For understandable reasons, the focus during NYCxDesign tends to be on independent designers, design studios and college students—what other demographics are out there designing for a better world? We often forget that designers under 20 years old are now learning digital fabrication at school right under our noses, starting in just the third grade.

This team even had signage in over eight languages to encourage people of all backgrounds to play. Photo: RPGA Studio

During this year's NYCxDesign, CC3DP held their 3D printing design challenge at P.S. 175 over in Queens. When we were asked to judge the competition, we weren't sure what to expect—teams of elementary and middle schoolers 3D printing sounded like it could go really well or get really messy. To our pleasant surprise, the students' final projects were almost as impressive as their group dynamics—they worked in teams of an average of 6 students, and we didn't witness any Kanye-esque disputes over the creative process.

The gears on the house turn! Photo: Dvid Samuel Stern

This team designed a golf club that works as both a regular gold club and a billiards stick. Photo: RPGA Studio

Check out that crazy hand etching on the side of the 'Heroes and Villains' course! This team's attention to detail was impecable. Photo: Dvid Samuel Stern

The teams came from public schools all around New York City, with one team even hailing from New Jersey. Each team was faced with the same challenge—design a themed mini-golf course in SketchUp then 3D print the course's obstacles, build the course and create a branding experience around the course, all within only 10 weeks.

During the final event, the students presented their designs to a panel of judges (that's where we came in) then had the chance to play their courses with everyone at the event. 

Testing out the courses with other students and family. Photo: RPGA Studio

What was most impressive actually came before the presentations, when each team was challenged to a live SketchUp competition. The teams were asked to design two fixtures for an outdoor library—in just one hour. Watching the kids work in SketchUp at that fast of a pace was jaw-dropping, especially in such large groups. The kids truly joined forces to focus on the most important task at hand—designing the fixtures—and acted as if they didn't have time to argue over creative differences. Older designers take note...

Students brainstorming at the beginning of the live challenge. Photo: Dvid Samuel Stern

Students hard at work designing their outdoor library! Photo: Dvid Samuel Stern

Getting some tips from their coach! Each team had one coach to supervise the printing and design process. It was shocking—in a good way—how little they were actually involved. Photo: Dvid Samuel Stern

Technology is advancing rapidly, which makes it all the more inspiring to see the NY public school system even attempt to keep up by partnering with programs like CC3DP and companies like Shapeways, who donated printers to some of the groups that didn't have access to the technology. 

It was impressive to see how engaged all of the teams were in the design process—let's just say judging was equal parts exciting and heartbreaking after seeing how invested the kids were in their designs. We're very proud to have judged this competition, and we hope the kids involved continue to take interest in digital fabrication as they continue with school. 

I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this past weekend with a guest, and we ended up in one of the 20th century galleries that I almost never visit. On display among the paintings were four 20th century chairs (from the left). The "Zig Zag" chair by Gerrit Rietveld (1937), an armchair by Koloman Moser (1903), the "31" armchair by Alvar Aalto (1931-32) and the "DCW" Side Chair by Charles Eames (1948).

By the very fact of the display, the Met shows that it considers these chairs important landmarks of 20th Century furniture design. But to me, the chairs also signify the shift in furniture craft: from the craftsman making furniture for a client to the designer making furniture specifically for mass manufacture.

The Rietveld and Moser pieces were designed to be made in a typical cabinet shop. We sell a great book about Rietveld, complete with plans, and you can pretty much make everything in his book with a fairly basic shop. I am not familiar with Moser, but the Moser piece is also pretty accessible. It's woodworking. I get it.

The Aalto and Eames pieces were designed for manufacture. Their clients were furniture corporations, not a person. To make either piece, you would need forms, presses, and equipment. Even if you only want to make one chair, you would still have to make molds and forms for the bent plywood. Most of the work is in the forms, and once you have done that, making multiples is fairly easy.

The Aalto and Rietveld pieces date from about the same time, but it's clear to me that Rietveld is looking backward at the A&C movement and its idea that furniture should be accessible to anyone to build. Aalto, on the other hand, is looking forward to the disconnect between the factory, which can manufacture his flowing designs, and the individual maker who is then left in the dust.

Now, before you point out to me that most American furniture was made in factories, let me point out that the furniture factories of the early 20th Century America made traditional furniture the traditional way—just faster, with the aid of machines. Stickley made his A&C furniture in a factory, but he published plans so that any competent shop, amateur or professional, could make a copy. (Maybe not as efficiently, but certainly as well.)

These chairs document the two paths furniture has taken in the past century. It's not about traditional versus modern design. It's about designing for mass production versus designing for small production. I am not saying mass production is bad, just that the designs for mass production don't leave room for traditional workshops. And so the modern small shop is caught between two worlds: a desire to explore the limits of craft, and the mass vocabulary of manufacture that people are used to and have come to expect.

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

Through seamlessly blending business and design, Jeff Ng, also known as jeffstaple, turned his graphic design passion into the three-part visual communication agency, Staple Design. Including the agency itself, the t-shirt printing stint turned successful menswear collection, Staple Pigeon and the beloved Lower East Side retail store, Reed Space (whose new concept is currently in the works), Staple Design quickly grew to become and remain a respected conglomerate of NYC street culture-oriented companies in the late '90s, early '00s.

Image via Staple Design. 

During this two-part interview, Jeff discusses different aspects of the design industry from a purely business standpoint, one designers often overlook, whether accidentally or intentionally. Part 1 is all about collaboration, managing teams across multiple companies and digital fabrication within the footwear industry.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

C77: You're all about collaborations with other brands and artists—you've even made your own Staple concrete with Shake Shack. Can you talk about the role collaboration plays within the design industry as a whole?

