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Jeffrey Kapec, principal of Tanaka Kapec Design Group, has a fascinating article up on Orthopedic Design & Technology called "Digital Manufacturing Opportunities in Orthopedics." In the piece, Jeff describes significant advances in the processes and materials, and how their firm was able to leverage the technology in a client engagement. Here's the sweet spot:

DMLS technology recently was used to to help Stryker Corp. create multiple experimental prototypes for delivering materials that facilitate cell growth. As part of the project, my firm was required to design and build prototypes for intricate grasping jaws in a very short time frame. At first, we approached a number of Swiss screw machine shops and other precision CNC houses to get the part built. Some said they couldn't do the project for technical reasons. Others said they could do it, but the cost and the turnaround time would have been unacceptable.

This prompted us to contact a DMLS sales rep and present the challenge to him. Almost on the spot, he said, "Yes, we can build this." Within two weeks we had created four completely different, workable designs that were ready for trials by surgeons in cadaver labs. The parts created using DMLS were dimensionally precise. They simplified the design because multiple features were combined into one part and required no secondary finishing other than removing support posts. Because they were made from surgical-grade stainless steel, the same material that would have been used in traditional manufacturing, they had the same strength and durability.

Read the whole piece here.

United Nude is a brand collaboration between Rem Koolhaas and shoemaker Galahad Clark, and for two years the pair have been quietly collaborating on something called the Lo Res Project.

Using a 3D scanner and software, they essentially scan real-world objects into their systems and transform them into primitive, polygonal designs comprised of triangles--lo-res versions of the objects, in other words. By simply reducing the "resolution" of commonplace objects, they're able to generate what are essentially "new," angular designs that echo their origins yet appear very different.

United Nude started small, scanning in wineglasses and Absolut bottles; they've since advanced to a facsimile of the Statue of Liberty and, as you can see here, a freakin' Lamborghini Countach.

If you're asking "Well...why?" their somewhat frightening answer is, "[To allow] users to benefit from more automated and semi-automated design."

We're thrilled to welcome long-time Core77 contributor Andy Polaine to our list of columnists. You may know him from his Core77 broadcasts, where he interviewed the likes of Troika and Jason Bruges, his Hack2Work contribution "19 Books Every Professional Should Own," or most recently, his article on Revo Design.

He is an interaction and service designer, writer and editor of The Designer's Review of Books. Officially, Andy is Dr. Polaine and is a Research Fellow and Lecturer in Service Design at the Lucerne School of Art and Design in Switzerland. His also writes for his own blog, Playpen and can be found on Twitter as @apolaine.

Welcome, Andy!

I really don't want to own another laptop, mobile phone or TV ever again. In fact, as I look around my home, I realise there are quite a few products that I feel the same way about, especially in the world of consumer electronics. That's not to say I don't want to use the latest and greatest of these products, but I don't want to buy and own more future landfill.

Like many, I wouldn't mind trading up my iPhone 3GS for the new iPhone 4. The thing that stops me is not just the price or being shackled to a rubbish telco contract for another two years. What stops me is that I really don't want my existing iPhone to just end up in a drawer. Sure, I could resell it on eBay only for it to end up in somebody else's drawer one day. Actually I'm very happy with my existing 3GS, but with a new daughter in the family, I'd like to shoot some higher quality video of her growing up. Instead of buying yet another gadget in the form of a video camera the iPhone 4 would do the job. I really just want to trade the old one in and have access to the new one until the next new one comes along. I don't need to own it forever.

Continuum continues their series Open for Branding, where they are sharing, from start to finish, their latest branding project for the new, nomadic Design Museum Boston. They're asking for your input, so don't hesitate to leave your feedback in the comments below.

Last week, we created brand pillars and did our initial thematic exploration. So, what's the next step in creating a brand identity? Presenting the boards to the client and getting their reaction. Here's the end result of that meeting, coupled with your reaction to the boards that we posted last week.

