a lap. Out in their environment they look like ancient wayfinding markers, or sacred alien symbols. To produce these odd musical instruments Sciola delicately cut and formed each rock to produce a range of tones based on its resonant frequency when rubbed and the depth or shape of his incisions. His sculptures required great insight into different stones' material qualities, harmonics, and the methods needed to unleash them.

The result is a lot like a glass harmonium, or rubbing the lip of a wine glass, where the player adds friction across solid objects "tuned" to different notes based on their size and density. The music itself is often haunting. At times the sounds produced can sound like other instruments - horns, woodwinds, synthesizers, voice, and more experimental tools all come to mind - but they rarely sound like what you'd expect from a hunk of granite.

The Sciola Museum and its enormous "sound garden" are a great regional attraction, and his exhibition list is exhausting to look at. But despite a long and beloved career, there are surprisingly few English language sources on his biography and works. Aside from Google Translate, some of the most illuminating information comes from YouTube. 

This short artsy documentary follows the sourcing and installation of an enormous sound stone, and allows some insight into how Sciola thinks of his materials (hint: he's just letting them tell their own stories).

Another shows more intimate footage of the artist playing his smaller creations while looking like a whimsical stony elf.

Though he is less well known outside of Italy, and less still outside of Europe, Sciola has inspired scores of musicians, composers, and sculptors to engage with his work and let it influence their own. Some, like Giacomo Monica below, play using tools like bows. 

Most musicians connect using only hands or smaller stones, as Sciola often did. 

No matter how they're played, each sculpture shows off its own surprising complexity and clarity, altogether shocking in an instrument made out of rock. 

Brookstone is seeking a Packaging Designer to design, develop, and implement Brookstone packaging from initial design creation to production in order to meet marketing goals. You would also be defining style guidelines and creating packaging solutions to drive innovation that meets branding requirements and suits our target audiences.

There was a lot of talk in the '80s and '90s about the paperless office. As personal computers began to proliferate, we were told, paper would go away. We now know the opposite happened, and that we use more paper than ever.

Similarly, in design schools of the '90s, one of the hot topics was dematerialization. The thinking was that technology would reduce the amount of physical objects we interacted with. As industrial designers whose job was to create physical products, we were told, our challenge would be to focus on getting the user experience right.

I saw this dematerialization begin to come true in 2001 with the release of the original iPod. Suddenly I no longer had to carry a Discman and a bunch of discs around if I wanted to listen to music. This trend accelerated sharply in 2007; with this new thing called an iPhone, I no longer had to carry an iPod, a camera, books. Just one little rectangle.

But the iPhone was the last invention I can think of that reduced my personal object load. Since then the leading-edge companies have been making more objects, not less. Apple's expanded into watches. Amazon used to be a bookseller, now they make the Fire and the Echo. GoPro made cameras, now they're making drones. Google used to be a web portal, and yesterday they rolled out an entire line of physical products, starting with their Pixel phone:

Their WiFi router:

Google Home, their speaker and Amazon Echo competitor:

And their Daydream View VR headset:

The videos aren't terribly original nor exciting, and if you blur your eyes they could've been made by Apple or any other competitor. But that's not the point, as these are intended to be splashy eye-candy videos. What I found telling is that Google also released some "How these fit into your life" videos, like this one for the Google Home…

…and in every case, the traffic for the eye-candy videos surpasses the traffic of the lifestyle videos. To me, the disparity suggests one of two things: Either that 1) People already understand how these objects would (or would not) fit into their lives, and don't need to see a video spelling it out, or 2) People don't care how these objects fit into their lives, and are only interested in the New New New.

Whether it's the former or the latter, it appears that we'll be seeing, at least from the companies mentioned here, more physical objects rather than less. That doesn't mean all of them will stick around: The HTC First, a/k/a the Facebook Phone, famously flopped; so did Amazon's Fire smartphone; and anyone remember Google Glass? But we can expect to see continued incursions by companies that have the money.

