Drawing a crowd of designers, educators, futurists, and social innovators, Primer2017—the first dedicated speculative futures conference—opened in style at the grand Gray Area theatre in the Mission district of San Francisco.

Organized by Phil Balagtas, the founding member of the San Francisco based Speculative Futures meet-up, the two day conference promised a range of presentations and workshops from designers, strategists, and educators who are 'using speculative and futures design thinking as a tool to create strategies for addressing the evolving world and the emerging technologies and issues that are unfolding within it.'

Founded in 2015, the Speculative Futures meet-up has attracted many followers from the Bay area (now with a growing membership of more than 900), and another chapter recently opened up in Austin. In addition to providing a platform for speculative design discussions, the meet-up has run various training workshops keen to demonstrate and implement the benefits of futures design methods and strategies to the fast-paced tech-focused corporations in the Bay Area.

Based on the theme of Emergent Pathways, the conference aimed to forge connections between fields and disciplines. It began by opening up a casual debate around terminology between advocates of the terms speculative and critical design and those who prefer the term 'design fiction.'

Although wide ranging and broad, this conference was the beginning of a very much needed platform for open discussion and critique around the global and local impacts of speculative design and futures thinking in commercial, educational and cultural practices.

In the current political climate, all culture-providers—including designers—are considering their role. With cultural funding on the chopping block, the effectiveness of practices that foster curiosity and enquiry in the public is a vitally important topic.

Those able to join the opening party at Parasoma were treated to a selection of short presentations called "lightning talks," including those by Joseph Kappes of Cooper and RCA professor and speculative designer J. Paul Neeley. Neeley introduced nightnight.??? , a website plugin that turns your website off at night, encouraging you to log off and sleep—a spin off product from his happiness optimization company, Masamichi Souzou.

To set us up for a full day session of back-to-back speakers, the doors opened early for breakfast networking fueled by infamous power foods Soylent and Kind granola bars.

Visitors conduct a job interview for 2035 with the HyperMind supercomputer. Image from Christian Ervin's talk discussing the Museum of the Futures Machinic Life exhibition at the World Government Summit in Dubai implemented by TellArt for the Prime Ministers Office, UAE.

We kicked off the opening session with some techno utopian visual candy of Tellart's futures work for the Prime Minister's office of United Arab Emirates and their Museum of the Future initiative, entitled 'The Future Is Dead, Long Live the Future." Design director, Christian Ervin shared insight into TellArt's futures thinking principles and gave an overview of the range of interactive prototypes and immersive scenarios built for the Museum.

Range of futures techniques implemented by TellArts during the production for UAE's Museum of the Future initiative

Other conference highlights from the day's presentations include one from Paolo Cardini, an associate professor of industrial design at RISD, who introduced his Souvenir From the Futures initiative—a more inclusive workshop approach to speculative design exploring ways to refocus the creation of objects and futures from a global perspective.

Paolo Cardini's questions the western idea of the future and how to reformulate our assumptions for a more inclusive social critique. His futures workshops in India and Iran encourage participants to construct their image and understandings of the future outside of external influences with the help of local crafts people.

Image from Paolo Cardini's Deglobalizer project showcased during Design Days Dubai in 2014 . An IKEAHACKING project where global standard designed objects and local handcrafting converge to a common recognizable hybrid.

Beverley May of The Concepts Lab shared her process of combining user centered design thinking with various futuring techniques to design the future dashboard of an autonomous vehicle. Andrés Valencia, co-founder of Change Innovation, inspired us all with his plan to create a more socially engaged design resistance in Guadalajara.

Andres Valencia's shares a series of stills from Mexico 2000 (1983) The first satirical sci-fi he saw set in a utopian alternative future of Mexico where everyone is healthy and eating fruit, politicians wear traditional costumes and police officers are also friendly tour guides.

After a lunch break, the talks turned towards the architectural fictions by Jason Kelly Johnson, a critical overview of why 'speculative design works by not working' from James Pierce, and insights into the role of VR research on social rituals and immersive ideation spaces for Steelcase by Scott Fisher& Joshua McVeigh-Schultz

Theater of Lost Species digital menagerie project from Jason Kelly Johnson's Future Cities Lab

James Pierce shares his concrete encased Obscura 1C Digital Camera. Part of his counterfunctional thesis exploring how speculative design intentionally creates friction along the way to pragmatic design solutions.

