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The DIY Kit That Makes Coding as Simple and Fun as Legos

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When Kano first launched in 2013, the team knew they were on to something great. Assembling kits for "computers anyone can make" out of their apartment, founders Yonatan Raz-Fridman and Alex Klein sold 200 prototypes purely through word of mouth.

A month later, their team had more than doubled and they brought the idea to Kickstarter where they raised $1.5 million—15 times their initial goal of $100,000. Not bad.

With a background in journalism, Klein became familiar with the world of computing after working on a freelance story about the inventor of the Raspberry Pi, the beloved, inexpensive Linux board. "I showed it to my little cousin Micah, whose response came in the form of a challenge: 'I want to make my own computer that's as simple and fun as Lego, so no one has to teach me,'" remembers Klein, now CEO of the fledgling company. "That's what motivated me to start Kano."

Naming the product after Kano Jigoro—lifelong teacher and founder of the art of judo—Klein got to work designing the initial prototype and getting it in front of children like Micah as quickly as possible.

"We made it up as we went along," Klein says. "I started to try and figure out this little open-source brain for myself. As the mysteries unraveled, I took many notes and thought of clear stories and metaphors to help demystify the components. I sat on the floor of Micah's playroom with a notepad and started sketching pages of a Lego book."

Micah's dad introduced Klein to his co-founder, Raz-Fridman, who sourced low cost components for the build, like inexpensive keyboards and cables. "We packed all of the early prototypes into 200 hand-folded white boxes, along with an early version of our first illustrated book, Make a Computer, that shows the process of putting the parts together."

The first tests went well. Going into schools in North London, the co-founders would ask third graders questions like, "Who here has seen the inside of a computer?" and "Who can tell me how a computer works?" The first question was always met with silence, while the second released a fervor of excitement from the students, who were eager to share the bits and pieces of information they thought they knew. When the duo followed up by asking "Who thinks they could make a computer?" they once again encountered silence from the kids. 

But they weren't being quiet due to a lack of enthusiasm. When Klein and Raz-Fridman informed the children that they would indeed be creating a computer of their own, on their own, the Kano kit's cardboard boxes were quickly torn open and discarded as the willing user testers dove into the task, plugging plugs and lighting lights.

"We knew we were onto something and started taking the kits around the world, showing them to people of all ages," Klein says. "We found that anyone, anywhere was enchanted by the prospect of making a computer rather than just using one."

The Kano computer kit
The Kano screen kit

There are two available options: a computer kit—equipped with a Raspberry PI 3, wireless keyboard, DIY speaker, custom case, SD card, power supply, HDMI cable and guided storybook—and a speaker kit—which includes an HD screen, screen stand, case pixel viewer, power supply, HDMI cable, and guided storybook. (Both kits also include a set of stickers, of course.) The kits feature a preloaded version of the latest Kano OS, a complete operating system designed to demystify the computer and lead users through game-like challenges that build real coding skills: Make Art, Make Music, Make Minecraft, Make Apps, Kano World and Terminal Quest.

The end result is a complete and powerful do-it-yourself personal computer that can stream HD videos, play complex 3D games, run thousands of open-source apps, do homework, make art, music and more.

As you might imagine, taking something as complex as the PC and simplifying it to the point where a kid can build their own without the assistance of an adult was no easy task. "One of our principles is that words matter; we spend as much time on explanation as we do on disruption," Klein says. "We break the complex concepts into simple steps—bite-size moments of magic—and we spend many hours a week in workshops, quietly observing beginners of all ages take their first steps into the powerful-but-initially-bamboozling world of computing. We take notes and iterate, always aiming to 'get to unguided,' the point at which no one else has to be in the room for you to build something amazing. We're making the process as simple and fun as Lego."

Systems thinking plays a large role here, as the Kano team used color to guide users through the assembly process. "In the Kano system, red means power, yellow means visuals, blue means sound, green means data and orange implies construction," Klein says. Gaming tools also added to that intuitive wayfinding: as users begin to code and play with their computer, they unlock badges and new ways to manipulate the apps with increased sophistication of syntax. Leaderboards and challenges egg players on through an online community, aptly called "Kano World."

Now, the Kano team is at it again, this time with three new DIY kits for devices: a camera, a speaker and a lightboard. "We initially had a system that was infinitely modular," Klein says. "It could be everything, and therefore, nothing. We ultimately landed on three archetypes that would be familiar to everyone, but also highly customizable. This allowed us to connect code to everyday topics like photography, music, and data."

The new additions feed directly into Kano's ultimate goal of giving young people—and the young at heart—a simple, fun way to make and play with technology and, in the process, take control of the world around them. "Rather than thinking of 'learning to code' or 'STEM education' as the be-all and end-all, we think of computing as a means to creative pursuits that already interest you, like making a Kanye West beat, an app to track your favorite sports team, a one-click castle in Minecraft or a dazzling artwork of the tree in your garden," Klein says.

If their track record holds true, it seems safe to say that kids will be putting the latest kits to use and making their own beats in no time. With 16 days to go, at press time Kano has just under $50,000 left to raise of their ambitious $500,000 goal.


Reader Submitted: Glance Clock Literally Adds Personality to a Familiar Device

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Glance is a smart clock that automatically shows you message alerts at the right moment. It displays information from your phone, favorite wearables, smart home devices, and much more. It informs you about what you need right when you need it, so you can set your phone aside without stress. Glance is integrated with Amazon Alexa, so you can even talk with it about your schedule.

View the full project here

How to Reach Out to Companies For Product Licensing Consideration

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For the past few months, I've been writing about the strategies I've developed to license product ideas in exchange for passive income. Because speed to market is more important than ever, I focus on determining whether a concept is marketable or not as quickly as I can. I want to know: Does it have legs? Preferably before I've spent even one dime. All of which is to say, the way I see it, you aren't really in the game until you've begun contacting potential licensees to pitch them on your idea. If you're a professional, this is an entirely different mindset than what you've been taught.

Prototyping is fun, that's for sure. But if you want to license your ideas for a living, you can't work in a vacuum. You need to test early and often. When you reach out to potential licensees for product licensing consideration, what you're really doing is opening up a dialogue. Is your concept a good fit? What could be improved? What obstacles do they envision? Put plainly, you need feedback. These are your would-be partners — their input matters.

Rarely do companies exclaim, "Yes, as is, this is perfect!" Having to revise is much more common. You can't afford to overthink the design process. For example, when my student David Fedewa—now an inventRight coach—reached out to companies about his new dishtowel hanger, he discovered the prototype he had developed was too large. After he redesigned it to be smaller, he licensed it. The insight you receive from potential licensees is priceless. In time, you will develop a clearer understanding of what they're looking for and a rapport.