For years Google was content to stay out of this space, letting others make the phone and licensing Android for free while they profited only off embedded Android services. The control was decentralized. But now they're finally coming around to what Steve Jobs seized upon at least as far back as 2001, with that original iPod, and that was the realization that it's only partially about the object, and more about the product ecosystem that it operates within. When you've got control over the entire system, from hardware to software, you can more fully control the user experience (for better or worse). That Google is now ready to take this step means that Apple and the others will have to up their game. The ensuing competition, and a willingness to experiment, should ultimately lead to better experiences for consumers. 

For jaded designers and/or consumers, it's tough to get excited over Google's new products, as they're all derivative of existing offerings. There are some incremental improvements: The Pixel phone can reportedly gain 7 hours worth of battery life off of a measly 15-minute charge, for instance. But taking a close look at the Daydream View VR goggles reveals true innovation.

First off, VR goggles are a weird thing to have strapped to the front of your face. The designers have recognized this and tried to make it less weird, and from afar at least, it appears to me that they've succeeded. For instance, no one wants to wear a bulky metal or plastic thing on their face, and the designers have intelligently opted to build the thing out of fabric. Seven different types of foam with varying densities are laminated within the fabric, providing rigidity where needed. The fabric itself is a breathable microfiber. The materials choice means that it weighs 30% less than "similar devices"—we're assuming Oculus Rift—and is touted as being comfortable to wear.

The user drops a new Google phone into the front, and it latches in with a simple bungie-style loop, rather than a latch that can break. Trolls will complain that the Daydream View is only compatible with new Google phones, but that's the company's right, and as we mentioned in the last post, it's all about the ecosystem.

The goggles are nearly technology-free, with the only piece of tech within them being an NFC chip that automatically recognizes and pairs with your phone upon insertion.

Another nice touch is the storage place for the included remote, which I imagine is the first thing I'd lose. The designers have created a space for it to nest inside the goggles themselves, held in place by elastic, when not in use.

So, that's the physical design, which it appears (again, from afar, I haven't tried these on) that they've nailed. At an affordable $79, too. Now we'll see if they have also gotten the ecosystem part correct, and will have enough compelling apps ready for it by the November release.

While Butler’s revolutionary in-home HIV test kits should have offered users some important answers, the kits’ confusing design and instructions led to fear and user error instead. Unwilling to let the kits’ reduced accuracy level go unchecked, Butler turned to THRIVE for a more user-friendly solution. While studying the product experience, we found that, at best, the process was uncomfortable; and at worst, the potential for error made it terrifying. More specifically, many potential users were

Here Jimmy DiResta makes "one of the heaviest things I've ever put together," for what have to be the smallest end-users: He's been hired by a school to create a massive outdoor chalkboard, and he starts from scratch.

There's a good amount of planning required here, with Jimmy figuring out how the massive piece will be temporarily held in place prior to final mounting. Also check out how he improvises an improved look to the unusual-shaped mending plates:

The MFA in Products of Design program at SVA has launched a unique idea in anticipation of their annual Open House and Info Session, coming up next month on Friday, November 11th. This year they're introducing an “Open House Design Challenge”—a chance to help people interested in attending the event, but who may not be able to afford the travel expense. 

The way it works is easy: Participants choose a design challenge from the following:

• How would you design a product that tells time without using numbers?
• If Airbnb and Johnson & Johnson launched a new initiative together, what would it be?
• Invent one way to reduce implicit bias in the context of a job interview
• How can a fast food restaurant reduce the amount of garbage its customers create?
• Sketch an app that would help teenagers counter bullying

They then propose a design solution by submitting one image along with a one-paragraph text description.

The top 5 winning entrants receive expert portfolio reviews from faculty and experts, and the overall winner will receipt travel reimbursement up to $750 to come to the department's open house in New York City! 