JS: I love collaboration, but in theory, I don't really like what it's become. In its original principle, collaboration really comes down to each person having their inherent strengths and weaknesses. And hopefully, if I meet you and if I respect you, your strengths compliment my weaknesses and my strengths compliment your weaknesses. And hence, if we collaborate, we sort of form a yin-yang—that's what collaboration should be at its core.

It's become like a marketing pitch. It's become a one-off. It would be the equivalent of if you were designing a car and you wanted to put chrome on the edge—like an afterthought. I think there is still collaboration that does happen a lot, but I think the BS of collaboration far out-strengthens when real collaboration happens. So, it's hard for a young person or a consumer to decipher. I think they know that there's a lot of bullshit that happens in collaboration, but it's hard for them to decipher when it's really happening and when it's a marketing scheme.

That's why we go, kind of extensive, on the story-telling side of collaboration. We make videos, we do one-to-one interviews, or I'll do a talk with someone that I'm collaborating with just to show that there's more depth here than a yogurt company collaborating with a graffiti artist. We're actually brainstorming and thinking.

jeffstaple holding the sought-after Staple Design x Nike Dunk Low Pro SB "Pigeon". Image via Staple Design.

When people say "I collaborated with Nike"... like, nobody collaborates with Nike. There's 25,000 employees at Nike—it's publicly traded. You don't collaborate with Nike, you collaborate with a person at Nike that is representing the brand. But if that person leaves, there's not a hotline for Nike where you're just like, "Hey. I was working with this guy. Let's just pick up where we left off." No, it's a relationship—you have to rebuild a new relationship now. 

It's so common to say, "I collaborate with this brand." What, you mean you call 1-800-NIKE, and they just send you stuff? There's no human interaction? There's a swoosh that just walks into your room? What does that mean? Like, no. There's people on email. You gotta get lunch with them, shake hands.

What is your favorite type of company to collaborate with?

If you look at our history, it goes far and wide. There's probably no real consistent thread. Maybe that is our trademark, I would say. In my industry— street culture, or sneaker culture, or youth culture—I would say 99% of collaborations occur between similar brands. Meaning streetwear brand collaborates with streetwear brand. And then, I think some companies—like Kith and Supreme—also do it very well, where they collaborate outside the box. I think they do a good job because they are able to collaborate outside the box but still within the vernacular of their community. One of the ones that Supreme did that I always loved from a strategic standpoint was their collaboration with White Castle. Which is like, why the fuck White Castle? But then it's like, yes. White Castle. It's perfect.

Staple x Shake Shack. Photo via First we Feast and Shake Shack.

But White Castle x Staple would not make sense. I think our community doesn't really resonate with that instinctual "ah-ha" moment of White Castle. And so, you mentioned Shake Shack. We did Shake Shack, which is another New York story, but it couldn't be any more different than White Castle. There's nothing wrong with one or the other, it's just interesting how brands can have different takes on it. 

How do you balance all of your work with outside companies while designing your own collections for Staple Pigeon?

Humans. Lots of humans. It's another form of collaboration. I have an incredible team—between the three companies, there's probably 60-ish people involved in everything, and everyone has their own responsibilities and jurisdictions.

Sometimes that's good, and sometimes that's confusing. The plus side is, I don't think it would work if all 60 people had to collaborate on everything. Sure, in an ideal world, there's full transparency and we have daily meetings like, "Alright production guy, here's the new brand we're picking up at Reed Space." That would be great for him to know, but it's too much information for people.

There has to be a filtering, and it's my job as CEO to kind of filter that information and parse it out. You know that saying, you're on a need-to-know basis? Unfortunately, you're on a need-to-know basis. You have to get this collection out. You cannot be concerned with which sneaker we're getting next week at the store or our new client that we picked up. Often times, what does happen is something will come out of one entity and it'll be a surprise to them. And the negative, then, is that they feel left out.

I have friends that work at Apple, where one guy or team will only work on the keyboard, and they won't know what's going on with the track pad. Some top guy knows everything, but each team doesn't know what the other team is doing, and they're sworn to confidentiality. That helps with secrecy so that no one person could have the power to know everything that's happening. One person knows the shell, one person knows the dongle, but not everything at once. 

I know the guy who worked on the Mac Pro, which is like the black trashcan. All he did was work on the shell. He was like, "I'm just making a trashcan? I don't understand. I'm just making this black can." And then it wasn't until the keynote where he was like, "Oh my god. It's a fucking full computer."

Mac Pro. Image via Apple.

You're currently celebrating Staple Design's 20th anniversary. Reflecting on the past 20 years, what has been one of your favorite projects to work on?

I'd have to say one of my personal favorites is the sneakers for Nike Considered. Nike had this rogue project within the company of a very small team—I'm talking like four people—that wanted to make a completely sustainable and closed loop shoe. Meaning, somehow, if the uppers can either completely deteriorate naturally, or are reusable, and the outsoles could be reground 100%, then you have a completely recyclable shoe. That even goes into the packaging. There's usually a sticker on the box, but that sticker can't be made using adhesive, so we had to figure out solutions for that. We even had to consider that the aglets—the little plastic tip at the end of a shoelace—couldn't be plastic because they wouldn't deteriorate, so they ended up being vegan tanned leather instead.

The Considered Boot. Image via Sole Collector. 

There was actually a lot of internal pushback at Nike because a lot of people thought that, "if we say this shoe is completely good for the earth, then what are we saying about the other 2,500 shoes we're making every year? Are we saying they're bad for the earth?" It was sort of a PR conundrum of what to do.

Nike Considered came out for a couple of years, and there were always around five shoes in a line every year called Nike Considered. Now there's this thing called Nike Better World, which is Nike's overarching initiative to try their best to do good in everything. This pinnacle thing called Nike Considered sort of just became, "let's just sprinkle the goodness everywhere and get rid of Nike Considered", which is what a publicly traded company that's worth 50 billion dollars should probably do. But, I liked the renegade-ness of these five guys that are just going to make shoes that don't do anything harmful to the earth. I actually named Nike Considered—the name they had internally was Nike Eco-Tech, and I renamed it to Nike Considered, which was an honor.