So please, don't procrastinate.

To succeed, you will need to draw on your creativity and be persistent. Getting in, which is what I've termed it, isn't challenging but it does take practice.

Adopt the right mindset. Companies that have embraced open innovation are actively looking for ideas like yours. When you think about it, you're doing them a favor. Act accordingly. You are trying to find a home for your idea.

Understand and embrace that you are in the driver's seat. Although more and more companies are establishing specific procedures for reviewing outside product submissions, there are still many that don't have any. Open innovation may be completely unfamiliar to some smaller companies or some employees within larger companies. After you make a few calls, you're going to know more about this process than the telephone operators you encounter, which is why you will need to guide people to get them to do what you want them to do.

Let your marketing materials do the selling for you. Don't make the mistake of trying to pitch your concept over the phone or in an email. Think of the task at hand like this: You're merely trying to drop off a package, which is your sell sheet. You're a deliveryman. You're not selling. You need to get your sell sheet in front of someone who will see your product's potential and want it to become a part of their company's product line. If you're selling over the phone, you've already lost.

Seek out marketing managers and salespeople. Submitting a product idea without getting permission first is no different than sending junk mail. How much junk mail do you open? You need to touch base with an employee — ideally a marketing manager — before you email him your sell sheet. Marketing managers are actively thinking about how to increase profit through new products. The sales department doesn't care where ideas come from; it loves new ideas too.

Protect yourself to an extent you feel comfortable with before you get started. I've written at length about the benefits of filing a provisional patent application. As far as non-disclosure agreements are concerned, most companies will not want to sign yours. Reasons why you might want to sign a non-disclosure agreement are outlined in this article I wrote for Inc.com. My advice? Don't ask for one right away. Wait until they contact you for more information to ask. Remember, you want your marketing materials to leave some questions unanswered, so they have to get back in touch with you. Make use of the 12 months of patent pending status your PPA affords you by hitting the ground running as soon as you file.

Keep it brief. One of my students is having a lot of success opening doors on the phone by stating the following: "Hi, my name is Ani and I am a product developer. I have product information I need to submit to your company for consideration. I usually speak with a marketing manager." That's it. When she gets put in touch, she says the same thing and asks for the individual's email address so she can send them her sell sheet. For some companies, this will be enough. For others, you will need to ask for an employee by name. LinkedIn is very useful in that case and in general. Many of my students and coaches rely almost exclusively on LinkedIn to get in touch with marketing managers and salespeople at the companies they want to submit their ideas to.

Less is more when it comes to getting in. Lengthy explanations are not required. It's not about you. It's not about your beautiful design. It's about how you and your product benefit them.

Take great notes. You need to follow up with every company you contact, so you must take good notes. Who did you talk to? On what date did you talk to him or her? What is his or her title? What is the company's submission procedure? Write everything down.

Don't give up. Employees respond differently when asked about open innovation. This happens to me all the time at trade shows. If one person isn't interested in reviewing your idea, or isn't getting back to you, seek out someone else. Be relentless, but not a pest.

Follow up until you get a yes or no. If you don't follow up, all of your efforts will have been for nothing. It's that simple. In my experience, product developers rarely follow up as often as they should. Most companies will need to see an idea several times before expressing interest. The employees you submit your idea to have other priorities. It can take time to get your idea to the right person. And crucially, in order to move on, you need a no or a maybe from every company you submit an idea to.

As far as when to call is concerned? Anytime.

As you continue licensing ideas, your contacts will become invaluable. In time, the companies you are trying to license your ideas to will grow to trust you. They will let you know what kinds of products they are looking for. One of our students has licensed six dog toy products now. Six!

A few more tips:

— Do the math. You only need one company to want to license your idea. The more companies you call, the greater your chances of success are.

— You want to seek out someone who will benefit from championing your idea. If you take your idea straight to the top, and try to get in touch with a CEO or president first, there's a good chance he will pass it back down the line. On the other hand, if the company is small, that may work out fine. It all depends. These are guidelines.

* * *

Harness your creativity to get the job done. In this article, I've just scratched the surface of ways of getting in. In further articles, I'll be exploring pull-through marketing strategy and how to use trade shows to get in.

What Have You Learned from Designing for Someone Unlike Yourself?

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For this week's Forum Frenzy, an aspiring designer asks our knowledgeable audience of designers about their day-to-day: 

"As someone thinking of getting into design I have a question: as a normal designer how much ability do you have to make designs fit your taste? How often do you have to completely disregard your taste in the design process? Do you ever have the opportunity to be free to do whatever you want (within reason) like an artist?"

As iab notes in this discussion board, having projects that match perfectly with your own passions are probably quite rare: 

"Even if I were to be a customer of that design, my input is n=1. The companies that hire me usually have a minimum of a $50MM market potential for a product they want me to design. Since I won't spend 50 million annually on their product, hopefully you can see that my taste should never drive the design. Through user research, there is a possibility the design could match my tastes, but that is yet to happen in 25 years." 

The original question, although simple, does lead us to some interesting thoughts and counter questions. The truth is, working designers do often have to design for a different type of consumer, but what is the ultimate advantage of designing for someone different from yourself? What can you learn from these experiences?

If you are a designer, you have a unique perspective on human empathy in that your practice relies on understanding not just audiences but individuals; and oftentimes, individuals with very particular behaviors or needs. This focus on individuals presents certain challenges—for example, how can you relate to someone who has clear physical differences or emotional needs? 

Simulation gloves by Cambridge's Engineering Design Centre that allows designers to experience usability of products as someone with arthritis. 

We've seen several recent examples of empathetic innovations like Cambridge's inclusive experience kit for designers or interesting case studies such as Japan's Work Life Promotion Campaign illustrating interesting ways designers can work to understand the people they are creating products for. So what can these examples teach us how to look at designing for people unlike ourselves?

What are some key takeaways you've gotten from designing for different users that have improved your work? What design research tips do you have for aspiring students to promote empathy and understanding in designers so we create better, more intuitive and relatable products?

Contribute to the conversation in the comments below or on the original discussion board!

The Brilliance Behind Creating Useless Things

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After missing her train and showing up fashionably late, Youtube sensation and self proclaimed robotics comedian Simone Giertz recently spoke to students at Brown University about the importance of building useless things. Held by Brown's Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative, Simone's lecture spoke in a humorous way to the initiative's goal of addressing social problems through developing robots that coexist harmoniously with humans. An inventor from Stockholm, Sweden, Simone bridges the gaps between robotics, comedy and various internet communities.

