If America's President-elect follows through on his threats to roll back pro-climate initiatives, it may be left to us private citizens to do what we can to help the planet. As individuals, our contributions are piteously small compared to what the U.S. Government can do; but with any luck we'll have the help of a few conscientious corporations who can back us with larger muscle.

Patagonia is an ally in the fight against climate change. The forward-thinking company already donates 1% of all sales to nonprofit environmental groups, and has been doing so since 1985; that brings their total up to "$74 million in cash donations given directly to thousands of organizations working in local communities around the world."

On today, Black Friday, they're going even further. Patagonia has announced they're donating 100% of today's sales to organizations fighting climate change. Writes Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario:

This year Patagonia will donate 100 percent of global Black Friday sales in our stores and on our website to grassroots organizations working in local communities to protect our air, water and soil for future generations. These are small groups, often underfunded and under the radar, who work on the front lines. The support we can give is more important now than ever.

We'll also provide information in our stores and on our website about how to get in touch with these groups and easily be active in your own communities—on Black Friday and every day.


For decades, Patagonia has demonstrated that caring for our planet is not in conflict with running a successful business. We are always looking for ways to further reduce our manufacturing footprint, including our company's reliance on fossil fuels. We also fund grassroots environmental organizations by giving away 1 percent of our sales. To date that amount totals $74 million.


But during a difficult and divisive time, we felt it was important to go further and connect more of our customers, who love wild places, with those who are fighting tirelessly to protect them. This we know: If we don't act boldly, severe changes in climate, water and air pollution, extinction of species and erosion of topsoil are certain outcomes. The threats facing our planet affect people of every political stripe, of every demographic, in every part of the country. We all stand to benefit from a healthy environment—and our children and grandchildren do, too.


By getting active in communities, we can effect local change to protect the food our children and we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the treasured places we love the most. And we can impact global priorities, too, by raising our voices to defend policies and regulations that will reduce carbon emissions, build a modern energy economy based on investment in renewables and, most crucially, ensure the United States remains fully committed to the vital goals set forth in the Paris Climate Agreement.


At Patagonia, we will grow and deepen our resolve to protect what we love. We will fight harder and smarter, and use every means at our disposal to prevail for the sake of the country, the planet, and the wild places and creatures that need our voice.

I love that they're doing this not only for store sales, but for website sales as well.

If any of you hear about more companies, whether large or mom-and-pop, that are doing their bit to help us combat climate change, please let us know in the comments.

EDF seeks a writer/editor to cover cutting-edge environmental issues. Working with leading scientists, policy analysts and communications colleagues, the writer/editor generates articles and multiple other editorial projects in the fields of climate change, energy, oceans, ecosystems and human health.

Unprecedented user experience greatly improves the process- transforming the task of cooking from a chore to an aspiration. Every design decision revolved around the end-user—from proprietary Insta-Heat technology, to smart temperature sensing, to easy clean accessories. Balance incorporated a high level of technology worthy of the Panasonic brand while keeping the interaction intuitive.

I'm not generally a fan of wall-mounted desks because it's often nicer to position as desk so the end user is not looking at the wall. But in some small spaces a wall-mounted desk is the best alternative. We've mentioned the Ledge from Urbancase before, but there are many more designs worth a look.

The Deskbox from Arco, designed by Raw Edges, looks like a simple shelf when not in use, but it opens up to create workspace that would be fine for a laptop user. There's an outlet in the left rear for running a cord. And there's even a tiny bit of storage space.

The LAXseries wall-mounted desk from MASHstudios provides a lot of cubbies for easy storage (as long as small items don't get shoved to the back).

This desk can also accommodate a desktop computer, not just a laptop. It's 58 inches long, which may be too big for some end users—but those who have the space will appreciate the generous workspace.

As someone who is always bugging her clients about ergonomics, I'm delighted to see the Minimal Desk from Orange22 Modern, which has a tray that can be used for a keyboard and mouse.

The desk comes in two sizes; the large is good for those with a desktop computer, while the smaller one would be fine for laptop users.

As you might expect, the desk has a wire management slot.

The Sequel wall desk from BDI, designed by Matthew Weatherly, has some nifty hidden features. (Purchasers note it's easy to assemble, too.)

