Out of all the cars I've driven in my lifetime, only one made me consistently grateful for the effort put in by its designers. That car is the decidedly unsexy but fantastically utilitarian Honda Element, first released in 2003. A friend of mine owned one, and started lending it to me when I first got my dogs, allowing me to easily haul them out to the countryside.

First off the suicide doors make it super easy to load not only dogs, but cargo and people. 

Once you load and unload a four-door car without a B-pillar, you'll wonder why all cars aren't designed this way.

You could also leave all four doors open wide when chilling out.

The unique design of the rear seats made the interior unbelievably flexible. The seats could be folded completely flat, meaning you could use one as a sort of couch when parked.

The rear seats were also designed to swing up and out of the way, giving you an absurd amount of floorspace for cargo.

They could also be removed altogether.

Though I never used the car in this manner, all four seats can be made to lie flat.

You'll also notice the floor is rubberized. This made it super easy to clean out after your dogs have tracked mud into it.

The Element became a big hit with dog owners, winning a "Dog Car of the Year" award in 2007, and Honda noticed. At the 2009 New York Auto Show they rolled out a "Dog Friendly" package for the Element.

It included an integrated bed and restraint system;

a lipped, recessed spill-proof water bowl;

a ramp to make loading and unloading easier for smaller or older dogs;

dog-friendly seat covers for the rear seats;

and in a somewhat cutesy move, they also upgraded the pattern on the rubber flooring.

They also included a ventilation fan for the rear.

Sadly, the Element was discontinued in 2011. As cool as its interior design features were, most consumers in the market for a small SUV weren't willing to pay for them; lower-priced and inferior offerings from other carmakers proved to be winning competitors. There were also rumors of internal strife at Honda, with their own CR-V apparently chosen to have its sales efforts focused on over the Element. As proof of this, note that the CR-V was updated every four years on average, whereas the Honda brass didn't allow a major redesign of the Element even once.

Ron Paulk—a man who knows a hell of a lot about making the interior of a vehicle useful—was recently in the market for a used vacation vehicle and settled on a Honda Element. He found that the car was so in-demand that they now sell, used, for more than the original retail price! And even so, they sell so fast that Paulk lost out on four of them before finally snagging one. Here he shows it to you and explains why he chose the Element:

The latest in sneaker innovation comes from a strange source—to say the least. Pizza Hut recently merged sneaker and food culture with the unveiling of their limited edition 'Pie Top' kicks:

A 64 pair run of the Pie Tops were designed in honor of the pizza company's first year as the 'Official Pizza of the NCAA.' What better way to win over the hearts of March Madness fans than integrating pizza into a fresh pair of basketball sneakers?

We've all had that moment—hungry, reclining in a lazy boy chair, too comfy to reach for the phone or computer. I mean, repeating your address 23 times or typing out that you want half green peppers half pepperoni and extra sauce are both tiring when you're just not in the mood. With the Pie Tops, simply reach down to your ankles. With the press of a bluetooth enabled, app connected button, your dream pizza can be yours. 

The Pie Tops were designed by The Surgeon Studios, who did a nice job keeping the shoes simple and classic. Let's be honest, pizza ordering shoes could have easily gotten way out of hand.

You'd think hating on pizza ordering sneakers would be easy... but it's actually challenging. Their design isn't that corny—besides the Pizza Hut branding on the ankle strap—and their purpose could actually come in handy. Overall, a clever promo tool.

Update: The marketing technique got us. We just tried ordering a pizza to our office—the old-fashioned computer way—but there are no Pizza Huts nearby that will deliver to us. Looks like we don't need these shoes anyways.

As we continue to convert more and more of the earth's resources into products for the human world, we need to consider that what we have already converted is not going anywhere: it will remain in its product form. This project is meant to bring materials with explicit circular life-cycles into our everyday lives and home use.

Have you ever had to build a piece of furniture in a hurry?

