Quantcast
Channel: Core77
Viewing all 19070 articles
Browse latest View live

Design Job: Design the Future! MakerBot is Seeking a Senior UX Designer in Brooklyn, NY

0
0

MakerBot is growing its internal design team to help define how people bring new ideas into reality. With touch points across hardware, desktop applications, mobile applications, and web based solutions, the design team at MakerBot is very uniquely seated between the physical and digital worlds. Let’s design the future, together.

View the full design job here

The Challenges of Designing Things that Save Lives: An Interview with Design that Matters, Part 1

0
0

As a designer, have you ever had a "What the fuck" moment? Tim Prestero experienced his while working with a group of Special Forces operatives.

A former Peace Corps volunteer and then-PhD-candidate at MIT, Prestero's original life plan had been "to fix the world as an environmental scientist," he explains. "Instead, I wound up working on shallow water mine countermeasures" due to funding circumstances. "It's the middle of the night, I'm 40 miles off the coast of New Jersey with a team of Navy SEALs launching our robot that looked like a torpedo. And I had this moment of clarity like 'What the fuck? Who are you guys? What am I doing here?'"

"They were really nice guys," he adds of the SEALs, "but it was weird. I sobered up and started Design that Matters with a gang of guys at the Media Lab. It was just so much more interesting than my thesis."

A second moment of clarity came during the qualifying exam for his PhD, "a bloodbath that involved a week of deriving sonar equations on the board," he says. His professors preferred he complete his PhD rather than pursue Design that Matters, which was deemed "weird" and inconsequential. "At the end, they were like 'Don't you get it? You can be The World Expert in Robot Navigation in Shallow Water…or you can go do this other thing,'" he says. "I was like 'Bye! I'm out of here.'"

Design that Matters has since grown into an impressive organization that helps "make sick people healthy" by harnessing the power of design. Prestero, who learned a hard lesson about the realities of design for social impact with DtM's stalled incubator project, has since bounced back with the Firefly Infant Phototherapy device, which has treated over 50,000 infants in developing nations and is aiming for 500,000 more. Their in-progress Otter Newborn Warmer is intended to save the lives of over a million babies born prematurely each year. DtM is a grantee of the Autodesk Foundation, which backs innovative design organizations that create social impact. They've also got the backing of Lenovo, which provides the high-end CAD hardware for them to realize their designs.

Perhaps most impressive is that Prestero has amassed his own army of over 1,000 troops. They might not be Navy SEALs, but this network of Design that Matters volunteers, students and professionals all donate the crucial time and talent that helps the organization succeed in living up to their name.

At Autodesk University, we caught up with Prestero and Malory Johnson, DtM's Industrial Design Fellow. Here in Part One of our interview, the pair describe the unusual structure of their company, the importance of designing in context, how to figure out where the money is, and a bunch of eye-opening facts they've uncovered during research.

________________________________

Core77: Can you introduce yourselves?

Tim Prestero

Tim Prestero: My name is Timothy Prestero. I'm the CEO and Founder of Design that Matters.

Malory Johnson

Malory Johnson: I'm Malory Johnson. I'm the industrial design fellow.

Tim: Together, we represent most of the company right now.

You guys have an unusual structure. Tell us about the company.

Tim: Design that Matters is a nonprofit product design company. Basically, we save newborn lives in developing countries by designing products, medical devices that are a better fit for the context of low-resource hospitals. And we're a nonprofit because design is kind of a luxury service.

One of the first problems that we had to solve is, "How do we offer design as a service at a fraction of the cost of a commercial design firm?" We saw an opportunity in leveraging volunteers, students and professional volunteers. In the last 10 years, we've had 1,200 students and professional volunteers contribute intellectual property to our different projects.

We're also a nonprofit because of the Van-Gogh-in-the-attic anxiety about intellectual property. What if we accidentally give you the cure for cancer? Well, step one, we'll freaking cure cancer. How's that for an outcome? Two is it's a commitment device. If we, by working with our volunteers, hit on something that has a domestic application, Design that Matters owns the intellectual property so we ask our volunteers to donate their intellectual property to the non-profit. If we do hit on something that has commercial potential, we'll just plow those revenues back into making lives better for the poor using design. That's why we're a non-profit. In every other way, we're a business and a design firm.

Okay. And what made you decide to focus on medical devices?

Tim: Well, medical devices is a context that eliminates many of the liabilities inherent in social impact work. In other words many do-gooders, particularly those working in low income countries, start with this "Field of Dreams" idea, you build it, they'll come. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa a thousand years ago and learned that it's not the field of dreams. If you build it, people aren't going to use it unless it solves a problem that they have and more importantly, works within their context.

"Within their context," what do you mean by that?

Tim: For instance, we're not going to traditional Chinese medicine practitioners or Ayurvedic doctors in India saying "Drop all that stuff, step into the world of Western medicine." Instead we're working with doctors in sub-Saharan Africa, in Southeast Asia who already have a foot in the Western world. They've been professionally trained as doctors and they're trying to apply these techniques in their country. But they're finding that the tools all suck because none of them were designed for their context.

To clarify, they're using the same medical practices as Westerners but the equipment that they have access to is inferior?

Tim: No, it's the same equipment, but it's inferior for that context. Context is king. It turns out that international medical device standards aren't. In other words, they're written for US, European, maybe Japanese applications.

Can you give us some concrete examples?

Tim: Sure. One, we talk about embedded assumptions in design. You can look at a piece of hospital equipment and [realize] by the fact that it's got little tiny casters, that it was designed with with assumption that all the floors in the hospital are smooth. If it's very heavy, you just wheel it into an elevator to take it to another floor. Smooth floors and elevators. Well, that's already a bad assumption.

Two, I was doing background research at the Kanti Children's Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, and asked the biomedical technician "Take me on a tour, show me your favorite gadget." He took me to the MRI machine, and I thought that was it. But he's like "No, look at this—" and he opens the back of the machine.

He shows me that inside the box that the power supply is coming through, they've attached a surge suppressor. Which he found awesome. It's a half-million dollar machine and what he cares about is the $10 power strip.

Why? Well, it turns out that 98% of donated medical equipment in developing countries is broken in five years, primarily because power supplies are unreliable. Voltage varies enormously, and so he was excited about a medical device that had this hacked into it. Why doesn't every piece of medical equipment have that built into it? Because in the U.S., it's a reasonable assumption that you don't get voltage spikes.