Speaking of sneakers, material choice and technology are clearly a focus in the industry right now. We've seen it with the adidas Futurecraft 4Ds, Reebok's Liquid Speeds, and plenty more. What are your thoughts on this digital fabrication race in the footwear industry?

To be honest, I think it's needed, but I also think there's a bit of a gimmick behind it. Don't get me wrong there's a percentage of the population that really lives and dies by that performance and need. But it's more so a rallying cry for the brand. It's more of an inspirational thing for not only sneakerheads, fans, and collectors alike, but for the internal team. Somewhere in those brands, there's someone coloring shoes for Walmart—let's not get it twisted. That person is responsible for a lot of money in the company, and when they see Futurecraft 4Ds and when they see Yeezys, it makes them feel empowered like, "I'm part of a bomb-ass company. And even though I'm down here in the basement schlepping shit and making 20 million dollars for the brand—I'm gonna make it better. There's something that I can innovate out of this." That's something that most companies won't say.

Sure, Kanye West and what he does for adidas and his Yeezy division is amazing. But actual Yeezy shoes to sales percentage for the company is like a pebble. What it does do, is it makes young people be like, "Yo. Have you heard about John Wexler? He actually made that happen." If it wasn't for Kanye, John Wexler would be just a cog in the system. And then John worked with this guy, Paul Gaudio, and Paul Gaudio would just be a designer at his desk. But now, these people are elevated to hero status to kids.

I would say, for Nike's side, it happened back in the day with Michael Jordan—that was Kanye. Tinker Hatfield was the residual side of that and then Mark Parker. It's actually a mirror image, if you see it that way. Michael Jordan was to Kanye at Tinker is to Wexler as Mark Parker is to Paul Gaudio.

Do you hope to experiment with any new materials in the near future?

Hopefully shoes—printing and stuff like that. Clothing is not as crazy as shoes in terms of innovation. What's really interesting, though, is what they call on-demand or direct-to-garment, where there's no longer stock. So, as the designer, I don't even touch the product. That's kind of interesting. It's also kind of scary.

***

Recently there has been lots of talk about how the rise of automation is changing the workplace—as if a robotic takeover was just around the corner. I don't see automatons massing at the gates, but we need to acknowledge that there's some data fueling this anxiety. For example, a recent report from the National Bureau of Economic Research tells us that for every industrial robot added to the workforce (per one thousand workers), up to six workers in the region lost their jobs and wages decreased by as much as a half percent. I can't argue against the fact that the rise of automation will continue to disrupt the job market, and cause some pain as it does. But ultimately I remain optimistic about the future.

In 1880, more than 50 percent of American jobs were in farming and agriculture, according to data from National Bureau of Economic Research. Recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate a far different landscape, with agricultural jobs making up less than two percent of American jobs in 2015. Jobs and employment trends are constantly evolving and there are professions today that we didn't even know existed 10, 20, 50, or 100 years ago. As we transition to a new era of work, I believe we are headed toward a changing world where humans, machines, and artificial intelligence will form powerful new partnerships we are only beginning to imagine today.

The emerging era of partnerships between humans, machines, and artificial intelligence brings with it a new wave of job opportunities. A recent report from Forrester Research argues that automation won't destroy American jobs, but rather transform the workforce. The report findings indicate that automation and artificial intelligence will create close to 15 million new jobs in the U.S. over the next ten years. These new jobs are expected to be technologically oriented and require new skillsets. And this workforce transformation is not unique to the United States. According to a Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions Report, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) estimated that in the EU, close to half of new job opportunities will require highly skilled workers.

A research team in the Autodesk BUILD space explores human-robot interaction. Courtesy of Autodesk BUILD Space & ATONATON

Let's take manufacturing as an example. What most think of as manufacturing is still anchored in 19th and 20th century notions of the industrial age. In today's post-industrial world, the way you make things has fundamentally changed. Manufacturing is increasingly driven by software and data and is becoming much more integrated. You can go from concept to manufacturing all in the same application and with much shorter production cycles. And when we put those manufactured things out into the world, software will wrap them in a digital nervous system that collects data about their performance and use. This data loop will feed back into the manufacturing process, making it more flexible and responsive to the ways products actually perform in the real world under varied conditions of use.

According to Deloitte's Manufacturing Institute report, as the manufacturing industry embraces these new and advanced technologies, executives are faced with a talent shortage. Indeed, our customers have already voiced real concerns that their current workforce is not prepared for the way professional roles are evolving. Higher education can help bridge this gap in skills and knowledge by repositioning and integrating those disciplines supporting the emerging advanced manufacturing professions.

Today's education system is an outdated product of the industrial revolution.

Today's education system is an outdated product of the industrial revolution. This assembly line learning compartmentalizes the way students develop skills and does not account for dynamic technological advancements and the professions of tomorrow that will require much more integrative ways of thinking. Learning isn't something that happens just in school — but instead takes place "K through grey," as jobs change and new skills are needed in the workplace. An approach that shifts learning from a linear to a nonlinear model will help tomorrow's graduates adapt as professions rapidly shift shape and require new skills and mindsets in the workplace. Curricula should emphasize teaching learners how to work in a dynamic professional world where automation augments human capabilities. Collectively, these emerging technologies form a new kind of "colleague" that requires us to develop unique collaboration skills and new professional sensibilities.