First, there's the hidden keyboard tray (or storage drawer). 

And then there's all the wire management that can go on behind the lower panel. This will be especially nice for end users installing the desk in a public area of the house, those concerned about children or pets getting the the cords, or those who just hate looking at dangling cords.

Some end users will prefer a secretary-style desk which closes up (and extends minimally into the room) when not in use. The NUBO from Ligne Roset, designed by GamFratesi, is one such wall-mounted desk.

The NUBO has a cable pass-through slot and a retaining bar for documents. (End users who would like to store things like pens are out of luck.) There's a magnetic closure at the top.

Michael Hilgers designed two wall-mounted desks for Müller Möbelwerkstätten. The Flatframe is one of those; someone walking by might wonder why there's a cord dangling from the picture frame, and why there's a chair in front of it. (The Flatframe is also available with a plain white exterior, allowing it to blend into a white wall, if the shades of white match. A blackboard front is yet another alternative.)

But open up the Flatframe and there's a thoughtfully designed desk for laptop users, with storage for pens, a tablet and a smartphone; the rear panel is a magnetic board.

The Flatframe was obviously designed for a European audience; there are multiple outlets for Euro plugs. End users in many parts of the world would need converters if they wanted to use this very nice feature.

The Flatbox has three organizational pieces that end users can arrange as they like on the rear panel. It would be nice if additional pieces could be purchased, but this doesn't seem to be an option.

The Flatbox also has a florescent light and one outlet for charging. So this item, like the Flatframe, will need to be located near an outlet to take full advantage of its features. 

One of the organizational pieces will work fine as a stand for at least some iPads. Designing for end users who are more tablet-focused than laptop-focused is something that may become increasingly important in the future.

ErgotronHome has two models of wall desk: the Hub24 and the Hub27. Both of them have organizing trays for the rear panel that end users can arrange as they like. There's a place for end users to put their own power strips, but none are provided with the desk.

Both models also have a glass worktop surface that can also serve as a dry-erase board. 

The Hub27's added features include a key lock and 9 inches of desktop height adjustment. When the surface is raised, it might interfere with reaching the rear organizers, but it can easily be lowered again if need be.

One drawback that purchasers noted: The Hub27 is a heavy item, at 20+ pounds, and there's no way to get both of the mounting holes to align with a stud. 

The Podpad from Ruphus is a design with lots of storage behind those doors. It's mounted with a French cleat, which is supplied.

However, the company had to stop offering the version with the speaker compartment on the bottom when the speakers it was built for got redesigned. (The entire product line is sold out now.) That's a reminder about the challenges involved in designing around a specific third-party product.

How to Make a Flip-Top Tool Bench

Izzy Swan knocks together a useful, space-saving piece of shop furniture: A flip-top workbench that can hold two mounted tools at once. Look for his efficiency tips: Flat-edge pencil sharpening, the best way to drill holes for large dowels, how to eat up plyood scraps, the best way to chop too-wide boards on a miter saw and more.

Building Dust Collection for a Tricky Situation

Frank Howarth upgrades the set-up for his vintage dual radial arm saws, designing and fabricating a clever dust collection system that works by sucking it in through the fence:

Making a Custom Chess Board & Box

An unnarrated build from Jay Bates this week, as he builds a fantastic-looking sliding-top chess board with compartments underneath for storage:

Building a Serving Tray

April Wilkerson teams up with fellow YouTuber Matt Cremona this week to make a live-edge serving tray, and also learns how to make bow-tie splines:

The Kreg Mobile Project Center

A sponsored post from Steve Ramsey this week, who demonstrates Kreg's handy space-saving mobile sawhorse/workbench:

Big Bandsaw Build 5: Table and Trunnions

The engineering on this multipart build just gets crazier and crazier. Here Matthias Wandel rigs up the trunnions that will allow his DIY bandsaw to have a tilting tabletop. At the end, he discovers a nice advantage to his machine over a cast-iron bandsaw: His is super-quiet.