My wife gives voice lessons, and a student accidentally broke a makeshift end table in her studio when he leaned on it. This piece of furniture was previously considered unimportant, but after it collapsed and she got rid of it, more than a few students have asked "Hey, where's that little table that I use to set my books on?" It's funny how a seemingly insignificant piece of furniture can play such a major role in the function of a room.

Having a (fabulously talented!) woodworking husband, she requested a replacement for the table that would be ready before her next lesson—in a couple of days.

My marching orders: Produce a small table that will live in a corner, be around 25" high, and won't fall apart when someone leans on it. No drawer, no shelf—just a simple, square tabletop finished in black lacquer to match the piano already in the studio. It must be built and delivered in a couple of days.

My time constraints meant I'd have to build it using scrap laying about the shop. It also immediately eliminated the visions of cabriole legs and Queen Anne "cyma-curved" aprons. I am a notoriously slow woodworker, so I needed to scale back my design. Aesthetically and functionally I needed something with straightforward lines and sturdy construction, leading me to the Stickley catalogue. The Stickley number 603 Tabouret would fit the bill nicely.

The size and stock requirements would allow me to build it with only the scrap laying about, and it would fit into a corner well. I liked the crossed stretcher and uniform design that allows you to place it any which way and it will always be facing front. My wife is not keen on the round top, and with some quick mocking up in SketchUp I was able to render this same design with a square top. That got the seal of approval and I was off to the races.

I did an inventory of my stock in the shop. Knowing that this piece would be painted, I wasn't ready to "sacrifice" my good hardwood. I came up with a piece of 2×12 construction lumber and a big hunk (5 × 4.5 × 36) of Kiri that I got for a song many months ago.

Knowing what raw material I had on hand, it was time to consider where construction compromises needed to be made. Since I was only using scrap, I would need to do some re-sawing and panel glue-ups to get the dimensions I needed. I hoped to save the time added in milling by attaching the lower stretcher with an integral tenon instead of the through tenon that Stickley so loved. (Not having to fuss over a clean exit of the tenon, and then clean up/chamfer the exposed end, would cut an hour out of the build easily.)

I considered attaching the top stretchers with pocket hole screws, but since I was building the piece out of softwood I was not convinced that the pocket screws would hold up over the years. Instead I stuck with the traditional half blind dovetails into the top of the leg posts. No one will see these dovetails, so they don't have to be show quality, and using softwood allows for some compression space when fitting the joint. (In reality these joints came out really pretty, and it was almost a shame to hide them under the top.)

The top was glued up from two pieces in probably one of the cleanest panel glue ups I have ever done, so there was very little surfacing to do once it came out of the clamps. It is attached through elongated screw holes from the top stretchers to compensate for seasonal movement.

From rough lumber to a sanded piece, I only spent about 5 hours. I kept to my promise of table saw and power jointer abstinence as well, but don't think that really added any build time since I roughed the pieces out on the bandsaw while cutting down that big hunk of Kiri. I usually do my joinery by hand anyway.

This was a whirlwind build from concept to finish, and it taught me a lot about how I work and what decisions I make along the way. What compromises do you make in a design due to time and money constraints? How do you deliver a quality product on a tight delivery schedule while not sacrificing your style? I don't have a picture of the finished piece yet because by the time the finish was applied, it was dark outside and I really can't get a black lacquered piece to show up well in my shop lighting. I'll take some pics when it reaches it's final home and post them.

IDEO's latest transportation project, The Future of Moving Together, merges two current transportation trends—autonomous vehicles and ride sharing—into one future scenario that questions both what it means to own a car and the concept of shared spaces.

The idea behind the vehicle itself is simple—the autonomous car is, well, autonomous. However, the project as a whole hints at much more than just a car that drives itself. Promoting community bonding through ride sharing and a working relationship between human and technology, The Future of Moving Together forces us to think about the shifting role cars will play in our lives in the very near future.

We sat down with Danny Stillion, Partner and Executive Design Director of IDEO Palo Alto, to discuss the design process behind The Future of Moving Together and what this concept means for the future of driving.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Core77: Autonomous vehicles and ride sharing have proven to be two difficult concepts for designers to tackle. What prompted your team to merge the two together instead of focusing on one at a time?