Photo Source: Brown's Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative via Twitter

Unlike the creations by the Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative, most of Simone's work is not intended to be useful. In response to inquiries as to why she spends so much time designing useless things, she says "'Why?' is potentially the biggest party pooper ever." While she understands that people question the sanity behind spending hours and hours building something you're obviously never going to seriously use, what Simone questions is why nobody questions the uselessness and banality of alternatively spending the night scrolling through Facebook and social media feeds. But if you spend your evenings building robots that are meant to fail, "Suddenly people are going to ask you why and suddenly you have to have a reason."

Notes from Simone's talk about developing ideas from building useless things 
Photo Source: Jason Alderman via Twitter

With almost 300,000 subscribers and with some videos that have been viewed over 1 million times, Simone's work has become a pop culture sensation. Though she is known for "silly" projects, such as useless robots, Google Chrome Click Roulette, Tweelium and Soundstagram, her robotics hobby has translated easily to a full time career. As a previous Creative Technologist for engineering consultancy Punch Through, Simone directed a Kickstarter campaign for their Light Blue Bean+. In addition to producing and directing the video, she built all example projects featured in the campaign, which reached its goal of $165,000 on the first day. Simone also co-initiated a collaboration between the creative schools Hyper Island and Kaospilot. The collaboration resulted in fifty students participating in a forty-two hour long hackathon, sponsored by LEGO, that examined the future of play.

Currently Simone continues making her robots as a full time job while traveling for various speaking engagements, such as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and co-hosting Tested with Norm Chan and former MythBuster Adam Savage.

Photo Source: Mike Mongo via Twitter

Check out three tips from Simone that will help you get started in pursuing your ideas:     

"Ideas first, tools later."

Photo Source: Simone Giertz

Want to make something, but don't know where to start? Think of an idea, and learn the tools later. This approach led Simone to her first step into hardware: Chordio. The idea for Chordio was born in 2014 from a mindless strumming motion Simone found herself making on her headphone cords. This mindless motion translated in an iPhone case with retractable guitar strings that hook on to the user's belt and measure capacitive touch to transmit the data to Arduino Adafruit's Bluefruit LE through Bluetooth Low Energy that, in conjunction with an iOS app, allow users to play guitar wherever they go. 

Photo Source: Chordio

Regarding Chordio, Simone says "Ignorance is truly bliss, because if I would have understood how complicated building this project would be, then I probably would have never done it." But along the way, she learned 3D modeling, soldering, hardware programming, capacitive touch, bluetooth and iOS programming. So have the idea, and learn the skills by pursuing it. Fun fact: One skill Simone did learn was how to actually play the guitar.

"Enthusiasm is a much better fuel than duty."

Though Simone left college after only one year of studying physics, she was an excellent and duty-driven student. Like many of us, she worked hard not because she enjoyed it, but because that is what she thought she was supposed to do. However, despite the guilt that accompanies following your passions when they're divergent from your studies, she quickly realized that she is much better at doing the things she actually enjoys. "It's not that I regret spending a lot of time in school," says Simone, "It's just that I regret not spending more time on the things I was actually really enthusiastic about." The take away? Pursue what you're enthusiastic about and your work will be much more productive (and interesting.)

A nifty flow chart by Simone to help you decide if you should pursue an idea

"Your ideas might be smarter than you."

"What I mean by that is that good ideas might to turn out to be bad or bad ideas might turn out to be good, but you won't know unless you actually build them." The first "shitty robot" Simone ever built was the Toothbrush Machine: a robotic helmet that uses a MeArm to move the attached toothbrush that crudely moves the brush back and forth along the wearer's teeth.

Made as a joke for a pilot episode of a children's show about electronics, Simone never intended this helmet to be taken seriously. However, shortly after posting a video of her helmet on reddit, over 500,000 people had seen it and her inbox was flooded with comments telling her that even though the idea was intended to be a joke, the concept could be a game changer for those with mobility issues.

"It just blew my mind, because here I am making a silly robot and other people can find seeds in that and it can be a platform for other ideas."

Still can't decide if you should go ahead and pursue the ideas that have been lurking in the back of your mind or sitting dormant in your sketchbook? "If you find the things you do interesting there are probably other people who do too." Case in point: everything Simone has ever made. Still wondering what the point of actualizing the ideas would even be? Remember: "Creating things is a purpose in itself." Start making.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Camilla Perkins. Title image courtesy of Susan Lin via Twitter.

Car Nuts Rejoice: Trailer for Amazon's "Top Gear" Revamp Looks Amazing

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"Top Gear" fans among you were undoubtedly saddened when the original hosts left the show last year. But that's what happens when a star punches a producer. Now Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are coming back with a new car-based show, "The Grand Tour," lavishly financed by Amazon. And the trailer looks pretty freaking amazing:

The Sun reports that the opening scene of the first episode will be "the most expensive ever seen on TV, costing £2.5 million (USD $3 million and change) just to shoot that scene alone!

Shot in the Californian desert, it features 150 cars, 2,000 "petrolheads", acrobats, stilt-walkers and six jet planes. Clarkson…Hammond and…May sped across the Lucerne Valley in customised red, white and blue Ford Mustangs. The trio were followed by £20million worth of cars, including a Bugatti Veyron and Rolls-Royce.
A source said: "Nothing remotely like it has been seen before."

We'll have to wait until next month to see it; Amazon is launching the series on Amazon Prime on November 18th. Sadly, there will be no binge-watching option, as they'll subsequently roll the episodes out on a weekly basis.


Notes from the Floor of the 2016 Paris Motor Show

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For over 100 years, the Mondial de l'Automobile has been the gold standard in motor shows. The biannual show clocked over 1.2 million visitors in 2014 and continues to draw the largest number of attendees of any auto show in the world—beating out both Tokyo, Detroit and Frankfurt. Despite the Paris Motor Show being the granddaddy of all motor shows—it debuted in 1898 as the world's first auto show—the event continues to be an arbiter for trends emerging from the industry, but for how long? Notable absences at this year's show include manufacturers like Ford, Mazda, Volvo and more. Here are six items of interest for auto industry watchers from the 2016 Paris Motor Show:

The rise and rise of the X-over

It's official—they're unstoppable. The list of cross-overs being launched at Paris covered pretty much every segment and dwarfed any other and included the Audi Q5, LandRover Discovery, Toyota CH-R, Suzuki Ignis, Skoda Kodiaq, BMW X2, Peugeot 3008, Peugeot 5008, Infinit QX Sport Inspiration, Mercedes-Benz EQ, and Lexus UX.

The effect on the existing automotive landscape is all around us, and if you needed any further confirmation: Peter Mertens, Volvo's R+D boss explained the company's sales strategy: "Volvo is on track to sell significantly more SUVs and crossovers than any other type of vehicle by the end of the decade."