Three, were working on newborn technologies and asked nursing staff at a Boston hospital "How often do you get mosquitoes in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit)?" They're like, "Never." The air is filtered to get into the hospital, and then filtered again to get into the NICU.

Meanwhile we're finding NICUs in, say, Indonesia where they couldn't stop dust coming in. Everybody's cooking with coal or charcoal, which generates enormous amounts of dust. All the dust is getting into the equipment and shorting the circuits. That's what we talk about, poorly adapted to the context.

Besides not thinking about context, where are other areas where a designer can go wrong here?

Tim: By making assumptions about who's using the equipment. What's their background, do they have training? We're dealing with countries where the nurses don't have six years of college—they have six years of school total. The WHO estimates that only 20% of donated medical equipment in developing countries is ever turned on. That's a quarter billion dollars of waste, $250 million dollars of unused, donated equipment every year.

Because of lack of infrastructure, electricity?

Tim: It's a variety of things—imagine a hospital's given a new piece of equipment, but no training. Who's going to be the one that figures out that this button here is the one that kills the baby?

And in some of these conservative contexts that a nurse might be operating within, there's nothing wrong with doing nothing; but trying something new and failing is punished severely. So experimenting with a new piece of equipment is very high stakes, which leads people not to want to use the equipment.

What we designers need to understand is that many of these problems are not technology problems. They're design problems. The technology exists, but it's poorly adapted for the context. Unless we do a better job in design, you're not going to be capable of getting the outcomes that the technology in the medical equipment ought to.

The other advantage of developing medical equipment is that we're not asking for behavior changes. We're trying to help doctors in developing countries do the thing they want to do, as opposed to having a gadget that's going to make them behave differently.

All of these anecdotes you're talking about speak of hours on the ground.

Tim: It is.

How are you generating all of this intel?

Tim: So, Design that Matters has got three jobs:

One is, "What's the opportunity?" Meaning where is it that the application of design can take a sick person and make them healthy, or take a device that's not working and make it a successful device. So needs identification is one. Along with that is, "Where are people spending money?" In other words, understanding which health concerns are priorities such that if we come up with a better solution, the rest of the world is ready. As opposed to us being like "Okay, now we're going to go on a street corner and try to get people interested in this condition."

Two is the design research. Not just design research for the design inputs, but also for the evaluation. Malory and I are going to Vietnam in a few weeks with the warmer prototype. What we've learned about the hard way is what we call the narrative gap: This difficulty we have in explaining an idea to another person and getting their feedback.A lot of that has to be translated, which is difficult. Then imagine that all of this is in the context of hardware development, and we see people who say "Well, we get great feedback from renderings." It's like—really? We find that until we have an alpha prototype, you really can't trust the feedback, and particularly when working in another country.

Three is having all these partnerships so that the final result gets to treat thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people.

Speaking of partnerships, what does Lenovo provide for you? I wasn't clear.

Tim: Hot shit. Blazing fast machines that are the most incredible things we've ever used. Prior to that we were getting by with cheap DIY machines.

We know that Hollywood needs tons of fast machines to produce special effects. The studios farm it out to dozens of FX houses to get the job done quicker, to meet the movie's release date. What is the urgency for you?

Tim: Well, we're not in a race to beat our competitors; I'd be thrilled if GE swooped in and saved those babies before us. With us it's more that if we don't get this done, more and more kids die unnecessarily.

Like with prototyping, we've got time-intensive renderings, then we 3D-print it and it's like "Oops—how did we miss that this part is not the size of our hand?" That's all delay. Time is volatility. The fact that we can do stuff so much faster. We have our own fab-lab in Salem with a laser cutter, a couple 3D printers, a vinyl cutter, a little CNC machine, some EE benches. It all sounds very impressive, but unfortunately there is a horsepower gap. And what happens is that if you've got slow machines you start to self-edit: If the render takes eight hours, you're not going to do three of them—you're going to going to do one, like, "It's good enough." Then you take the thing to Africa and find out it's not good enough.

With machines like what Lenovo's given us, like the P910 tied to desktop manufacturing, it's unbelievable. With Firefly, so much of that project was pushing that extra distance and conducting that kind of user-driven feedback and re-design. The better the tools we have, the less likely we are to go "Eh, maybe it's good enough."

And how does Autodesk help?

Tim: We use Fusion with the big box [the P910] at our studio to do a lot of the heavy lifting. And this summer we were using Autodesk's Build Space in Boston for the Otter build. The space is amazing, they've got a CNC machine that you could drive a truck inside of. We were doing were molds for vacuum forming this polycarbonate bassinet.

Malory: One of the challenges there is going from CAD to CAM to parts.

Tim: Particularly when you're committing to something like CNC'ing a mold. It's like, "Oh, version-V4-final-underscore-copy"—we are going to push a button and four hours later, our thing's going to come out. If this is not the correct version, we are going to feel really sad because—

Malory:—There is no second chance. But with Fusion it's all handled in one file, which makes it super easy for version control. Number two, it makes it really easy for the three computers. I mean we have a very small team and even then it's still complicated to share the sequence of files that it takes to do three other programs. At our shop there isn't a workstation next to the ShopBot, so I'm using a laptop there. So having the same file that I can manipulate on the giant machine and being able to take that directly into my laptop—I'm using a Yoga—is a big help. The Yoga is the perfect in-field design component because it's portable but it can still handle the CAD stuff. It can do digital drawing, so then we can be very responsive to our interviews. We can design right after we talk to the experts.

Tim: That doesn't sound like a big deal but it's SUCH a big deal.

Malory: We can focus more time on our outcome rather than technological issues.

Let's back up to something you said earlier, about figuring out where the money is.

Tim: Sure. We've found that needs don't equal markets. There's a discouraging phenomenon right now of the growth of market-based thinking applied to every corner of human life and every aspect of human industry. Market economy, fantastic. I can support the idea of a market economy. I'm not excited about a market society.

We focus specifically on issues where the market cannot address these problems. There is not a for-profit hospital or a door-to-door care service or subscription model that will answer some of these basic problems like newborn health. Who is investing in newborns? It tends to be governments, bilateral aid agencies, and large foundations. We fish where the fish are. We figure out where the priorities are. Millennium Development Goals was one guide. Now there's the Sustainable Development Goals. You can look at Saving Lives at Birth as a consortium, a bunch of different funding agencies that put out an RFP almost every year for newborn health related topics. They state what they see as priorities.

