A' Design Award & Competition, the world's leading international annual juried competition for design, is now accepting entries for its next cycle. The A' Design Accolades are organized in a wide range of creative fields to highlight the very best designers from all countries in all disciplines. It's almost guaranteed you'll find a place for your work in one of the many categories, which include Industrial Design, Product Design, Service Design, Architecture, Communication Design and Fashion Design.  (Check out the rest of the categories here).

The A' Design Prize

Entries to the competition are peer-reviewed and anonymously judged by an influential jury panel of experienced academics, prominent press members and established professionals. A' Design Award & Competition promises prestige, publicity and international recognition to all A' Design Award Winners through the A' Design Prize which is given to celebrate the awarded designs.

Every year, projects that focus on innovation, technology, design and creativity are awarded with the A' Design Award. Entries are accepted annually till February 28th and results are announced every year on April 15. Designers worldwide are called to take part in the accolades by entering their best works, projects and products. Entries are accepted as long as they were designed in the last 10 years.

To give an idea of projects that are eligible to apply to receive an A' Design Award, we've put together a list of ten diverse projects that have won in previous years:

Dynavonto Exotic Car Concept by Bashar Ajlani, Vehicle, Mobility and Transportation Design Category Winner, 2011 - 2012

Calendar 2013 "Module" Calendar by Katsumi Tamura, Graphics and Visual Communication Design Category Winner, 2012 - 2013

Dhyana Armchair by Salvatore Guzzo, Furniture, Decorative Items and Homeware Design Category Winner, 2011 - 2012

Printed Bulbs Light Bulb by Eric Brockmeyer + Karl Willis, Lighting Products and Lighting Projects Design Category Winner, 2012 - 2013

Shoe Class Sneaker store by Pinkeye, Interior Space and Exhibition Design Category Winner, 2012 - 2013

Smartstreets-Cyclepark™ Transformational bike parking by Chris Garcin and Andrew Farish (Team), Street Furniture Design Category Winner, 2013 - 2014

Conspiracy shoes Luxury Shoes by Gianluca Tamburini, Footwear, Shoes and Boots Design Category Winner, 2013 - 2014

Baan Dinner set cupboard by Mr.Paitoon Keatkeereerut,Chawin Hanjing, Furniture, Decorative Items and Homeware Design Category Winner, 2013 - 2014

Flow Coffee Table & Stools by Olena Sydoruk, Arts, Crafts and Ready-Made Design Category Winner, 2010 - 2011

Kitchen Train Kitchen Accesories by Ahmad Abedini, Home Appliances Design Category Winner, 2011 - 2012

Did you enjoy the designs above? We will be publishing a selection of award winners on April 15. To have an opportunity to get your design published, featured and promoted, remember to submit it before the entry deadline. Send Your Works today to The A' Design Competition :Nominate Your Best Design Project.

The Design Assistant supports the marketing team by assisting with graphic design as well as administrative tasks. Work closely with the Senior Design Director and other marketing staff in production of print and digital collateral consistent with program objectives, brand guidelines and budgetary constraints, obtain photography for publications, assist with photo and illustration research, maintain and organize photo collections, scan appropriate photos for publication use

In the upcoming movie Downsizing, filmmaker Alexander Payne, the guy who did Election, Sideways and About Schmidt, has come up with a way to address the world's overpopulation crisis: Use science to shrink people down to just five inches in height. Think about it: You can have a huge house built with very little material, you'll consume less, and you'll leave a smaller footprint both figuratively and literally.

Are you ready to take the plunge?

While the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Paramount's not putting the movie into wide release until Christmas.

It is interesting to see satirists and comedians addressing these issues. The environment, shrinking resources and overpopulation is a favorite topic of stand-up comic Bill Burr, who has considerably darker proposals for how to solve the problem:

[Warning, these videos are NSFW! It's a Friday, so maybe you can get away with watching these, but put headphones on.]

"30,000 People:"

"85 Percent of You Have to Go:"

I'm a little surprised that this story isn't getting more press. We've learned that not only can ultrasound be used to hack smartphones, but apparently it may have been weaponized and used in a series of attacks that authorities are at a loss to explain.

As the Associated Press reports, at least 21 American diplomats and a handful of Canadian diplomats in Cuba have suffered nosebleeds, permanent hearing loss, concussions and brain trauma after experiencing what's been described as "sonic attacks:"

The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence. He climbed back into bed. Inexplicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if he'd walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room.

