Designed for right-handed players, Scimitar is the first ever gaming mouse with a revolutionary “key slider” control system. The adjustable unit can be moved forward and backward to fit thumbs of all sizes with 12 perfectly positioned mechanical switches for best activation. Each key also has its own curve, making the tactile feedback unique, while each row is given different texture for intuitive operation.
View the full content hereCore77's editors spend time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite stories from the World Wide Web.
This Scientific American article covers research indicating that gene-tweaking might actually be able to restore youth. "Aging is something plastic that we can manipulate," says one researcher.
If they can pull this off, I wonder if health insurance providers would be pro- or anti-. On the one hand you've got the possibility for longer-living healthy folks to keep paying a monthly premium, on the other hand they might have to cover someone who falls ill yet is able to continue racking up expenses ad infinitum.
—Rain Noe, senior editor
This Smithsonian article is equal parts fascinating and fun. It highlights the similarity between working with molten sugar to working with plastic and glass and touches on the various patented machines used to make candy canes and ribbon candy. Happy holidays, everyone!
—Emily Engle, editorial assistant
The design of Norway's next banknote series is now complete. The first two denominations will be issued in summer 2017. They've been called "the world's most beautiful banknotes."
Printed using an intaglio process on high quality, cotton paper treated with a dirt-resistant coating. Along the left and right edges of the notes, there is a series of slightly raised tactile markings. These short raised lines are arranged in a way to enable blind and visually impaired people to distinguish the denominations.
Multiple security features, some visible and some not visible.
Norges Bank's own banknote designers, Arild Yttri and Morten Johansen, have designed the new notes. That is, they have translated the design proposals from Metric Design and Terje Tønnessen (obverse sides) and Snøhetta Design (reverse sides) into "banknote idiom", and designed security features, etc.
Printed in France using paper manufactured in Germany.
—Stuart Constantine, publisher and managing partner
While designers and engineers will probably remain safe for a long while, the imminent future looks bleak for those working factory jobs. The reason? Computers and robots. Clare Cain Miller reports that, in addition to basic manufacturing work, "computers are rapidly learning to do some white-collar and service-sector work, too," which could result in automation of almost 45 percent of activities people are paid to do. So the future of work is not only a design question but also an ethical one—how do you make for a more efficient world that doesn't eliminate the need for humans altogether?
—Allison Fonder, community manager
Jimmy DiResta turns bar stock and safety glass into a substantial display case:
What do you do when an established sponsor wants to pay you to review their product—but it sucks? Here Matthias Wandel opts for truth over money, providing a brutally honest review of this contractor saw. The points he covers will help you understand what to look for when buying a table saw:
Relentlessly-inventie Izzy Swan comes up with another design for a pop-up box, this one with a push-button mechanism:
Tired of fussy tripods, Jay Bates designs and builds his own rolling camera stand with a self-leveling adjustable arm:
The Samurai Carpenter puts on his toy design hat this week, creating, from scratch, a (safe) bow and arrow set for his kids:
Using thrift-store cast-offs as his raw material, Bob Clagett recreates the 1970s children's self-powered vehicle you may know as the Green Machine:
La Fabrique DIY whips up these quick, minimalist and charming Santa dolls (with a little hiding place to stash stuff):
Wow! Ben Uyeda uses Legos to cast a modular concrete backsplash/dish rack system of his own design, that drains right into the sink:
Uyeda was lucky enough to work this one up at Autodesk's BUILD (Building, Innovation, Learning and Design) Space in Boston. With access to a 5-axis CNC mill, he created this coffee table from some salvaged beams:
Linn from Darbin Orvar creates some wall-mounted display boxes with inset LED lighting:
Uh, holy cow. So for the last several months Matt Cremona has been building his own bandsaw mill, which is about the size of a truck. Here it's ready to run its first cuts:
Laura Kampf wields a plasma cutter and welding rig to turn a discarded gas canister into a woodburning stove, which she then uses to make a batch of glühwein (mulled wine) with some friends:
Since Heisz's self-made long reach clamp broke during Wandel's competitive visit last week, he makes a replacement here:
Dustin Penner creates a box-jointed box using a jig of John Heisz's design. It sounds like a straightforward, simple project, but check out how Penner makes the veneer:
Brenthaven is looking for freelance design help. We are looking for designers to work on a project by project basis work that we will compensate on an hourly basis. We are looking for people with industry experience. If you feel you have the relevant skills please submit your resume and
View the full design job hereIf you haven't yet recycled all of your Amazon boxes from this year's gift-giving season, that's a good thing. Because the online retailer has teamed up with Goodwill to create the Give Back Program, whereby you can get rid of some things you don't need and donate them, with free shipping, to families and individuals that could use those items.