In-world VR ideation space from from Joshua McVeigh-Schultz's current work to envision the future of industrial design through a partnership with Steelcase's Futures of Work group.

The final session ended with two compelling approaches to design and futuring from two very different practices. With her collection of morbidly curious, tantalizing and graphically disturbing 'Simulating corpoREALITIES', transdisciplinary designer Agi Haines shared her fascinating research and experiments exploring the body as material for speculation. Her presentation explored ways the human body might use emerging technologies to adapt to an ever changing world with design proposals, including bioprinted hybrid organs using cells from various non-human species, and transhuman designer babies evolved to adapt to a changing climate.

Design Interactions graduate and PhD researcher at Transtechnology Research, Plymouth University., Agi Haines shared her Simulating corpoREALITIES talk discussing work focused on the design of the human body.

Image from Agi Haines Transfigurations project depicting designs for potential body enhancements that have been surgically implemented to benefit the child in a changing climate. In this instance extending the skin on the scalp to increase surface area for faster heat dissipation.

An inflatable drone that learns to adapt to its space with a built in artificial neural network based on Agi Haines' brain data from her Drones With Desires project.

The final keynote came from Carmen Aguilar y Wedge and Ashley Baccus-Clark of Hyphen-Labs and their head spinning NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism NSAF Not Safe As Fuck project. Created by and for women of color, and situated in a multi-layered possible future "neurocosmetology lab" where no groups are excluded, Hyphen-Labs presented their scientific research combined with a series of speculative design products, such as camera earrings that can record police altercations, camouflage fabrics and dichroic visors that prevent facial recognition, and transcranial hair braid electrodes to stimulate an increased flow of concentration.

UV Beams is the foundation to a range of speculative products ideas generated by Hyphen-Labs. Perplexed by the eurocentric sunscreens that leave white residue on darker complexions, they generated their own clear, matte sunblock formulation for skin with high melanin content.

Octavia are a set of hair braid transcranial electrodes speculative product from Hyphen Labs NSAF 'neuro cosmetology lab'.

Range of speculative products from Hyphen Labs NeuroSpecualtive AfroFeminism project on display at the Primer 2017 conference. Image Credit: Primer.

In addition to the series of talks, the Primer conference exhibited a small range of works by visiting speakers and students of design from California College Of Arts, and hosted a series of three workshops conducted by Scott Paterson of IDEO, Jose de la O of Cooperativa Panorámica and J Paul Neeley.

Title image comes fromChristian Ervin's talk at Primer2017 in the magnificent Grey Area theatre describing Tellarts tangible futures approach to generating high-fidelity theatrical scenarios. Image credit: Primer

Recently, some Google Home owners have been noticing something odd going on with their devices. When asked a typical question one might expect to ask the smart speaker, customers like Bryson Meunier took note of an extra piece of information tacked on to their daily weather report:

After getting plenty of flack online from consumers and tech sites about this confusing message, Google replied to tech blog The Verge with a response that raises some questions: 

"This wasn't intended to be an ad. What's circulating online was a part of our My Day feature, where after providing helpful information about your day, we sometimes call out timely content. We're continuing to experiment with new ways to surface unique content for users and we could have done better in this case."

Whether or not this content was intended to be an ad for one brings to light the fact that with products like these, the language and phrasing of what is relayed through the device matters. If consumers are to truly believe that Google gains no promotional advantage from placements like this, seems as if they're going to have hide the evidence a little better than that (in my perspective, the background music in this video clip really gives it away). 

In the Core77 discussion boards, readers bring up another good point about this conundrum. MK19 writes, 

"Obviously the cost of the product is subsidized because this is how they will ultimately make money back - but if you paid anything for the product at all should you not be able to opt out? Should they be selling a higher cost version which opts out of ads? Many questions arise for the future from this as a Product Designer."

Google has since ceased sharing this "content" with Google Home owners, claiming that those with the Home won't be hearing any more of these ads or ones similar to them. However, knowing even a little bit about the timeline of Google and its complicated history with ads (the founders prior to starting the site were notably anti-ad), it's hard not to see this as a potentially naive farce. 

In the boards, Cyberdemon digs into Google's Terms of Service to investigate Google's leeway in situations like this where lines are blurred between content and promotion, finding this subsection:

"Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored."

MK19 follows this with a breakdown of what this particular part of the agreements means for this particular Beauty and the Beast ad.