Chair of the department Allan Chochinov explains, "We wanted to create a fun and modest way to help more people make it to our Open House event—it's just such an ideal opportunity to see the department, meet students and faculty...really get a visceral sense of where the education takes place. But we also know that travel can be expensive." He adds, "We're excited to see what people come up with. This isn't solely a skills challenge however; what we're looking for are ingenious design approaches to interesting problems—some social, some interactive, some industrial, some business design. We tried to keep the themes multi-disciplinary, since that is what and how we teach in the PoD Masters program." 

The deadline for submitting your idea is Friday, October 21st. Find all the details at the SVA site.

This month we're reporting from Indonesia, a country in Southeast Asia comprised of thousands of tiny islands. Of these islands, the beauty of Bali is legendary but as we found out when we arrived, it shares at least one thing in common with other island destinations—an enormous amount of waste littering the shores. When I'm traveling to developing countries, I see an enormous amount of waste—on the street, surrounding houses, clogging up rivers and washing up on beaches. Everywhere. And the weirdest thing is that its the community's own trash.

Why would people throw trash in their own backyard? I never understand why they would do that. That is until I visited Indonesia. 

We contributed to the conversation around waste by participating in the weekly beach cleanup where 95% of the waste we collected was plastic. If you ever need a new flipflop, you can find one in Bali. 

This story originally appeared on Story Hopper, a collection of design stories worth sharing, squeezed into short videos.

Want a reminder that simple, beautiful, problem-solving design changes the world? Well, too bad. Instead, look at this golf club that's also a portable urinal.

Sometimes I research old TV advertised products to learn about unexpected consumer "needs" I've never considered. When there's-got-to-be-a-better-way there's a fifty-fifty chance I've got no idea what the problem is. The UroClub falls in the "???" column, and because I'm not a penis-sporting golf lover I guess I missed its debut. In sum, it's a golf club the length of a seven iron with a .5 liter hollow handle, a screw off cap, and an entirely un-ergonomic opening for guy golfers to carefully aim at when the clubhouse is catastrophically far away.

You've got a golf cart and I can see the clubhouse behind you, you liar

If the idea of peeing into the hollow handle of a golf club on the middle of the green doesn't sound terribly low key, don't worry! The UroClub comes with a clip-on "privacy towel" in totally covert forest green. It does a 0% job at distracting onlookers from your Chinoed groin, but it does show off that you're too successful and self-confident to even bother looking for a bush. 

And if you're grossed out by the idea of transporting a sloshily loaded club for the rest of the day, well, that's what the Help is for. 

Consider its use, its transportation, its cleaning, and then consider that its designer is going to make more money than anyone in your ID school graduating class, because it was definitely invented by someone wealthy enough to spend time de-hydrating themselves on golf courses in the first place. Seriously: a Floridian urologist created this.

So relatable

Golfers aren't known to tolerate discomfort, so he's really locked in on something. Just don't mix it up with this. 

Aside from the inaugural biennale at the Somerset House, the 14th edition of London Design Festival felt like business as usual. Indeed, the introductory text to the official guide to LDF2016 only makes a passing mention of the Brexit. Similarly, only one exhibition in East London explicitly addressed the results of June's referendum — an apt indication that the effects of leaving the EU remain to be seen.

Among the many exhibitions and events from September 17–25, Place Your Bets solicited visitors' opinions about the post-Brexit future of London through a series of infographics. But the balance of the offerings in Shoreditch — a neighborhood inevitably labeled as "trendy" or "hip — were rather more conventional design week fare. Highlights among the product and furniture exhibitions included the Map Shop and Particle Particular, which we've covered before, as well as Emily Forgot's photogenic Neverland at KK Outlet.

Meanwhile, the well-gentrified environs of Brick Lane have long been home to the (somewhat confusingly named) London Design Fair, one of three tradeshows that takes place during the second weekend of LDF. Formerly known as TENT London and Super Brands, this year marks the tenth anniversary of the event at the Old Truman Brewery, where it has expanded into the third floor.