Finishing: Natural Oil vs. Lacquer

The Samurai Carpenter breaks down the difference between two common finishes, and explains why he prefers one over the other:

Two Ways to Start Working with Leather

From low-tech/low-budget to using a laser cutter, David Picciuto shows you two ways to get started with leatherworking:

Bar Top Arcade Cabinet with a Raspberry Pi

Bob Clagett produces a functioning, inexpensive desktop-sized arcade machine, all using less than a single sheet of plywood:

24' Tiny House on Wheels Tour

Ana and Jacob White give you a tour of a rolling tiny house they built for a client. It's loaded with space-saving design tricks, and also has a plumbed bathroom:

Digital Tablet Shelf Mount

La Fabrique DIY designs a cool speaker-equipped under-shelf tablet mount, for bedtime movie-watching:

Kitchen Entry Remodel

Sandra Powell's back, this time tackling an entryway remodeling project:

Here in Part 2, she adds the finishing touches:

Copper Desk Light w/ LED Bulb

This one reminds me a lot of ID school. Linn from Darbin Orvar improvises her way through creating a lamp, starting with raw materials and adjusting as she goes:

"Always Be Knolling"

This week Laura Kampf experiments with a leftover piece of Plexiglas to create a sign:

Making Knife Handles with Epoxy

Linn creates a series of knife handles out of epoxy (and a few with wood), experimenting with adding different colorants:

Innovation is taking many forms in the 3D printing industry. Companies are furiously working to develop new materials and processes that leverage the amazing capabilities of this technology.

A few years ago, the hype around 3D printing became overheated, with promises of it triggering a new industrial revolution, and obsoleting many established manufacturing practices, such as injection molding. Those headlines got out ahead of reality, since traditional 3D printing still was hampered by key shortcomings, including a shortage of viable material choices, slow production speeds, and inevitable tradeoffs between functionality and aesthetics.

Long associated with rapid prototyping, 3D printing -- with the help of ongoing technological advances -- has now moved into the realm of direct part manufacture, especially in sectors such as aerospace, medical, dental and automotive. In key applications this has allowed practitioners to skip the expensive tooling process altogether, and go straight to low-volume, commercial part production.

That helped to spawn the term "additive manufacturing" (AM) -- as it stresses the "manufacturing" aspect, and implies the production of commercial parts, and not just prototypes.

Emerging, higher-speed processes, meanwhile, also promise eventually to make AM viable for higher-volume production, as well.

"I won't say it's going to replace injection molding or anything," says Josh Davis, an engineering technician at Eastman Chemical Co. in Kingsport, Tenn., "but it's going to put a new twist on mass production." There will be much more customization for individual consumers, he predicts, with "individuality" becoming more of a focus of future product manufacture.

Different companies are taking distinctly different paths to addressing the challenges facing the additive manufacturing industry. One Silicon Valley startup (Carbon) and another, long-established tech company (HP Inc.) are both working to accelerate the manufacturing process, among other performance aspects.

"HP and Carbon are the first two that showed real progress in 3D printing, as far as speed," notes Davis.

The new M1 printer from Carbon

Founded in 2013, Carbon has raised more than $140 million and earlier this year introduced its own additive manufacturing machine, the M1, which uses the firm's proprietary 3D printing technology, which it calls CLIP -- for Continuous Liquid Interface Production.

CLIP is based on a photochemical process that harnesses light and oxygen to eliminate the mechanical steps and the layers, to rapidly produce objects from a pool of resin. The process involves projecting light through an oxygen-permeable window into a reservoir of UV curable resin. By controlling the oxygen flux through the window, CLIP creates a "dead zone" — a thin layer of uncured resin between the window and the object. As a result, the build platform lifts continuously, rising from a resin bath, as the object is "grown."

Some question whether Carbon 3D's photopolymers will prove to be UV-stable enough for the resulting parts to remain durable, but -- quite literally -- only time will tell.

One person quite close to some of the current developments is Dana McCallum, who entered the plastics industry 6½ years ago, as marketing manager at Thogus Products, a family-owned plastics injection molding firm in Avon Lake, Ohio. Thogus soon added 3D printing capabilities to its portfolio. While there, McCallum enthusiastically embraced the technology, and in April 2014 was elected to the board of the Additive Manufacturing Users Group. In May 2015 she left to join Carbon 3D (now known simply as Carbon), and currently is head of production partnerships for the Redwood City, Calif.-based firm.