"So in order to defend this you would have to be claiming;

A: The owner frequently visits the cinema. and/or, 

B: The owner has shown interest in Beauty and the Beast through Google Searches or YouTube video views or other. and/or, 

C: The owner has shown interest in [insert actor] who features in the film through other Google services.

If any of these or similar are the case then I agree the "ad" is more acceptable. However, what is your opinion if none of these examples or similar are true and relevant?

Also do you think whether or not it is an "ad" depends upon whether it is financially motivated or not? I would say that is an objective differentiator, personally."

It's important to note that some who reported hearing the ad were not searching for the film previously or anything seemingly related. What many people seem to be asking after this incident is, does Google have the right to bombard us for advertisements that we never even asked for? Cyberdemon brings up in the boards an interesting thought to ponder:

"After the rest of the info came out, I agree it's not acceptable (but predictable) [...]

But either way, as with all IoT type hardware, sadly you own very little of it. Just because you paid for the hardware does not entitle you to the same level of "Rights" that it used to. Service providers have a big stake in the game. Same reason you can't go out and buy an Unlocked phone for the same cost as a subsidized device."

So we're interested to hear from you designers—how do you feel about tech product's intimate relationship nowadays with the worlds of advertising and marketing? Is the incorporation of advertising in products avoidable? How will this change the trajectory and function of tech products in the future?

Share your thoughts by contributing in the comment thread below or on the original discussion board. 

This clip has been making the social media rounds, and I can't stop watching it. The way the thing is able to stabilize in flight, then braces for the landing:

That's a sugar glider, a marsupial native to Australia, and the skin folds that enable it to glide are called the patagium. 

Evolution is a strange thing, and other non-related animals in other parts of the world also have patagia. For instance, in North America and parts of northern Europe they've got flying squirrels with patagia, and those are rodents, not marsupials:

This little guy is called the Sulawesi Lined Gliding Lizard, native to Indonesia, and it's obviously a reptile:

Then there's the Colugo, a/k/a the Flying Lemur, which is a mammal:

Mother Colugo carrying her baby

Colugos may look evil and scary, but they're actually not dangerous at all. These guys below, however, are:

The folks at Giphy, that stalwart provider of looping cats and people falling down, are getting slyly socially active. Last week the company added a library of over 2,000 GIFs intended to teach words and phrases in American Sign Language. The project might seem like an odd match, given the meme-heavy use of the form, but the producers have high hopes. 

ASL is the third most spoken language in the U.S. and almost exclusively visual. Harnessing the physical nature of the language, the looping repetition of the video form, and the easily shared nature of GIFs, they expect the videos to get traction with both hearing and non-hearing users.  

The series was conceived by Giphy video artist Wallis Millar-Blanchaer and Stephanie Weber, a Giphy studios coordinator. The videos are cut from the educational YouTube series Sign With Robert, where full length videos feature introductory and conversational skills. 

The GIF format is a charming distillation of the often complex language, and the Sign With Robert series seems to have been a solid choice. The clear visuals and customary facial cues double as easy to follow and true to practice.

To start, the library was developed based on users' top searches on the site, then those terms were tailored and rounded out with the Sign With Robert team. The result is an interesting mix of easy and compounding terms, built with an attention to detail around the language as it is used in the real world.

As Millar-Blanchaer related to Mashable, "In our initial cut for the GIF for 'bachelorette party,' we unintentionally and unknowingly had edited it in a way that looked like the women were being called 'bitches.'" Issues like these, involving the subtlety of pronunciation, often arise in language education tools, so it's heartening to see the project working with seasoned educators and meeting them head on. With a focus on real world use, simple (seeming) tools like this might creep into all types of education. 

Check out the full collection at Giphy.com/SignWithRobert.

Any other ideas where this principle would be useful? Sketching basics, maybe?

The fun, functional control of hands-on fabrication is no secret to designers, and it's similarly obvious to kids. You could say the same for the creative potential of simple materials. The new Hamaika furniture project, created by Spanish designer Unai Rollan, taps into that tactile interest, blending simplicity and functionality for both adults and not-there-yets. 

The name Hamaika is Basque for 'eleven,' which references the project's core design feature: each piece of furniture is made from 11 pieces of wood, each cut to the same length. 

The little chair in particular captures the pared down inventiveness of Enzo Mari's DIY minimalism with an IKEA-type user-friendliness. 

