Ocht was created to marry elegance and practicality. Versatile and multi-functional, Ocht's 8-in-1 feature allows the industrious woman to personalize her bag to suit every part of her day.

As consumer activities are occurring even more frequently on digital platforms, most goods stay in transportation longer than they used to traditionally. "The Journey" is a concept meant to turn the shipping process into a part of the manufacturing stage, which also replaces the traditional physical role of craft men with passive devices.

Laceless sneakers are nothing new, especially for adidas. But besides cleats, it's tough to find a pair designed for high performance athletics. Enter adidas's first laceless UltraBOOST sneakers, announced last week.

Designed for runners, the laceless UltraBOOSTs use Primeknit technology to their fullest advantage. Due to its decrease in elasticity, the horizontal forged Primeknit band running across the midfoot fits snug enough to make laces arbitrary. The shoe fits kind of like a sock instead of a shoe—similar to some previous UltraBOOSTs—so the foot and upper are able to move in unison. 

adidas made use of motion tracking technology Aramis (which they have done before) to help analyze movement of the body and understand how to accommodate it without adjustable pressure.

If there are any footwear designers reading this, I'm curious to hear them speak on the process of designing laceless sneakers: 

What particular design considerations are necessary? 

What kind of testing is involved?

What are your thoughts on the laceless UltraBOOSTs?

I've always thought of FoamCore like sheetrock: If you score it you can get it to curve on one axis, but never two. Well, I've just been proven wrong.

Here in Part 3 of his FoamCore modelmaking tutorial series, industrial designer Eric Strebel demonstrates his clever technique for creating compound curves with the stuff. And interestingly, he came up with the technique while working on a project for a NASCAR team. Watch and learn:

You'll work hard. But the job comes with more than a few perks. Do you have a passion for creating experiences that help people solve technology problems? At Apple, we’re here to help our customers when they need support, and by joining our team, you’ll help us evolve and expand the experiences we offer through our iOS Support app.

Suso Caamanho is a woodworker in Spain who has attracted a sizable following on YouTube. One of the more interesting things he has built for his shop is a compact work station that opens to reveal a table saw, router table, and scroll saw

It's not one of those builds where everything in it is made from scratch; Caamanho sensibly makes use of existing corded power tools. 

The table saw is built around a Makita circular saw, the scroll saw around a Festool jig saw, and the router table around a Kress milling motor designed for use in a CNC.

What's interesting about this work station is that Caamanho did more than just attach a bunch of tools to the bottom of a plywood table; he came up with ways to enhance their performance. 

The jig saw blade guide is particularly clever. The blade passes through the table and rides between a pair of bearings on an overhead arm, which increases precision by preventing the blade from twisting or bending as it cuts. As you can see in the video, Caamanho uses it like a band or scroll saw.

The router mount is the most complicated part of the machine. The bit can be raised or lowered by cranking a handle and tilted by pivoting it on a set of home-made trunions. It could have been set up to hold any type of router. Caamanho used a milling motor for a CNC machine, presumably because it is powerful and yet slim enough to tilt without its housing hitting the bottom of the table.

I like the fence, cross-cutting sled, and other jigs he made for use with this machine. There's nothing revolutionary about their design—I just think they're very well done.

Plans for the portable workshop and other machines devised by Caamanho can be purchased on his website.

This is hilarious. Last week a Norwegian prankster named Johan Slattavik posted the following image to a Facebook group called Fedrelandet Viktigst ("Fatherland First," a Norwegian nationalist group). Slattavik captioned the image with "What do people think of this?"

The folks in this anti-immigrant group apparently thought they were looking at a photo of six women in burqas riding a bus. And began to make predictably disparaging comments, some of which have been screencaptured.

Only problem is, that's a photo of six empty bus seats.

Another Facebook user, Sindre Beyer, realized what was going on and reposted the photo to his own page. It then went viral, with commenters lambasting the nationalists.

As The Washington Post reports,

The mockery has resulted in some angry reactions, Slattavik said, but he did not take them seriously. "I would say that has also been educational," he said. "I have thought about the differences between legitimate criticism of immigration to Europe and blind racism and xenophobia. I wanted to look into these differences: something I think I have achieved by setting up this practical joke and watching the reactions."

Karl Lagerfeld is a very particular man. I bet you think he lives in a house. Wrong. He lives in two houses that are side-by-side, separated by a distance of 2.5 meters. One house is for him to sleep and draw in. The other house is where he eats his meals and receives his guests. Maybe you're lucky enough to be one of the guests invited over. You think you'll be invited into the sleeping-and-sketching house? Wrong. You'll be invited into the second house where his office is.