Suzuki Ignis

Suzuki's stand was 'on the way' to BMW and Audi's: a stepping-stone through to the major players perhaps, but I found myself heading to the stand a few times—initially to take a look at what is now a rarity, the pint-sized Suzuki SC100, and then to take a closer look at the Ignis, apparently the spiritual successor to the SC100.

Of course now it's a X-over instead of the mini sports-coupe of the SC, but there's a certain playfulness about the Ignis that brings a smile to the face.

Designers talk about the importance of proportion and stance, something that's difficult to define but is linked to the position of the wheels relative to bodyside surfaces, and the balance and harmony of the silhouette. And in this respect, the Ignis is really nicely resolved. 

The juxtaposition of the side-stampings with the door cutline is brave. It shouldn't work, but it's unconventional and a little mischievous—characteristics that suit this little fighter well.

The Information Conundrum

The more technologically advanced cars become, the more challenging it is to manage how information is communicated to driver and passengers. Most compact and sub-compact cars in the European market have a touchscreen to control media, and in some cases, climate-control. Move on up to luxury segments and we're faced with a dilemma: to illustrate the technical complexity of the product through an equally complex HMI? Or create a fiendishly complicated hierarchy to control-visibility, so that the complexity is 'hidden' under layers of commands.

Well, judging by Tesla and Porsche, the question is a long way off from being resolved. Porsche's Panamera has a beautifully-cosseting cockpit displaying some mind-scrambling information, accessed by gloss-black buttons flush with the main console: just the ticket for adjusting the seat-heating controls at 150mph on the Autobahn.

Tesla at least is honest with their solution: build the car around the huge central screen. It's the brains of the car—indeed it's the defining aesthetic of their interiors so far. Comforting to generation-tablet for sure, but the distraction capability of this glowing centre-piece is quite something.

Peugeot's E-kick Hacks the Last Mile

One of the key elements of urban mobility is 'the last mile': the last-stage of a journey that's typically the most challenging—congestion, parking etc. So it's refreshing to see a mainstream manufacturer address this with a bespoke trunk-mounted electric bike, charged from the vehicle.

A collaboration between MICRO and Peugeot, the E-kick can actually cover 12km/8miles, so has a useful range. Concepts have, for years, explored this last-leg of the journey, a notable example the 2007 Opel Flextreme with a pair of Segways taking up some serious package space, but the 3008 is out there now which is a small victory for mobility.

A shame then that the mounting fixture in the trunk looked like a complete afterthought.

VW's Electric Architecture

VW's iD concept was the most-important car of the show for what it represents, rather than the vehicle itself, which, many designer's agreed, was a little too reminiscent of a cut-price BMW i3 for comfort.

No matter—using a new MEB platform, the iD is the vision of a brand that plans on being all-electric by 2025. A bold vision indeed, though don't forget the all-electric reference applies to hybrid internal-combustion powered cars too. The key and potentially game-changing element with the MEB platform is the packaging opportunities it offers.

As they have done with the MQB platform before it, VW will be able to build a whole cross-brand portfolio of cars with this architecture, and will be able to leverage cross car-line commonality to produce affordable and desirable electric cars. According to VW Group CEO Matthias Müller: "This is the future—nobody can say when it is a reality but we are working on it,"

The No-Show Show

The writing is on the wall: car-manufacturers are realizing that motorshows are not a great way to sell cars. This year there were some big-league absences at the party: Ford, Mazda, Volvo, Bentley, Lamborghini..and many gave explicit financial reasoning behind their decision:

'Ford isn't attending the Paris motor show in 2016. We are diverting the money we would have spent there into events more closely aligned with our consumers—like the Go Further 3 event later in the autumn.'

Lamborghini: 'We look very closely at the motor shows we need to be at and where our customers are. We will not be at Paris. We need to have the best ROI each year.'

Questions often arise about the relevance of the traditional motorshow format: huge corporate stands, bright-lights, big budgets and beautiful women. What's interesting is the explanations by the OEMs, a clear indication that there are better ways for them to reach their customer base, to communicate their corporate message and to grow the brand.

Car-makers are desperate to attract millennials, a group that are key to any brand's survival, and market-research is feeding back that focused events, branding tie-ins, and targeted endorsements are becoming a more effective approach to meeting future customer interests. It's possible that future motorshows will be much more compact affairs.


Design Job: Unleash Your Creative Skills—VIZIO is Seeking an Industrial Designer in Irvine, CA

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VIZIO, Inc., headquartered in Irvine, California, is America's fastest-growing HDTV and consumer electronics company and is revolutionizing how we watch, listen and live. Based on the belief that everyone is entitled to the latest technology, VIZIO’s redefining high definition by finding a better way and making it for everyone.

View the full design job here

Production Method Advancement: Consortium Develops Capability to Overmold, Apply Foil Elements and Seal with Lacquer in One Shot

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In Europe, a trio of companies with different specialties have collectively developed a new molding capability. Germany's Bond Laminates (laminates) and Kurz (stamping) partnered with Engel Austria (injection molding) to create an as-yet-unnamed production method that combines hybrid molding, a/k/a overmolding, with the application of foil and lacquer--all in a single shot.

Their hybrid molding technique sounds common enough: A sheet of Tepex (Bond Laminates' branded carbon fiber variant) is heated and inserted into the mold, which then closes while they squirt the second material inside. In this manner they can create, say, an iPad case that is hard-shelled Tepex on the outside and a more rubbery material on the inside.

The innovation lies in the new step they've added, which occurs simultaneously. Some kind of foil-feeding mechanism that's integreated into the mold--unsurprisingly, details on how they've accomplished this are light--allows decorative foil to be applied to the surface of the part. (Think of a shiny company logo, for instance.) A lacquer coating system then seals the whole thing off. "This efficient one-shot process significantly shortens the time required to decorate composites, as the customary lacquering and polishing steps are no longer required," Kurz states.

Kurz executive Nick Wagner calls the process "a quantum leap in the economical decoration of thin-walled components." They see applications in automotive interiors and the consumer products space.

With all of the money they've presumably spent on developing this, it does boggle my mind a bit that they've not ponied up for a high-end photography session to show the finished samples off. This is the only sample image they've released, showing what looks like a smartphone case with a brushed-metal finish:

Kurz will be showing samples in person at next week's K 2016, a plastics trade show in Dusseldorf. For industrial designers who are interested in the process but can't make it to Germany, Kurz's contact information is here.


Magnetic Alternative to Zippers, Yea or Nay?

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"Since it was patented in 1851 there hasn't been a major upgrade to the zipper-style enclosure," writes Evolve Enclosures. In my opinion, that's because the zipper is a fantastic design. In their opinion, however, it's due for an upgrade.