DS: We feel that there's some pretty interesting future scenarios around new ownership models, both ride and car sharing, as well as potentially a third aspect that we mixed in—the convergence of the sharing economy and the gig economy. If you notice, there's a couple in this scenario that are using a vehicle that's used by somebody else for a couple hours. They've got the option of going to pick up somebody's groceries to offset the cost of their shared session.

One of our goals when we do provocational points of view like this is to touch on new behaviors that may just be starting to emerge or that might be signaled towards some of the trends that are opening up in the market now. We always find it's interesting to stimulate richer conversation if you think about some of these trends converging and overlapping in interesting and new ways.

Did you run into any surprises during your design development phase?

As we started to get into designing a vehicle intended for sharing, some of the interior design concepts started to address more specific problems. For example, somewhere around 15% of us may have some issues with motion sickness in autonomous vehicles in the future. We were delighted and surprised to find ourselves going down this route of tackling a little bit of that problem, in terms of people today bringing their own devices to vehicles in a very ad hoc way.

On that same note, we're actually working to get peoples' viewing plane up so they can not only do something productive while the car is driving, but they can maintain situational awareness as well. There's a couple of studies we came across that indicate that if you can get people looking up at the road, even peripherally, it would increase and enhance their comfort and potentially combat motion sickness.

There are some other things like exploring this new visual vocabulary for mobility. A lot of folks in today's ride sharing context are having a similar problem: As vehicles approach, it can be hard to discern which vehicle is really arriving for you. So, we have a front display bar and lighting elements up high in the individual seating pods that can be seen from a distance that reassures users that the car arriving is indeed for them.

Today, we rely on these little micro interactions that take less than a second, "Does that person see me? Can they give me a quick hand gesture to go ahead and cross the street?" There's been some good work out there already done by various OEMs, and we definitely saw a need to build on that—that pedestrian to vehicle interaction. Incorporating as much hand holding as possible to make sharing even more efficient and hopefully safer is part of what we were focused on there. I think it's going to be very interesting to solve for new social behaviors, norms, and paradigms, as we start accommodating more of an autonomously or connected, autonomous, shared, and electric fleet.

Many people view autonomous vehicles as a way to make our lives easier by eliminating the need to focus on the road. However, your concept seems to view these vehicles from the perspective of expanding free time—allowing extra time for things like work, video calls and even meditation. Can you elaborate on the idea that autonomous vehicles will help free up time for more productive activities?

A lot of folks enjoy ride sharing because they get an uplift and positive effect from socializing with others. Having an engaging conversation in the car is tough to do today while you're burdened with the task of manually driving. With our scenario, we anticipate richer socialization. You can see in the video that there's a tip of the hat to some productivity that's happening. Perhaps, at the beginning of your day or at the end of the day, you're ramping into those workplace activities while you're also on the go.

Doing these other things, whether it's entertainment, socializing, or productivity, we feel, is going to affect people's perception of what that time means when they're transitioning from one space to another. That strikes on another notion that we've been thinking about: How do we move from this idea from moving from one space to another space and, instead, through thoughtful design, think about moving from one space through another space?

That might seem quite subtle, but some vehicles are really intended to be a conveyance from point A to point B. Through thoughtful design, you can really maximize your experience and, frankly, have a choice in the kind of experience you might want to have when you're on the go. Again, ranging from that spectrum of really relaxing and having some quiet time, like we've seen in a lot of our research in the airline industry. People see long flights as the last vestige of private me time. There may be some people that relate to shared mobility contexts in the same way.

In the present, cars are very personal vehicles—most people are attached to their cars and have personal connections with them. How do you see this connection changing over time as vehicles become autonomous and can be shared with others?

We've definitely seen that folks do want to have a relationship with their vehicle. This vision of the future is still projecting that ownership will persist to a certain degree across the mobility spectrum. Then folks will be offsetting the cost of ownership through car sharing, which leads right into your question about personalization.

