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FunRetro: Vintage office supplies and more

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With all the junk you've gotta wade through on eBay and Etsy to find the good stuff, I was stunned to find a woman with a deep and well-curated selection of vintage products. The stuff user FunRetro has amassed over the years would be perfect, in particular, for setting up a home office in the retro style. Check out a few of the items:

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There's more--tin containers, old-school chalkboards, vintage cutting mats, luggage and train cases, signage, metal milk crates, you name it. There's about 16 Etsy pages' worth and you can check it out here.

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The Easy-Pour 2.6 gallon: Fiskars do it again

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Since discovering the multifunctional delights of the Cuts+More scissors last month, our love for all things Fiskars has been heartily renewed.

Perhaps the only thing more impressive than the Fiskars ID team's attention for detail, is the remarkably coherent design strategy and brand language that is carried religiously through their ever-expanding product range. Only with such clear ideals could an ancient knife manufacturer redesign the humble watering-can—and do it in such style.

The "Easy-Pour" is a seriously heavy duty watering-can—so serious you might well be reconsidering your stance on tulip-growing as we speak. Ever the champion of ergonomics, Fiskars have introduced a second, rotating handle into their new design that gives greater control, which in turn allows for greater capacity and less walking back and forth to the kitchen tap.

But the innovations to the world of watering-cans don't stop there; the head of the can rotates too, to give 2 levels of flow—gentle shower or (I quote) "flower soaking"— and—for one last design detail—the filling-hole, rather than being stuck inconveniently under the handle, is placed neatly to the side for easy access. Clever Fiskars.

This watering-can of watering-cans is available from the Fiskars e-store for a very reasonable $19.99.

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Coalesse is Seeking a User Insights Specialist in San Francisco

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User Insights Specialist
Coalesse

San Francisco

We're looking for a Design Researcher to help evolve a new furniture offering that is focused on the intersection of work life and lifestyle for Coalesse, a new premium brand from Steelcase Inc. In this role, you will use your thorough understanding of Primary and Secondary research methodologies to provide new insights for product design and brand experiences. You will influence this new brand with knowledge of cultural workplace, and design trends as well as your direct experience researching the future needs of users.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

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MMMM, Deadlicious: Lucha Libre Chocolats from Paris

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Too late for our Gift Guide - too cool to ignore! Biting down with a Second-Third Molar Combo would be the obvious move when encountering these Lucha Libre themed treats. Seemingly only available for bouts in Paris though :( but they also have some "hot" looking pies :)

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Humongo is Seeking an Interactive Designer in Danbury, CT

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Interactive Designer
Humongo

Danbury, CT

Some news from the awesome department: we're looking for an interactive designer to join team Humongo! Here's the facts:

You are: A super talented interactive designer. You are not a douche bag, difficult person or evil. You love design and have demonstrated success with multiple builds and interactive projects that rock the Internet. You get, use and have made social media a part of your life.

We are: Humongo. Makers of the world famous HumongoNation tour, brandflakesforbreakfast blog, and social media super heroes. We're outsiders to the ad industry, with strong opinions on how we can change the world.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

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Industrial Design History postage stamps!

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Looks like our industry's finally getting a little postal love. In July of this year, the United States Postal Service will release a limited-edition set of stamps commemorating some of industrial design's pioneers, including Raymond Loewy, Donald Deskey, Henry Dreyfuss, Walter Dorwin Teague, et cetera.

The collection focuses on the 1930s to 1950s era, so we won't be seeing any Philippe Starck juicers, Bill Stumpf chairs or Jony Ive iMacs; presumably we'll have to wait another 60-80 years.

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How to benefit from the general public's lack of ID education: Collect

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Wouldn't it be awesome to spend your spare time hunting for ID treasures? There's an article in Canada's Telegraph-Journal focused on individuals "who are doing their part to foster good industrial design in Saint John," a city in New Brunswick (that's the Canadian province next to Maine, for us geographically-challenged Americans). One person to make their list is Scott Campbell, a banker who hunts down vintage ID pieces when he's not crunching numbers.

I thought the same as you when I first read it, "Oh, a banker--he must have tons of dough to throw around." But Campbell has found things like a Charles & Ray Eames Sofa Compact for freaking $19.99 Canadian at a thrift shop called Value Village, and a rare Robert Gage T-6-G lamp from 1951 for $1.99! For scale, those things are currently valued at around US $8,900 and $6,000, respectively.