Take a look at what they've come up with:

As someone conditioned to use zippers, these wouldn't work for me from a UX perspective. Particularly when it's cold outside, I'll momentarily unzip my jacket to a certain depth just to reach something in an inside pocket; I wouldn't want to open the whole thing every time. There are also times when I want my jacket just partially unzipped but not wide open. And I could totally see the jacket, if open, accidentally closing when I don't want it to as I move around.

While I don't have any demand for these as an able-bodied person, when the guy in the video imitates a person with one arm, it seems clear the system could benefit the differently-abled. It also seems useful as demonstrated in the woman's top, where the closure is in the back. Both of those categories seem like welcome improvements to what currently exists.

One big question I have that neither the video nor the Kickstarter campaign page answers is, does one side automatically align with the other, and if so, how?

Lastly, would you use these, and in what instances do you see these being an improvement over zippers?

It's not clear if the project will be funded or not. While their target is a manageable $15,000, at press time they'd only garnered $1,386 in pledges. There are, however, 29 days left in the campaign.


Digital vs. Analog Sketching

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What are some of the pros and cons of each media? With digital sketching you have a full art studio available at your fingertips. Analog sketching demands a different kind of focus—no take backs and a focus on the whole line. There's pros and cons to each and here, Spencer outlines some of the differences from his deep well of experience in this new episode of Coreskills.

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.

A Look at Layer's FOIL Installation for Braun 

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FOIL is a 20 meter long undulating ribbon of 50,000 independently articulating metallic elements that scatter light in a constant rippling motion, transforming and responding to the traditional gallery space. It was commissioned by Braun as one of the London Design Festival Installations for the Tapestry Gallery at the V&A.

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Cranbrook's Scott Klinker on Developing Design Culture

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For the past 15 years the 3D Design program at the Cranbrook Academy of Art has been led by Scott Klinker. While he understands commercial design–having worked as a designer for Ericsson and IDEO as well as having licensed furniture to Offi, lighting for Fab.com, and accessories for Alessi—he also knows that design can be expanded.

As research for a book project on discursive design, we spoke with Scott about design as an expanding discipline and its cultural agency. Below is an excerpt from that discussion that helps lay some groundwork for what design can be and do, and how designers might posture themselves within the profession and beyond.

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Bruce Tharp: Part of our rationale for theorizing the 'four fields of design' was to help make sense of the incredible breadth of work that falls beneath the rubric of Industrial/Product Design. Do you see a need for such clarification?

Scott Klinker: Absolutely. Design today is not just one thing. It's several different discussions - often with different audiences. For me, the Memphis Movement of the 1980's marked a significant moment in history when the field of Design split into two separate but overlapping discussions: one we could call 'Industrial Design' and the other called 'Design Culture.' Industrial Design continued on its Modernist, rational path – focused on a context of mass production addressing all of the inherent constraints of industries and markets, including cost, scale, use, manufacturing techniques, business strategy, etc.

Meanwhile, Memphis ushered in a new (and parallel) discussion inspired by postmodern conditions which were not rational and not about designing for the masses. Memphis created 'Design Culture' and freed the field of its myopic obsession with mass production. The 'mass' context can be severely limited by conventional ideas. If we only designed for what some statistical 'user' understands, then we would never propose any new ideas. Design Culture is more focused on cultural production – the insertion of new ideas into society – and recognizes that human needs are very multi-dimensional. Therefore, Design Culture is more experimental and provocative – providing a space to test new ideas for their own sake.

Professional Industrial Design answers directly to the market, and is intellectually limited by that context. Design culture, which includes your Responsible, Experimental, and Discursive categories, is not limited in the same way. It's useful to distinguish between these two discussions. Industrial Design needs Design Culture to advance and grow. And yet, in America especially, there are extremely few institutional resources dedicated to discursive platforms for Design Culture. This may be the reason why the American scene has a limited intellectual edge compared to other places like the Netherlands, Italy, or the UK.

Memphis, subjects and objects
lightforms by Scott Klinker 

If you see this seeming lack of organization/theorization as a problem, do you have thoughts about how to address it? How do you feel about the establishment of categories? Are there (other) design taxonomies/typologies that you find useful to help categorize/differentiate the broad range of work being done today?

Mostly it requires our professional, cultural, and educational institutions to get on board in recognizing these separate discussions. This is why our professional design organizations, for example, sometimes seem outdated. Young designers know that design is about more than plastic injection-molded parts and user-centered methods. The American scene in particular seems to have a shortage of platforms for these new discussions to emerge.

As for other typologies, it may fall squarely under experimental design, but there seems to be a strong space emerging in the overlap of Craft and Design. I usually call this area 'Fine Design' (like fine art) because it's about unique objects (not mass objects) and is usually presented in a gallery context. Here, the emphasis is often on inventive materials and processes, but without the goal of mass production. A further sub-category of this Design/Craft is DIY, which is also a growth area. These conceptual spaces suggest mass creativity rather than mass production. It's as if YouTube is mass-producing new skills.

'Design Thinking' and strategy is also a growth area, but pretty clearly falls under commercial design. The interesting aspect here is the shift from giving form to objects toward giving form to innovations in products, services, and business models. 

Cranbrook's Fine Design for the End of the World
Cranbrook 3D Design, 2016

If in your opinion you think that product design needs to change or evolve, what might that look like or begin to look like? Why is this important?

The Industrial Design profession puts so much emphasis on problem-solving and user-centered research. These obvious rational processes may lead to rational products, but they rarely lead to inspiring products. Design Culture on the other hand, is often propositional—suggesting new behaviors, rather than catering to existing ones. This is cultural production, not rational problem-solving. It moves the culture forward with new ideas. Of course, this is what design aspires to do.


Lately, when I speak to friends in the design profession, it seems that traditional product design form-giving is evaporating from the American scene—or at least this kind of work is being done elsewhere—like China where design services are more affordable and designers are closer to the factories. Big consultancies (like IDEO, for example) aren't known for this kind of form-giving any more. Fewer design offices are asked to deliver objects now. Instead they deliver 'innovation' - ideas and strategies about products, services, and experiences. It's not that crafting objects has disappeared totally (it's still a required talent), but the ideas behind the objects are so much more important now. When markets are mature and crowded, there is a need for new ideas to capture market share. Designers need to be idea people in addition to being object makers. To some degree designers have always been idea people, it's just that as our markets mature and become more sophisticated, our ideas, ways of making, and cultural awareness must also mature.

If you accept discursive/critical design as a type of design being practiced today, how important is it? Why?