One of the things that we've seen in some of our work that's a bit of a barrier to sharing is that people use their cars as an extension of the home. Designing for ways to have a car rapidly transform from being your personal mode of mobility to a shared one was something that we put some thought into.

There's this tray in the front of our vehicle that allows for those things that you might want to have with you when you're on the go, personal items that people tend to have scattered around, whether it's media devices, or just things like chewing gum. The way that we play this out is that those items are available when the owner is in the vehicle, but if they put the car in sharing mode, that whole tray would slide into the dashboard and be inaccessible to other passengers.

The good news here is that if you're working with connected, autonomous, shared electric vehicles, they generally have a lot of open plans as a platform. A lot of space is freed up because you don't have an internal combustion engine in the front. The personal storage options are really optimizing for quick transformation of the car from a personal setting to a shared one. That gets into lots of other things as well like is the car easy to clean? Can you almost hose down the interior flooring like you can with a Jeep Wrangler or something?

We think people are still going to have a special relationship with the cars. Particularly those people that opt for ownership, moving forward into the future—even though they may be offsetting the cost of ownership by sharing the car or accommodating others through ride sharing.

We always start with the human-centered angle on things. We're always looking out for those human needs and motivations. Often, if you address those well through design, they can be moments of unanticipated delight for folks. We definitely want to encourage that.

Is there anything else you'd like people to know about the development of The Future of Moving Together?

Our first angle with this scenario is to increase the average number of folks that travel in cars together. We visualized, hopefully, what people see as a potentially compelling scenario to get from one person per car to three, or four, or six people per car. That would help a lot with maximizing our existing infrastructure, not having to build more lanes in our highway systems which, frankly, a lot of our cities just don't have room for anymore.

The second angle is overlapping moving people around and moving goods around. We're seeing a lot of activity in that space today with things like Uber Eats and Postmates. If you can be not only moving more people around per vehicle but also doing a little bit of work that is traditionally falling on FedEx or UPS to move goods around—that's an interesting thing for us. It allows us to really start to maximize the existing infrastructure we already have in place. There's a lot of potential for these new combined services of moving people and things around—we're super excited about that.

*******

The Future of Moving Together builds upon IDEO's The Future of Automobility project, which includes more mind blowing future transportation scenarios. Be sure to view the whole collection here.

As Ralph Gilles put it, the challenge an auto designer faces is to create a vehicle now that will still look relevant ten years into the future. The potential reward is to have produced an enduring piece of design that will be experienced and remembered by millions.

Production Designer Colin Gibson had a very different task: To design vehicles that looked relevant a century or more into the future, and which would not endure, but would be destroyed by explosions and impacts. Gibson was tasked with designing the vehicles for Mad Max: Fury Road, working within the fantastical world of director George Miller's dystopian, post-nuclear-holocaust vision.

Though most of these vehicles were spectacularly transformed into scrap during filming, thankfully photographer John Platt was invited to document them in their unscathed form prior to shooting. So here we have a view of these cars as you've never seen them, in a jarringly-clean and well-lit studio environment, allowing you to observe their details.

Given the opportunity to pore over the photos, it's interesting to see how Gibson visually distinguished the vehicles of the two warring tribes the movie centers around. The bulk of the rigs driven by Immortan Joe's War Boys are brutally functional muscle cars bristling with projectile weapons and skinned in a paradoxical mixture of rust and gleaming chrome. As seen in the movie, they operate out of a central base where the vehicles are serviced and maintained.

In contrast, Furiosa's all-female Vuvalini clan are nomads, endlessly wandering and with no central base. I can only guess that Gibson studied the kit of horsebound Native Americans and yurt-dwelling Mongols; the Vuvalini's vehicles, all two-wheelers, are covered in well-worn textiles, with nary a bit of chrome to be seen.

You can see tons more of Platt's shots here.

Via Geek Tyrant

Key Responsibilities • As a key element of the AT Design team, ensures collaboration and support during the whole process of a design and product development for the 3 brands of the division (American Tourister, Disney by Samsonite, Gregory). • Translates conceptual ideas into sketches, 3D

Worx, the manufacturer behind that two-headed drill/driver, has created another split-personality power tool: A jigsaw that turns into a reciprocating saw.