Soon came the hearing loss, and the speech problems, symptoms both similar and altogether different from others among at least 21 U.S. victims in an astonishing international mystery still unfolding in Cuba. The top U.S. diplomat has called them "health attacks." New details learned by The Associated Press indicate at least some of the incidents were confined to specific rooms or even parts of rooms with laser-like specificity, baffling U.S. officials who say the facts and the physics don't add up.

Investigators don't know who is behind the attacks, and searches of the affected premises have not turned up any devices. Investigators also have no idea what the attacking device is; previously it was thought impossible that sound could trigger a concussion and brain trauma. Confusing the investigation further, the experiences of those who suffered attacks has not been consistent:

In several episodes recounted by U.S. officials, victims knew it was happening in real time, and there were strong indications of a sonic attack. Some felt vibrations, and heard sounds — loud ringing or a high-pitch chirping similar to crickets or cicadas. Others heard the grinding noise. Some victims awoke with ringing in their ears and fumbled for their alarm clocks, only to discover the ringing stopped when they moved away from their beds.

The attacks seemed to come at night. Several victims reported they came in minute-long bursts. Yet others heard nothing, felt nothing. Later, their symptoms came.

… Sound and health experts are equally baffled. Targeted, localized beams of sound are possible, but the laws of acoustics suggest such a device would probably be large and not easily concealed. Officials said it's unclear whether the device's effects were localized by design or due to some other technical factor.

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction or fanciful spy novels, but it appears that these attacks are terrifyingly real. We will be watching this story with interest.

Papier Machine is a booklet gathering a family of 13 paper-made electronic toys ready to be cut, colored, folded, assembled or torn. Silkscreened with special inks that have different electric properties, these toys aim to reveal what hides behind our machines' magic black boxes. A world of materials, shapes, colors, stories and even smell.

Papier Machine received support from the cultural program Audi Talents Awards, of which were laureates in 2016. It has also been exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, in Mai 2017.

Summary

In designing Firefly newborn phototherapy, Design that Matters used human-centered design to transform Vietnamese manufacturing partner, Medical Technology Transfer and Services (MTTS), expanding their impact on newborn health within Southeast Asia and Africa, and positioning their designs to go global. Through multiple meetings with our manufacturing partner in the U.S. and Vietnam, collaborative field research, joint brainstorms, industrial design exercises, and design reviews, Design that Matters planted the seed. The result is an organization that now approaches each new device through a human-centered design lens as evidenced in their new product in progress to prevent newborn hypothermia.

The word "design" can evoke images of fashion models and expensive bags. Design is gaining mass appeal as popularized by companies like Apple and IDEO, embodied by everyday products like the iPhone, and celebrated in magazines like Fast Company. Design has also been making inroads into the world of international development and social enterprise. At Design that Matters, we use the power of human-centered design to bring the best technology to the poor in developing countries. When we mention the word "design" to many non-profits and social enterprises, they reply, "I already like the color." Design goes beyond aesthetic. Thinking like a designer means pulling disparate observations and requirements together and using them to inspire yourself to create a harmonious innovation to improve the world. What better place to apply design than in broken markets with too many stakeholders, too few dollars, and so many real needs?

In designing Firefly newborn phototherapy, Design that Matters used human-centered design to transform Vietnamese manufacturing partner, Medical Technology Transfer and Services (MTTS), expanding their impact on newborn health within Southeast Asia and Africa, and positioning their designs to go global. Through multiple meetings with our manufacturing partner in the U.S. and Vietnam, collaborative field research, joint brainstorms, industrial design exercises, and design reviews, Design that Matters planted the seed. MTTS took on a new suite of capabilities from special user interview techniques to rapid prototyping. The result is a Firefly final product that looks identical to the Design that Matters design; a device that has treated newborns with jaundice in 23 developing countries including Vietnam, Myanmar, and Ghana; and an organization that now approaches each new device through a human-centered design lens as evidenced in their new product in progress to treat newborns with respiratory distress.

Beginning day one, Design that Matters fostered an open and collaborative atmosphere around the Firefly design process. Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a process and a set of techniques used to create new solutions for the world. Solutions include products, services, environments, organizations, and modes of interaction. HCD builds on the idea of user-centered design, encouraging designers to use these tools to gain insight from many stakeholders beyond just the end-user. We decided to use the HCD process to better understand the needs of our manufacturer, while simultaneously coaching them to use the process themselves.

The staff at manufacturing partner MTTS talk Design that Matters through their Bilibed phototherapy design to help us understand the need, user, and context at the Firefly kick-off in Vietnam.