Done properly, it can be very important. Its primary role is to ask questions of our culture and inspire the public imagination with new visions. For example, it can expose the underlying values of our technologies and call them into question. Technologies are not 'value-free'. Technologies enable a set of behaviors and psychologies that shape our culture. Critical design will often 'try on' a new set of values embodied in a polemic design proposal. It becomes a way of visualizing how our values may evolve (for example, when cheap oil is gone). This type of work is especially important now as our society shifts from the values of an industrial and information age into a new networked, sustainable age.


Klinker in studio.  Photo Credit: Benas Berdulis

An important aim for our book project (tentatively entitled 'Discursive Design: Critical, Speculative, and Alternative Things') is to establish a more intellectual sub-field to the ID discipline, helping to legitimize design work that is non- or para-commercial. Do you have thoughts or concerns about the relationship between design's potential and the market?

Business is not primarily concerned with making new culture. Business is concerned with making money. Designers are entrusted with bringing human values to the man-made world: a much broader task.

Design Culture needs a free space that is autonomous and thinks independently from the market, where ideas are considered for their cultural merit and not judged solely by their contribution to the bottom line. Do we judge films or literature only by the box office numbers? No. We praise human stories that are worth hearing because they make us see and feel the world around us in new ways.

How do you think design compares to other 'sister' disciplines (GD, Architecture, Fashion) in terms of an acceptance of a critical and/or intellectual practice?

Industrial design has been slower to accept a role in pop culture compared to the fields of graphic design, architecture, fashion, music, or cinema, and in some ways this has stunted its cultural and intellectual maturity. Historically, ID has been culturally conservative for a variety of reasons: mass production is for a mass audience so forms tend to be generalized rather than specific, and mass production has a heavier material footprint than these other fields (with the exception of architecture) so forms tend toward 'timeless' rather than experimental. Outside of the constraints of mass production, other areas of design culture have been more engaged with cultural and intellectual questions – for example the space of Fine Design is about making unique objects and experiences for the gallery rather than industry. These new areas of design culture are expanding the discussion around design from a purely pragmatic and commercial context toward a more cultural and artistic context.

In your opinion, what makes a discursive design project successful?

It should portray an alternative reality, but one that is connected to the one we live in. It should reach beyond everyday commercial design concerns into the 'unknown'. That is, it should be a question as much as a statement - causing viewers to question the status quo. Good art does the same thing – giving us a moment to 'look again' and question the world around us.

However, discursive design does not always need to be didactic or polemic. Some discursive work is simply poetic – expressing a mood or attitude that you probably won't find in a mass market. For example, Cranbrook staged an exhibition called 'Fine Design for the End of the World' at the Collective Design fair in New York this year. The collection was a critical reflection on design's contribution to climate change. As a group we hoped to evoke the unspoken, pre-apocalyptic anxiety that seems prevalent today. Discursive design can have a therapeutic value by bringing up an uncomfortable topic and asking us to talk about it. 

Do you have any tips / thoughts / advice to young designers who are interested in doing this type of work?

Discursive designers create design 'fictions'. Look to others who tell stories, like writers and filmmakers, and learn to build a world around your idea. Like all creative pursuits, it's important to align your projects with resources (like a client or a patron), which can often be the hardest part of the equation. So, inserting some entrepreneurial spirit into your creativity is almost always needed.


What can designers do to help establish a more critical position in industrial design, if you see this as important?

Again, I see the need for more critical institutions. Demand more from your schools, from your museums, from your professional organizations, from your magazines or blogs. Or start your own. New social networks could do wonders for a grass-roots design intelligentsia.


Secondly, demand more from your own practice. Create a balance between commercial projects and cultural projects so that you continue to learn and stretch the boundaries of your own thinking.

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Thanks very much, Scott, for taking your time to share your thoughts and insight with us! 


Pop-Up Event Showcasing Made-in-USA Goods Clears Up Vendor Accounting Discrepancy

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Last month we wrote about American Field, a traveling pop-up event that showcases "the best of American-made brands." Since some of you entrepreneurs in our readership could benefit from getting a booth at AF's events, we broke down the numbers in their post-event reviews, to give you a rough idea of sales; but some calculations using the supplied figures did not add up.

To refresh your memory, here's one of the AF graphics we referred to, with our original copy below it in italics:

It would be nice if they provided just a bit more detail for clarity's sake. The math doesn't add up, for instance, on the Total Vendor Revenue of $236,000 spread over 118 vendors; they have the Average Revenue per Vendor at $1,200—but $236,000 divided by 118 actually comes out to $2,000. That leaves $94,400 unaccounted for, which is a bit too big to be a rounding error.
My first thought was that they were subtracting the price of the booth rentals, but that doesn't work either: Looking at the 2016 Vendor Contract, the smallest booth you can rent in Brooklyn is a 10' x 10' that rings in at $1,250.

Thankfully Mike Stone, American Field's Community Manager, reached out to us to explain the discrepancy. Here it is, in Stone's words:

"The numbers discrepancy on the Brooklyn 2014 info sheet, which shows two different averages, is a result of two different ways that we estimate vendor revenue. The first way is via self-reporting; we ask all vendors to give us their feedback at the conclusion of the event including their revenue to whatever degree of accuracy they are comfortable with.
"The second is via our partnership in 2015 with Square payments, which allowed us some geographical data about how many sales happened over the course of the event in our location.
"Neither of these estimates are perfectly accurate representations of total vendor revenue, but we include them so that potential vendors can understand the amount of buying that goes on at our events.
"These should have been cross-checked to match up on the info sheet, but instead showcase two results. In the future we'll include more clarity as to how we calculate our numbers, as they are intended to be a helpful tool for our vendors and members of our community and not a point of confusion."

Hopefully that clears it up for any of you who were thinking of applying for a booth but left uncertain by the numbers, and hopefully the data sheets from future AF events will make things even more clear to potential vendors.

Speaking of future events, the remaining American Field showings for this year are:

Washington, D.C.

Oct. 15-16

Atlanta

Nov. 12-13

Nashville

Nov. 19-20

Brooklyn

Dec. 3-4

Tools & Craft #18: Let's Build a Ridiculously Simple Chair

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A couple of posts ago I wrote about Playatech furniture, which is made of interlocking sheets of plywood. Now here's another approach to simple furniture that is tons of fun to make. We  added this book, Ridiculously Simple Furniture Projects, to our catalog. The projects in it live up to the title, especially for someone like me with a full shop.

The chair I'm building is made from one piece of 3/4" plywood, just 2' x 3'. We actually made two chairs by just lopping off three feet from a sheet of plywood and then splitting that in two.

By "we" I mean my local Festool rep and myself. Because of the nature of my job I do partial demonstrations and single operations all the time. But I jumped on this project because I saw that I could actually finish something, quickly, with very little effort, and make an actually useful piece of furniture.