Recognizing that changing our education system takes time, we also encourage students to look outside academic institutions to sharpen their skills and expand their mindsets. A new group of learning organizations like General Assembly sit between our legacy educational institutions and the workplace—helping to align those worlds. Using these organizations to earn micro-credentials is a great way to gain exposure to new specialized skills not available to students in the traditional university environment. These 'mini-degrees' or certifications can help prepare students for the jobs of the future by pursuing skills and knowledge across disciplines and throughout their lives.

The debate around the workforce impacts caused by robotics, automation and artificial intelligence will not cease any time soon. And the effects are real. Yet, moments like this contain seeds of tremendous opportunity and hope if we focus on the right things. And at the center of our strategy to adapt and thrive should be continuous learning, inside and outside of traditional educational institutions.

Title image: Robot 3D Printing Metal; courtesy of Autodesk

Matcha is more than a good ice cream flavor, it's an ancient tea preparation that relies on several deftly created tools. Aside from the tea itself (a cult subject I'll leave to real gourmands) the most crucial element is the chasen, or bamboo whisk, used to froth the matcha powder into a consistent liquid suspension. 

The design of western whisks is pretty ubiquitous, but chasen are an oddly beautiful version and most are still made by hand today. As you might expect of a Japanese handcraft dating back more than a few generations, the process of making a chasen is beautiful, meticulous, and a little surprising. Chasen design varies to match the type of tea it will prepare, and can have as few as 16 or as many as 120 bristles. They take over two years to cure and complete, yet some practitioners hold that a proper chasen should be used less than six times before being retired.

This quick overview of the delicate process should be enough to cast the fanciful seeming tools in a new light.

This longer feature on chasen shows each of the painstaking steps needed, including tool preparation (though unfortunately without subtitles). The steps for shaving the tips, separating the interior and exterior sections and curling the miniature tines are particularly satisfying. 

From the 405 in Los Angeles to the LIE in New York, you'll see something depressing each rush hour: A veritable parking lot of crawling cars, with predominantly one driver per car. It's neither space-efficient nor sustainable.

In an effort to combat this, Google's Alphabet, which owns the wayfinding Waze app, has recently been testing Waze Carpool in the Bay Area. And starting next week, they're rolling it out in Los Angeles. LA not only has horrific traffic, but has the most Waze users in the world.

What the Waze Carpool app does is match single drivers with single riders that happen to be going in the same direction, with start and endpoints close to each other. 

Gas costs are split between both parties, and both riders and drivers have to be at least 18 years of age.

My question to those of you that drive: Would you be willing to share car space with, and possibly be stuck in traffic for an hour with, a complete stranger?

If you imagine a designer's dream workspace, you probably envision an urban setting: An industrial loft just steps away from the sounds and sights of New York, Paris, Tokyo or London. But designer Jeff Sheldon, founder of Ugmonk, has created his ideal workspace in a rather unlikely location, in the bedroom of a suburban house in Pennsylvania.

"I'm kind of obsessed with my workspace," Sheldon writes. "Apparently a lot of other people are, too, since photos of the space have been downloaded over 1 million times." What he's created is a simple space that's equal parts efficient, minimalist workstation, showroom of his own wares, and curio gallery of objects that inspire him:

Thanks to technology we can work from almost anywhere. Though there are advantages of living in a big city, there are also advantages of being away from the chaos and having a quiet dedicated space to think and create. I spend most days here in my home studio in the suburbs of Philadelphia and enjoy the distraction-free environment that's just a few steps away from hiking trails and fresh air.

I designed a space that fits my personal workflow and surround myself with things that inspire me. From giant wood signage to my grandfather's vintage cameras to a simple white desk, everything in my space contributes to the aesthetic and style of my work. My favorite aspect of my current setup is the refreshing natural light from the windows that creates an ever-changing view as the seasons come and go. The space will continue to evolve as I refine the details, but I hope you enjoy this peek inside the Ugmonk HQ and are inspired to design your own personal workspace.

If any of you have succeeded in building out your dream workspace, would you care to share the photos?

Cooking with spices can seem like a dark art. Spices, once the arcane treasure of colonial empires, have become common fixtures of countless everyday meals, but many aspiring cooks still lack a basic familiarity with them. Sprinkling pinches of expensive powders with esoteric names to achieve subtle flavor combination aren't attractive to many cooks—particularly college students, who are often shopping and cooking for themselves for the first time. For them, it's difficult to justify buying a new spice without understanding its flavor and how it's used.

But spices are the key to good cooking. For our ENGN1000 course, Mandi Cai, Arielle Chapin,Kenta Kondo, Nate Parrott and Robert Wang asked: how can we initiate college students into the world of spices, giving them a familiarity with spices that'll improve their cooking for their entire lives?

After the food is recognized, a selection of 'recipes' are made available to choose from.

Spice recommendations indicated by LEDs

Anytime a designer is looking to get something crowdfunded for 18 grand and winds up with a nearly quarter mil, they have our attention. And we like sharing these things here to inspire you design entrepreneurs with success stories.

As we've seen, product designer Jeff Sheldon is "kind of obsessed with my workspace." To that end he's been working on the design of a simple, modular desktop organizer that will help him beat clutter. Now, after three long years, he's got it perfected. Here's his Gather system:

This is one of those things that an unenterprising designer might look at and say "Ah, I coulda designed that." Yes, but you didn't. Sheldon did and is now 1,311% funded, with $235,989 in pledges at press time on an $18,000 goal. And there's still 44 days left to pledge.

So, just a reminder to the would-be design entrepreneurs: Examine your own situation for something that you need, and design it. Maybe thousands of other people need it too!

Wine cellars are classy and a convenient way to store bulk wine out of sight. In contrast, if you have 16 bottles of wine stashed all over your kitchen, you look like a raging alcoholic.

If you've got a taste for the vino and can't afford to have a wine cellar added to your home, this table provides a functional alternative. The Don Vino Wine Table, by upstate-New-York-based Chicone Cabinetmakers, is "inspired by the oak barrels that line the cellars of the Finger Lake's regional wineries" and holds a dozen and four bottles of rotgut.