Transactions like these are made possible simply because there's such a lack of public awareness about historical industrial design. You'd never be able to pull this off with, say, classic U.S. automobile collecting, where everyone knows a '63 Corvette convertible is worth more than the change you just received at Starbucks.

For those looking to get into the vintage ID collecting game, both Campbell and the article's author, Judith Mackin, offer these pieces of advice (Campbell's advice in quotes):

"If you have a particular area of interest, purchase one important book on the subject, hopefully one that's liberally illustrated. Read it. Study it. This will help you eliminate 99.9% of the dross and dreck you're bound to come across in your adventures."

There is a book I'd recommend to both design novices and die-hard aficionados alike: Modern Furniture - 150 Years of Design with 703 full-color pages.

Sadly, the book above costs far more than Campbell paid for some of the pieces actually in it!

By the bye, if you need some inspiration and want to see some awesome photographs of Eames House/Eamse Office stuff like the Sofa Compact shot below, check out this gallery from Flickr user Dotsara.

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Unsung ID'ers: Scott Collins

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The thing I love about local papers as opposed to the nationals is that the former will take the time to look at "small-time" designers, not just the superstars. I put "small-time" in quotes because it's still possible to not have your name known and still make a bundle of cash with your own industrial design firm. Says industrial designer Scott Collins, who runs his own firm out of Brown Deer, Wisconsin, "I'm not a multimillionaire, but it's a very good living and I'll have a good retirement."

For every Starck, Rashid and Grcic there are probably thousands of guys like Collins. An article in Milwaukee's Journal-Sentinel looks at Collins and his unsung firm, and after hunting down his portfolio I was surprised to see I use two of his designs (this bathroom fan light and this paint edger) despite never having heard of him. His firm has clients that you have heard of but whose names don't immediately spring to mind when asked to run down the giants of U.S. industry: Kimberly-Clark, Johnson Controls, Sherwin-Williams.

The jewel in his portfolio's crown is probably this person-friendly and humanitarian mousetrap Collins designed back in 2002. And it doesn't matter whether or not it's famous (it isn't) in design journals: The thing is sold by Wal-Mart. Collins, it seems, actually has built a better mousetrap.

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Is an inferior design still inferior if more people can afford it?

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It might be called Compromise Design: If cost constraints would prevent the perfect object from being commercially successful, is it better to design something with inferior performance but feasible manufacturability?

That was the question answered with a "yes" by Israeli company Winflex Wind Turbines, whose Composite Material Flexible Rotor consists of sail-like blades connected to an inflatable wheel.

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The unique rotor design enables a dramatically simpler overall turbine layout resulting in a cost effective and competitive system for a wide range of power ratings, starting with small turbines and scaling up to MW range. The unique and simple manufacturing method of the rotor, without the need for expensive molds or special tooling, enables tailor-made, rapid design and assembly of the WINFLEX turbine, according to the specific site characteristics and customer requirements, providing maximum efficiency and overall cost effectiveness.

Sure it's not as efficient as a conventional wind turbine, but its lower cost, durable structure, easy transportation & installation, and low-maintenance will hopefully outweigh that in the marketplace, enabling a bunch of these to go up where the regular kind was too expensive. And Winflex has at least one big-dog supporter: Two months ago they won an Innovation Award in GE's Ecomagination Challenge, a competition seeking ideas for how to generate energy in the future.

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"Sustainable Refrainables" Poster Design Competition: Vote for the Winners!

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We just wrapped up the "Sustainable Refrainables" Poster Design Competition and we're asking for your help to choose 5 winners who will each receive a copy of Adobe's CS5 Master Collection. The most popular entry and the Jury choice will each receive an additional $500 cash. The winning posters will be exhibited at Compostmodern later this month and displayed in bus shelters during San Francisco's Design Week, June 13-19, 2011.

Remember, you need to be logged-in to vote!

Pictured above: There is no plan(et) B by studio23, and Start Acting by smilemm. Pictured below: Good design is good will by Belonax, Think We, not me by LEAP, Less is More by monopod. reuse this poster by Iam_arty, Waste has Worth by jhp1696, and Buy. Bye. by Fabio Furlanis, Ivo Arzenton, and Francesca Lorenzon.