At the Firefly kick-off meeting in Hanoi, the Design that Matters team interviewed MTTS about their deep knowledge about designing medical devices for low resource contexts, and phototherapy in particular. At the time, they had installed hundreds of their custom-designed overhead phototherapy devices and had recently created a new phototherapy prototype called the Bilibed to provide lighting from below. The Design that Matters team broke the Bilibed design into manageable pieces to identify the features where our manufacturing partner knew there was room for improvement. We made each suggestion visual by drawing it on a post-it and sticking it up on the wall. Our manufacturer gained an appreciation for how prototypes like the Bilibed are enormously helpful in fostering deep conversation to guide design.

Design that Matters used dual language flashcards to spark better conversations to understand the most desirable phototherapy features.

Design that Matters exposed our manufacturer to a variety of stakeholder interview and observation methods including flash cards, drawing, and prototypes to probe beyond what people say they do, to understand what people think and feel. During successive field research visits to hospitals throughout Vietnam, a rotating cast of staff from our manufacturing and implementation partners accompanied Design that Matters, learning many HCD techniques firsthand. In one activity early in the design process, Design that Matters had a set of flashcards listing different product qualities in English and Vietnamese including effective, bright, comforting, and safe for the baby. We invited doctors and nurses to write-in other important qualities we had forgotten, and then asked them to sort the flashcards in order of most important to least important. We then used the flashcards to conduct a discussion through translation about why the qualities were ranked in that order. Having dual language flashcards enabled Design that Matters and members of our manufacturing partner team who did not speak Vietnamese to conduct a multi-faceted conversation with healthcare providers without depending solely on the translator.

At the East Meets West Foundation Jaundice Conference, a Vietnamese healthcare provider draws their dream phototherapy device with light from the top and bottom.

Using the nuanced information we collected early in the field, Design that Matters created concept phototherapy devices and integrated them into photos of hospital settings we had taken during field research. We then coached a team from our manufacturing and implementation partners to independently conduct Firefly concept evaluations at the East Meets West Foundation jaundice conference, bringing together over 80 doctors and nurses in central Vietnam. In one exercise, doctors and nurses were asked to draw their dream device. A lightbulb went on for the team when some healthcare providers drew phototherapy with light from the top and the bottom. Asking users to think visually was a great way to get at what they really need.

During a visit to our studio, Design that Matters industrial designer Will Harris coaches our Vietnamese manufacturer through a classic exercise embodying abstract qualities using clay and image collage.

We also wanted our manufacturer to understand the role of industrial design in synthesizing so many disparate requirements into a unified form that evokes emotion in the user. During one of our manufacturing team's visits to Boston, our designer, Will Harris, facilitated a classic industrial design exercise. Each team member used magazine images and clay to express abstract concepts like "trustworthy" and "comforting". In this way, the manufacturing team experienced a bit of that magical leap of intuition that leads to an holistic product.

Left: The Design that Matters-made clinical evaluation device. Right: The MTTS-manufactured Firefly device. Right photo courtesy East Meets West Foundation.

We knew we had done our job well when we saw the first Firefly fully created by our manufacturer. It looked identical to the four devices we had built for the clinical evaluation in Vietnam. For those less familiar with the typical product design process, the final product often looks quite different from the first generation of test products because the type of information you steep in as a team during the design process is very difficult to convey later to a manufacturer through reports or meetings. The result is that many manufacturers take a design and dramatically alter it to be easier to manufacture.

To design Firefly, Design that Matters brought our manufacturer along for every step of the process, creating buy-in, preserving the design intent, and passing on HCD skills that have forever changed their approach to product design. The result is Firefly, a device that MTTS considers to be their flagship product, giving them entry into new countries and rural-level hospitals to save many more babies. MTTS has since hired their own industrial designer and is already using HCD to design new products for infants with respiratory distress and hypothermia.

_____________________________________

This "Design Experience that Matters" series is provided courtesy of Timothy Prestero and the team at Design that Matters (DtM). As a nonprofit, DtM collaborates with leading social entrepreneurs and hundreds of volunteers to design new medical technologies for the poor in developing countries. DtM's Firefly infant phototherapy device is treating thousands of newborns in 21 counties from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. In 2012, DtM was named the winner of the National Design Award.

This Danish mid century bar cart, made from Brazilian rosewood, measures 25" long x 17.5" wide x 22" tall.

The top, which has raised edges, doubles as a removable serving tray.