The result is a small person sized piece of furniture that would be easy to use as a learning project on tools and dynamic center of balance. Or it could be the base for more creative expression, a blank canvas for your progeny's monstrous Mod Podge masterpiece.

Mmm, flat packin'

Given the blatant simplicity of the idea, it could be accomplished on your own with a few tools and without buying more than a 1x4 or two. But for parents or interior decorators with limited space and time, the flat packing Hamaika could be a gentle learning curve on which to introduce the importance of stark modernist anti-capitalist furniture design. 

As they say, it's never too early to teach them that "design is dead."

Chadwick Parker and Joe Huang, the industrial design duo behind Big Idea Design, have done it again: Sixteen successful Kickstarter campaigns and counting! And two of their last four campaigns broke the $200,000 mark, which the current one might as well. Even if it doesn't, it's already a smash hit: The Bit Bar is compact, yet actually useable screwdriver and bit holder that's already over 1,000% funded.

Parker and Huang were seeking $10,000, and at press time were up to $136,934 in pledges with 27 days left in the campaign. We're mightily impressed with their consistent ability to figure out what people want or need, design a superior or more desirable alternative to what exists, then get it manufactured.

We've written more about what makes these guys so successful here:

Turning Kickstarter into Kickcontinuer

Full Time or Part Time Position Graphic Designer Position // Yonkers, NY Motorcycle/ Tattoo Apparel Company- seeking highly skilled graphic designer with illustration skills, fashion back ground a plus. Fast paced work environment, wide variety of design jobs, one day can be doing a catalog

This project was brought to us by Rob Jacobs who had a great idea for the world’s first treadmill optimized for use under a stand-up desk. They call it a WalkingPlatform, the Walk-1. Together with the UnSit team we developed this idea from a rough proof of concept to a fully manufactured product giving him the function they wanted and the ability to bring this concept to market.

You know those globe-like paper lanterns that you can get for a couple of bucks at your local Chinatown? Those are great for providing soft, ambient lighting and I've got several in my apartment. They're also terribly fragile, of course, and are only meant to live indoors. 

BioLite, however, has figured out how you can bring that quality of illumination with you to the campsite. Check out their SiteLight XL, which is lightweight and easily breaks down for transport:

While they've designed it to be used with any USB power source, BioLite is doing what Apple used to be really good at: Developing a product ecosystem whose components work better together, providing both ease-of-use and increased functionality.

If you use their new BaseLantern XL, a sandwich-sized, solid-form-factor light source and battery, as the power source, you can dim the light via Bluetooth. Daisy-chain their new SiteLight Mini string lights and you can provide still more ambient lighting, or set a boundary that whoever lost at cards that night is not allowed to cross.

Here's how their NanoGrid system, as they collectively refer to their products, is meant to work together:

The BaseLantern XL, Sitelight XL and SiteLight Minis are scheduled to launch next month.

In 1984, art dealer Sandy Millikan sat down with Wendell Castle and said, "Wendell, if you do another show of furniture, you are going to get labeled a furnituremaker. If you want to be an artist and be in the fine arts world, I think you have to deal with the issue of art. Now how do we do that?" (The quote is from Fine Woodworking #59.) The result was a exhibition of thirteen clocks, including the non-functional "Ghost Clock" which is one of the centerpieces of the modern furniture on display in the permanent collection of the Renwick Gallery in Washington DC.

The Renwick, which is part of the Smithsonian Institute, states on their website: "The collection, exhibition program and publications presented by the Renwick Gallery highlight the best craft objects and decorative arts from the 19th century to the present."

But it doesn't. And this is what so disappointing to me. What it mostly shows is well-made art objects that have no relationship at all to the working craftspeople in this country.

One of the glaring differences between the furniture in great collections such as Winterthur, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Kaufman collection at the National Gallery is that the furniture in those collections represents the high end of furniture that was actually used. Some cabinetmaker, signed or anonymous, made something for some customer, and it got delivered and used in their house. Sure, it's mostly fancy stuff, but the work had context. These days hundreds of cabinetmakers are making furniture and architectural woodwork pieces—some spectacular—that have similar context, for use the way people use built objects today. The museum world ignores them.

How is anyone supposed to learn about how modern craft fits in their world if the educational resources are stuck in an ivory tower? Where are the exhibits of real modern woodworking? I have customers who are doing spectacular work for clients. Sometimes it's furniture, but more usually interiors. Bedrooms, living rooms, and of course, kitchens. It's not all good, but some is real great, and some shows great craft.