In a recent interview, McCallum said, "I don't think [additive manufacturing] will replace injection molding, by any means, in the next five to 10 years, but I do know that there are more and more applications switching from injection molding and urethane casting to CLIP. … Our goal is not prototyping anymore, it's [mass] production." Carbon claims that CLIP can manufacture parts from 25 to 100 times faster than traditional 3D printing processes.

Taking another approach, HP Inc. -- which in November 2015 was spun out of the former computer and printer giant Hewlett Packard -- earlier this year also introduced another potentially disruptive process, which it calls Multi Jet Fusion technology. HP plans initially to build parts using production thermoplastic materials and then eventually, perhaps, with ceramics and metals. With the high number of nozzles per inch for its Thermal Inkjet arrays, the firm's proprietary synchronous architecture is capable of printing more than 30 million drops per second across each inch of the working area.

In addition to limitations on production speeds and on the size of parts that can be made with additive manufacturing, another major hurdle has been the small number of suitable materials available for the process. This is where Eastman and others have entered the fray, pushing the envelope when it comes to developing resins for use as 3D printing filaments in longer-established processes such as fused deposition modeling (FDM) from Stratasys Inc. or stereolithography (SLA) and selective laser sintering (SLS) from 3D Systems Inc.

3D printed part made with Amphora AM1800

Davis explained how Eastman identified this market need and decided to specifically engineer copolyester polymers for additive manufacturing. The result, in 2014, was the introduction of its Amphora™ 3D Polymer AM1800, a low-odor, styrene-free material that could be used to produce very strong parts. That proved to be the first in a series of resins that now make up the custom-engineered Amphora portfolio, he said.

3D printed part made with Amphora AM1800

Next up, launched in November 2015, was Amphora AM3300, which offers higher heat resistance than the polylactic acid (PLA) bioresin being used in some 3D printing materials, while also providing a wider processing temperature range than AM1800.

3D printed parts made with Amphora AM3300 (left) and Amphora HT5300 (right)

Eastman then introduced Amphora HT5300, which aims to replace ABS-based filaments in many applications, and is ideally suited for advanced 3D printing users, particularly those who need their creations to be durable, dimensionally stable, tough, and have high temperature resistance.

3D printed part made with Amphora FL6000

Then, just a few weeks ago, Eastman rolled out Amphora FL6000, a flexible material that Davis calls the first autoclavable flexible copolymer designed for 3D printing applications targeting pro-sumers. All the resins in the Amphora portfolio are low-odor, which gives them a distinct advantage of over ABS-based resins, whose off-gassing can make them undesirable to use indoors. And Amphora also complies with certain U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations for food-contact applications.

"We're trying out new materials almost daily," said Davis, noting that Eastman plans to continue developing new materials for its growing 3D polymer portfolio. Materials engineers continue to try to develop additive manufacturing resins with improved functionality.

"We've really only just scratched the surface in terms of applications with additive [manufacturing] today," said McCallum. "I think we're going to find even more applications with aerospace, automotive and especially medical" in the coming years.

Learn more about Amphora and the ways that #MaterialsMatter at innovationlab.eastman.com.

Stack 'em high and let 'em fly! Domino accessories designed by StudioMoya for Bulk Dominoes one of the biggest domino manufacturers in the world! The new switch-back, domino bridge, 4-way splitter, extension tracks and domino template complete the domino experience and are used by domino fans all over the world.

Jumpstart your week with our insider's guide to events in the design world. From must-see exhibitions to insightful lectures and the competitions you need to know about—here's the best of what's going on, right now.

Monday

'Hacked Banknote' by Stefanos, 2015

Wanna Make Bank? Enter: The Future of Money Design Award

The long-standing design competition returns with its 2017 prompt: Imagine a counterfactual scenario from the history of money that reimagines how money could have developed if things had gone differently. For example, What if Aristotle had died before writing his observations of the ancient Greek currency system, would Plato's money-free utopias have become more influential? Or in the context of tracked electronic payments, would it have been better if the digital wallets from the 90's, like Mondex or Visa cash, became the standard?

Get designing! Online competition open through March 1, 2017.

Tuesday

Enjoy a Well-Rounded Experience At: The Objects Biennial

R & Company is currently showing the fifth edition of their acclaimed exhibition, The Objects Biennial. The works in the exhibition run the gamut from vessels, objects for the home, and toys, to small furniture, ceramics, and sculptural works. Along with the variety of objects, you can also expect to experience a wide range of materials and techniques used to create them.