Signal Noise - "Place Your Bets" (installation view)

Data design agency Signal Noise produced a thought-provoking exhibition at Protein Gallery

Photo credit: Ray Hu

Signal Noise - "Place Your Bets"

On view for five days, "Place Your Bets" was billed as an exercise in "predictive analytics"

Photo credit: Ray Hu

Signal Noise - "Place Your Bets" (detail view)

Visitors were invited to share their thoughts and opinions about the future of London

Photo credit: Ray Hu

Signal Noise - "Place Your Bets", Robot Oracles

These Little Printer-like robots are futuristic fortune tellers

Photo credit: Ray Hu

Signal Noise - "Place Your Bets" (installation view)

As elegantly designed as it was provocative, the exhibition was a highlight of LDF2016

Photo credit: Ray Hu

Ready Made Go 2 at the Ace Hotel

The Ace Hotel presented the second edition of "Ready Made Go." For the second year running, Laura Houseley (editor of Modern Design Review) has curated a series of commissions for the hotel.

Photo credit: Ray Hu

Ready Made Go 2 at the Ace Hotel: Soap dish by Studio Silo

Studio Silo designed an I-beam-shaped soap dish in two sizes: A small one for the guest rooms at the Ace (for the small bar of soap) and a larger one for retail.

Photo credit: Ray Hu

Ready Made Go 2 at the Ace Hotel

The products also include glassware by Jochen Holz and Assemble's smoked tiles, which clad the bar on the seventh floor.

Photo credit: Ray Hu

Ready Made Go 2 at the Ace Hotel: "Doublet" quilt by Faye Toogood

The quilt, pictured here in situ in a guest suite, is based on a pattern from Toogood's fashion collection.

Photo credit: Ray Hu

Ready Made Go 2 at the Ace Hotel: Climbing Wall by Patternity

The adjustable climbing wall by Patternity has been permanently installed in the basement gym.

Photo credit: Ray Hu

IBM Design’s mission is simple: put the user at the center of our products. If you are a passionate problem-solver, able to empathize with users and turn that empathy into design insight, we want you to join us in creating exceptional experiences that span our vast product portfolio.

Senior Designer needed to join our international design team in Orlando, Florida to develop innovative product solutions from first idea sketches to production. We’re seeking a new addition who will bring an unexpected and clever perspective to our group. Candidates must be highly creative with a demonstrated ability to work within the requirements of an industrial manufacturing process.

In a symbol of their commitment to environmentally-friendly means of transportation, the Helsinki City Council has just greenlit the construction of a massive bridge system that is off-limits to cars entirely. The Crown Bridges project, a trio of bridges including a 1.2-kilometer stretch that will be Finland's longest span, will only accommodate streetcars, pedestrians and cyclists.

The €260 million (USD $290 million) project will link Helsinki's city center with the suburbs across the water to the east. They estimate daily streetcar ridership across the bridges to be 37,000, with an additional 3,000 folks walking or pedaling across the spans.

Thus far Helsinki has done a good job of making a dent in car traffic:

Today public transportation represents 30 percent of all journeys made in Helsinki; driving represents 25 percent, walking 30 percent, and cycling 10–11 percent while growing.

I was reading a Chris Schwarz blog entry on his favorite woodworking writer, Mag Ruffman. It reminded me that I have been planning to write an entry about the first woman woodworking writer that I know of. The Handbook of Turning was first published anonymously in 1842, but it is generally considered the work of one Miss Gascoigne of Parlington Park, near Leeds. A very rich woman from a powerful family, when she married, her husband took her last name.

Ornamental turning was apparently her hobby. The book contains all the basics of ornamental turning, was a popular resource, and was both reprinted and pirated for many years. (You can download it for free here, courtesy of the Getty Research Institute.)

You might be wondering how a woman in 19th-Century England not only found herself in front of a lathe, but learned enough about turning to write a book on it. So here's the short answer: Because she was rich.

Here's the long answer: In the 1840s, furniture making was emerging as a hobby for the upper class. (The middle class didn't yet have enough free time to become do-it-yourselfers.) Ornamental turning was one of the few craft hobbies of royalty and the gentry of the 19th century and earlier. Companies like Holtzapffel & Co. made incredible foot-powered lathes for the purpose. It would have been uncommon, but not unheard of, for a woman of means to turn. The real impediment would have been the considerable cost of the lathe, which is why ornamental turning was the hobby of very rich people.