By the way, Wendell Castle is a really talented guy, an early issue of FWW showed off some of his more useful functional pieces. It's a shame that the Renwick isn't showing something that is much harder to design than an art piece. You see, to design a piece of furniture (or building) that is functional, useful, and also passes a sniff test of master craftsmanship, art, and engenders thoughtful discussion is a lot harder than just making some art piece. I think also in our society if a piece is functional it's automatically downgraded from being art.

Yes, you say, but what about the Maloof double rocker and Krenov cabinet on display in the same exhibit? Those pieces are functional. They are, and I was very happy to see them. I'm a big Maloof fan and copied one of his desks years ago. But I would suggest that the pieces on display by both Krenov and Maloof are more art pieces than other furniture these makers made for use in daily life.

The Krenov cabinet, which is elegant and lovely, isn't a practical piece in any modern context. It's a curio cabinet, not a take on furniture that Americans regularly use in their houses.

The Maloof double rocker is almost a joke on his signature single rocker, which is awesome. Maloof built hundreds of pieces that are absolutely modern in their usage. This chair is a collectible—more than something one would sit in every day. His rockers are great modern furniture and what would you rather own, one of his regular rockers that are comfortable and fun, or this double rocker, which you might sit in when? His desks are wonderful examples on how modern craft can interpret classic forms.

Here is what I want to see at the Renwick: An exhibit of modern desks. I want to see what people are making to actually use as desks in the modern computer age. From fancy financial workstations, to something elegant and comfortable that works with my laptop and printer. I want to be inspired. I want to see the best of modern architectural woodworking. For example, more than a decade ago there was a bar in NYC called Iridium where upstairs the interior looked like it was built by the mad hatter's cabinetmaker. Nothing was square, everything was curved, crazy, and unbelievably cool. (I haven't been there in over a decade, and I don't know what remains of the original interior.) But that's great design, and great craft was needed to pull it off. This is what should be on exhibit.

Note: Another issue I have with the Renwick—and just about every furniture exhibit on the planet—is the insistence of curators to display all furniture on three inch platforms. Sure it's great for making sure people don't bump into valuable stuff, but the raised height gives a deceptive sense of scale to the work.

Some museums do it right. Many years ago I was at the Design Museum at Canary Wharf in London, and in addition to all the stuff roped off, the museum had assembled a group of about a dozen modern chairs, all reproductions of the iconic designs of the twentieth century, and you were welcome to sit in them. I learned more about chairs and appreciating modern design in twenty minutes that you could possibly believe.

___________________

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.

I'm really excited to be able to share this short video interview I did for Advanced Design Sketching with you today. In this video I answer the question: Why is sketching still so important in today's design world? With all of the digital tools we have, why is it still relevant? Why are non-designers seemingly entranced by it, and why does it seem to facilitate solution finding? I also give you a bonus behind the scenes look at my home design studio! Can a bonus be at the beginning of something? This one is at the beginning. I like to eat dessert first. If you have watched any of my previous videos you have seen the sketch on my desk. Today I zoom out to show you what you don't see.

People often ask me, "why is sketching so important?" I think they may be thinking of sketching as a skill. I don't really see sketching as a skill. I see sketching as a way of thinking, a way of processing thoughts and organizing them. As you're processing those thoughts, you're visually thinking out loud on the page...an idea exists in your mind, the beauty of a sketch is that it can help you take that idea and push it out in the world. I can transfer a thought from my mind to yours with a 30 second doodle, and we can have a conversation about it, build on it, and slowly that thought transforms from MY idea, to OUR idea—that is when things get really interesting.

Yo! C77 Sketch is a video series from Core77 forum moderator and prolific designer, Michael DiTullo. In these tutorials, DiTullo walks you through step by step rapid visualization and ideation techniques to improve your everyday skills. Tired of that guy in the studio who always gets his ideas picked because of his hot sketches? Learn how to beat him at his own game, because the only thing worse than a bad idea sketched well is a great idea sketched poorly.

Editor's Note: Steven M. Johnson's "Patent Depending" series of inventions range from social commentary to plain ol' bizarre, and they always give us a laugh. So we've contracted him to let us publish one every week.

Up this week: For those who cycle, and for whom their baby is the hub of their life....