We'll run that through the filter of design for hardware. What's the opportunity for design for hardware? A good Design that Matters project makes a sound when you drop it.

Why the focus on hardware over, say, service design?

Tim: We work with a lot of volunteers, and it's very hard to get 1,200 volunteers excited about service design. "Hey, come up with a new logo choice for the banners over our rural hospital to get people to come and get vaccinated." I do think that those can make a difference, but for us to be able to recruit the kind of philanthropic support and people donating their time, service design is a harder sell.

The sexiness of hardware aside, wrangling the amount of volunteer support and partnerships that you have can't be easy.

Tim: It's funny because we're right now there's three of us. This summer, there were six. The team fluctuates [cyclically], but there's also a cast of thousands. We've got an amazing board of directors, a fantastic board of advisers, and then this Rolodex of hundreds of people who want to make the world a better place using design. If it's not obvious by now, my job is to tell stories and to get people excited about what's over the hill. Okay, I want to run over the hill too.

Then it's about setting up incentives. We say "Altruism is a good reason to do something once." But we have to build a system so that people want to participate over and over again. Like with partners like Lenovo, it's been amazing that it's reciprocal; I feel like we're all benefiting from the partnership. That's the way it's got to work.

Tim, you mentioned your role as evangelist, among other things. Malory, can you tell us about your role?

Malory: Sure, so we do work with a bunch of student teams, a bunch of designers and engineers. My role as the internal industrial designer, I'm the common thread between all of these different sprints. They happen individually and it's very easy for things to fall off in between, it's easy for things to get lost when they're passed across different projects. I'm involved with them [in this particular manner:] I keep my distance enough from them so that they come up with their own designs independently, but I'm close enough to them that I can take everything that they've done and make sure that translates to the next person. I have a hand in every aspect of it, but I focus on the overhead strategy and research part of it.

Do you find the managing part tricky when you've got that many people, some of them new?

Malory: There's always the onboarding process, the technical logistics of making sure they have the right files, the right version of this, and so on. But Tim is a great, inspiring speaking person and everyone seems to be very on board and very sold with the intention of the design. I think that part goes over really easy.

_______________

Stay tuned for Part 2.


A Flexible Minimalist Toilet Brush That Might Or Might Not Work

0
0

The Yosh Toilet Brush has been making rounds recently, getting praise I'm a bit surprised by. Maybe you guys can see something I'm missing. The brush was designed by Anna Samoylova and Alexey Boguslavskiy, and its claim to fame is its minimalist shape and let's say interesting flexible body. Rather than a bristly or angled head, the silicone handle exclamation points down into a rounded convex scouring surface. The goal appears to be tightening the radius on the abrasive surface to help it fit into a toilet's tight upper corners. That's where my confusion kicks in.

Does this handle look like it would help you comfortably reach those awkward potty angles? Even with the flexibility implied, the shape seems at odds with the use. Add to that the mentionable width of the head, which would make scouring the narrower lower sections of a toilet bowl a pretty tight fit. And add to that a brush rest that looks difficult to clean yet easy to spill or overflow. 

Beyond that the concept project dates back to 2009, and has never seen production. Does the spike in interest just speak to a desire for cooler looking toilet tools? The navel gazing echo chamber of the net? Or is there a charming problem-solving feature I've overlooked?

Designing a Key That Will Last a Lifetime

0
0

We based our work on the KEEP concept product research and dived straight to visual definition, characterizing every little detail that makes a YALE key what it is. After refining the shape as close as it can be to the original key, we then had to deal with making it a real working product, one that would last for a long time without any issues, we also had to adapt ourselves to existing manufacturing capabilities. We chose ultrasonic welding as a way to attach the USB cradle to the main part, causing the product to be bulletproof. Snapping features, specific material selection, surface finish and a great cooperation with the manufacturer concluded with a ripe, and accurate product.

View the full content here

Companies Using Waste as Raw Material

0
0

Sustainability within a corporate context can often conflict with traditional business models, making it harder to incorporate on a large-scale basis. On what grounds, other than moral obligation, would a company create a sustainable product or establish expensive recycling systems when their whole MO is getting people to consume? 

Contrary to this conundrum in the design and manufacturing world, efforts to better the world in a production context do still exist. Recently in the Core77 discussion boards, this became a topic of conversation after a well-intentioned yet slightly misinformed student proposed a project where he wants to create brick building materials from e-waste. Regular contributor Cyberdemon aptly pointed out the problems with this concept: 

"This is an ambitious - but frankly inappropriate student project - students are not exposed to nearly the level of complexity involved in addressing a problem such as this (one that the entire sustainability industry is focused on changing). The problem with this as a concept is you need to spend a few minutes dissecting all of the pieces that can exist in "e-waste"[...]

A piece of the sustainability puzzle that is usually misunderstood is the energy required to make something, and then recycle it back. Recycling material such as gold is currently something that happens actively, but the process of doing it usually leads to the release of toxic gasses and chemicals[...]

Grinding up toxic materials, and mixing them together with a toxic epoxy would create a material that would still cost more money, and require more energy than creating a standard brick, cinderblock, or other finished product."

This realization reveals that in order to deal with e-waste correctly, it usually takes expensive systems that could probably only be backed by federal or corporate institutions. In an interesting dialogue within the Core77 discussion boards, moderator yo brings up some interesting reference material in a board topic related to sustainable student design work. yo writes,

"Take a look at what Nike does with their "Re-Grind" program. Also look into "Micro-Plank" flooring made from milled scraps from the furniture industry. There are lots of opportunities for waste and excess materials that are not hazardous to students."

This reference to different companies making an effort gave us the idea of asking you—what are some great examples of corporations working to reduce waste and create sustainable systems?

To get you inspired, we've dug up a few different sustainable examples within the design industry.

Nike Grind

Slice-and-grind

Nike Grind is one of the early examples of a truly cohesive established recycling system. Started in 1993, the program was created as a way to "eliminate waste and close the loop on Nike's product lifecycle". 

Using a 'slice-and-grind' technique, recycled Nike shoes are cut into three distinct pieces according to material (rubber outsole, foam midsole, fiber upper) and then finally ground into fine material to create synthetic turf for soccer fields, tennis courts, etc.