The exploration meeting with the client is always enlightening. The boards serve as a conversation starter to get the client to verbalize their needs and what they want their identity to accomplish. Here's what museum directors Sam and Derek are looking for:

-To communicate that the museum is approachable, enthusiastic, and passionate

-To be able to transform the space they're in using graphics and materials. Because they do pop-up exhibits, they need their identity to help accomplish this

-To educate the public and talk to the general public, not just designers

-To make sure the identity has flexibility so that they can apply it to exhibits, merchandise, fundraising material, and the website

-To play up the human side of design

Of the three brand pillars—dynamic, smart, and bold—Sam and Derek felt that bold and dynamic best expressed the Design Museum Boston brand ideals. Overwhelmingly, you also felt that these two directions resonated best. One reader, Chris, commented, "It's a transient museum, so BOLD is key. It's key to grabbing instant attention and driving awareness as the museum travels about." When different stakeholders align, it's a good sign that you're honing in on a solid direction—a nice development.

The distinctive spire of the Chrysler Building, completed in 1930, is clad in a material called Enduro KA-2, a special German variant of non-rusting stainless steel. It was pretty cutting-edge for its day, and as the building has landmark status the material will likely never be replaced with anything different.

Which is not to say other, lesser-known skyscrapers will not see modern material upgrades. The Manhattan building known as 100 Park Avenue, one of the first steel and glass skyscrapers the city has known, is about to be re-shod with its own cutting-edge stuff: "Reynobond ACM with a Pewter, Kynar finish," by Alcoa Architectural Products.

The strong, rigid construction of Reynobond composite material consists of a compound core between two sheets of aluminum, brushed aluminum, zinc, stainless steel, copper or titanium. This creates a flat surface that virtually eliminates dimpling, buckling and oil canning.

Reynobond is easily routed, drilled, punched, cut, bent, curved and precisely formed via these and other fabrication techniques to achieve small-radius curves, reverse curves, angles and other shapes, to create dramatic and distinctive designs.

The light weight of Reynobond allows a wide variety of design options. Installation is quick and easy. For renovation work, cladding can often be installed with little or no alteration to existing structural elements.

Most importantly, Reynobond has a high recycled content, meaning it meets sustainable design standards; 100 Park Avenue will be New York City's first retrofitted building to receive LEED Silver certification.

Manhattan is only a few miles wide and roughly 10 miles in length, and just about every square inch has been developed. So it blows me away that cities like L.A. still have miles of property, in the city proper, that they still have the leeway to remake.

One such area is L.A.'s Cleantech Corridor, a gargantuan chunk of land bordering downtown L.A., that as of yesterday became the subject of its own large-scale design competition:

The Southern California Institute of Architecture and The Architect's Newspaper are launching the Los Angeles Clean Tech Corridor and Green District Competition. The competition asks architects, landscape architects, designers, engineers, urban planners, students and environmental professionals to create an innovative urban vision for Los Angeles' CleanTech Corridor, a several-mile-long development zone on the eastern edge of downtown LA.

The competition, which offers more than $11,000 in prize money, is presented with the Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles, which established the Clean Tech Corridor. It asks entrants to move beyond industrial uses; creating an integrated economic, residential, clean energy, and cultural engine for the city through architectural and urban strategies. Crucially, this competition will provide an open ideas forum for provocative, even revolutionary, new visions of LA's urban fabric and infrastructure.

The deadline is September 30th, and it's open to professionals and students alike. Learn more here.

Sam Aquillano and Derek Cascio, and their team at Design Museum Boston, are collaborating with Smallbean to develop the next generation of something called The Solar Suitcase. The Solar Suitcase is part of an energy generation and storage system being used in a school in Koala, Tanzania to power computer based learning. The team has completed and documented phase one of the redesign in this video and selection of images.

We've been seeing technology leapfrogging in newly developed countries and emerging markets, such as Jan Chipchase's documentation of the skip over land lines directly to mobile phones. Is it possible that some places will skip over gridded, centralized power based on coal and petroleum in favor of going strait to local source sustainable energy like this?

For lots of pics, sketches, and more details see the full story here.