New York, NY. On view through January 5, 2017.

Wednesday

Step Into the World of Emerging Designers At: A&D ANNUAL

UNSW Art & Design's ANNUAL is Australia's largest national showcase of graduate contemporary art, design and creative media work. Encompassing multi-site exhibitions and screenings, the A&D ANNUAL features an unmatched array of new work by participating creatives spanning everything from installation, animation and graphic design to furniture, digital media and film, design for social innovation and more.

Paddington, Australia. On view through December 10, 2016.

Thursday

Book Launch: Where They Create Japan

Join Melting Butter Studios in celebrating the book launch of photographer Paul Barbera's Where They Create Japan, a book providing insight into the environment and working process of the most creative minds in Japan through beautiful imagery.

New York, NY. Event runs from 7PM to 10PM on December 1, 2016.

Friday

Cruise on Over to: Rolling Sculpture

The art deco period is known for blending modern decorative arts with industrial design and is synonymous with luxury and glamour. This exhibit explores how the automobile, a rapidly evolving mechanical child of the 20th century, became the perfect metal canvas upon which to express the popular art deco style.

Raleigh, NC. On view through January 15, 2017.

Saturday/Sunday

Design Efficiently During: Metals in Construction Magazine's 2017 Design Challenge

This competition invites architects and engineers to submit their design for a high-rise building that integrates its enclosure with its structure. Substituting a hybrid frame and skin structure for the typical aluminum and glass curtain wall can eliminate material that is structurally inert in typical buildings, minimizing the materials used in the building's construction. The design judged to exhibit the greatest innovation, efficiency, and aesthetic integrity will be awarded a $15,000 cash prize.

Get designing! Online competition open through February 1, 2017.

Check out the Core77 Calendar for more design world events, competitions and exhibitions, or submit your own to be considered for our next Week in Design.

Bike and tool lovers take note: Silca refuses to stop making awesome stuff, so look away or start saving. This week saw the first batch of their Kickstarted T-Handle hex wrenches hit the ground, and they look great. Silca has previously been famous for their hyper engineered pumps, and more recently for making the sexiest allen set to grace a wooden box. This new set just builds on that obsessive attention to materials and user needs. 

The sliding T-handle design is hardly new, but they rightly identified that few, if any, offer a way of locking the handle into place while in use. Their detent system gives the user extra leverage and stability in the T position, and the handle-drive bits are formed with the same attention to detail as the main shaft. 

The whole assembly is forged rather than welded, and the length is long enough on larger sizes to reach pain in the assed recessed bolts on bottom brackets or crack tough case pedals. The length and resistance lends well to rapidly switching from using the main shaft and arm, and the material quality lowers concerns about stripping and good contact.

The complete kit includes the 8 most common hexe sizes plus a T25 and T30 torx. The full set comes in a folio case designed to be accessed easily while draped over a bike or stand. Waxed duck canvas is soo 2014 but I'll let them have it since the blend of portable organization is well thought out and decent looking while open.

At almost $200, it's a laughable comparison to my beloved and hideously thrashed ball-end Bondhus set, but if I still wrenched all day every day these understated Ts would be on my vision board for a less shitty shop experience. Overkill for fair weather mechanics, but a great inspiration for anyone looking to improve traditional tools.

This holiday, share your Ultimate Gift Guide with Core77 for a chance to gift yourself some fun rewards. We're asking reading to pick 5 gift ideas for the holidays and will award the best lists with awesome weekly and grand prizes!

Continuing the showdown, our three favorite gift guides of the week will be receiving a $25 gift certificate from our friends at Areaware—on top of that, they'll also be in the running for the grand finale prize on December 12: an Amazon Echo or a GoPro. 

Here are our Week 2 top contenders—

As city dwellers ourself, this city survival gift guide by Michael R came as a real help. Giving suggestions not only for the best way to travel but also even the best cup for your morning brew, this list of essentials was an easy pick. 

We're liking the looks of a kitchen strictly filled with all-black utensils after perusing Trent E's "Kitchen Eclipse" gift guide. This list of tools offers a few gift options that are high in performance quality and serious style (one of our favorites is the nesting cast iron pot set).