Apple's Liam Recycling Robot

Revealed earlier this year, Apple's Liam robot takes apart recycled iPhones so waste material can be reused for other products in the future. A potential game-changer in the fight against the accumulation of toxic e-waste around the world, it's still debatable what kind of impact this technology could have. At present, Liam is only able to deconstruct about 1.2 million iPhones each year (a number not even close to mirroring even 1% of tech gadget waste disposed annually), but still a technology worth keeping an eye on. 

MUJI's Reclaimed Wool Collection

In September of this year, MUJI addressed the issue within fashion of energy-sucking material production through their Reclaimed Wool collection. Teaming with designer Reiki Sudo, they revived a 100 year old Japanese process that restores Japanese wool from vintage clothing into usable wool thread. Admittedly a niche effort, it does speak to a need for textile producers to address their culpability in corporate energy consumption. 

What companies do you think are making radical efforts to establish truly sustainable systems? Share your discoveries and thoughts in the comment feed below or on the original discussion board!

Tools & Craft #24: Learn to Sharpen. It's Not Hard and Builds Important Hand Skills

0
0

The joy of learning to use hand tools to refine your work is rewarding. But that joy can be offset by the perceived "hassle" of needing to occasionally sharpen those tools in order to maintain peak performance. For the uninitiated, sharpening things like knives, chisels and plane irons can be intimidating because there are so many differing opinions on how it should be done; if I had a dollar for every post on a woodworking forum about sharpening, I'd be Bill Gates rich.

I've noticed that many sharpening discussions focus on which sharpening stones, jigs or newfangled gizmos to buy—but there's almost nothing written about basic sharpening technique and the need to practice. And that's a problem. So let's fix it here.

I was taught woodworking by Maurice Fraser, and in the very first class he had us brand new students sharpen a dull chisel to razor sharpness with very little trouble*. To get good at it took practice, but after that first class it wasn't anything anyone thought twice about—except maybe to reread the notes and do some more practicing.

Some think that effective sharpening requires years of practice and that only "experts" can do it free hand. THIS SIMPLY ISN'T TRUE. In old-school shops, sharpening was something you learned really quickly as a first-day apprentice—or you found another line of work. Woodworking is about learning dexterity, and training your hands to sharpen is the first step in training your hands to cut straight, chisel to a line, and not drop tools on your toe.

I see a link between training your hands to sharpen freehand and developing manual skill that helps you wield tools more effectively. Some instructors teach newcomers to sharpen using a jig, with the thinking being that students will get sharp tools right away, avoiding discouragement and getting right back to their project. Maybe there's some truth to this, but I think students would also end up with sharp tools and the ability to progress if they were taught that freehand sharpening was a basic skill they could master. They'd be able to trust their hands for more and more complicated work earlier on.

If you don't believe me, take a look at some early woodworking and woodcarving books. Beginner projects were far more involved in days past, and honing guides weren't really on the market in the 19th century. And by the way, if anyone tells you that the people back then weren't as efficient sharpening as we are now with some guide, tell them to look at the furniture made back then. I think the tools were plenty sharp enough.

If you still don't believe me and are within range of New York City, we here at Tools for Working Wood are offering free three-hour sharpening classes at our space in Brooklyn. These will usually be on a Saturday. Right now I am taking a break from teaching, but the next Sharpening 101 class will be noon, January 14, 2017. More details are posted on our events page here.  You can also keep abreast of our classes and events here.

*You can read about the way Maurice taught sharpening here. Also, a few years ago Norton Abrasives commissioned Maurice and I to do videos on these methods (Maurice did the oilstone version and I did the waterstone version). The technique is the same on both versions, just the technology is different.

________________________________________________________

This "Tools & Craft" section is provided courtesy of Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood, the Brooklyn-based catalog retailer of everything from hand tools to Festool; check out their online shop here. Joel also founded Gramercy Tools, the award-winning boutique manufacturer of hand tools made the old-fashioned way: Built to work and built to last.

Will June the Intelligent Oven Ease Stress in the Kitchen?

0
0

Meet June, the intelligent oven that really wants to enhance your meals and baked goods. It/she (?) aims to erase the popular AI 'taking over the world' stigma brought to us by the likes of our friends LipNet and the painting AI system. Even though June is in fact an AI equipped appliance, its goal is to support you in the kitchen, not cook for you. Don't let her built-in camera instill panic—you're still needed in the kitchen just as much as you were before.

June was created by co-founders Matt Van Horn, former Higher Education Marketing at Apple Computer and co-founder of what's now Lyft, and Nikhil Bhogal, former Apple engineer, with the help of Ammunition. The June Intelligent Oven recognizes your food when placed inside, figures out how to cook it and then presents you with eerily perfect meat/cookies/vegetables while filming the entire process. Here's a video:

Even without testing June, I can see how the oven could be both beneficial and difficult to justify depending on the scenario. First, let's elaborate on some of June's key features (all really useful, assuming they function as stated):

Speedy Preheating: June is able to hit 350 degrees in a little over four minutes, which beats standard ovens by a mile (my ancient oven takes around 25 minutes to reach the same temp) 

Smart Probe: The smart thermometer attachment inside of June lets you track the temperature of your meat. It figures out the optimal temperature and speed of reaching said temperature, taking out all the guesswork.

Easy to Clean: June's removable door panel makes it hard for food crumbs and chunks to get stuck where you don't want them. This is a useful feature, but it's hard to tell if it will be bothersome to remove.

Advanced Insulation: There's nothing more annoying than accidentally touching a hot toaster oven—June remains cool to the touch no matter what, even its glass front.

Front Features: June's design team wanted to keep her shape similar to standard toaster/convection ovens for user familiarity. June features a dial and a touch screen pad right on the oven's front for easy control and space saving. Keep in mind, the touch pad doesn't heat up while the oven is in use.

Don't forget the accompanying app's and the oven's more tech-y features:

Food Recognition: When you place food in June, it recognizes what you are making and decides how to cook it. Right now, she only recognizes basic foods like chicken, broccoli, etc., but that will soon change...

Automatic Updates: June's software automatically updates because it learns as you do. As more people use June ovens, June will start to recognize how to cook more recipes. In a way, we're teaching June how to cook so that she can help us with our process. A little scary, but intriguing. 

Notifications: Get notifications like this as your food cooks and when it's finally ready. These would be useful if you get distracted with prepping side items while the big enchilada is cooking. 

Watch Your Food as it Cooks: June films everything as it cooks, so if you obsessively check the oven while you make dinner, you can start obsessively watching your phone instead. Same concept, less heat in your face and temp damage to your food. 