The Axis Cordless Reciprocating & Jig Saw weighs less than five pounds and runs on a 20V battery. To transform it from one mode to the other, you press the red button, pivot the head and switch the blade around to face the other way. Speaking of blades, it's designed to accept standard reciprocating saw blades and t-shank jigsaw blades.

I don't have any experience with Worx, and the brand seems aimed squarely at DIY'ers rather than the trades. (See the video below, and also note that an Amazon reseller of the Axis writes "Compact, lightweight, and with soft-grip handle, does not intimidate.") The handful of reviews on Amazon are positive, and while one user claims he's using it to cut 4x4s, others highlight the tool's light-duty and landscaping applications.

Nevertheless, I like the brand's willingness to experiment, and if the tool works well it can save a light-using homeowner from buying two separate tools. I'm also curious to hear if the jigsaw mode dust-blowing feature works; suspiciously, it's not mentioned in the reviews at all.

In any case, here's what the tool looks like in use:

Honda bailed out of the dog-friendly vehicle market by discontinuing the Element. <-------PLEASE LINK TO PREVIOUS ENTRY AND REMOVE BOLDFACE----------- This means there's a gap in the market, which Nissan has picked up on: After sifting through a Kennel Club survey of dog-owning drivers in the UK, they learned that "Almost 90 percent would buy a car that boasts dog-friendly features."

Nissan subsequently modified an X-Trail to gauge response. Here's a look at their X-Trail 4Dogs concept, which they unveiled this week:

Wow! I'm not sure where the shower water is stored and how it's pressurized, but between that and the pull-out dryer I'm impressed. If I were in the market for a car those things alone might have me sold.

I could do without the dog treat dispenser--once one of mine figured out how it worked, they'd empty it in no time--and I think quilted leather for the cargo bay lining is a poor materials choice; though Nissan claims it's "wipe-clean leather," whatever that means, I can tell you that all of those stitched surfaces will be a magnet for dirt, grit and mud.

But beyond those I think the ramp is a good idea, as it was in the dog-friendly Element.

I also like the ability to see your dog on-camera. On roadtrips I've taken, my white dog will occasionally get car-sick, and if I'm looking at him I can tell when he's going to puke because he sits up and makes a weird face; if I spot it while driving it might be enough time to yell for whomever's on barf patrol in the back seat to get a bucket back there in time.

As for the dogs being able to see me on the screen, I understand that that's meant to calm down nervous dogs; but I'm never sure of whether dogs can perceive faces and fine detail on a screen or not. I do have a couple shots of my white dog watching the Shiba Inu Puppy Cam when it first came out, as that was the only way I could get him to sit still while I brushed him:

However, I suspect he was more preoccupied by the small moving shapes and mewling noises, as opposed to recognizing these as puppies of his own breed.

Anyways, fellow dog owners: What do you look for in a dog-friendly car, and/or what modifications and hacks have you integrated to make your own car more pooch-amenable?

This year's theme for the Core77 Design Awards centers around the phrase "It's Not All Good"—which if you're only hearing now may have you scratching your head. What this phrase is getting at is that in the world of design, your success is often predicated on many failures; it means putting in the hours and experimenting without the fear of coming up short. That is why we asked the Core77 community to show the fruits of their labor for our Core77 Design Award Prototype Poster Contest. The rules to win were simple: photograph the full spread of prototypes you made for one design project, post it on your social media account and we'll give you a Core77 Design Awards poster.

We were excited to see how willing all of you were to share your projects and process! For those of you who may have missed it, we rounded up a few examples of submissions that earned these designers a free poster (and if you want to check out the full feed of submissions, simply type #c77designawards into your search on Instagram or Twitter): 

Instagram

Twitter

Thanks again for all who participated! Don't forget, those projects you did all those prototypes for are still eligible for the Core77 Design Awards—regular deadline ends next Wednesday, March 8th! 

Prepare your submission now at designawards.core77.com.