The Product Communications & Design department at Bose is looking for a passionate UX Design Technologist looking to create new and compelling digital experiences. Our creative group creates customer-facing communications for site, social and online advertising building brand affinity and educating consumers about new products. The ideal candidate is a

One of the general fears with digital fabrication and robotics is that they will wipe away human artistry. But that will never happen as long as people like Stefanie Pender exist. Pender, who has degrees from both RISD and Cornell, gained proficiency in glassmaking through traditional apprenticeships; she's also well-versed in industrial robotics, programming and all things CNC. After becoming an Artist in Residence at the digital fabrication playground that is Autodesk's Pier 9, she had the opportunity to combine her specialties in a novel way.

Here's what happens when you have a curiosity-driven, manually-skilled, technical-minded, boundary-pushing artist that has been granted the resources to create her own digital tools:

Pender has an Instructable on her Glass Fused Filament Deposition Modeling Process here. (You have to love any Instructable that begins with "Warning! This project uses a oxygen/propane welding torch mounted to an industrial robot.") I liked reading her description of the project, as it reads like a manifesto for how to reconcile handwork with digital fabrication:

Tacit knowledge of craft processes has immense potential to enhance emerging technologies. The sensibilities gained through hands-on experience provide sophisticated comprehension of material behavior, physical properties and responsiveness to environmental conditions. These insights have led me to pursue merging traditional craft proficiency with contemporary technology in an effort to expand the boundaries of material processes.

I have developed additive manufacturing processes and subtractive molding processes to integrate glass-forming techniques with robotic technology. Some of my projects are here. My embodied knowledge of material processes is essential to forging innovation with collaborative human/machine fabrication.

My past efforts have demonstrated that collaborative robotic fabrication shares elements of acquired skill, similar to analogue fabrication. For complex processes, the human operator must adjust the various environmental and material parameters continually as a participant within the collaboration. These adjustments are refined with repetition, experience and accumulated skill.

The feedback loop between operator, robot, tool and material is continually adjusting and adapting; observations made by the operator are nuanced, sensitive and complex. This sequence of observation, analysis, and action is tacit or embodied by its nature.

As both an artist and a researcher, my objective is to develop technological systems to support the integration of embodied human knowledge: how can the nuanced behaviors of a human operator be translated to data for the purpose of designing customized hardware and software? At Pier 9, I pursued these lines of inquiry and developed novel fabrication strategies that exploit inherent physical phenomena accessed through the digital automation of process.

Coincidentally, this week we saw another designer with a background in glassmaking pushing the boundaries of her chosen material. Check out Rebecca Erde's Traditional Japanese Wood Joinery Cast in Glass.

Mecha-based anime can be fun to watch for the mechanical designs. While giant bi-pedal robots don't make much practical sense, every once in a while the designers will stick something in there, like a funky car, that combines the fantastical with the pragmatic.

A good case in point was 1993's Pat Labor 2, set in a near-future Tokyo. Because car traffic in the future is depicted to be as bad as it is today, mechanical designers Shoji Kawamori and Yutaka Izubuchi created four-wheeled emergency services vehicles that drive on the ground like regular cars, but can elevate on stilt-like legs, enabling them to whiz over lanes of standstill traffic in order to reach calls.

from Pat Labor 2

I always remembered those vehicles, and was stunned to see this video yesterday:

While the car is real, it isn't going into mass production; it's a promotional one-off created to flog Verizon's new line of telematics products.

This is the classic: our Denim Work Apron

At Hand-Eye Supply we offer a standing discount of 40% off our aprons to all service industry people (proof in the form of ID required, just FYI) – but for one week only we are offering this discount to everyone. So if there ever was a time for you to stock up on High-Quality American-Made Aprons, it is now! Use the code: "Make40" to get these prices!...

Check it out: Denim Waist Apron

Solid: Black Canvas Work Apron

Always Popular: Denim Work Apron

And it isn't only in the Workshop that you will save, it is the Kitchen too.  Made to spec for working chefs!

High-end, low-price: Midnight Twill Kitchen Apron

Comfortable Vibe: Navy Ticking Kitchen Apron

All Pro: Denim Double Stripe Kitchen Apron

Remember to share! Friends that Save Together, Stay Together... Use the code "Make40" for the industry discount on Hand-Eye Supply American-Made Aprons.

Where Eagles Dare... to Save!