And finally, June co-founder Matt Van Horn's personal favorite:

Meal ETA: Through the app, June will send you an ETA for your meal. Maybe a clever Lyft reference?

The overarching concerns with June's concept don't necessarily have to do with design—it's safe to say June incorporates features anyone in the kitchen would appreciate. 

However, June's steep $1,500 price is tough to justify, even in small apartment settings. The oven's price and small size make June's target market unclear. Millennials settling into their first tiny apartment? Too expensive. Families? Too small unless family means a couple or a lonely New Yorker with three pet cats.

My main question: Is the market (new apartment buildings, families remodeling their kitchens, etc.) ready and/or able to move on from the standard oven and switch to June?

One scenario June would likely thrive in is in a college affiliated housing situation—college affiliated housing developers are starting to go all out with their apartment buildings. I could see certain universities purchasing Junes in bulk instead of full or convection ovens to save space and accommodate lazy students—setting off smoke alarms, ruining appliances paid for by the university, etc. June could save them money in the long run—it'd be hard to break an oven that cooks for you and remains cool to the touch.

Small concerns aside, June's concept is very promising and opens the door for exciting future options. June doesn't take away the fun in cooking at all, she just expedites and—in most cases—improves the results. The only thing June doesn't do? Prep your food for you. But that's what we have drones for.

How could you see June fitting into your kitchen routine? 

You can now reserve your June oven here. If you do, please fill me in on your experience—I'm curious to see how it/she works IRL.

"Vertical Walking" Invention: A New Way to Get from One Floor to Another

0
0

To change floors in a building you've got staircases, escalators, elevators and, in some magical parts of the world, paternosters. That's pretty much it. But an international design collective known as the Rombout Frieling Lab has designed an entirely new method of going up or down. They call it Vertical Walking:

While this seems unlikely, they claim that by "Exploiting the potential of the human body and materials, less than 10% of the effort is required [to use this system] compared to taking stairs." To prove its efficacy, they put together this side-by-side video of a man with a prosthetic hip and knee using both systems:

As for why they invented it:

The price of urban land is skyrocketing. And another 3 billion people are expected to live in cities: we will be forced to exploit vertical space: More and taller towers, the use of attics and roofs: we need to get up high.
Yet, our populations are aging and staircases become major bottlenecks, while being unattractive at greater heights for all. Lifts are rarely a good alternative as they rely on significant external power, they deprive us from daily exercise and are expensive and intrusive to install.
…No external energy is needed [for this system]. This prototype has been successfully tested by a wide range of users, including MS-suffering Angelica, Nigerian amputee Abiodun as well as young office tower workers who found it 'incredibly cool'.

While they've apparently got the mechanics figured out, it does raise all sorts of interesting design questions. Ought it be enclosed? If so, what can be done to prevent claustrophobia during use? And from a UX standpoint, would there be markings within the shaft for the user to have a sense of progress?

In structures housing multiple people, how would bottlenecks be avoided? How many units need to be installed?

Is there a mechanism to send it up or down autonomously, or does the unit always remain where the last user left it?

How will one carry things—packages, a glass of water, a load of laundry—up and down?

I for one hope they pursue the project, as I'm curious to see how these questions and more are answered. And apparently they will pursue it: "It is [our] ambition," they write, "to develop this experimental prototype into solutions that can help…all of us, to move harmoniously through our vertical habitats of the future."



Design Job: Support the Creative World at Work™! Coroflot is Seeking a Client Support Specialist in Portland, OR

0
0

Coroflot is a subsidiary of Core77, a publishing business operating a network of websites focused on the creative industries. We are currently seeking an energetic, self-starting Client Support specialist to work in our office as the primary interface to our clients. This person must communicate extensively and clearly with our

View the full design job here

Partners, Pitfalls, Stolen Equipment and False Spies: An Interview with Design that Matters, Part 2

0
0

Here in Part Two of our interview with Design that Matters, Tim Prestero and Malory Johnson sound off on the pitfalls of designing for social impact, how to assess user feedback, what it's like working with design newbies, the future of their current project, and what young designers seeking long careers should consider.

Tim Prestero and Malory Johnson

If you missed Part One of our interview, it's here.

Core77: Let's talk about the importance of partnerships.

Tim: When an organization talks about what they're doing, is there rigor? One of the ways in which we see a lack of rigor is organizations that talk about different, better, and good as though they're synonymous.

Like, "We're going to provide a different way of filtering water." Well, the fascists came up with a different way to run the government. Different is value neutral.

"Better." "We've got a better way of providing prenatal care." Is it a good way? It can be better than what exists and it can still suck. Unfortunately, that is the history of appropriate technology, international development, et cetera. Kevin Kelley talks about how most technologies change the problem. That's not my objective, to kick the can down the road.

Then what does "good" look like? This is the kind of design research that we do, talking to stakeholders, figuring this out, and understanding that human-centered design is a simplistic term for a complex process that involves dozens of stakeholders. There isn't some human, some user that we can satisfy. There's regulators, financial people, manufacturers, all this stuff. That's how we understand what good is or what great is. The joke is that the number one thing you learn at MIT is how to get the lowest A in the class. We're aiming a little higher than that.

I think the third part of it is given that all of us are dependent on partners, one of the themes across social impact design is how nobody delivers the service. MASS builds hospitals; Partners in Health operates them. We design medical devices; our partner MTTS in Vietnam manufactures them; our partner Firetree distributes them. Every other story looks like that. Partnership is critical.

How do you find good partners?

Tim: We talk about, how do you look for rigor in partnership? We break it up into two parts. One is, is it a partnership in name or in deed? If this organization is our partner, are they around, when was the last time we saw them?

Then two, when something has been handed off for the partners, you want to look for evidence of what happens once that artificial stimulus of foreign, outside money is removed.

Here's an example. With Firefly, we spent a long time trying to get it perfect, but you always miss stuff. And we missed something in the transition to manufacturing. There's always some common dimensions or common step where, if you're outside of that, it gets much more expensive.

So one of our PCBs (printed circuit boards) was very long. It turns out there's just one-tenth as many vendors in China who can make a PCB that long. Our manufacturing partner independently did a design revision and broke it up into smaller panels. We didn't pay them to do it, we didn't tell them to do it; they just did it. It was partly value engineering for them, like they wanted to cut their costs, but they were also having a high reject rate because this piece was so big.