We screwed two 2' x 3' pieces of plywood together and cut out both chairs at once. In the first picture you can see me try up the edges of the pieces with a TS75. Most of the time I am using a TS55 which would have been fine for this but a TS75 was handy. It's the first time I have ever done serious plunge cutting and the stops for the guide rail made it a snap.

It was also the first time I every actually built an entire project using the multifunction table. Sometimes the cuts over hung the table, sometimes we plunged over the table into the expendable MDF table top, which gave a cleaner cut and much simpler setup.

We used a jigsaw on the curves, which we screwed up a little. More on that in another blog. Then we did a little sanding. This was the first time I ever clamped anything vertically using the side slots of the MFT table. It worked like a charm.

Actually building furniture, even simple stuff, really gives you a sense of what you can do with the Festool system, much more so than a demo. That's because with demos dimensions usually don't matter as you're showing customers what the tool can do and making cuts randomly; but here you have to set up specific operations and hit specific dimensions.

The project went quickly. Cutting out the parts and assembling one of them, including tea breaks, took only a few hours.

This chair is screwed and glued together. It's pretty comfortable. The back is a little high, which feels a little better but makes the chair look very narrow. It feels pretty solid to me and I think it's a great design. The book shows the chair all painted, which can be a fun project in itself, but I used pre-finished plywood which I had around. I will varnish the edges darker and I think it will look great. On the second chair I'm going to pre-drill the holes and then me and my six year old son can put it together when he next visits the shop. I think if the parts are pre-cut, it's a great kid project with a lot of bang for the buck at the end.

I should mention that while this project didn't push my skill level, it did get me making something, and these days, since I am so swamped, I am loathe to take on a real classic woodworking project. The finished piece is real furniture and very useful. When I make the second chair with my son he will have the satisfaction of making something real, not a toy. All of these things are good. Please don't condemn me because there are no fancy joints on this piece. Not everything anyone does needs to be classic, and the simplest way to not build anything, and not go down to the shop to have the satisfaction of making something with your hands, and to paralyze yourself, is to determine that the only projects worth doing must be really, really hard.

Lastly, if this entry sounds like a plug for Festool, be aware that I sell the stuff (among other tools) for a living. Chances are if you've heard of the brand, you already know whether you need their stuff or not, so I'm not trying to hard sell you anything here. If you want to see their stuff in action and you're in New York City, swing by our showroom and we'll give you a demo or let you try the stuff out. But whether you do or not, I'd be happy if you'd at least think about buying the book!


Core77 Test Kitchen: Does the Polygons 4-in-1 Measuring Spoon Fold Under Pressure?

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When the industrial design student Rahul Agarwal was given the warning to avoid trying to redesign near perfect products like spoons, he turned the warning into a challenge and a concept for a new kind of measuring spoon was born. Polygons, a new kind of measuring "spoon", lies flat when not in use and, with the help of carefully placed creases, folds into four different tablespoon/teaspoon measurements similar to origami. 

Here at Core77, we were so excited about the concept that we awarded Agarwal a Core77 Design Award Student Notable mention in the Food Design category for the Polygons concept back in 2014. Now that the measuring spoon has moved from concept to reality, blowing past it's initial Kickstarter funding goal of $10,000 in just a few days, as the resident Core77 stress baker and editorial assistant, I was tasked to put Polygons through a gamut of user scenarios while baking some chocolate chip cookies over the weekend.

The results? Delicious cookies but not such a delicious product review. Polygons is beautifully designed, but its user experience left me wondering—is redesigning the measuring spoon a problem worth solving? Below we put some claims from the Polygons campaign to the test and ran the product through the Core77 test kitchen, Chocolate Chip Cookie Challenge:

Statement 1—Super Durable Materials:

The only material bonding Polygons' triangular pieces are thin layers of laminate. There's one layer on either side of the spoon with breaks where the main creases are. 

I had an almost immediate issue with the laminate—as soon as water creeped underneath the layers, the film started peeling away, causing the spoon to fall apart. This was added frustration when rinsing the spoon off between the many measurements needed to make cookies. 

Material/bonding choice is the main issue with Polygons—it causes a snowball effect of more minor problems. I wish the laminate idea could be replaced with a silicone coating or a material that would close gaps, create softer edges and hold parts together. The harsh creases make the spoon vulnerable and flimsy, which needs to be worked out before going to market.

Statement 2—Measures Both Dry and Wet Ingredients:

Via Polygons

Due to the peeling laminate, this is not the case—the water damage factor quickly took over the whole spoon. Polygons' shifting triangular tiles also cause holes in the corners where the parts meet, allowing liquid and even some dry ingredients to fall through the cracks. This was my experience:

After the laminate started peeling away, measuring liquids didn't go well.

Statement 3—Easy to Use:

via Polygons

It was difficult to hold the desired measurement shape with one hand. The spoon kept snapping back to one of its' other shapes when force was applied to scoop ingredients. Polygons' low force threshold made it difficult to measure dense ingredients like brown sugar—a key chocolate chip cookie ingredient. Changes in shape means inaccurate measurements, which is a no-go when it comes to baking. The spoon's wide, angular shape also made maneuvering it into small flour bags difficult. 

via Polygons

Another concern with the shape of Polygons is its diagonal opening, which makes leveling off measurements with your finger difficult. I found the above pictures from the Polygons website misleading. The type of measurement shown in the outside images is fine for garnishes and other final touches, but you need to be able to fully fill and level off a measuring spoon when dealing with precise baking ratios. Leveling off Polygons is harder than it looks—as soon as one part moves, your ingredients fall out.

Statement 4—You Can Spread Things With It

Unfortunately, the material is too flimsy and does not bend at the angle shown in the above image. A measuring spoon that doubles as spreader is a great idea in theory, but might not be worth the extra cleaning when switching back and forth between ingredients.

Statement 4—Easy to Clean:

Via Polygons

To a certain extent, the spoon is easy to clean because of its flat shape. However, the creases collect flour, granulated sugar and other dry ingredient particles. This makes scrubbing in the creases necessary, which in turn adds to the laminate peeling.

Statement 5—Easy to Store:

This one is accurate. Polygons Measuring Spoons lie flat when not in use, so their storage is optimal. Traditional measuring spoons are bulky and take up a lot of counter space, so this feature is a clear upgrade.

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Polygons is on its way to becoming a staple in every baker's kitchen—it's so close. We hope that Agarwal can fit in one more stage of materials refinement before hitting Kickstarter's virtual shelves. We're all in Polygons' corner and hope it can be resolved soon—believe me, I would love to ditch my bulky plastic spoons to replace them with an all-in-one tool. 