At Core77, we appreciate a good gift that keeps us happy and productive—lucky for us, Bryan Belmore submitted this awesome gift guide that gives us multiple ideas on how to stay focused and efficient while also avoiding as much boring housework as possible...

Thanks to all of those who submitted, and congratulations to our winners! You'll soon be receiving a $25 Areaware gift certificate. 

____________________________________

THIS WEEK

Want in on the fun? Make your own Ultimate Gift Guide. On Friday you could win an awesome insulated growler courtesy of Seattle based company MiiR, whose founder & CEO also contributed his own outdoors-focused list to our Ultimate Gift Guide! 

MAKE YOUR ULTIMATE GIFT GUIDE HERE

Art is often credited as an emotional outlet for the maker and a channel for better understanding emotions in the viewer. But sometimes the feelings involved are too big or complicated or irrational to be fully released. For those times when uncertainty, fear, rage, or helplessness are too much to be relieved by a painting or piece of music, Babak Golkar has you covered. Golkar's sculptural series Scream Pots invite the viewer to release difficult emotions in a literal, yet benign and creative way. By screaming. 

The sculptures are hand thrown terra cotta, made in two parts, shaped to receive and neutralize the sounds made by a screaming viewer. One end cradles the face while a tiny hole at the end releases air. The bells and curves of the pieces augment and dampen and change the sound, from primal and negative to something new.

As Golkar explains in the artist's statement: 

In this installation I was interested in screaming as a release but also a gesture or a form of contestation. We tend to let go in private, not in public, and that letting go has to do with exposing our vulnerability, which here is reflected, not only by the action of participants through engaging with the works and screaming into the vessels, but also through the use of terra cotta as a fragile medium.

The series was opened to the public in the installation Time To Let Go, which debuted at the Vancouver Art Gallery Offsite in 2014. The purgative pieces have also shown in areas as far flung as Tehran, Iran, where the need for socially appropriate release takes on a slightly different cast. 

Now maybe it's time for an American exhibition… or commercial line? Rather than voting from a place of hate, fear or confusion, every home should have its own scream pot to keep us thinking clearly.

Tim Prestero and his team at Design that Matters did everything right: They identified an important, life-saving product design need, did heavy research, designed a good-looking and functional product that solved that need, and won awards for it. But then the product failed to gain traction. Why?

In this video, which has a million views on TED's website (plus 50,000 and change on YouTube), Prestero breaks down the real-world issues designers have to confront—they might as well call this "The Things They Don't Teach You in Design School"—explains how they come into play, and shows you how he and his team figured the system out and bounced back:

Have you paid close attention? Good; we got a chance to meet Prestero at Autodesk University, and we're currently working up our Q&A with both him and Malory Johnson, Design that Matters' industrial design fellow. DtM has much to say about where design can and can't make a difference, and hearing the story above will help you better understand where they're coming from—and where they're going.

Funny or Die's is hiring a full-time graphic designer. Multi-talented candidates with additional video editing skills (Premiere, After Effects, etc) are welcome, as we offer a great opportunity to wear many hats, contribute in various creative ways, and grow in our fast-paced creative studio environment.

Tired of boring ol' LED displays? Check out this kinetic variant:

That's prototyping company Breakfast's new Flip-Disc Display, which uses physical discs colored black on one side and white on the other as "pixels."

Flip-disc displays, also called flip-dot displays, aren't new; they've been around since at least the early 1960s, when the Montreal Stock Exchange installed one, and in the 1970s American TV viewers saw them on "Family Feud." But what Breakfast has done is rigged the discs up to operate at close to 30 frames per second, wrangled them into full-bleed 17" x 17" modular panels that can be configured as you wish and created an app to simplify the display controls.

Until now…any business interested in purchasing a kinetic display would need to commission a specialized company to design and build a bespoke hardware and software solution. This requires a team of electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, software developers, industrial designers, project managers, and much more. Such an endeavor carries a high cost and can take years to develop. BREAKFAST's Flip-Disc Display System aims to make purchasing and utilizing a kinetic display as easy as buying a new refrigerator.

Those of you interested in purchasing the system can get quotes here.