In addition to the version above, which is coffee-table height at 21 inches, they also offer a 36-inch-tall "bistro" version, below. (I prefer the leg style on that one.)

Far as I can tell the table doesn't spin, but the room will after you get through three or four bottles.

My tool cabinet is the final project for Semester 1 of The Hand Tool School. It combines every bit of knowledge crammed into one project. The cabinet is overengineered for sure, just so that I could fit every single joint from the semester into it.

It took me a long time to build my cabinet, but it took me even longer to figure out the storage inside. I kept setting up chisel racks and plane cubbies and stuff and then switching them around. I kept searching for the best way to store things in the most efficient and ergonomic way. I built projects while working from the cabinet and started to realize which tools I needed the most, then refined how I grouped them and where I stored them. The result is a highly optimized tool cabinet where everything has a place and that place is specifically chosen through building projects.

This makes my cabinet not just a storage option, but as refined and efficient a tool as my workbench.

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

Cotopaxi's new Allpa 35L travel pack just exploded its crowdfunding goal and several of my expectations for luggage. 

Let's talk travel bags for a minute. A lot of people make them, a lot of them are pretty frustrating. Unless you only take your featherlight steamer set across perfectly smooth airport floors and watch them carried straight onto private helicopters, you've probably been irritated by your bag's limitations at some point. Maybe it's too big to carry comfortably, or too open organize neatly, or too bulky for day use once you arrive, or it lacks easy contact points when pulling it out of overhead stow, or the wheels get caught on thin air. 

We all have different expectations from our travel packing, because we're all different traveling snowflakes with different preferences and destinations, but the core concerns are always organization, ergonomics, sturdiness, and portability... and not being bad to look at helps too. Small luggage design is a crowded field, and designers have to anticipate a wide range of handling and transportation, so why do so few travel bags double as reasonable backpacks? You can use a hiking pack for travel - I often do and survive - but the lack of tight organization is a problem. You could use a pocket-filled commuter backpack, but that gets overloaded and shoulder-killing fast. Lugging traditional suitcases around a city is a bummer and a half. 

Cotopaxi recognized this niche in the travelling world that traditional luggage, sport packs, day packs, and commuter gear aren't quite filling, and they put their design lab team on the case. The Allpa is a carry-on friendly backpack that's secretly a hyper organized suitcase inside.

The Allpa fits the traditional suitcase clam shell into a soft bodied backpack. Inside are mesh dividers and separate accessory bags for toiletries, shoes and waterbottle. It uses a harness and molded shoulder straps and adapted from Cotopaxi's hiking packs, and they stow into the padded back panel when you want to use one of the multiple side handles instead. 

Smaller side pockets let you stash flats and valuables close to the body. The zippered molded hip belt and chest strap keep weight balanced, (particularly valuable when you get away from the stability of frame packs,) and both stash internally to reduce hanging straps when out of use. 

Carry on mode activated

This thing also comes with a rain cover and a lightweight day pack for market runs or light hikes. While the wet shower cap feel of bag covers eludes me personally, both of these add ons are genuinely helpful tools to maximize a pack towards more flexible and comfortable traveling. 

In use, the zippers are ostensibly protected from theft by loops that cover the pull, and the belt offers multiple loops for "locking" the pack to a stationary point. These are nice gestures for travelers, though most thieves in my experience wouldn't be deterred by a fabric loop - they tend to use extremely calibrated hands, grab and dash, or knives. 

I mean... Does that little band make you feel safer?

All in all the Cotopaxi Allpa is an oddly solitary offering in its niche. It's small enough to travel by your side, densely organized, ergonomically considered, and minimal enough to move through life without raising too much attention. Just prove to us that the zipper really isn't budging and we'd have a winner on our hands.

iRobot, one of the world’s leaders in the design and development of AI technologies and consumer robots, is seeking a highly talented Senior Industrial Designer to join our User Experience team in Greater Boston. Who we are… iRobot is expanding beyond Roomba, towards a holistic vision of how connected Robots can improve our lives inside and outside the home.

This armchair was designed by Fredrik Kayser for Vatne Lenestolfabrik.

It's timeless, bridging the gap between modern and traditional aesthetics. 

Crafted in solid Brazilian rosewood, this chair wears its original button tufted leather cushions.

I was surprised to hear who was collaborating with the furniture company Bernhardt Design this year for their ICFF booth display, which is also perhaps precisely what intrigued me about it. On the first day of the fair, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, singer-songwriter Tift Merritt, and finally NFL linebacker-turned-Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews, the "designers" collaborating with Bernhardt Design this year in conjunction with ICFF, were all there enthusiastically sitting at their respective booths to talk about the inspiration behind their collections (which for almost all of them was their first foray into designing anything).

The thread between all three that got them to that very spot that day, really, was President of Bernhardt Design Jerry Helling. "I've known Jerry for years and years" noted Tift Merritt, and Crews and Gebbia in later interviews both followed suit by noting they had met Helling through social networks. In fact, Helling has very intentionally pooled creatives outside of the realm of design in order to bring a fresh perspective to the ideation process. In a New York Times article from earlier this month, Helling noted those outside of the industry "don't know all the things that they're not supposed to do. It's a clean slate. It comes from their heart, rather than being an academic exercise."