Design Job: Your New Job Awaits You. Flexjet is Seeking a Graphic Designer in Cleveland,OH

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POSITION SUMMARY Flexjet, a luxury private jet travel provider, is currently seeking a Graphic Designer to assist with the execution of creative marketing and communication design needs within their in-house creative team, Studio One. The ideal candidate will be a motivated, innovative individual with 2-3 years of professional in-house and/or agency experience. The candidate must have a solid level of personal organization skills, strong attention to detail and possess the ability to work well in a fast-paced, collaborative and deadline-driven environment.

View the full design job here

How to Capture Smooth Aerial Footage Without a Drone

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Here's some outside-of-the-box thinking: A trio of college students shooting a video project needed a way to get aerial shots, but couldn't afford a drone. Using cardboard, foam and duct tape, they rigged up a housing that allowed them to safely lob their GoPro into the air. Pleased with the footage, they then refined the design and created Aer:

I was surprised by the smoothness of the footage--not to mention the height!

The Aer has already been successfully Kickstarted, with nearly $95,000 pledged at press time on a $77,000 goal. The lowest-priced early bird specials are all gone, but would-be Aer-ists can still snag one for €49 (USD $55). There's 21 days left in the campaign.

Designing the Nissan Micra

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Koji Nagano is in confident mood. During the 2016 Paris Motorshow at the world launch of the 5th generation Micra, a critical car for Nissan Europe, we asked him what influenced the new design and the key differences between this new car and the last, unloved Micra.

"We really focused on the European market with this car, and it's aimed at the core of the B-segment. So it's wider, sleeker, lower and bigger than the last car, which was aimed 50% at the Japanese market, and 50% at the European market," Nagano explained. 

"The first and most important thing about designing a car is the proportion, which is really 50% of the styling. It's what you see immediately, the first glance…so we really studied and enhanced the key proportions with this Micra, and the car's stance: the tire to body relationship..it's these fundamental proportions that really work with this car."

"With Micra Gen5 Nissan's design language takes another step: we've got the floating roof, the kick in the side-surface…something we started with the sedan concept and Maxima in the US and the Murano, so that's a consistent theme that we're developing."

With this car's focus clearly on driving dynamics and fun, we asked Nagano how it fits with a larger autonomous driving strategy? "With autonomous driving, I think the changes are likely to be very rapid in the industry, and so we must be flexible. Ultimately we pursue the dreams of the customers and aim to embody them into our vehicles."

"I personally don't think that in the future we'll be driven around in anonymous autonomous boxes..there will be a transition period, so we'll have to be flexible about how we might use our vehicles—car-sharing for example. New technology and new ownership models together may push us towards a future where the way in which we use our vehicles will be very different."


Organized Ways to Dry the Laundry, Part 1

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While clothes dryers can be wonderful tools, not all end users will want to put all their laundry into a dryer. Maybe there isn't a dryer handy. Maybe they want to save energy. Maybe there are items which are delicate, which could easily shrink or which need to lie flat to preserve their shape. Maybe there are just a few damp things, and running the dryer seems like overkill. 

Rain touched on the subject of laundry drying racks back in 2009, but I'd like to explore more of the many designs available. 

The SuperDry Mini from Artweger allows the end user to hang the laundry in the bathtub—space that's often unused when not bathing. And this can be handy if the laundry is still wet enough that it might drip. 

The Pegasus 120 Compact laundry dryer from Leifheit is another similar design. Purchasers note it's extremely easy to fold and unfold—an important quality for a product like this. It has soft foot caps to avoid scratching the tub.

Of course, not all homes have bathtubs, and some end users may store other things (a child's bath toys, for example) in the tub when it's not in use. And using a bathtub-based rack will require coordinating bathing time and laundry time, although the rack could be lifted out of the tub, if need be. Finally, a bathroom can get humid, which would make drying less efficient, so a bathtub rack would work best in bathrooms with good ventilation. 

The Leifheit Pegasus Duo is another type of bathtub rack; it sits on the edge of tub. It will fit a wide range of tubs since the length is extendable and the width is also adjustable. Latches keep it in place once it's adjusted properly; purchasers say it's quite stable. (One says it works well for her family's wetsuits—another item that calls out for some sort of drying rack.) Hanging clothes on the far side might be awkward for some people, though.

The OXO Good Grips Laundry Drying Center has a neat feature: the bars slide along the frame, making it easy for the end user to load the clothes and ensuring that bulkier items aren't squished. 

The video illustrates how this feature works, and also points out other helpful design touches, such as the strap that keeps the folded rack closed.

The Dryp from Skagerrak, designed by Rikke Frost, has an oak frame and a plaited linen cord. There's no real place for hangers, but not all end users will want to use hangers with their drying racks.

The Dryp can be used in its freestanding mode, or it can be tilted against a wall. There are rubber tips to keep it from sliding or from scratching the floor or wall. 

The Octopus drying rack by Foppapedretti is another style that provides a lot of air flow around the clothes, and folds up to become quite small for storage. And that tripod base should be pretty stable.

The Household Essentials two-tier tripod clothes dryer is a design for those end users who need a drying rack for items on hangers. The height of the upper tier is adjustable; as a short person, I appreciate that. Each of the six arms can hold 6.6 pounds, so that's quite a bit less, in total, than the OXO rack. But then again, this rack isn't designed for heavier things like blankets and big bath towels.

If the end user needs to dry longer items, the bottom tier can be folded up to stay out of the way. This lightweight drying rack could get a bit top-heavy; end users would want to balance the load across the three arms (and put heavier items closer to the center) to help with stability.

The clothes horse from DeVOL is made of cedar that's been lacquered so it's OK to put wet items onto it. The design has different spacing on each panel to accommodate items of different lengths. However, if the items hanging on the clothes horse rungs overlap, there won't be as much airflow to dry the laundry as with other designs.

It's not clear if Aaron Dunkerton's clothes horse, made of beech and stainless steel, ever got into production. 

Inspired by Aaron's work (but modifying it to eliminate dowels that were closely overlapping), the folks at A Piece of Rainbow created DIY instructions for making a star-shaped rack out of plywood and pine wood dowels.

It's a design that seems great for things like sheets, although it can hold clothes just fine, too.

The VonHaus heated clothes drying rack is a design for end users willing to use a bit of electricity to speed up their drying; that could be useful in damp locations or when dealing with anything that gets wet/washed and re-used fairly soon afterward. (However, it's nowhere near as fast at drying things as a clothes dryer would be.) For those end users who want the drying to go faster, there's a cover for the rack, which keeps the heat in.

Of course, the rack does require a handy electric outlet. 

End users with space constraints can open just one side of the rack, leaving the shelves on the other side folded down. 

Purchasers report the rack gets warm to the touch but not hot, so that's one less thing to worry about with pets or children around.

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