Raspberry Pi is a low-cost, high-performance, credit card sized computer designed to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools and developing countries enabling people to learn, solve problems and have fun. Developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK charity, it has reached sales of 10 million since its 2012 launch, becoming the best-selling UK computer.

Sometimes it feels difficult to attend an art event that feels equally inclusive of the serious and the lighthearted, or even a place that feels interactive and low-key enough to spend a fair amount of time in. For those participating in the New York Armory Arts Week scene this weekend and feeling somewhat intimidated, find balanced respite in the off-kilter Spring Break Art Show. 

A show founded in 2009, Spring Break Art Show is made up of immersive art installations shaped by a number of different curators. Housed in different forgotten spaces throughout New York City since having to leave the now-demolished St. Patricks Old School in Soho, every rendition of the show seems to be informed by its occupied space. This year, the show takes place on two abandoned floors of the Condé Nast Building in Times Square, giving it a banal feel that makes anything eccentric look that much more surreal. 

Paper maché installation by Cate Giordano (that is definitely not creepy at all). 

Filled with a number of all-encompassing installations within different sub-sections of the two floors it occupies, this show encourages participation and submersion—you'll likely find yourself lost in the the wings of the floor only to discover fun surprises around every corner.

Alexa Gerrity's "True Potential" installation

One of the standout installations in the show is tucked away in a corner of the 23rd floor, a shop-able exhibit set up by design/art collective JONALD DUDD. To anyone who lives in New York and frequents one of the many to-go Chinese restaurants that reside there, the aesthetic reference going on in the shop is familiar. JONALD DUDD's exhibitions (which we've covered during Design Week in the past) are known for incorporating work from artists who, as they note, "actively seek cross-disciplinary dialogue" between the worlds of art and design. Their 2017 show strikes a balance between the elegant and functional (like a nice glass top table by designer Pat Carmody and hand recycled vases by Thing Thing) and whole-heartedly cheeky (note giant cigarette sculpture by artist April Childers)

Ice cooler gel candle by Andrea McGinty

New York Chinese restaurant pastiche seems to be the inspiration behind JONALD DUDD's presentation at Spring Break Art Show

A trompe l'oeil cookie jar by April Childers in the JONALD DUDD exhibit

So for any designer seeking some indirect inspiration and a generally wacky time, might we suggest you check out Spring Break Art Show (located at 4 Times Square in New York until Monday, March 6th). 

Core77'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.

Why Planes Don't Fly Faster

In 50 years of commercial flight travel, we've made no improvement on time; it takes the same amount of time to fly from NYC to LA today as it did in the 1960s. Given technological improvements, why is this so? The answer isn't a short, easy one, but is satisfying to grasp; it involves everything from turbine design, engine efficiency at certain speeds, the cost of fuel versus the cost of an airplane, and the true needs of travelers both time-wise and cost-wise. Here the folks at Wendover Productions explain it.

—Rain Noe, senior editor

All About Visards and Why I'll Be Sporting One This Summer

So glad I came across this article on the 16th century visard trend—now I know just what to pack for my cruise this summer! I'm a redhead that needs full sun coverage, but nothing on the market currently offers this. A visard is the solution I've been looking for my whole life. No more oily face sunscreen plus the added bonuses of avoiding conversations I do not want to have and an overall air of mystery that will leave people wondering, "Who is she?"

—Emily Engle, assistant editor

The Mystery of the Classic Quebec Maple Syrup Can

"The identity of the artist (and his or her medium) will be a mystery for the ages—like trying to ascertain who gets the credit/blame for inventing poutine."

—Eric Ludlum, editorial director

How the Most Successful Innovators in the World Got Their Start

This week, I've just started diving into NPR's "How I Built This" podcast series, which interviews some of the most successful business people in the world to figure out how they got their start. Might I suggest first this episode with Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, who it turns out didn't even want to start a giant business—he just wanted to make some great outdoor goods for himself. Get into the full series here.