The bottom tier features three plastic bottle holders.

Mounted on four original castors.

_________________

These "Mid Century Modern Find of the Week" posts are provided courtesy of Mid Century Møbler, which specializes in importing vintage Danish Modern and authentic Mid Century furniture from the 1950s and 1960s.

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:

Spiraling out of control: how a playfully modern spiral building in Venezuela became a notorious political prison and a symbol of national decay.

Ancient traditional trades in northern Alaska that are being threatened by climate change.

I still don't get it.

Seattle Design Festival questions the idea of power.

Some of the finalists for 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year, produced by the Natural History Museum, London. Full results come out at the end of October.

Announcing the 2017 Rhizome Microgrant Awardees.

The "Voice of North Korea" wears pink. A lot.

This week in problematic mascot design...

Sarcastic Rover.

The good, bad and ugly of shopping cart returns. (via Boing Boing)

Hot Tip: Discover more blazin' hot Internet finds on our Twitter and Instagram pages.

Furniture

This is a good, substantive watch for aspiring furniture designer/builders. Here Jay Bates meticulously walks you through the build of an "angled half-lap three tier shelf," explaining both his design choices and his fabrication methods:

Bob Clagett builds a corner desk and monitor riser for his office:

Production Efficiency

Matthias Wandel comes up with a crazy series of MacGyver-like hacks while simplifying the production of baseboard molding:

Frank Howarth figures out the most efficient way to create and install lots of French cleats for his in-progress pantry design:

Organization

Ben from HomeMade Modern designs functional built-ins for a laundry room:

April Wilkerson improvises a series of organizing/storage solutions for an outdoor shed:

Just Plain Nifty

La Fabrique DIY shows off their old-school mechanical screwdriver:

Laura Kampf creates a height-adjustable dual shelf, fashioning the hardware herself:

The London Design Festival kicks off this weekend, bringing hundreds of design events to the city of London with it. The difficulty of narrowing down your schedule goes without saying, especially when each exhibition has so much to offer. That's where we're here to help—we've created this insider's guide full of our favorite exhibits, workshops, launches and events to help as you navigate your way through the maze of well-designed things.

Material of the Year

This new exhibition was created to celebrate and explore the materials with the biggest impact on global design today. The first selected material? Jesmonite®!

Design Frontiers 

Design Frontiers will highlight the thinking and working practices of 30 leading designers from around the world, ranging in fields from automotive design to fashion design. A highlight of the exhibition will be the launch of nolii, a lifestyle-led tech brand co-founded by LAYER's Benjamin Hubert and tech entrepreneur Asad Hamir.

Plan your visit to Somerset House here. 

Enlightened Design II

Held in The Crypt Gallery of St Pancras Parish Church, Enlightened Design II will feature lighting designs by various Dutch designers that light the way as you walk through the spooky halls of the old church. The name of the exhibition is almost ironic.

designjunction

Here's what's on at this year's designjunction, home of all things spatial design. There's a lot to experience here, so we suggest getting tickets before it's too late.

Restoration Station x Yinka Ilori

This exhibition is an exciting collaboration between non-profit social enterprise Restoration Station and designer Yinka Ilori. Shoreditch-based Restoration Station runs workshops for people in recovery, teaching them skills in furniture restoration. Ilori will work with the program's participants to restore pieces of furniture in line with his signature aesthetic.

Country Showcases and Galleries at London Design Fair

The London Design Fair features booths organized by country, making it difficult and slightly intimidating to choose a favorite. We have our eyes on Portugal, Finland and the Netherlands, but the Netherlands is in the lead simply because their show's name is Dutch Stuff.

Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion

It's no secret Cristóbal Balenciaga was a master of couture and helped shape todays fashion industry. This exhibition will feature over 100 of his designs, along with contemporary designers working in the same innovative tradition.

On Repeat

A series of talks, workshops and events focused on manual repetition in the design process held by Universal Design Studio and The Office Group.

Edit '17

Twentyywentyone's exhibition of classic and contemporary designs is sure to reflect a creative mix of materials, construction and form. The show will focus the use of raw materials wood, metal and glass.

Urban Cabin

Architect Sam Jacob and MINI LIVING's Urban Cabin will be one of the Landmark Projects unveiled for the London Design Festival. The ongoing project by MINI explores the future of urban living—tiny spaces. 

Bodo Sperlein x Loewe

Designer Bodo Sperlein has teamed up with Loewe to re-imagine the future of OLED, and we can't wait to check out the sleek design in person.