Also See:

Breakfast's F21 Thread Screen

Here's a project worthy of inclusion in a textbook on industrial design. Benjamin Hubert's Layer studio has taken a well-established object, the watch band, and redesigned it with less parts by exploiting the properties of their chosen material. The LABB (Loopless and Buckleless Band) has had repeating positive and negative patterns injection-molded into it:

As a result, the wearer can simply snap it shut at a diameter of their choosing, sort of like giant-size Velcro:

And here's what it looks like in action:

As it stands the LABB will only fit the 42mm Apple Watch, but manufacturer Noomoon is toying with the idea of creating a version for the 38mm.

The LABB has been successfully funded on Kickstarter, though there's still 12 days left in the campaign if you'd like to snag one. They're expected to retail for $77 (to honor us at Core77?) and at press time there were still some $58 early-bird units left.

TakeAway package design combines a clothing hanger with a shopping bag in a practical and aesthetically pleasing way. It aims to reduce the amount of the plastic that was used in both hangers and shopping bags while also being nature-friendly. After it's done functioning as a hanger, when users decide to take the clothing home, it transforms into a shopping bag using a Velcro mechanism. TakeAway aims to reduce materials needed in clothing stores, and the user can also continue TakeAway's use in the home.

The social and political landscape may be murky these days, and the hectic holiday season is only just underway, but here's a glimmering greasy beacon of hope: the Fondoodler. This slightly heinous contraption takes your grated cheese of choice and melts it into a spreadable stream. It's like a hot glue gun for people with adventurous art skills or a broken dietary moral compass. 

Just pack the holster tube with your favorite cheddar or Camembert, pop it into the gun, and depress the push stick to heat your cheese to flowing temperature. Now you can hand decoupage your Triscuits, or write magical realist love poems inside the quesadilla you serve your crush. 

You can even use mozzarella cheese sticks straight out of the pack. Draw a favorite Disney character and maybe you can trick your horrible brats into eating their proteins. Maybe this year you can finally swap boring ginger bread houses for something closer to your Kraft Singles heart.

But best/worst of all, this new widget is brought to you by Buzzfeed, in what appears to be the first consumer product licensed by the media giant. While a playful and impractical food invention might seem like an odd first departure from branded t-shirts, their ads for the Fondoodler take you from questionable news to questionable food in one click. So it might not "revolutionize" our nacho experience as some are claiming, but maybe it's not a distasteful pairing at all.

Design plays a major role when it comes to sustainability and global welfare. Everything from building efficient refugee tents and sustainable cities to recyclable batteries requires design thinking. But have you ever thought about the role design plays when it comes to food waste?

Food waste is actually one of society's biggest problems. Every day we waste food that could feed 3 billion people—that's a lot of food. 

But how come we're wasting so much food? We all know throwing away our left-overs is bad for the environment, but we still do it. The environmental challenges surrounding food waste have been well discussed in the world's media over the past few years. Some see these challenges as impossible to overcome, while others believe change needs to happen. So far, there's been a lot of talk with little action. 

Swedish packaging company, BillerudKorsnäs, recently encouraged design students to use design as a tool to combat food waste. During their competition, packchallenge.se, students were given the task to create a concept brand for packaged goods. The results from the challenge say a lot about the solutions our industry needs—we need packaging to change human behavior. 

Winning entry Vocobox on a table at a restaurant

Take for example the winning entry, a project titled Vocobox. This smart solution makes it easy and natural to take home the food you don't eat when visiting a restaurant. Through simple and ingenious design, Vocobox becomes part of the table setting. Vocobox encourages sustainable behavior and gives the package a key role in reducing food waste.

To learn more about how packaging design can help reduce food waste, see all the winning entries at the Pack Challenge Web Site. 

It's been a while since we looked at EDM, or electrical discharge machining, which essentially cuts through metal with sparks. In the variant of this production method known as wire EDM, the cutting is done with a thin brass wire and the fun combination of electricity and water. Wire EDM is what you use when you want to cut something that's, say, 300mm thick, and made out of a tough-to-machine metal.

Wire EDM yields pretty stunning accuracy—we're talking +/- 0.0001"—which means you can do fun stuff like this:

This video was put together by Texas-based Reliable EDM.

Via The Awesomer