Which is not to say that the only women involved with furniture building or woodworking were upper class. It's true that down at the trades level, almost any woman who owned, say, a cabinet-making shop would have inherited the business from their husbands or fathers--and would mostly have been relegated to the administrative side of the business. However, at the time there was at least one woman sawyer in London (source: Henry Mayhew), and for all the modern talk about women staying home and raising children in Victorian times, women worked in all the craft industries, usually in jobs that required dexterity but not huge amounts of strength.

Women were typically paid less than men, which was a big incentive for factory owners to hire women, and a reason why the jobs were so segregated. The subject of women in the woodworking trades really requires a detailed study, which I haven't done. But certainly when you research 19th-century industry, it's actually a lot closer to today where most women are in the workplace, as opposed to say, 50 years ago when they weren't.

By the way,  according to the caption that accompanied the picture of the author (up at the top of this entry) was made on the lathe, which is kind of cool. 

Below are some more images from within the book. 

Everyone needs some sort of laundry hamper or laundry bag if the dirty clothes (and other items needing laundering) aren't going to just wind up on the floor or tossed over a chair. And a well-designed product can make laundry management easier.

There are lots of laundry sorters with separate sections for lights and darks. The Sabichi light and darks laundry basket has a visual cue as to which side is which—a nice touch, and good for use with children who aren't yet reading.

Brabantia has stackable laundry boxes that open from the top or the side—a handy design for end users with limited floor space. The boxes can be stacked up to three high. They come in four colors, so different colors can be used for different types of laundry (lights, darks, hand wash, dry cleaning, etc.).

Wenko has another space-saving approach, with its Escala laundry bin. It's just a bit easier to toss laundry into these bins because there is no lid; that will make a difference to some end users. 

And each bin can be removed to carry to or from the laundry room or laundromat.

Not all end users will feel the need for multiple bins to sort their laundry, but they might appreciate some other features. The Candy laundry bin from Wenko also serves as a stool. For end users who can really use a stool in the same room as their laundry bin, this could be a handy dual-purpose product.

The Candy laundry bin comes with a detachable laundry bag, making it easy to haul the laundry to the washing machine.

The Ninfea laundry holder from Guzzini, designed by Roberto Giacomucci, is made from 10 polypropylene petals attached to a base. The space between the petals provides ventilation, which helps prevent mold and mildew. And of course the polypropylene is easy to clean. The one drawback some purchasers noted is that it can be a bit wobbly.

End users in small spaces might appreciate the Laundry Nook door-hanging hamper from Urban Mom. The hole at the top makes it easy to put dirty clothes inside (except for short or wheelchair-bound people dealing with tall doors) and there's a zipper along the bottom on the reverse side to let everything tumble out easily. 

Some end users will prefer laundry baskets over hampers, partly because baskets allow folded items to be carried back after the laundry is done. The Must-Be-Neat laundry sorter is a tote that lines a standard laundry basket. There's a mesh drawstring top to keep everything in place—even if laundry is piled high in the basket. The fixed compartments keep smaller items visible, but will also reduce the available space for those who only have larger items.

The Must-Be-Neat allows laundry to be carried one-handed while still in the basket.

And when the Must-Be-Neat is removed from whatever basket is being used, the end user has a tote that allows laundry to be carried hands-free (assuming it stays on the end user's shoulder) when a basket might be awkward.

The Cloze basket is a current Kickstarter; it has until Nov. 15 to be funded. The three stacking baskets are each 6.3 inches tall, which seems a bit small. But the baskets each have a folding base, so they can be combined to make one larger laundry basket. 

The baskets can then be separated, with completed and folded laundry divided up however makes sense to make it easier to put things away.