For us, that was success, the fact that they're invested in this enough to continue to refine the design. So I think every organization should ask themselves "How does our partner demonstrate intellectual ownership, or is it that they only do things because we're thrashing them and pushing them?"

I would guess that manufacturer was an anomaly.

Tim: I do think we chose well. Some of that is just the strategy of, it's better to work with the hungry number three than the super number one. Because they're as hungry as you are, whereas if you're just initiative number 20, well….

What are some of the pitfalls of designing for social impact in general?

Tim: I think that when you look at the field of social impact design, unfortunately there's a lot of value engineering. Where people think "Well, cost-to-buy must be the limiting variable, so let's make it cheap."

But think about the cost of ownership. For example with Firefly, the hospital cost of treating a newborn for jaundice over five years is 15 times the purchase price of the device. If our device can reduce the treatment time by 10%, we've already recovered the whole purchase price of the device. If all I'm doing is trying to make the device less expensive, I'm sort of missing the point on the opportunity.

What you need to look at is "What is the total cost of the outcome?" This is not some academic, feel good exercise where all we want to do is win design awards. Those are nice but in the end, if we're not saving lives, I should go get another job.

The other part of our intake criteria is in the world of needs, which is great. There are many, many needs. What are the ones where design alone can transform someone from sick to healthy, from suffering to the absence of suffering. I think those opportunities exist, but they're hard to find.

Is it hard for you to chart the connection between design and the total outcome?

Tim: It's—I don't know if you realize that Tolstoy's a humorist, but there's a great joke in "War and Peace" where he talks about the different kinds of happiness. He said the British people are happy because they've got a great government. French people are happy because they've got a wonderful culture. Italians are happy because they get excited and they forget what they're doing. Russians are happy because they don't know anything and they know they never will. I was like, "I've got Russian happiness." That's me. I'm totally ignorant and I'm learning nothing, and I never will. Reality is unknowable.

Our struggle is doing what's right rather than what's easy. I think that in evaluating outcomes, it is really, really hard but all important and good stuff is hard. Saying it's hard so we didn't do it again, well…particularly in the social field, I think there's sometimes a feeling that "Well, our intentions are correct," and that that's good enough.

It's also a sentimental field, right? When donors and the international aid community look at different outcomes, they look at Playpumps. I'm sure you've seen the sad story of Playpumps where kids push a merry go round that drives a water pump and water comes shooting out and it's amazing. Well, go back a year later. The kids are sick of playing on it and you've got an old lady pushing the merry go round, or the stupid thing is broken. Again, resisting the comfort of ignorance and the warm bath of Russian happiness, it's a challenge.

What does the next six months to a year look like for you guys?

Tim: We have to—first off let me say, Firefly's awesome. We love it and we're really proud of it. I think it makes a really strong statement about our philosophy as designers and agents of change. It's now in 21 countries and we've treated tens of thousands of kids. I read Geoff Moore's "Crossing the Chasm" and he talks about the difference between early adopters and the early majority. Early adopters are willing to take an incomplete product and build everything else they need around it to get the outcome that they want. The early majority wants a whole product.

We realized that Firefly's not a whole product. There are two things that we're trying to fix, or two gaps that we're trying to solve for the next year with Firefly. First is warming. We've got to take the newborns' clothes off to treat them effectively for jaundice. But then it's like, "Hey, welcome to the hypothermia lottery."

We see within warming an opportunity to make a very strong statement about design and about the limitations of international standards of care. There are two existing devices to solve the warming problem, incubators and radiant warmers, and they're both terrible fits for rural hospitals:

Incubators are boxes that you keep warm, that you thermoregulate. We interviewed the biomedical technicians at Boston Children's Hospital, and they said it takes them 45 minutes to properly clean an incubator between patients. That's never going to happen in a developing country.

If it doesn't get cleaned, well, now you have a warm box that's incubating everything, including germs. And hospital-acquired infections is one of the number one killers of kids. That's not acceptable.

Radiant warmers require a skin temperature probe, a sticker that goes on the baby's skin and that's hooked up to the temperature control. That sticker is $5, it's a consumable. You're supposed to use a new one with every patient. Where do you buy those in rural wherever? They don't. Either they're using old ones, or they're not using them at all. So, bad fit.

Our goal is to use conductive warming. This is a warm surface. Our hypothesis is that we can do it without a skin temperature probe. It's a seamless bassinet that you could just wipe out with alcohol between babies. I'm sure we said this in other forms, but our philosophy is making medical devices that are hard to use wrong in the context of a developing country. We need to design a match for this rural context.

What's the second thing you're trying to fix?

Tim: The second thing gets into that statistic from the WHO, that only 20% of equipment donations are ever turned on. Firefly has a use meter in it. Whenever it's on, it's logging hours of use. That's amazing. On research trips it's not uncommon for me to find machines that should be being used but are covered in cobwebs, but the use meter can tell you whether it's being used and for how long.

So our question is, "How might we remotely monitor equipment?" If I can remotely monitor a soda machine, why can't I remotely monitor a piece of medical equipment? There's three outcomes that we want:

1. Someone's using it all the time. Send them more equipment.

2. Somebody's never using the equipment. Send them more training.

3. The equipment is sending an error message. So we know our equipment is broken. If our equipment is broken, there's probably a bunch of other broken equipment, due to a power surge or something else. Send them a technician.

Data sensing is not a hard, it's not a design problem. Transmission is a little bit tricky but again, that's not the problem. The design problem in this, and this is a new area for us, is how do you protect the most vulnerable?

What do you mean?

Tim: Well, we already get accused of being spies wherever we go. I go to a rural hospital in North Vietnam, I'm taking pictures of everything and they're like "Why are you here?" Well, I'm the baby spy. In the Peace Corps, they're like "Why are you really building these latrines?" and I'm like "Yeah, I'm going to steal your poo, that's why I'm here. I'm a poop stealer."

So they're going to open up a Firefly, and there's going to be a cell phone in it that we've rigged up to transmit. And they're going to be like "Oh, we knew it."

So there's two aspects to the design problem of data monitoring. One is the client asking "What's in it for me?" For example, I'm happy to trade everything about my life to Google because it got me to this meeting on time and we're able to email with each other. I know what's in it for me, I can see the benefits.

So we have to figure out how to answer "What's in it for a hospital?" Maybe resource scheduling, we're thinking. If you're at capacity, does a neighboring hospital have spare capacity? You could refer a patient there. That's what's in it for you.