All you've gotta do is place your gently-used clothing, shoes or household items (no electronics) into an Amazon box, then go to the Give Back website to get a free shipping label. You can even arrange to have the box picked up at your house if you can't make it down to the post office.
File this under "Why the heck didn't I think of this?" The Wisp is a broom and dustpan combo where the dustpan has been designed to sit flat on the floor, and stepped on to keep it from moving.
Then you can simply sweep up the broken wine glass shards from your family's holiday-get-together-turned-political-brawl without having to bend over or squat down. Well, I mean, you still have to get down there to pick the thing up.
…Come to think of it, you have to bend over to initially place it on the floor too. Unless you just throw it on the floor the way your uncle knocks the phone book off of the counter when you start talking Supreme Court Justices.
Okay, so we're looking at, with the Wisk you go down to drop the pan then come back up, sweep into the pan, then go down to get the pan and come back up again. Versus with a conventional dustpan you go down, sweep into it, then come back up. That's one down-up versus two. Heck, should I just get one of these?
Well, now I can't decide which is better. In fact the only thing I can be sure of is my political views and how they are unquestionably 100% correct. If you'll excuse me I need to return to the parlor; I just thought of the perfect comeback to my uncle's argument-ender from 15 minutes ago.
At first it seems strange: Two creative competitors periodically staring at each other during a competition. But they are, after all, competing to see who can sculpt the other person's likeness first:
The participants are Professor Sarath Chandrajeewa (Dean of Sri Lanka's University of Visual and Performing Arts) and Professor Cao Chang Xu (of Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts). If you ask me, Chandrajeewa had it tougher--he had to do hair and a beard. Also, what did you think of Cao's take on spectacles?
Via The Awesomer
JOB DESCRIPTION: TerraCycle is seeking an energetic and resourceful Industrial Designer with a passion for green design. Designers at TerraCycle develop concepts, designs, and prototypes for some of the world’s largest brands from their waste. We focus on creating eco-minded products and experiences that help people understand that
View the full design job hereDon't get too comfortable just because Saint Nick has already come and gone: between Christmas and New Year's Mari Lwyd might be at your door. For lucky Welsh households Mari Lwyd is a traditional holiday visitor who combines caroling with ghostly Halloween vibes. Represented by a horse skull mounted on a pole and covered by a shroud and ribbons, the macabre head visits homes, announcing itself by singing songs and rhymes asking to be let in. After its first verse is finished residents must retort in song with their reasons for barring entry. The back and forth continues until one side runs out of rhymes or reasons.
Mari Lwyd is accompanied by a few helpers, backup musicians and comedic characters, who aid in her lyric battle and "whip" the horse onward. Her eyes are remade from the bottom of glass bottles, and her jaw is often wired to let her sing freely. Though usually left white, the skull may be painted for more… visual impact.
If the ghost horse wins the rhyme-off the party comes inside, where (like with wassailing) the group is offered drinks and they continue to sing and make merry. One key addition is the presence of the towering horse skull, which is often used to chase or bite at the children of the house.
The Welsh tradition officially dates to the early 1800s, though its roots may trace back to older pre-Christian customs around the worship of horses. Mari Lwyd may represent the Virgin Mary, or simply a mischievous gray horse, but either way, her prevalence has dipped and bucked over the last century.
Like other dark holiday guests, the practice fell from favor in the early 20th century after some pushback from Christian leaders, but she is seeing a bit of a revival now. Visual artists have reinterpreted the character in many ways, while folk musicians and cultural groups have begun reintroducing the spooky seasonal horse IRL, and teaching the older legacies it represents.
So if you're wondering what to do with your pre-NYE energy and that left over horse head... just grab a sheet and start working on your flow.
Textured glass can really make a project pop, but it can be difficult to spec without knowing the name of the precise effect you're looking for. The images below should give you a rough sense of what's out there.
We've found it most helpful to look at samples shot with consistent backgrounds, so you can contrast the different distorting effects. Here are some different types provided by Rockler, starting with two basics:
Then we get into geometric effects:
And more organic effects:
If those don't do it for you, here are some more organic textures by Delphi Glass:
Each architectural glass supplier may have their own specialty textures—and at the end of the day, you'd probably have to visit them in person to see their samples—but hopefully what you see here will inspire you to get started.
With holiday season in full swing it can be easy to miss vital updates like these suspiciously cheery robo-greetings. Whether you're a luddite skeptic or AI evangelist, this set of festive computerized demonstrations will keep you from thinking about the inevitable fade of human relevance.