Es Devlin’s set for Bizet’s Carmen

The British Land Celebration of Design Awards Exhibit 

Past recipients of The British Land Celebration of Design Awards include Zaha Hadid, Marc Newson, Richard Rogers, Paul Smith, Thomas Heatherwick, Ron Arad, Dieter Rams and David Adjaye. The exhibition presented at this year's festival will feature the work of all four 2017 winners—Es Devlin, Paul Priestman, Julian Melchiorri and Margaret Calvert.

There are so many more exhibitions to browse through that we had to omit to maintain our own sanity. Continue planning your schedule here. 

Battle Sports otherwise known as "Battle" is the fastest growing football brand in the US. As such, we are looking to add a talented product designer to our team. We are also open to project work if the fit is right. Obviously project work would not require relocation. We are a young, well funded, aggressive team with demonstrated commercial success. Our products are sold in every major sporting goods retailer and online. Business is projected to double for the third year in a row and we are only limited by the talent on the team.

As we recently learned, much of our planet's supply of drinking water is infested with plastic microfibers. Single-use plastic items like shopping bags and drinking straws are some of the culprits.

To combat the impact of discarded plastic bags on the environment, an Indonesian company called Avani has created a single-use bag you'd swear was plastic—but which is in fact made of Cassava (Yucca), an edible root.

These Bio-Cassava Bags contain zero actual plastic and are made from Cassava starch using a proprietary process. Being 100% bio-based, the bags will break down in a matter of months but, should they find their way into a waterway before then, they're completely safe for animals to consumer, unlike plastic.

Here Cassava founder Kevin Kamala puts his money where his mouth is, literally, by dissolving one of the company's bags in water and drinking it:

The current barrier to mass uptake is that the production process makes Bio-Cassava bags cost twice as much as regular plastic bags. With any luck Avani will be able to draw the interest of additional materials scientists and production experts who can figure out a way to bring the cost down.

Shaving has been around for a long time. In the 4th Century B.C. Alexander the Great, an early proponent of shaving, ordered his troops to do it. Alexander had observed that beards were a martial liability for soldiers; if you didn't remove your own facial hair, your opponent would do it for you—by using your beard to grab your face.

The FabricKeyboard is an experimental project at the intersection between engineering, design, fashion, and music. It is the first, sensor-rich, novel physical interaction medium in the form of fabric piano, developed by using both common and smart textile-based materials. Based on our multi-layer design, each key, the bulk fabric, and its extensions could detect touch, proximity, pressure, stretch, position and coupled electric field simultaneously, resulting in an expressive and deformable musical controller.

What happens when you plug your Prius in? Are you ultimately drawing power from coal, nuclear, wind, biomass? It depends on where you live.

Most of us know that America generates its electricity from a multitude of sources, as shown in this graphic:

However, that pie chart doesn't accurately represent the breakdown in any single state (although Arkansas comes close), because state by state, electricity is generated from a cocktail of up to nine different sources. The Nuclear Energy Institute has posted a chart, current as of 2017, that shows the percentages of each source that each state uses.

The Washington Post has created the following image to give you some idea of the source by region:

Sadly we don't have an information designer on staff, but we took the NEI chart and dropped it into Excel to crunch the numbers a bit. While some of the findings were expected (like West Virginia running almost entirely on coal), some were surprising (Washington D.C. runs almost 100% on natural gas). Here's what we found:

Coal

Top 5

West Virginia - 94.4%
Wyoming - 85.9%
Kentucky - 84.7%
Missouri - 76.8%
North Dakota - 70.8%

Bottom 5

District of Columbia - 0%
Rhode Island - 0%
Vermont - 0%
California - 0.2%
Idaho - 0.4%

Nuclear

Top 5

South Carolina - 57.6%
New Hampshire - 55.9%
Illinois - 52.6%
Connecticut - 45.5%
Maryland - 39.6%

Uses 0%:

Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming

Natural Gas

Top 5

District of Columbia - 99.7%
Rhode Island - 95.6%
Delaware - 92.4%
Mississippi - 79.7%
Nevada - 72.9%

Bottom 5

Vermont - 0.1%
Hawaii - 0.4%
West Virginia - 1.7%
Nebraska - 1.9%
Wyoming - 2.4%

Petroleum

Top 5

Hawaii - 66.6%
Alaska - 14.5%
Massachusetts - 1.3%
Maine - 1%
Delaware - 0.6%

Uses 0%

Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin

Hydro

Top 5

Washington - 68.1%
Idaho - 59%
Oregon - 56.7%
Vermont - 55.6%
South Dakota - 39.9%

Uses 0%

Delaware, District of Columbia, Kansas, Mississippi, New Jersey, Rhode Island

Geothermal

Top 6

Nevada - 9.7%
California - 6.3%
Hawaii - 2.7%
Utah - 1.4%
Idaho - 0.6%
Oregon - 0.3%

Every other state uses 0%!