Two, for the consumers of the information, how might we present the information to get the right outcome? How do you make data that's hard to use wrong? In a world with runaway data, and definitely the overpromise of data science, it's hard. Those are the two big pieces that we're trying to assemble.

What are the steps in assessing feedback?

Tim: We have a hierarchy of evidence going back to that "How do you know that you're doing a good job." The lowest level of evidence for us is the person who says something, having seen it for the first time. Next is what somebody says after they've used it. After that is data. What can we measure about their use? What is a statistically significant sample about use?

We actually discovered a [new signifier]. We sent one of the donors for this program to visit a hospital inVietnam, to see Firefly in place because he was planning to dramatically increase his funding for the program. They got to the hospital and Firefly was…gone.

For us, this is our worst nightmare. Most medical equipment isn't used. Every hospital has this graveyard of junk behind it, and we thought "Oh no, that's what's happened." But the hospital staff were saying "Oh it was here yesterday, we don't know what happened."

Fortunately Luciano, our field partner talked to the staff, took someone around the corner and started twisting their arm. "All right, where is it, really?" It turns out the director of the hospital took it home to treat his sister's son. I was like "That is awesome! He liked Firefly enough to steal it—would he do a commercial?"

What else is in Design that Matters' future?

Tim: Right now there's such demand and interest in the social enterprise field. We put out a posting for industrial design interns for the summer team. We got like 300 applications for two industrial designer positions. We get four or five resumes a week. So I feel like now, part of our mission is shifting towards education and just trying to give back more.

There's a lot of TED talks about "How I climbed Mount Everest." But the most interesting TED talk is "How anybody can climb Mount Everest." The more the we can do the latter, the more we can get feedback about the ways that we could be more generous about sharing what we've learned, the better.

Malory: There's also this notion about what it means to be a non-profit, like there's a connotation of if you work at a non-profit, you kind of surrendered a little bit. Like maybe you're altruistic to a fault, a little soft in the head or you couldn't hack it at a "real job."

I think [correcting that perception] could be another important message. Working for a nonprofit is not just surrendering on your goals. It can be something a lot bigger and impactful.

Speaking of which, transitioning from design school to the real world often calls for some adjustments. Do you guys ever run into issues working with freshly-minted design school grads?

Tim: One of the first things we have to do with a lot of the industrial designers we've hired is, there's a minute where you have to cure them of their "My work speaks for itself" feeling. There's this kind of intellectual purity, particularly in industrial designers because I think of the overlap with art school that "I'm not a prostitute. I'm not a huckster. I make good, simple things. I have a beard and all this stuff."

I feel like one of the things we have to do is help people de-mythologize design and designers. We'd particularly like to inspire the young designer who thinks "Well, I wasn't born Steve Jobs." Steve Jobs wasn't born Steve Jobs. I really want to puncture the myth of exceptionalism that I think makes it hard for people to get started. The only way I started Design that Matters is I didn't know what I was doing. I was just like "This is really fun. What do I have to do next?" They're like "Well, you need money." "Great. How do I get money?" "Well you have to incorporate." "What does that mean?" And so forth.

Now we're here. And then there's the future. For me, what's exciting is looking at the future of manufacturing in poor countries. Poverty is isolation. Let's take shipping: Cambodia, maybe someday, will have shipping at the airport. Laos never will. Laos will always be poor under the current market economic structure that [limits] access to international shipping lines. There's this great book called "The Box," a history of shipping. It talks about that's real poverty now.

But what happens when, and we're already seeing this, we can email a file to one of our partners, and then it's a thing and they're holding it up for us to see on Skype? What happens when that's a medical device manufacturer in Rwanda and we email them Firefly version 2, and they can print the 100 units that their country needs? And then they print 100 kinkajous to solve the literacy problem?

If supply chains have changed the world, if just-in-time manufacturing has changed the world, this is also going to change the world. It's happening in our lifetime. I feel like we just have to aim it so that it's not just…how can I say it…sometimes Kickstarter breaks my heart because there's so much garbage on there. Do you really need to track your yoga session?

We talk about a poverty of imagination. If you look at, say, the ancient Greeks, they took rigor and morality and social justice and treated those like Olympic events. They competed to be the most just, to be the most generous. What are we competing for now, the most "likes?" —Okay, now I sound like Father Time, "You kids get off my lawn."

The bottom line is that design clearly has the potential to make enormous benefits to life. For young designers who want to go a long way in their career, the action is with the people who need it most.


Design Troll Musings #1: Introducing the Bed Tent

0
0

Hey folks, world events got you down? Is laying in bed all day still not providing enough escapism? Well get ready to do some extreme cocooning, because now there's a product on the market that really lets you get away from it all. Introducing: The Bed Tent!

That's right, for just $119 to $199, you can seal yourself inside beds of any size, from twin to king.

Advantages:

- Instantly gives your Tinder date second thoughts

- Renders the act of making the bed more difficult

- Impossible to see out of when sealed, making nighttime noises much scarier

- If you suddenly need to pee, poo or vomit in the middle of the night, locating and undoing the zippers in the dark provides a fun challenge

As an added a bonus, a convenient included carrying pack lets you travel with it. Set it up in a hotel room, seal yourself inside it, and the maid can clean the room without you even needing to see each other!

The Bed Tent is currently running a 25% off promotion. What are you waiting for? Act now!

Herman Miller Opens NYC Flagship Store

0
0

Exciting news for Gothamite design lovers: This month Herman Miller opened their new NYC flagship store at 251 Park Avenue South, right next door to the Flatiron Building. The location was likely chosen for more than its excellent light; the address used to house the offices of George Nelson & Company, Designers and Planners, in the 1970s.

The Herman Miller Store spans the first and second floors; the Showroom spans the second and third; Herman Miller and Design Within Reach's offices are on the fourth, and subsidiary Geiger's showroom are up on the fifth.

The store's floorplate follows that of a modern home, with rooms that demonstrate problem-solving designs for living, working, dining, and more. The display and inventory blend new and vintage Herman Miller furniture, lighting, and accessories with a curated set of products from like-minded vendors and skilled artisans from around the world.

The Showroom is business hours only: Monday through Friday, 9am - 5pm. The Store, however, is open seven days a week (Monday through Saturday 11am - 7pm, Sundays from noon to 6pm).


Reader Submitted: Ditch Your Neck Pillow For the Cozy Aubergine Pillow

0
0

Meet Aubergine Pillow, the inflatable pillow that plumps up in one puff, yet folds up to the size of an iPhone 7. Now you can bring along the everyday comfort that you deserve.