Joe Gebbia's Neighborhood collection for corporate office environments

The motivations behind each collection on view were wildly different depending on the new-found furniture designer you talked to. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most utilitarian perspective came from Airbnb's Joe Gebbia, who got the inspiration for his collection of office furniture during a chat with Helling in Milan: "I was sitting with Jerry in this tiny little café next to Rossandi Orlandi and he poses this question to me. He goes, 'Joe, if you could design any furniture for your office what would it be?' and I go, 'Oh my god, I'm so happy you asked that question.'" Since starting the overwhelming success story that is Airbnb, Gebbia has moved to five different offices over nine years, which left him feeling a lack in terms of the furniture being offered to corporate environments. "[Furniture we had] was never as flexible as we wanted our culture to be and in many ways," says Gebbia. "I think a lot of the systems we were using were rooted in 20th-century values where people come in and sit down at a desktop computer, pick up a landline phone and sit there for 8 hours a day."

Gebbia's collection is completely modular and can easily be reconfigured

So after his conversation with Helling, Gebbia got to sketching and came up with around 7 different concepts to play with. It should be noted that Gebbia is a graduate of the industrial design program at RISD, so the process of ideation was not at all unfamiliar to him; he's simply been out of practice as he's transitioned into the realm of service design. After a round of ideation and with the help of Helling, who Gebbia notes is "an incredible editor," they came to a simple yet ingenious conclusion: creating a furniture system using a modular building block configuration. 

A detail of the wool-felted table

The result was a collection of modular furniture called Neighborhood that Bernhardt Design mentioned is their largest family of furniture to date with 42 different pieces. Two details of Neighborhood struck me as novel: one, it's ability to adhere into many different configurations and two, it's felted wool material. "One consideration that led us to the felted wool was [it was a way to] have acoustic integrity built into the furniture," and Gebbia added that for an open floor plan office like Airbnb this is absolutely crucial. The pieces, in the end, are perfect for the corporate environment—the style certainly does not steal much attention and are subdued enough to fit into any corporate environment, but also welcoming in texture and their customizability.

"I think a lot of the [office furniture] systems we were using were rooted in 20th-century values where people come in and sit down at a desktop computer, pick up a landline phone and sit there for 8 hours a day."

A couch designed by Crews, inspired by ibis birds

It was interesting comparatively to talk with Tift Merritt and Terry Crews about their collections, as their motivations had much more to do with expression and narrative than fulfilling an existing need, which I suppose makes sense if you're coming at design through the lens of an artist. "It's all about the story," Crews excitedly told me on the ICFF floor. His collection of furniture was largely inspired by research he was doing about Egyptian culture. "I was thinking of just standing around the Nile and seeing water lilies all across the water. On one of the hieroglyphics, there's this Egyptian sky god named Horus and he was always pictured in hieroglyphics sitting on a water lily. And I was like, that would be cool as a piece of furniture. I thought, 'I'll make a lilypad and the flower will be the chair'. And basically when you sit in it, you feel like a god."

A trained illustrator, Crews put together a deck of sketches that Helling allegedly said were the most accurate sketches he'd ever seen for a design concept sketch. Crews dropped out of college a few credits shy of graduating to join the NFL, but that doesn't mean he hasn't stopped thinking about creating things: "I had an art scholarship, so my mother would always tell me, "you're an artist. Never forget your art.'"

musician Tift Merritt with her ribbon collection

Merritt's debut collection of textiles on display at the booth, on the other hand, came more from a peculiar hobby that originated from being on the road with her band: collecting ribbons. "I got addicted to textiles and ribbon because I could actually take them home with me in my suitcase," says Merritt. She would find ribbons and make guitar straps out of them, ones that would complement the style of her very impressive guitar collection (many of her guitars were on display at the Bernhardt Design booth). Much like creating a piece of music, her textile collections 'riffed' rather than formally borrowed from the vintage ribbons she collected over the years. "[With the collection] I think I was trying to make some connection with color and sound… for example, the solids in the collection are called 'Solo' because it's one tone, one brush of color, it's one trumpet in your ear."

One of the textiles from Merritt's textile collection for Bernhardt Design

It is, of course, easy as designers to criticize individuals designing furniture who know nothing about the details of the profession, but there's also something to note about the way in which non-designers approach the act of designing. For Crews, in a way, he saw his collection as a way to make commentary about creative industries being inclusive to all imaginative minds: "I would say, sometimes in this world people want you to stay in your lane out of competition, but it doesn't help. To me, creativity means everybody does it. I don't see a problem with that. Everybody who's an actor right now was in another business. You're always something else before you started." Gebbia, Merritt and Crews all admitted that although they weren't exclusively designing every little technical detail, they were certainly along for the ride and learned quite a bit as a result. Merritt sorrowfully said through the process she "learned the heartbreak of commercial testing. We had a felted fabric that we couldn't figure out how to [work], and I loved it. But to send something off to a mill is like sending a love letter and never hearing back, you know? Or waiting to hear back." 

Ultimately, it seems what other creative minds can offer is certainly not the expertise of ergonomic detail that designers are well-known for, but instead a creative spark that sends design projects in a refreshing, out of the norm direction In this case, it's up to each individual to judge whether these projects ended up a failure or success, but perhaps that chance for design to take a refreshing and unexpected turn is precisely why anyone with a good idea deserves a fair chance to take a crack at creating. 

One of the most maligned materials in home design is making a comeback in the form of hanging lights.

During part 1 of our interview with design/business mogul, jeffstaple, we discussed digital fabrication, collaboration and what it's like to manage multiple teams. 

It's clear nobody knows better than Jeff what it means to be a designer and businessman at the same damn time. So, I was curious to speak with him about what that exactly means, in terms of managing responsibilities, transitioning between roles, rebranding and designing for a niche-turned-mass market. Let's get right down to it, because there's a lot to cover. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Are there any design roles you love to play in all of your projects?

No, I'm not so excited about designing. I think because I spent the first 15 years of running this business being the designer. I'll pat myself on the back—I'm a good designer. When a young person out of school comes and works for us, I can still run circles around them in Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. 