—Allison fonder, community manager

Bad Hospital Design Is Making Us Sicker

Hospitals are among the most expensive facilities to build, with complex infrastructures, technologies, regulations and safety codes. But evidence suggests we've been building them all wrong—and that the deficiencies aren't simply unaesthetic or inconvenient. All those design flaws may be killing us.

—Stuart Constantine, publisher & managing partner

How to Make a Drill Press Disc Sander

Izzy Swan shows you how to turn your drill press into a disc sander, with a $20 accessory and some quick DIY:

How a Combination Lock Works

If you've ever wondered how a combination lock works, here Matthias Wandel demonstrates the internal mechanism—by building one out of wood:

The Art of Trash Picking

Here Matthias discussing his garbage-picking methodologies, and where the best places are to look for discarded furniture for wood harvesting:

1 Minute Hack - Dry Latex Paint In 10 Seconds

Izzy's trick:

Dust Collection Piping and Testing

Jay Bates is ready to get back to work, but following his post-surgery recovery, his shop must produce as little dust as possible. In this video he covers the installation of the piping for his new dust collection system:

Making a Backyard Foundry

Following a tutorial by The King of Random, April Wilkerson creates a backyard foundry in order to melt some brass down to use for a casting:

Wood Finishing Made Easy

The list of finishes you can use goes on and on: Danish oil, wipe-on polyurethane, boiled linseed oil, lacquer, paste wax. Which is right for your product or project? Here Steve Ramsey covers the basics of finishing:

Bluetooth Receiver for the Car

This is so cool! Laura Kampf's car isn't equipped with Bluetooth nor an auxiliary jack, so she's got no way to connect her phone for playing music. Nor did she want to buy a new stereo, so here she rectifies with some DIY:

Tool Stands

Matthias Wandel creates mobile tool bases using dimensional lumber and some beefy self-made floating tenons. Watch for his no-rabbeting-bit rabbeting trick, and see how he integrates some dumpster-dived threaded-rod casters by creating and tapping his own flanges for them:

How to Make Wooden Sunglasses

Bob Clagett laminates a few layers of veneer to create his own pair of sunglasses that pre-ordered lenses can be snapped into. As always, we appreciate that he points out areas where you can do a better job to avoid some minor missteps:

Using a Festool Planex

One tool I've always been curious about, but have absolutely no justification nor budget to buy, is Festool's Planex. This large-surface drywall sander is meant to produce virutally no dust when hooked up to an extractor. Here Sandra Powell gives it a whirl:

Concrete LED Light Made with Walnut & Balloon Forms

Linn from Darbin Orvar creates a lamp using an unusual process--casting concrete on a balloon:

Chisel Sharpening Jig

To sharpen handplane irons or chisels, you can learn to do it freehand, or you can buy a jig. Here John Heisz shows you a third option: A sort of blad-sharpening sled of his own design.

Alex Brands is a family of brands featuring some of the best and most highly recognized names in the toy industry, including Slinky, ALEX Toys, POOF, Scientific Explorer, Ideal Toys, Backyard Safari, Brainy Bucks, Shrinky Dinks and Zoob. From classic, timeless toys and games to open-ended activities that emphasize children’s

The Regular Deadline for the 2017 Core77 Design Awards is fast approaching, and with it your last chance to save with Regular pricing. Once March 8th hits, we move into our Final pricing period, before the Awards come to an official close on March 29th.

But why stress about squeezing your entries in during the waning seconds of the entry period when you can get your work in now?

We've already offered up12 amazing things you could buywith the money you'd save by getting your work in before the deadline, but for a little added motivation, why don't we take you through a few things that might happen if you DON'T enter.

If you don't enter:

1.) Dave from that design firm you hate could win your category. And you just know he'll rub your nose in it at all the joint holiday parties.

2.) You'll waste hundreds, no, millions of dollars on candles and chocolate bars, which you could have been making yourself had you won the incredible Core77 Trophy. Oh, did we mention the trophy is a mold?

Ain't she a beauty?

3.) Our amazing panel of design leaders won't have a chance to critique your work. Just look at those smiling faces, do you really want to break their hearts?