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View all entries

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Documenting repurposed architecture: Paho Mann and the Circle (K) of Life

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To us creatives, the stereotype (and now, myth) of the SoHo artist's loft is perhaps the most romanticized and alluring example of repurposed space we can think of. A massive industrial space with cast-iron Roman columns holding up the soaring ceilings that accommodate our brilliant, huge paintings, which are in turn illuminated by windows the size of Volkswagens; or a gritty brick-lined cavern, with self-built elevated living rooms and plenty of space for our experimental sculptures, lit by industrial lamps whose bulbs can only be changed with the assistance of mountaineering gear.

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Those days are long gone of course, as the gentrifying shock-troop artists have been bought out by guys with MBAs and children named Porter. Those lofts are now more likely to look like this:

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Repurposed architecture still exists of course, just in far more boring forms--"This fried chicken place used to be a bookstore," et cetera. But we did recently stumble across one interesting art project dedicated to repurposed space: Texas-based Paho Mann's "Re-inhabited Circle Ks," which bears some explaining.

Circle K convenience stores, which still exist, were the Starbucks of decades past. They started going up in the 1950s and by the '80s, as Mann explains, "there was a location on nearly every block in cities like Phoenix, Arizona." Bankruptcy wiped many of them out in the '90s, but the architecturally-distinct structures stayed in place and were inhabited by other businesses.

Mann has mapped their Phoenix locations and documented their transformation into everything from tattoo parlors to Mexican restaurants to tuxedo rental shops, all of which you can see at the link above.

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I recognize it's a massive undertaking, but I do wish he had more photographs. I'm hoping another artist will take the baton from Mann and begin documenting another phenomenon in this vein and common to rural America: The repurposed Pizza Hut.

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Object ownership reduction by Tsh Oxenreider

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Last month I referenced Michelle Passoff's anti-clutter book, which was released in 1998; a more recent guide to keeping your objects in order is Tsh Oxenreider's "Organized Simplicity: The Clutter-Free Approach to Intentional Living," which came out several weeks ago. Oxenreider is the woman behind the Simple Mom blog, whose tagline is "Life hacks for home managers."

Four years ago she and her husband moved from Texas to the Middle East, and during the undertaking of internationally moving house she had a sort of revelation about what it means to own objects. She has an essay on the topic on CNN's website:

You ask yourself, Is this thing worth hauling 6,000 miles across an ocean and in to a new home? Is it providing that much meaning and value to my life?

If not, why bother having it now?

...I didn't know it at the time, but [our big move] was a stake in the ground for us.... From that moment forward [we] became hyper-selective about what we allowed in our home. If we just went through the pain-staking process of saying goodbye to our things, why haphazardly welcome more stuff in, stuff that will ultimately only add to clutter



The essay contains tips on how to reduce, and those interested in decluttering may also want to investigate Oxenreider's website. (And yes, "Tsh" is how her first name is spelled.)
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How to make an American football

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Colloquially it's called a pigskin, but the modern American football is in fact made of cow. Which you'll see in the video below, shot at the Wilson Sporting Goods factory in Ohio.

As Kottke has pointed out, it is fascinating that just a handful--less than ten people--have produced every NFL footbal in the past few decades. I also found it interesting that seven of them are women, and wonder if the players of this all-male game realize that.

Out of all of 'em, I think Glen's got the toughest job--check out the color of his hands.


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Pantone's Color of the Year for 2011

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You would think they'd number it 2011, but no, that little chip above is sticking with 18-2120. The color's name is Honeysuckle, and colormeister Pantone has designated it the Color of the Year for 2011. Some companies have been snapping to attention, with H&M and fashion label Cynthia Steffe reportedly incorporating the hue into their Spring 2011 lines.

Because I'm not much of a fashion or even color guy, I didn't realize there even was a Color of the Year. Perusing the Pantone list for the past decade, I see romantic names like "Sand Dollar," "Mimosa" and "Tigerlily."

Call me a cynic, but I'd love to see a line of color names based on regional American tropes, i.e. the Hillbilly Line: "Faded Jeans," "Barroom Brawl Black Eye" and "Rusty Truck;" or an NYC Line with classics like "Dog Pee on Snow," "Window Curtain White" (which would actually be a sooty grey) and, of course, a shade of red labeled "The New Black."

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New Balance is Seeking an Apparel Designer II in Boston, MA

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Apparel Designer II
New Balance

Boston, MA

As the Designer II Apparel, you will be responsible for applying your strong design skills, innovative thinking and technical experience to the conceptual development and design of products. You will design apparel for multiple categories within the team. In this role, you will research project needs, generate multiple concept solutions, and communicate your ideas through computer sketches. You will use your deep understanding of color, form and trends to create cutting-edge designs and define aesthetic direction. You will partner with the Development team to ensure product execution, fit, and functionality.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

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Andrew Salomone's amusing Identity-Preserving Balaclava offers "all the warmth and none of the anonymity"

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It's still freezing here in NYC, and having just come back inside, my exposed face feels like I shaved with gasoline.