View the full project here

Auto Design Notes on the Acura NSX

0
0

The long-awaited successor to the original NSX, launched in 1990. An impossible act to follow for many, due to Ayrton Senna's involvement in the car's development and because the 1990 car was technically ground-breaking in so many respects.

1) Aggressive lower spoiler accelerates dramatically to the headlamps and really adds movement to the front face, bringing much-needed excitement to the surfacing.

2) Chrome finisher just under the hood feels a little like an afterthought, and the NSX is mid-engined, like the original: Does it need the grille?

3) Color-break theme around the NSX's nose continues with a separation around the base of the windshield, resulting in a floating A-pillar and an elegant, slender header over the side glass.

4) The header flows into a 'flying buttress,' floating away from the side glass. Cleverly blended into the rear wheel-arch panel, this carries a clear message; aerodynamic muscle. 

5) Wheel design has an intricate graphic and a deep offset that reflects the NSX's image of technical precision.

6) Profile of the lower sill is an example of how difficult it is to resolve these surfaces in an automotive form. Exposed corners jar a little against the otherwise well-resolved surrounding forms, although they do add tension and drama.

Result

The NSX has a difficult brief: to recreate the drama of the original car, but in a very different and crowded market. It's a technical tour-de-force and has a compact, muscular presence that embodies Honda's precision engineering approach as well. Some of the detailing perhaps doesn't stack up against the competition from the likes of McLaren and Porsche, but it's a dramatic statement from a confident company.

A Look at Under Armour's 3D ARCHHITECHs, Spotted At Autodesk University

0
0

Back in March, Under Armour revealed the first 3D printed shoes to actually hit the market, the 3D ARCHITECHs. These were and still are a big deal because they kicked off what has now turned into a case of 2016 3D printed footwear retail mania. During our time at this year's Autodesk University, we spotted the 3D ARCHITECHs IRL (and partially deconstructed!).

Cameo alert: Rain Noe's hand

Here's a quick video showing how the soles are made:

"Under Armour Used selective laser sintering (SLS) to 3D print the ARCHITECH's flexible yet durable complex lattice structure, made from a bonded chalky substrate." (display stand copy in first image)

The 3D ARCHITECH's lattice sole structure is durable—and looks extra cool when removed from the rest of the shoe—but what happens if the wearer runs through mud? Or in a worse and more unlikely scenario, animal poop? Answer: weighed down sneakers and a lot of cleaning. 

These kicks may be restricted to indoor sports, but what matters right now is the new sole design Under Armour created. They set the standard for 3D printed sneakers to move beyond a normal sneaker design and push forward to something new. This year, we've also covered the Reebok Liquid Speeds, which use liquid 3D printing instead of powder and look similar to the 3D ARCHITECHs if you squint really hard. 

I find the design—while restrictive—of the 3D ARCHITECHs is more innovative, while the process of creating the Liquid Speeds takes the win over the ARCHITECHs.

What are your thoughts? Which method/design do you find more game changing?


Hand Tool School #10: My Ultra-Functional Toolbox/Mobile Workbench

0
0

I built a toolbox as a Hand Tool School project. Quite a few members had requested it, and I decided to take it one step beyond something just to carry tools by adding in a sturdy benchtop and some workholding functionality. What I ended up with is a sort of mobile workbench.

I have now tested it in "the field" (literally in one case) and I could not be happier with how well it performs. I can easily size stock and cut joinery using this toolbox/workbench as well as carry an impressive amount to tools to address a wide variety of tasks.

After posting some pictures of this tool box on my Facebook and Google+ pages, I got quite a few requests for more information. Hence the following video. Enjoy!

Okay, your Turn. Toolboxes take many shapes and forms. What cool designs have you come up with and how do you deal with working outside of your workshop? Please share your thoughts and experience in the comments below.

________________________________________________

This "Hand Tool School" series is provided courtesy of Shannon Rogers, a/k/a The Renaissance Woodworker. Rogers is founder of The Hand Tool School, which provides members with an online apprenticeship that teaches them how to use hand tools and to build furniture with traditional methods.


Spamusement: Japan's Combination Spa and Amusement Park

0
0

This has all the hallmarks of your typical Japanese variety show gag, but apparently it's striving for reality.

Beppu is a spa resort city in Kyushu, Japan, known for its thermal pools; the city boasts over 2,000 hot springs. In a bizarre municipal initiative, this month the city has floated the idea of building a combination spa and amusement park, cleverly named the Spamusement Park Project:

As seen in the video, Beppu Mayor Yasuhiro Nagano states that the park will be constructed if the video reaches one million views. Well, at press time the ten-day-old video was up to 2,217,951 views, so it looks like they're going to have to build this thing!


Design Job: Join a Budding Industry! Chiefton is Seeking an Art Director/Senior Designer in Denver, CO

0
0

Art Director / Senior Designer Full-Time Chiefton is a rapidly growing cannabis design agency specializing in branding and creative strategy for the cannabis community. We are driven by our desire to help guide and define the aesthetic direction of the cannabis industry by creating original and

View the full design job here

An App that Improves Your Vision?

0
0

The conventional wisdom is that staring into screens will eventually worsen your eyesight. But a company called Innovision Labs reckons they can improve your vision with their smartphone/tablet app, called GlassesOff. Train your eyes for three 10-minute sessions per week, they claim, and in a matter of months you can ditch reading glasses altogether.

Here's a snippet of what the app looks like, though I sure can't tell what the hell's going on in it:

Intriguingly, the app's developers say they can improve your vision not by working on your eyes, but by working on what's behind your eyes, i.e. your brain. They claim that by exploiting neuroplasticity—the ability of your brain to form new neural connections—they can boost the brain's processing power in a way that actively improves your vision.

Here's their explanation of how it works:

Junk science, or the real deal? I'll let you know in three months; I think I'm going to pony up the $25 cost and try it, just out of curiosity.

I can justify the cost because I live in an expensive city; in Manhattan $25 barely covers two cocktails, and those always make my vision blurry.


Rebranding With a Twist

0
0

GearUp develops and markets speciality wood finishing products for the repair and restoration of stringed instrument- guitars, violins etc. Launched in 2013 the company found success and began selling to boutique luthiers around the country. Needing to expand into the larger market of furniture restoration and repair designojo was hired to reposition the brand.

View the full content here
Viewing all 19070 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images