This two seater tandem gyrocopter is the fruit of a long therm collaboration between 2sympleks and the Trendak Aviation engineering team. The design was followed by countless hours of consultancy with mechanics, test pilots, and future users of the machine.

The SetPoint device is designed to utilize nerve signaling for the treatment of arthritis. SetPoint Medical hired Pulse to develop a clean ergonomic solution for their implant-stimulating inductive coupling collar. Pulse also worked with the SetPoint team designing the UI for their device management app on the iOS 7 platform.

As the world's most innovative companies take note of the strategic advantage brought by industrial designers to business, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is declaring Design IS Business at its International Design Conference 2017 (#IDSA17Atlanta). 

Register now for the premier networking event—which is set for Aug. 16–19 at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis (book the discounted hotel rate by Aug. 1.) The conference culminates with the IDSA International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA)® The IDEA ceremony is open to the pubic and free to attend, and the Gala is ticketed at the Woodruff Arts Center on August 19.

There's no better way to learn about the impact of design on business than from one of the most renowned brands and corporations in the world—Disney. The keynote presentation will be delivered on Aug. 16 by Walt Disney Imagineering President Bob Weis and Shanghai Disney Resort Vice President of Operations Andrew Bolstein. In "Making the Impossible, Possible"—they'll share how highly skilled teams, representing dozens of disciplines, come together to create immersive experiences that inspire emotional connections with guests around the globe.

"Businesses are reserving a seat on the board for a chief design officer, assimilating design strategy or making room for design to influence their direction significantly," explains Conference Chair Jeevak Badve, IDSA, VP of Sundberg-Ferar.

More speakers at the intersection of design and business come from Coca-Cola, Whirlpool, Philips, Etsy, Fifth Third Bank, Dolby, Airstream and Newell Brands.

Other speakers, delivering in a rapid-fire format, come from MATTER, CRAVE, Bresslergroup, Studio One Eleven, US Endoscopy, Design Concepts, North Carolina State University (NCSU), Freefly Systems, Berea College, Huge, Eastman Chemical Company, IN2 Innovation, InReality, Design Science and more.

Three interactive panels will take attendees on different journeys: Business of Corporate Design Studios featuring Pfizer, Honeywell and Hyundai Ventures; Business of Design Consultancy Studios with RKS Design, fuseproject, Designworks, a BMW Group Company; Sundberg-Ferar and frog design; and Future of ID and Education with SHiFT and Aether Global Learning, Savannah College of Art and Design, Harvard Business School, Hunan University and LiquidHub.

On Aug. 16, the IDSA/Eastman Education Lab Symposium 2017: Emergent Pedagogy in Design, will be chaired by Scott Shim, IDSA, of the University of Notre Dame. Speakers are set from Arizona State University, Brigham Young University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Iowa State University, NCSU, International Housewares Association, The Ohio State University, Parsons School of Design, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Houston, Virginia Tech, Doblin/Deloitte and DesignIntelligence.

On Aug. 17, the IDSA Career Center 2017 kicks off with a networking lunch, followed by Sketch Aerobics™ and Simulation in CAD for Designers, hands-on workshops. Then, join the ever popular portfolio review, as professionals take a closer look and offer advice on putting best work forward.

On Aug. 18, several IDSA Awards winners and inductees into IDSA's Academy of Fellows will be announced and the five IDSA Student Merit Award 2017 winners will be recognized. That evening, visit some of the hottestdesign studios in Atlanta, as they open their doors to conference attendees.

For the first time, Super Saturday Morningsessions on Aug. 19 are designed to thrill the youngest generation. Conference-goers and their children—as young as age five—will be amazed by magician and innovation consultant Michael Mode of Big Lightbulb, Inc.; bird expert Francie Krawcke and her feathered friends; Mark Zeller of Fisher-Price; Ryan Ringholz of PLAE children's shoe company; Michael Laris, IDSA, of PlayPower playground maker; and Steve Burris of KIDS II.

Follow the journey using #IDSA17Atlanta and #IDSAIDEA @IDSA on Twitter; Industrial Designers Society of America on Facebook and LinkedIn; and @IDSAdesign on Instagram. Sponsorship opportunities are limited; contact sponsorship@IDSA.org. To schedule press coverage, contact media@idsa.org.