Information Architect
Daily Candy
New York, NY

Daily Candy is seeking an information Architect to elicit, analyze, specify and validate the business needs of project stakeholders, and design and document user interfaces and navigation models for new products and product features. This job includes interviewing stakeholders, gathering and compiling user requirements and analyzing data in support of business cases and proposed projects. The role also requires compiling all the information gathered into an organized business requirements document and designing solutions (interfaces, user flows, data models) to meet the goals of the project.

» view

The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

This week, Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger, introduces his ThinBike, a flat folding, full-size, ghostly white urban bicycle that goes from 22 inches across to less than 8, perfect for stashing behind the front door without so much as a grease mark (yes, this thing has a carbon belt drive, requiring no lubrication).

Graham worked closely with Schindelhauer to custom spec a bike that would make Graham's urban cyclist dreams come true, tracking down a key piece to the puzzle: Speedlifter's Twist handlebars, that lock to the side when not in use. The pedals also fold, and, at 18 lbs, corners and stairs are probably no real obstacle.

Watch Graham show off all the features of the bike in the video above. Plus, treehugger's got a whole slideshow and interview to read through here.

Couple weeks ago I bought a 16" fan, and I carried a knife with me to the store. The knife wasn't to negotiate the price: Whenever I have to carry a large cardboard box home that I know is too big to fit into a plastic bag, I save the shop some twine by bringing a knife. I then cut a slit into the top that looks like this, |____|, basically three sides of a rectangle, and push that part into the box, making a convenient handle.

Of course this only works with items you can carry with one arm; for heavier stuff, the Move-It Kit looks like it might be a good solution. It's basically an all-cardboard series of add-ons that turns your average cardboard box into a carry-on suitcase. Check it out:

via gizmag

Design Addict recently posted about this book called Lifestyle Illustration of the 60s, "a colossal survey of magazine artwork from the Swinging Sixties" that showcases the colors, fashions, and style lines of that era. In the backgrounds are the cars and jetliners that epitomized that period of time.

I'll avoid making the umpteenth Mad Men reference and instead ask, can any of you ID'ers with illustration skills come up with modern-day drawings or renderings of this concept? In fifty years, what would people say epitomized the current era when they look back on it--iPhones, hybrid cars, cyber-bullying? If you can get something together, e-mail it to me at (rain) [at] core77 (dot) [com], subject line "2000s LIFESTYLE" and I'll post the best of the best.

Some interesting stuff is rolling into our mailboxes as the New York International Gift Fair 2010 gets closer and closer. Seems that the fair is ramping it up a bit, bringing in some younger designers and new companies.

Case in point: Neo-Utility, Kip Kotzen's new Brooklyn-based design distribution company, is bringing a special selection of Daniel Emma's Solids and Shapes desktop objects to the "Accent on Design" section of the fair, booth 3853. We love the design duo's quote that their "designs aim to be 'just nice.'" Refreshing, and totally spot on for the gift fair.

Hit the jump to see who else Neo-Utility is representing, and if you'll be walking the fair, be sure to stop by the booth.

Neo-Utility
New York International Gift Fair
August 15-19, 2010
Booth 3853

"Negotiating Futures - Design Fiction" is the theme for the 6th Swiss Design Network Conference, taking place in Basel, Switzerland at the end of October. Sounds good, especially after the design-fictiony contributions to Core77 by Significant Objects, Matt Brown and Ben Fullerton.

It doesn't only sound good; the roster of speakers is impressive, with James Auger of the RCA and Julian Bleecker of the Near Future Laboratory heading up the list. If you're a designer working with fiction-as-research you still have a chance to get involved; they've extended the workshop proposal deadline to August 15th.

Two places where I will never touch my cell phone: In a bathroom and at the edge of the subway platform. I've heard too many tales of people dropping their mobiles onto the tracks or into the toilet, and I'd rather wait until I'm well clear of either of those environments before checking voicemail or sending a text.

For the bathroom-butterfingers among us, a Japanese company called JMC Risk Solutions has invented a "Dryer Box" that will reportedly remove the moisture from a soaked phone, restoring it to life in about 30 minutes. The box is intended to be installed at electronics shops around Tokyo and available to use for roughly 12 dollars, though there's no charge if the phone stays broken.