If you think your mom/local bartender serves the best mulled wine, you might be shocked by the thoughtful hospitality of this robot, programmed by ArtiMinds:
The FZI Living Lab take on holiday baking felt a little close to home. I don't appreciate too many cooks in my kitchen, even if one of them IS an adorable helper robot with soulful eyes and limited kneading experience.
What would Christmas look like if it was spearheaded by a robotic letter writer, with presents delivered by drone, and Rudolph replaced with a Boston Dynamics-esque Big Dog? Ask Autonomous Systems Lab and the Robotic Systems Lab.
So keep your holiday spirits up and your eyes on the skies. Like Santa, robots work all year round.
We're now starting to see some of the incredible safety gains offered by sensor-equipped Teslas. An over-the-air software upgrade from September allowed first-generation Teslas to have something like X-ray vision; the radar waves can bounce around and underneath the car in front of you, providing the computer with information on what the driver cannot see--i.e., the car in front of the car in front of you.
This dashcam video from a Tesla driving down a Dutch highway was uploaded just yesterday. The car's occupants cannot clearly see that an accident is brewing--but the Tesla does, sounding a chime and automatically applying the brakes to prevent a pile-up:
I also love how the father prudently, immediately checks what is going on behind their stopped car before getting out to help. This video is a prime example of both computer and human smarts in action.
Transportation website Electrek reports that no one, including the folks involved in the rollover, sustained serious injuries.
JAM.com is seeking a creative and resourceful producer to create entertaining educational videos for 8-14 year olds all around the world. From pre– to post–production, your skills as a filmmaker will inspire the next generation of kids to try new things. At JAM, you will:
View the full design job here2016 has been quite the, uh, interesting year (to say the least)—so to commemorate this year full of fascinating and shocking news, over the next week we'll be looking at several different hot topics in design over the past year. Through our Year in Review series, we'll highlight some of our favorite ideas, stories, projects and moments that took place this year on Core77.
To start things off, here's what you, our Core77 audience, deemed the most interesting and exciting news of 2016.
Ikea's bike venture that resulted in creating a chain-less bicycle had us all in awe this year and ready to give the maintenance-free product a test ride!
Before this year, I'm sure we were all familiar with the concept of McMansions, but thankfully 2016 granted us with "McMansion Hell", which hilariously breaks down everything that is wrong with the architecture going on in these monstrosities.
2016 also brought us the wonders of Velocipedia by product designer Gianluca Gimini, a website that chronicles Gimini's renderings of non-drawers haphazard sketches of bicycles—the results of which are endlessly entertaining.
You know what they say about nothing truly being original—for further proof, check out this evidence found last year in the 1989 book Trademarks & Symbols of the World: The Alphabet in Design, which seems to show some OG inspiration for some very contemporary brand logos.
Ever wondered what a $100,000 house under 240 square feet would look like? Well now you don't have to.
Earlier this year, tragic news transpired of the sudden death of actor Anton Yelchin—to make it worse, what may have caused the accident to occur was simply a bad UX design decision. In this article, we looked into the shift lever design that may have costed a life.
To put it succinctly? To sketch is to design. This article delved into the idea of sketching concept, which focuses attention on "the designer as a user of the tool of sketching rather than the sketch itself," which "then has the potential to provide a far richer space to examine the influence and implications of sketching as critical tool for design." Get further into the theories here.
While the chances of developing a great design without proper drawing skills are rather slim, Matt McEntegart's car design for Suicide Squad may be the beam of hope all poor sketchers were looking for.
In February of this year, it was discovered that a world class bicyclist had hidden a secret motor inside of her bike at the UCI Cyclocross World Championships. After finding this out, we took a stab at figuring out how she might have done it.
And we're not just saying this: just check out all the features on this crazy backpack.
Only on a website like Core77 will readers get wildly pumped about a new line of Festool knockdown fasteners, and for that we love you.
During our trip this year to Holz-Handwerk in Nuremberg, Germany, we had the privilege of seeing plenty of projects from master Hauptschule craft grads. Their series of creations included in our photo essay demonstrate not only their craft, but also conceptual ingenuity.
A promising Kickstarter project by Bamboobee this year was a group of jigs that would potentially allow consumers to build their own bike frames out of bamboo or other materials like steel.
A machine that helps you carry up to 400 pounds, even without the honkin' muscles.
We probably deserve a big call-out for this petty dose of design sarcasm.
We don't want to ruin the surprise—just feast your eyes on this video.
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It's been a doozy of a year, but we've still seen incredible headway in creativity and engineering and our coolest Materials stories showed it off. Major themes from the year included sustainability at higher levels of production, innovative repurposing of waste products, bizarre scientific breakthroughs, and some hilarious pet projects. Here are some of the best moments from the year, and some ideas about what might come next.