Sponsors are Samsung, Autodesk, Benajmin Moore, Eastman Innovation Lab, General Electric, Prototype Solutions Group, Savannah College of Art and Design, Sundberg-Ferar, Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks, GE Healthcare, Model Solution, Carnegie Mellon University, LiquidHub, KeyShot, Nexo Solution, Tactile, Top Level Design, Valspar, Appliance Design, Covestro and Philips. Partners are Arcade, Azure, Core77, Gray, Plastics Industry Association, RGD, Society of Plastics Engineers, Wanted Design and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

See the sizzle of past IDSA conferences and register now for #IDSA17Atlanta!

A lot of us talk about the importance or relevance of craft objects in our lives. The most important thing I ever read about this topic was in Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's "In Praise of Shadows." It's a thin volume, only 73 pages long, and was first published in 1933 in Japan by Tanizaki who was a well-known novelist at the time.

I first read the book in my 20s, because someone thought that as I liked making things I might like the book and also because in my day carrying a short book by a Japanese author was always a good way to meet women (I don't remember that it worked - but since the book is so short I might not have been carrying it with me long enough).

In any case I thought the book interesting but very xenophobic. Which kind of makes sense because it was written in pre-war Japan when xenophobia was becoming the way of the land.

Several years ago I was talking with Toshio Odate, and he recommended the book to me. I said I had already read it and found it xenophobic, and he said I should reread it because obviously I didn't understand it.

So I reread it, and Odate was right. I won't try to tell you what it's about but if you go to the book's link they have a "Look Inside" feature.

In any case, we don't sell it so this is not a specific plug, and if you don't want to buy it you might be able to get it from your local library.

In retrospect, thinking of the books I have read about craft, or really the decline of craft, I have to remember that every generation has complained that the arts and crafts of the previous generation were being lost. The nineteenth century had William Morris, Tanizaki is of course twentieth century, and modern bloggers and teachers such as Robin Wood, Doug Stowe, and Paul Sellers also bemoan the loss of craft.

The problem is that they are all right. Every generation has simplified production to use less labor and less craft. At the same time every generation has also found new craft in new inventions and technologies. How exciting it must have been in the eighteenth century to be able to buy tools made of consistent quality steel and use them to work all sorts of exciting materials imported from colonies all over the world.

The challenge is the same today, except what most people find exciting is the Internet and the silicon chip. What we lose in the process—and this is what I think Morris, Tanizaki, and their modern children rightly complain about—is the loss of an important psychological link to our past and a repression of a natural human instinct to use tools and to make physical things. We have become consumers.

Each generation looks back at the previous generation and thinks that the previous generation had it harder (which they did). But I think that somehow by making stuff themselves, and by buying craft made stuff from people they knew and not from an anonymous factory, they had a better balance of new and old.

Here's a fascinating look inside Chevrolet's research facilities circa 1936. This is an era when the shapes of cars came from pencils wielded by designers operating on intuition, not market research or computer simulations.

In order to promote their design savvy, General Motors and Chevy developed a rather interesting water-based contraption to illustrate the benefits of streamlining.

They then put together this short video to show how this, and some primitive wind tunnel technology, is translated into automotive design. It's also hilarious to hear of some of the supposed benefits conferred by their styling choices:

We are looking for the best senior designer in the world to join our team in Washington DC. Design Army seeks an innovative senior print/web designer that can concept, lead, and design at the highest creative levels imaginable. This is not an easy position so please be sure of your

The folks over at Lensball are selling a physical photography accessory that will presumably appeal to the Instagram generation. The eponymous product is simply a sphere made out of scratch-resistant K9 crystal, in two sizes: 60mm ($25) and 80mm ($35).

The lensball will of course flip the image upside down, though in the following photo it appears they've inexplicably doctored it.

Now for the yea or nay part: Do you think this object will have any staying power, or will people grow bored of the novelty? And while the spheres don't weigh that much—the 60mm is 250 grams/0.55 pounds, the 80mm is 650 grams/1.43 pounds—do you reckon folks will actually be willing to tote these around? Scratch-resistant or no, they'll surely require some type of protective, perhaps even hard-sided, case.

In my Auto Shop class in high school, we learned to perform basic automotive maintenance on a 1982 'Vette. (Sadly it was a Chevette, not a Corvette.) The benefit of the old clunker was that you could easily reach everything in the uncramped engine compartment and undercarriage. The crowded innards of today's cars, in contrast, seem designed to make it impossible to reach every last fastener.