Few weeks ago I wrote a post lamenting the unfriendly look of ski masks. In response, Brooklyn-based hackmistress Becky Stern sent us a link to artist Andrew Salomone's recently updated ID-Preserving Balaclava.

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Salomone photographed his own head from multiple angles, blended them into a single image in Photoshop, and created a bitmap file of the image. He then used Stern's hacktacular Electronic Knitting Machine to "plot" the file, as it were, into cotton yarn.

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Is the resultant mask cool? Heck yes. Does it solve my "scary" problem? Heck no! This look still says "I am always one step ahead of the cops."

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Have a look at Stern's machine:


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Ten One Design bringing tactility to touchscreens

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We've seen this idea before, just not applied to the iPad: Ten One Design's Fling, a suction-cup tactile controller for touchscreens, when your finger just won't cut it.

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We know it sounds antithetical to try to analog-ize a touchscreen, but there are definitely applications that require more delicate fine-tuning than your sausage fingers will allow. Here they demonstrate it for gaming, but we believe this would also be invaluable for doing CAD on a touchscreen.

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Lastly we hope the idea will take off, simply because we think it'd be cool if in the future, everyone carries a variety of suction-cup buttons and controllers in their pockets and uses them to interact with touchscreens encountered throughout the day.

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Core77 Announces Autism Connects, an International Design Student Competition!

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Core77 & Autism Speaks are proud to launch Autism Connects, an international student design competition to help individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

The Challenge
Design students are invited to produce new and innovative technology-based solutions to assist individuals with ASD in their communications with others and, in doing so, to increase the public's understanding of this unique and growing population.

Special Jury Award
The jury will award a grand prize of $5,000 to one individual or team. In addition, Autism Speaks will award creators (or one representative in the case of a team entry) of the top three designs a $1,000 stipend and registration fees to attend the 2011 International Meeting for Autism Research, to be held May 12 to 14, 2011 in San Diego, CA, where they will be invited to present their design concept.

Popular Vote Prize (Community Prize)
$1,000 - First Place
$500 - Second Place
$250 - Third to Sixth Place

Schedule
Competition Opens: January 3rd, 2011
Competition Closes: March 30th, 2011
Voting Closed: April 6th, 2011

Enter Now!

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Ascendings: Building a better staircase using modular components

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Stephen Ronsheim is the other kind of industrial designer, the kind that designs industrial machines and assembly lines. While remodeling his own home, he ran into a design problem. In solving it, may have revolutionized how staircases are built in the future--at least if enough architects, engineers and designers become aware of his product.

What tickled us the most: Ronsheim solved his staircase problem using both high technology--and the Amish.

The Indiana-based designer recently premiered his product and resulting company, Ascendings, at the Build Boston trade show. Core77 caught up with him afterwards for a brief interview on what makes these staircases so special and how he designed them.

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Core77: For those who aren't familiar with how staircases are built, what's the difference between your product and a standard staircase?
Ronsheim: The major difference from an Ascendings stairway and any other is the fact that the Ascendings stairway is modular in design. The modularity concept opens up many new doors. An example of that would be a remodel job in an existing structure, such as a condo or a loft. In most cases it is nearly impossible to rebuild stairways in this type of structure, due to the fact that most stairways are prefabricated and built prior to arriving at jobsite. It is then the responsibility of the builder to move that stairway into the building being remodeled. There have actually been cases where exterior brick walls have been removed so that a staircase may enter a building.

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Yet another alternative design for wind farms

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The neat inflatable wind turbine we looked at earlier this week solves a materials/cost problem, but it doesn't solve the eyesore problem that keeps some communities opposed to wind farms. So here comes yet another wind-harnessing solution, this time from a Japanese company called Zena: The Wind Tower.

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It's a design for a 50-meter tall structure that collects wind from every which direction, compressing it within its structure and channeling it into a wind tunnel that runs down the core. It is supposedly more cost-efficient than putting up a wind farm and it's arguably more sightly, as it just looks like another building, albeit a tall one.

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It'd be cool if the building was managed by a lone guy with an office inside the structure, but I'm guessing he'd need a manageable hairstyle and rather a lot of paperweights.

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