What is new to me is this role of dot connector, if you will. There's not really one word that encapsulates everything. It's everything from traveling to Berlin and meeting some underground, unknown artist that has eight followers on Instagram but is the most amazing talent, to meeting the CEO of a four-billion-dollar company. It's all those highs and lows and everything in between, trying to find connection points between those and figuring out how my brands, any of them, can work in that world. That, to me, is what I get a lot of satisfaction out of right now.

I haven't done it before—I didn't have the capability of doing it before. But now, it's interesting to me because it's not like I'm just a PR person out there passing off business cards. It's more like not only making these connections happen, but then making them actually come to fruition in some way, which involves much more granular things than connecting people. I'm seeing something that maybe he doesn't see and she doesn't see, but I'm seeing something that they can do. 

It's also fortifying in that it's a win-win for everyone contractually, so that he doesn't screw her over, or she doesn't screw him over—it's a little bit of artistry, but it's also a little bit of legal deal making as well. Then, when everything comes together, it's like there's magic that happens—it feels really great. That's very, very satisfying to me right now. Whereas, sometimes I get pulled back into something like design—everyone's busy, or something—and I just have to do it. And I do it, and it's great, but it's like doing a karate chop if you're a black belt. I'm a good designer. I'm not the best designer in the world, and I'm not the most talented designer, but I think my skill set lies in my ability to navigate the waters that surround being a working designer.

Throughout your career, you've always had to look towards the future of retail and design simultaneously. Do the two ever oppose each other, and how do you deal with that if they do?

They do oppose each other a lot. In fact, I'm in the midst right now of reopening Reed Space with a whole new concept and a new space. In doing that, I'm finding—not even consciously—that the new iteration of Reed is actually very backwards to technology and innovation. It's super DIY and hands-on.

Reed Space NYC. Image via Reed Space.

Now that I think about, it I realize it's because technology is so pervasive in your life. In terms of a store, you can buy anything you want and get it in a moment's notice. So, the purpose of a store cannot be to compete with what's going on technologically in a physical space that you walk into. Maybe by going super raw, DIY, it makes it more of an experience that you cannot get on Instagram and on the web.

Do you have any advice for designers, or businessmen, going through a similar challenge you're facing with Reed?—Wanting to rebrand and move forward with their company in a different direction while still keeping their fan base alive?

I think you gotta back up for a second and ask yourself what the true reason why you want to change up is. Is it because your fan base is dying off or because you can't sustain the business model? It's great to have ten thousand fans, but there is the reality of whether that fan base can sustain your business. And if they can't, then will a rebrand help? Sometimes rebrands happen for vanity reasons, so you have to really ask yourself honestly, "Why are we talking about a rebrand here? What are we really trying to do?" I think that would really help that decision. I feel like a lot of brands are doing it on a whim, you know?

Reed Space. Image via The Hundreds.

If you were referring to Reed, I would say that when you see Reed Space reopen, you won't think of it as a rebrand, you'll think of it as an evolution. When I think of rebrand, I think of changing the name, the logo, or the identity. Reed Space's brand and identity will be the same, it'll just have new contents.

Staple Pigeon Logo. Image via Staple Pigeon.

My whole career has been a big social experiment in branding. My logo—both the Staple bar and the pigeon—and the motto, "a positive social contagion", and Reed Space and its logo, a chair, have never changed since the inception of both companies. I haven't even changed the font once—it's just been the same. I do that deliberately because the theory I'm trying to prove is that it doesn't really matter how good, bad, beautiful, or ugly, your logo, name, motto, or mission statement is. It's all about the contents behind it.

What has the journey of incorporating experience design (workshops, parties, etc.) into your overall business model been like for you?  

We had another space called Reed Annex that was next to Reed Space. Out of that, we did these educational workshops called The Reeding Annex, which is a play on The Learning Annex—I did them with Skillshare. To be honest, those Reeding Annexes probably planted the seed for the next evolution of Reed Space. Reed Space 2.0 will be much more maker space than retail space.

I think the learning with The Reeding Annex is, you can't do things all the time for commercial ROI. You can't do things and think that everything's going to make millions of dollars, or has the potential to. The Reeding Annex had no potential to make any decent amount of money. We paid speakers, had drinks and pretzels and stuff. Sometimes you just have to invest back into the culture that you're profiting from. It's kind of like farming—you have to re-fertilize the soil that you're planting on.

As designers, we always push hard to legitimize what we're working on. In your case, it's streetwear—a movement that has taken off beyond imagination and is now considered somewhat mainstream. Now that it's gotten to this point, do you ever look back and wish you hadn't pushed so hard?

Doesn't even register in my head. When those words came out of your mouth, an error 404 code went in my head like, "Beep! What?" I don't understand not pushing something to the furthest limits, and this is what makes me different than other people in this industry. You should ask this question, one day, to Bobby Hundreds because he has the opposite stance on it.

Bobby thinks that—I don't wanna paraphrase him, but I've talked to him about this—streetwear was destined to fail because it's predicated on being underground, anti, and niche. So by us making it successful we are, in fact, killing it at the same time. I could see his point, but I guess I'm more of a businessman than a martyr in that sense. 

When I broke into school to print the first Staple shirts, I didn't have grandiose visions of a brand. But, when I opened the bank account, went to city hall and got my tax ID number, I was like; "I'm not gonna make an invoice right now so that I can be cool and niche and underground. I'm making this 12 shirt invoice, and one day it will say 12 hundred shirts." From day one, that was my vision. So that's what makes me more businessman than artist.

I don't understand why, if you are an artist, why you would even bother opening up a bank account or a business account, or creating invoices or doing taxes. Don't even bother—once you go down that rabbit hole, you're fucking plugged into the matrix. You're like Keanu Reeves. You're in the system. So now to be like; "Okay. I got my tax ID number, I'm paying my taxes. But I'm angst! I'm anti!" No you're not. You have an EIN number. You're not anti anything.