Anna Bullus wowed us (and squicked some of us out) with her intensive look at recycling chewing gum into plastics. Turns out taking the sticky biohazardous bits off the street is easier and more productive than it sounds… now that the legwork for synthesizing her Gum-tec products is through.
DieFabriek showed us a fun (and *slightly* less lumpy) way to integrate biomaterials in consumer goods, using a spinning technique you might see at a county fair next to the funnel cake.
Samuel Amoia's furniture continued to push expectations around what concrete is capable of offering, using off-putting textures and interesting mineral ingredients.
Biomaterials had a big debut underfoot this year, as adidas rolled out their adidas x Parley Ocean shoe made from recycled sea trash… then actually put them into production.
And THEN rolled out an entirely different set of futuristic kicks using hyper light and tough BioSteel®, a weird new bio fiber based on spider silk.
The sea offered other material explorations as well. Designer Nienke Hoogvliet devised a collection of furniture and appointments made entirely from seaweed. Elsewhere the AMAM team's kelp based materials swept the Lexus Design Awards.
Elsewhere in biomaterials the promise of mushroom-based options made an enormous leap forward thanks to MycoWorks, the most affordable and scalable mycology-produced faux leather we've seen yet.
Another surprising biomaterial update was the development of a stripped down and polymerized wood product that results in a clear transparent sheet: see-through wood glass.
Speaking of surprising, remember when (or why) SKYN Condoms rolled out a line of aerodynamic athletic gear? What a year it's been.
Less baffling were WooJai Lee's light yet substantive PaperBricks, offering clean strong furniture with recycled credentials and modernist cement appeal.
The bizarre flexible skin in the BMW x Boston Dynamics collab concept car still gives me the willies, but I'm secretly a little bummed more futuristic vehicle designs haven't taken the hint.
In more contentious news, the invention and patenting of Vantablack, a color/material darker and more disorienting than the human brain can comprehend blew minds and ruffled feathers. It was then immediately outdone by an even more unfathomable color. Who knows what terrifying color depths 2017 will bring, but what uses these have is still a fascinating question.
Last of all was a favorite new (to us) wood preservation treatment called shou sugi ban, as uncomplicated and low-chemical as a campfire.
Here's hoping for more beautiful, resourceful, renewable, and surprising lessons in material exploration over the next 365.
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So many of the things that we work on are shaped by the light that graces it. The relationship between light, medium, and artist is important—it affects the way we feel about the artifacts we handle. Shift is an exploration of light and color in space. Simply move the track-pad to change hue, saturation, or push down on the track-pad to take in ambient light.
This year we saw a lot of heavily-trafficked posts in furniture design, covering everything from old-school techniques to newfangled technologies, up-and-coming designers, wild experiments and some plain ol' kick-ass designs.
The breakout hit was, surprisingly, a blast from the past: "The World's Oldest, Simplest Chair Design," which was built by everyone from the Vikings to ancient Africans to American Boy Scouts to Steve Ramsey, drew lots of eyeballs.
"How Folks Designed Furniture Without Math, CAD and Measuring Tools" was another popular post, revealing Jim Tolpin's expertise in how folks have effectively designed for thousands of years in "the absence of mathematics" using simple tools: A divider and one's hand.
In "A Forgotten 18th-Century French Tool for Finishing Furniture," finishing expert Don Williams uncovered a tool design from an old tome, recreated it in his shop, and found it to be a fabulously effective tool for modern-day furniture designer/builders.
Moving into the present day, were just blown away by "Reed Hansuld's Outstanding Furniture Designs." By the looks of it, this talented young man from Brooklyn by way of Canada has got a long furniture career ahead of him.
Tierney Haines Architects' "Innovative Design for a Folding Chair" also captured a lot of eyeballs, as their creation provides no visual clue that it's a folding chair at all.
And on the DIY front, "Scott Rumschlag's DIY Motor-Free, Height-Adjustable Standing Desk" surprised many with its clever engineering
For reader-submitted projects, designer Konstantin Achkov's flatpack Electron Chair, which comes together without the use of screws, excited many.
On the experimental front, in "Two New Furniture Making Techniques That Are Challenging Traditional Woodworking," we saw both Ori Ravgad's 'Paipu Technique' of forming up veneers was inspired by Japanese sushi-rolling methods, and Charlène Guillaume's experimental melted-bottle-based joinery methods.
What about your own potential future as a furniture designer/builder? What can you study and practice that might give you a leg up on the competition? As we saw in "Studying Boatbuilding Gives You an Edge as a Furniture Designer," shipwright-trained Nathie Katzoff is killing it with his innovative and organic designs.