Enter the revolutionary Kirk Wrench. Originally designed for plumbers to get at shut-off valves behind toilets, this wrench is actually less of a tool and more of a system of interconnecting parts, allowing plumbers and automotive mechanics to get into some tricky-to-reach areas. Check it out:

The unknown inventor (Mr. or Ms. Kirk?) has patented the design, but as far as we can tell it isn't in production.

The Urban Canaries explore new ways of tackling air pollution through a pollution sensor whose own health depends on its exposure to clean air.

The folks over at Donut Media did a great job of breaking down an important part of recent auto design history: How the Boxster saved Porsche from near disaster. I remember when the Boxster first came out but had no idea how dire things looked for Porsche at the time. I also didn't realize Mazda and Toyota were indirectly involved in the car's development:

The Accu-Cut Saw Guide is aimed at the woodworker who wants to make clean accurate cuts in sheet goods but can't afford a dedicated plunge cutting track saw setup.

Its main components are a two-piece aluminum track or rail and a plastic sled that can be attached to any standard circular saw. 

The sled, which mates with the track, guides the saw in a straight line as it slides along the rail.

As with other track saw systems, splinter strips along either edge of the rail greatly reduce chipping by bearing down on the material being cut. The first time you use it, the saw cuts through the splinter strip so from that point forward cuts can be quickly and easily aligned by placing the strip against the cut line marked on the material. 

The tracks are 26 1/2" long and can be joined end-to-end for cuts up to about 53" long, a perfect length for cross cutting 4x8 sheet goods but not enough for ripping them. 

I asked Kreg how they expected users to rip full sheets of material and was told they should use the company's Rip-Cut Edge Guide for that application. The edge guide will work but is a second-best solution to having a rail long enough to rip sheet goods with the Accu-Cut guide. The Rip-Cut edge guide has no splinter strip and requires one edge of the cut piece to already be straight.  Another thing in favor of using a track is that the base of the saw doesn't touch the stock, so there is no possibility of scratching veneer plywood and pre-finished material. 

The Accu-Cut's rails are made from heavy aluminum extrusions and could easily be joined for cuts more than 53" long—if longer tracks were available or if the option existed to buy extra tracks and joining pieces. Neither option currently exists though the manufacturer claims to be considering it. 

Why would Kreg offer this accessory with such short rails when competitors such as DeWalt, Festool, and Makita offer them in much longer lengths? I asked and was told it had to do with packaging, shipping, and shelf space. 

It's costly to package long aluminum tracks so they won't be damaged in shipping, and beyond a certain length, it's no longer possible to ship them via UPS, Fedex, or the USPS. There's no technical reason why the tool could not be offered with longer rails; it's just that long rails take up valuable display space and make the product less attractive to retailers. 

The company would do well to offer additional rails and joining pieces. It might cut into sales of the Rip-Cut Edge Guide but would make for a far more usable track saw setup.

Kreg sent me a sample, and except for the limited length of its rails, it works as well as any dedicated plunge-cutting track saw I have used—provided it's used with a good circular saw and high quality blade. 

Because it's designed for use with a standard (non-plunging) circular saw, the rail must be long enough for the saw to come into the material from the edge. To that end, Kreg supplies a plastic end piece or "starting block" to support the saw beyond the end of the aluminum rail. 

The splinter strip and starting block are designed to prevent the rail from sliding, but for critical cuts you may want to clamp the rail in place. For that you would want the optional track clamps, which are clunkier than the clamps used with other brands of track but also smaller and easier to store and transport.

Nearly any corded or cordless circular saw can attached to the base with the supplied clamping screws. The screws can be shifted to alternate locations to accommodate different saw shoes. The shoe butts to an adjustable stop so the saw can be used on the base, removed for freehand cutting, and then quickly reinstalled with no need to realign the blade with the splinter strip. This is a handy feature for the person who owns a single saw and must use it with and without the Accu-Cut guide.

If there's a weakness to this system it's the sled that rides on the rail. There is some slop between the pieces, though I haven't noticed it affecting the quality of cut. The bigger problem is that the sled is plastic and does not seem like it would survive more than one or two falls with a saw attached. A metal base would have been better though I can see how that might have greatly increased the cost of the tool—perhaps to the point where a $400-$650 dedicated track saw setup might not seem so expensive. The Kreg Accu-Cut sells for about $80.