Do you believe transparency in design process and business model is an important part of running a successful design company?

Yes. So here's my stance on transparency: I suck at it. I really suck at transparency. And, I really envy the new entrepreneurs these days, where they'll be like; "Going to meeting right now, I'm gonna close this deal." And then they Facebook Live like; "Okay. Here we go." I look at that, and I'm like; "How do they do that? That's amazing." I can't do that. I've never been on Instagram live. It scares the living shit out of me.*

I feel like the role of a designer is to curate and show people a better way. I get that reality TV has made kids be like; "I wanna see you take a dump. I wanna see everything!" But I feel like my job is really to be like; "Let me show you an elevated, more organized and more efficient way of doing this." Versus the muck.

Image via Skillshare.

Even in my Skillshare classes—while all those classes look like I'm letting you in behind the curtain and you're seeing everything, I have to go on record and say those are very manicured, deliberate views that I'm letting you see. I'll be the first to tell you that I'm not giving you 100% of the secrets. I feel like giving you 100% in a reckless way is actually not helpful.

But on the other hand, technology allows even an unfiltered person to be filtered. I'll give one example. Snapchat's whole thing over Instagram is that it's about who you really are, but then you're a dog and you have flowers around your head. So, it's unfiltered, but it's heavily filtered.

If you look at it in a real world analogy, it's all about buffers. When you walk into my office, you have to go through a doorman. You have to get buzzed up from an elevator. When you come in, there's a man that greets you. You have to walk down a long hallway. Now, you're sitting with me unfiltered, but you had to get through. There's a good seven filters from the street to get to me. If you equate it from real world versus digital, the filters are still there between reality, it's just in a different way. 

In terms of working in the creative industry in general, what do you know now that you wish you would have known just out of school?

We, designers, are the bitches of everyone—everyone that works in this world in terms of the business of life, where things get made, and people buy those things. The reason why there are so many designers today is consumerism. People wanna make stuff that is desirable for people to buy. It's that cycle.

I wish I knew that early on because I think coming out of art school, a lot of students have this sort of confidence. Then, when you sit at a boardroom, you have CEO's, operational people, sales people, and marketing people, and you're the bottom of that totem pole. You don't matter, for the most part. All those people that I just mentioned above you determine your fate and how much you'll be allowed to contribute.

Talk to any seasoned designer, ask them how it is working with the sales and marketing team, and they'll tell you the straight dope—it's horrible. Because they actually control the purse strings and the transaction. In order for you to change that position and get yourself to that level, where you walk into a room as a designer and everyone bows down to you, takes time and experience. More so than, "I know the latest filter in Photoshop" or "I know how to video edit in this app". You have to know about the negotiation side, the people skill side, the presentation skill side. It's a lost art, I think.

***

*Editor's Note: Post-Core77 interview, Jeff has faced his fears and tested out Instagram Live. I, on the other hand, am not so brave.

We love Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble's Other Side of Innovation, specifically the second half of the book. For anyone who has ever resented being asked to write a business plan, Govindarajan and Trimble's book will at last explain the profound difference between planning and prediction.

Consider that at the moment you decide to explore a new product, you will never be dumber about your customer, their needs and your opportunity. The big idea in Other Side of Innovation is how to manage product development as a "disciplined experiment." Applying the scientific method to design thinking involves establishing a "hypothesis of record." This tool helps the product manager answer their two most important questions: what are we spending money on, and why?

When trying to figure out whether our new product is a good idea, to paraphrase David Hume, our confidence should be proportional to the evidence.

An example "cause and effect" diagram.  What are the steps necessary to take our product idea through to production?  Then, consider the assumptions built into that process.  What has to be true for steps A and B to lead to step C, and so on?

Given all of the assumptions we identified through the cause and effect diagram, consider a framework that weights assumptions according to our confidence (reasonably certain, educated guess, wild guess) and the consequences if the assumption proves false (minor problem, serious problem, catastrophe).

We might imagine a hierarchy of assumptions, the most dangerous ones being low confidence and high stakes (the top right box). 

At DtM, we use this framework to determine program priorities.  The first dollar we spent on product development must go towards emptying that top right bucket (low confidence, high risk).  We might increase our confidence by conducting user and market research, or by building a physical prototype, or by recruiting new partners with the necessary expertise onto the team.   If this approach allows us to falsify a critical assumption, hooray!  We haven't wasted much time or money.

To build a hypothesis of record, the team must first create a "cause and effect" diagram, a simple flowchart of the steps necessary to reach the ultimate objective (in DtM's case, saving millions of lives in poor countries). The team then identifies the most critical assumptions embedded in the plan, stated in a way that meets Karl Popper's standard for "falsifiability." The team then defines a set of experiments that will test those key assumptions as quickly and cheaply as possible. When an experiment proves a key assumption false, you know it's time to update your hypothesis of record.

Every design firm brags about "failing as fast as possible." Govindarajan and Trimble's book explains how to do it with rigor. This approach has become the basis for all of DtM's strategic planning. Check it out! And if you buy the book through the links in this email, Amazon will send part of the proceeds to DtM! [Other Side of Innovation]

The Core77 team spends time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite finds from the World Wide Web:

America's most misspelled words are painful to read, to say the least.

The founder of Android is on to a new phone project called the Essential Phone.

A list of some of the most expensive chairs in the world.

Great packaging, even better process photos.

A very surreal architecture exhibit.

How design and DJing are actually quite similar.

Animated pixel/game design tutorials by Pedro Medeiros.

Glad someone is focused on the important things. 

1-800-MINORITY-REPORT.

The new blue crayon is more important than you'd think. Maybe this AI should name it?

An actually useful Photoshop cheat sheet. 

NASA released new photos of Jupiter from the Juno space probe.

Hot Tip: Check out more blazin' hot Internet finds on our Twitter page.