Despite grumpily noting the few options for nice indoor plant lighting the other day, and the few safe plant-incorporating lights before that, I'm grateful that Goula / Figura escaped my attention until now because no one else would have stood a chance. The Barcelona-based duo recently unveiled their Viride series of plant… things, and they're in a category by themselves. The planters aim to address several common issues with indoor greenery: insufficient light, inconsistent humidity, and tragically embarrassing un-chic form factor. 

These experimental pieces highlight the plants themselves, while making the different needs of the plants attractive as well. 

The tall and slender Viride Uno features a large single LED panel mounted above a plant rest or holder. This setup would be nice for cacti or statement airplants with sun hunger and low moisture needs. 

The Viride Dos is a more traditional planter with elegantly added features. It has a spacious base with room for several plants, along with two lighting disks and a mister to manage humidity. The whole planting even rotates to ensure even access to moisture and light. As a green thumb whose fluctuating house humidity has killed several innocent ferns, this speaks to me on a spiritual level.

The Viride Tres surrounds a hanging planter with a chorus of lighting at different heights, rotating slowly to simulate the range and exposure of daylight. Your orchids, epiphytes, and trailing exotics would feel like the Grande Dames they are. 

All the lamps are adjustable for the light and moisture needs of the plants, and households, they serve, and the LEDs can be programmed for on/off cycles that best fit the climate and lighting. 

Álvaro Goula and Pablo Figuera have tapped into a common experience in urban life, and leveraged it into something really striking. It's lighting, it's art, it's indoor greenery made doubly lovely. Now please send me one of each before I fly to BCN and beg to work as the Goula / Figura greenhouse intern. 

Check out more of their furniture and design work at Goula / Figuera. (If you haven't seen their Loop sideboard or Orwell day bed, I'd recommend taking a gander.)

The U34 lamp is our third design developed under our modern lighting concept, this time exploring the spherical volume of an icosahedral structure.

Next Wednesday, March 29, at 9PM EST, the entry period for the 2017 Core77 Design Awards officially closes.

If you're on the fence about submitting or are considering entering another competition, the 5 pillars of the Core77 Design Awards prove why we're a cut above the rest.

We don't care where you are or what you're doing, here's why you should ignore everything around you and submit your work—before it's too late:

Inclusion

Design is a broad field, to say the least. In an effort to maintain inclusivity, the Core77 Design Awards offers 14 distinct categories of entry to try and encompass as much of the field as possible. From the more mainstream Consumer Product and Packaging, to the often overlooked Strategy & Research and Design Education Initiative, there's a category for designers from all across the spectrum to showcase their work, and receive the recognition they deserve.

Both professionals and students are welcome to submit their work, and are judged separately to ensure parity and fairness.

See all 14 categories

Transparency

Unlike most Awards programs, we offer a glimpse behind the curtain of the judging process to allow our audience and entrants an opportunity to see the way the work is critiqued. Rather than simply list the winners online, each jury team creates a short video that highlights each honored project, and details what made each entry stand out from the competition.

This level of openness serves to remove some of the mystery around jurying sessions and, we hope, establish trust.

No Additional Fees

We firmly believe that your wallet shouldn't be punished because you entered a great design. This is why once your initial entry fee is processed, you will never be asked for any additional payment.

Should your work win a category, you will be sent a customized Core77 Trophy to an address of your choosing free of charge. Additionally, all entrants will be eligible for a free pass to the Core77 Design Awards Celebration this June.

Read more about the Core77 Trophy

Diversity

In order to achieve balanced and informed decisions regarding which projects to honor, every year we assemble an international jury panel of design leaders. We believe the key to meaningful and thoughtful discourse is a diversity of perspective, which is why this year's judges hail from across the globe—from China, to Turkey, to Scotland, to here in the United States.

Take a look at 2017's full jury team

Democracy

Our judges may be the experts, but that doesn't mean they're the only ones who deserve a say. Implemented in 2015, the Core77 Community Choice Prize gives our audience the opportunity to nominate their favorite projects for an additional honor. The project that receives the most total votes is declared the Community Choice Grand Prize Winner, and that entry's designer is awarded a special prize from Core77.

See last year's Community Choice Prize winners

2016 Community Choice Grand Prize Winner, miku.

Be a part of the best design awards competition out there by submitting your work before next Wednesday, March 29, 9PM EST.

Enter Now