While this seems interesting at first glance, I'm trying to find a good use case. I don't see the Cloze basket as a great solution for a multi-person household (with multiple bedrooms) because in such cases it's usually best to have a laundry basket or bin in each bedroom rather than a central one. And it's not good for sorting things like light vs. dark clothes, because stacking and unstacking the baskets would get tedious. I guess end users could separate clothes that go away in different drawers as they do the folding, which some might find useful.

Speaking of folding: When folding and stacking clothes on top of a dryer (as many of us do), it's easy to have something like a sock go flying to the floor. The Haus Maus laundry guard is designed to prevent such problems for those with front-loading machines. The guard comes in four sections; it can be used on one machine (with one section left over) or on two machines sitting right next to each other. It attaches with magnets. 

This is a simple, inelegant product—but it solves a real problem for some end users.

Poise is a collection of Laser Sintered Titanium dining utensils. The Knife, Fork, Spoon and Chopsticks are results are an exploration of the freedom allowed by 3D printing to create dining-ware designed for beauty, elegance and ritual.

There's been a lot going on in the sneaker world over the past few weeks—here's two newsworthy sneaker relases:

NRG's Shoe Without a Footprint

Image via Smithsonian.com

NRG recently developed five pairs of these minimalist, all-white beauties made mostly from recycled carbon dioxide emissions turned polymer. The sneakers were created to promote the NRG sponsored, Carbon XPrize, a four year competition asking participants to develop innovative products using carbon emissions. 

Image via Smithsonian.com

NRG chose sneakers as their competition entry example for a simple reason—everyone wears shoes, and if mass-produced items can be made with carbon emissions, we're off to a good start.

Environmentally friendly and ultra-exclusive? What more could a sneakerhead in 2016 ask for? Well, we'll show you...

2016 Nike Mag Release

Image via Nike

Nike is bringing back the infamous Nike Mag with an 89 pair release to benefit Parkinson's disease. This specific fight-for-a-cure release is fitting, as the sneakers made their debut on Michael J. Fox's feet in Back to the Future 2. 

Among the Nike Mags' bulky, post-apocalyptic shape, very '80s light up sole and Nike logo lies the real appeal to the iconic sneakers—power lacing. It's hard to imagine that self-lacing sneakers were designed over 30 years ago, but they were, and now Nike has the technology to make them happen IRL. 

It's kind of like Inception for design—in 1989, these shoes were considered sneakers of the future. We're now in said future, but we're looking to the past to decide what the future should look like. NRG's Shoes Without a Footprint have a more classic silhouette than the Nike Mags, but the process used to design them is arguably more futuristic than Nike's. Food for thought. 

The best part about the Nike Mags, though, is that unlike the Shoes Without a Footprint, these novelty sneakers can be yours.

The online draw to win a pair of Nike Mags is currently open and runs through October 11. 100% of the proceeds go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Regular Marty Costumes are boring. Add some authenticity with a pair of real Nike Mags. 

At only $10 a pop, entering once or twice might be worth it. Halloween is right around the corner, so hand over the petty cash in the name of a Marty costume upgrade and donating to a good cause. The odds of winning are slim, but I have faith that someone will represent Core77's readership with brand spankin' new pair of Nike Mags. 

Either way, big thanks to Nike for giving us a way to simultaneously own part of the past and the future.

What makes a shoe futuristic—silhouette or materials? Let us know your thoughts!

In case you missed it, this Bieber-y Playmobil hair bike helmet has been riling people up on the internet for a few days. Yes, it's real. No it's not functional. Yes it's awesome. No you can't buy one. Yes it's Playmobil, not LEGO, you insensitive monsters. 

The concept was developed last year by Danish design group MOEF. It was created as a prototype for a kid-friendly helmet, idea being to harness a quirky style that could trick youthful riders into finding helmets a bit more "cool", and help lower the surprising amount of head injuries sustained by biking kids annually. 

The team began by digitally scanning real Playmobil character hair, adjusted it for 3D printing, and created a noggin-scale printed model complete with color matched hair color. 

The project appears to still be pending on proof of kid-interest, but based on the howls of disappointed thirst from adults on the internet they should get this thing rolling ASAP.