For those who'd rather DIY a wet phone, the general internet consensus seems to be that you need only place your phone in a container of dry rice, which will apparently absorb the moisture. (As an alternative you can also reportedly place your sopping phone in a container of those little Silica Gel packets, but I can never save enough of those as I always immediately eat them.) Check out PopMech's short "How to Save your Wet Cell Phone" article for more info.

[image credit: Popular Mechanics]

via ny daily news

Every time I see a new, fancy-shmancy shaver on the market I'm tempted to run out and buy one, especially when it's been heavily industrial-designed, like Norelco's forthcoming Sensotouch 3D. But then I think of manly Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune shaving with knives (if I remember correctly) in "Hell in the Pacific," and I figure my plain ol' razor is best, as I ain't no stinkin' metrosexual.

Still, if I was gonna break my rule, the Sensotouch would probably be the one I'd try out.

The multiple-articulated heads, the wet-dry functionality, the big-ass readout telling you how much juice you've got left; not to mention the fact that ID'er Byun Da-mi apparently slaved over this thing, as it took two freakin' years to design and produce. (There's a brief interview with Byun here.) The main thing stopping me is the $200 price point and the framed picture of Lee Marvin in my bathroom.

There's a review of the Sensotouch 3D here.

"Oh, yeah? Well as long as we're being honest--
I don't really care for your beard either!"

China is so often thought of as the World's Factory, it's easy to forget they're also a major, and growing, global purchasing force; producing all those inexpensive products and items of clothing has swelled their income by amounts that might seem small to wealthy Western nations, but would have been unimaginable to the Chinese citizen of two generations ago.

Japan, on the other hand, is largely recognized as producing sophisticated, high-quality, relatively expensive goods. Question is, which Japanese products would Chinese consumers buy?

Japanese business weekly Shukan Economist recently listed the top ten Japanese products purchased on Taobao, China's version of Amazon. The list was rather surprising. The number-one selling item, for instance, is a Uni pen set made by Mitsubishi that sells for 50 cents. "Why," asks Ray Tsuchiyama of Forbes, "is this Japanese pen continuing to sell without Chinese copycat products?"

One reason is that the materials and manufacturing are quite advanced for such a cheaply priced product, and a Chinese firm would have to invest much in product design and sourcing the right materials for manufacturing, and end up losing much time and funds.

Other items on the list are equally surprising, at least initially: Japanese baby formula, Japanese diapers and Japanese shampoo, all of which China already produces and sells for far less than their Japanese counterparts. But the Chinese variants of these products are known to be inferior or even chemically dangerous, and internet-savvy consumers of course want the best for their babies and their bodies.

This reminds me of American consumers refusing to buy junky American cars. While Chinese manufacturers are often derided for producing cheap and inferior products, it's worth remembering that that country's consumer and manufacturer are two different things entirely.

Read Tsuchiyama's full article on the subject here.

The industrial design version of turning lemons into lemonade: After an oak tree collapsed on the University of Oregon campus, destroying the Provost's car, the school harvested the oak and handed it off to their product design students, tasking them with turning the wood into useable furniture pieces.

"It makes me feel much better about my car that it went to serve the educational mission of the institution," said UO Provost James Bean.

Oregon local news affiliate KEZI has a brief (and alas, unembeddable) video on the story here.

While that just looks like a box with solar panels attached, that box makes the stuff life is made of. Swiss company Trunz's Water Systems 200 is a solar-powered water filtration system that sets up in 30 minutes, needs no fuel, and filters viruses and bacteria out of any non-saline water source, producing 900 liters of potable water in an hour. (The saltwater version, below, cranks out 250 liters per hour.)

Trunz's device can also be converted to run on wind power in areas where the sun don't shine, and regardless of the power source its batteries can store enough to chug on for 24 hours a day. It's basically a disaster relief dream come true, and all in a fairly portable size--roughly 1.5 meters in each dimension.