4.) Your work won't have a chance to be enshrined forever on the Core77 Design Awards site. Which means in thousands of years, when higher life forms comb through the artifacts of our society, they won't be able to identity your work as the paragon of human intellect and ingenuity.

5.) How will you prove your 3rd grade homeroom teacher, who said all your classroom doodles would never amount to anything, wrong?

6.) You won't have a chance to win the Community Choice Grand Prize. Unlike other voting systems, we promise the project with the most votes wins.

PIGEON by Ignas Survila - 2015 Student Transportation Runner Up

7.) You can't be the inaugural winner of our Design Concept category, and join an illustrious list of first time winners such as George Washington, Kelly Clarkson, the Green Bay Packers, and Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas.

8.) But seriously, do you really want Dave winning your category?

Living in regret is never fun, so put the finishing touches on your entry and get it in by March 8th, 9PM EST. We can't wait to see what you've got for us this year!

Enter Now

Jessica Banks' is the principal of RockPaperRobot, the Brooklyn-based design/engineering firm that first caught our eye with their magnetically-levitating Float Table. Now Banks and co. have created another furniture design magic trick, this one in seating. Here's the Ollie, their innovative, lightweight fold-flat chair:

The Ollie Chair has been successfully Kickstarted, with $165,646 in pledges on an $80,000 goal, with 23 days left at press time.

In future they'll be offering the chair with custom printing options…

…and while the current version of the chair is indoor/outdoor, being made from teak and aluminum that will be either anodized or powder-coated (they're still experimenting with both to see which offers superior durability), they're also planning to release an indoor-only version with a felt-lined tambour.

The Kickstarter batch will begin shipping in November.

The challenge of the Infinite EEG project was to develop a new EEG monitor assembly for use in ICU and CCU. Our process included research, design development, 3D CAD, mechanical engineering, and prototype development. The final design is countertop and IV pole ready, contains a simplified electrode array for easy deployment.

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

Monday

Call for Entries: Vibram Rubber Skin Attitude

Vibram is relying on the international design community to explore new applications, products and shapes for their exclusive Luxury Rubber material, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the renowned Carrarmato design. The winner will take home a hefty cash prize and have the opportunity to attend a workshop in the Vibram Technological Center in China.

Online competition open through May 16, 2017.

Tuesday

IDeal: Hacking Healthy Soil

The City of Chicago doesn't have a public facility to treat and manage organic waste, therefore, any organic material that isn't used is transferred to landfills. Hacking Healthy Soil participants will join teams to design tangible solutions to this issue. Each team will use design methodologies to tackle a specific task with the goal of creating meaningful outcomes based on sustainable principles.

Chicago, IL. March 7, 2017 at 8:30 AM.

Wednesday

Design Shanghai

Design Shanghai is the leading design event in Asia, and it has set a precedent in China's ever-growing design community. The festival provides a unique and exciting platform to network and establish long-term business relations with Asia's top architects, interior designers, property developers, retailers and private buyers.

Shanghai, China. March 8 through 11, 2017.

Thursday

IXDS Amusement Park of Connectedness

During Munich Creative Business Week, join IXDS for a party to remember at their Munich studio. Marvel at the good, the bad, and the ugly of our connected world, as IXDX transforms their studio into an interactive theme park. Enjoy interactive carnival games with a twist and enlightening talks from design leaders.

Munich, Germany. March 9, 2017 at 5:30 PM.

Friday

The World of Charles and Ray Eames

From personal letters, photographs, drawings and artwork, to their products, models, multi-media installations and furniture, The World of Charles and Ray Eames includes not only the designs for which the design couple is best known, but provides insight into the lives of the Eameses, the Eames Office and the breadth of their pioneering work. 

Genk, Belgium. On view through May 28, 2017.

Saturday/Sunday

Image via The Next Web.

UX Design Course for Startups, Developers and Designers

A short, practical and affordable weekend course on user experience design lead by professional designers that covers an entire design process: from how to do user research, information architecture and experience maps to user testing, accessibility practices and working with developers.

London, UK. March 11, 2017 at 2:00 PM.

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