In keeping with Core77's practical-minded audience, some of our top-rated furniture design entries didn't have to do with furniture itself, but the very hardware that holds it together. Our "Death to Cam Lock Nuts: Flatpack Hardware That Will Hopefully Become Obsolete" post wasn't even written this year, but racked up tons of views from folks seeking an alternative.
We found that alternative in Germany, with manufacturer Scheulenberg's "High-Quality, Innovative Knockdown Fasteners That Can Open Up Design Possibilities."
Power tool manufacturer Festool has also entered this space with their own Domino-based knockdown fasteners.
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16(ish) of 2016's Best Materials Moments
I was demonstrating our tools at Woodworking in America one year, and several people picked up several of our Gramercy Tools saws and suggested that the handles were too small. While I am sure there are people for which our handles ARE too small, in just about every case at the show the problem was the grip the person was using on the tool.
The correct grip for handsaws, planes, and most tools is a three-fingered grip with the index finger pointing straight out in the direction of the cut.
There are two reasons for this:
1) If you use a saw or a plane with all four fingers wrapped around the handle, the tendency will be to grip tighter and tighter. Tools don't need to be held so tight. The stronger the grip, the less control you will have, and more importantly, your hand will tire faster and possibly cramp up. With the index finger extended, you can't shift into a death grip, so you get greater comfort, greater control and less fatigue.
2) By pointing your index finger while holding the tool, you get a certain consistency in the direction you are working—which makes it easier to cut accurately, and the tool can't rotate in your hand. (It can rotate if you're holding it with a four fingered grip, which then makes you want to hold it even tighter, compounding the problem.)
Consequently, handles are traditionally sized so that a three-fingered grip feels comfortable and a four-fingered grip feels crowded.
When you extend your index finger on a metal bevel-down handplane, resting your finger along the side of the frog, this allows you to relax. One of my biggest complaints about bevel-up planes is they have no frog, there is no comfortable place to rest your index finger, and consequently all four fingers hold the handle in a tiring death grip.
Try the three-fingered grip. You'll like it.
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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.
If this year was any indication, the way we look at traveling from our daily commute to long distance trips is about to completely change. With the introduction of self-driving cars into the market as well as announcements of a revolutionary pneumatic train system that can get you from 0 to 400 mph in seconds, 2016 was without a doubt a keynote year for the future of planes, trains and automobiles. In this article, we sum up some of the most exciting transportation news of the past year.
This year has been quite a ride for the Land Airbus concept—the video rendering of the bus concept, which started circulating on the internet as early as 2012, found itself back in the news this year after it was announced that the concept was going into development! However, we saw a few fishy details in this video we thought were worth noting.
This invention that gained viral status year had everyone imagining, among other things, the beautiful parallel parking job they could attain with these added to their ride....
As self-driving cars fade from fantasy to reality, this year car companies began dreaming up designs for the self-driving car market. Going above and beyond, BMW released their Vision Next 100 conceptual car that incorporated a lizard-like skin turning function and Alfa Romeo-type scissor doors.
With giant eighteen wheelers still on the road today, it was hard to imagine when we could live in a world void of fuel-powered vehicles—that is until Nikola Motor Company introduced their "near zero" emission semi trucks earlier this year. May take a while for this to become the norm though: these bad boys retail around $375,000 a pop.
With BMW's Motorrad Vision Next 100 motorcycle concept announced last month, the conversation began about a future where motorcycles are so safe, people won't even need to worry about wearing proper headgear (although the design does come with a pair of "smart glasses").
This is one we didn't see coming—waiting in a long line for a table at your favorite restaurant? Cleaning up the office at the end of the night but too tired to straighten all the chairs yourself? Apparently, Nissan has got you covered.
One of the most exciting bits of transportation news this year was the announcement that Hyperloop One is developing their first fully functional Hyperloop for the year 2020. With innovative new ideas for train cars and time-saving terminals, it will be exciting to see how this project develops even over the next year.
A future without manual driving means a need for designers and consumers to reinterpret the vehicle not as a transitional space, but instead, a living space. Given the car will act more like a living room, how will future designers make these mobile living rooms desirable to consumers? Ed Stubbs explored the topic for Core77 earlier this year.
And finally, 2016 has introduced us to the now tangible reality of self-driving cars with the launch of Tesla's Autopilot function. Although certainly not yet a perfect technology, it will be fascinating to see how different car companies will incorporate and improve the functionality while transforming the interior of vehicles—and in the process change the way we all experience transportation.
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16(ish) of 2016's Best Materials Moments