Solar/PV

Top 9

California - 9.6%
Nevada - 6.4%
Vermont - 4%
Arizona - 3.5%
North Carolina - 2.9%
New Mexico - 2.4%
Utah - 2.3%
Massachusetts - 2.2%
New Jersey - 1.3%

Of the remaining states, these use 1% or less…

Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas

…and these states use 0%:

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming

Wind

Top 5

Iowa - 36.6%
South Dakota - 30.3%
Kansas - 29.6%
Oklahoma - 25.1%
North Dakota - 21.5%

Uses 0%

Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia

Biomass and Other

Top 5

Maine - 27.4%
Vermont - 24.9%
New Hampshire - 9%
Massachusetts - 6.4%
Hawaii - 5.5%

All other states use Biomass at 5% or less. The remaining states us 0%:

District of Columbia, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming

________________________

Here are some things that jumped out at us:

- Every single state uses natural gas.

- Isolated Hawaii is heavily reliant on petroleum.

- Sixteen states don't use petroleum at all.

- Every single state, except three and Washington D.C., use biomass, though in primarily fledgling amounts. That means more states (47) use biomass than nuclear (30), although the gross output is obviously vastly different.

- Solar uptake is shockingly small, with 16 states using 1% or less and 26 states using zero.

If you'd like to see how your own state stacks up, click on over to the NEI chart.

Homeless people need help, and in New York City they are not getting it. Our homeless population has exploded in recent years; last year the number hit a record-breaking 60,000. This has led some business owners in my downtown Manhattan neighborhood to hack their outdoor furniture.

The streets immediately around me have seen steadily-increasing numbers of homeless since NYC Mayor de Blasio replaced Bloomberg in 2014. At night they seek shelter under scaffolding, beneath awnings, in doorways and on benches; virtually any unoccupied horizontal surface is a potential bed.

For the most part they are harmless. Many of them are also visibly mentally unwell. They urinate and defecate near where they sleep—it's a fairly common sight—leading local business owners to shun them. Two nearby restaurants have modified their outdoor benches in the following manner.

Each night after they close, this restaurant lays these rusted rows of pointed teeth across their outdoor benches.

When it's time to open, the restaurant workers remove them...

...and replace them with padded seating.

Further up the block, this other restaurant removes the slats of their cast-iron benches each night.

In the morning, a worker re-installs the slats.

The slats slide into grooves in each side of the bench.

They are registered to the center support with unfastened carriage bolts.

Until the problem of homelessness is addressed, we can expect to see more business owners finding creative ways to make street furniture less hospitable.

To help designers of all levels fine tune their sketching skills, Advanced Design Sketching (in partnership with Autodesk) will be hosting SQ1CON, a two-day conference specifically focused on design sketching. The Advanced Design Sketching organization began as a small summer workshop for a handful of design students, but the students and instructors agreed there should a next step. From there, SQ1CON was born. The event will be held in downtown Chicago at the Motorola Mobility HQ and UIC School of Design on October 6th and 7th.

The conference's name is right in line with the organization's mission to help teach the importance of design sketching in a collaborative environment. SQ1 refers to Square 1, a restarting phase designers are all too familiar with. Instead of only highlighting the beauty of a final sketch or design, Advanced Design Sketching hopes SQ1CON will help attendees embrace failure, encourage process and inspire creativity. 

Sketching workshops will be lead by industry professionals, including our good friends Michael DiTullo and Spencer Nugent. During the workshops, you can expect to focus on:

Rapid Visualization, Visual Communication, Marker Rendering, Understanding Hierarchy, Product Relationship, Sketching Techniques, Speed, Sketch Notes and Storytelling

To get an idea of designers you can expect to interact with at the conference, we've pulled a few videos straight from the Advanced Design Sketching team. In the videos, each designer discusses their relationship with design sketching while showing off their sweet sketching skills:

Interested in attending SQ1CON? Learn more and purchase tickets here.

Nike's Flyknit has become synonymous with the brand, now used in everything from sneakers to sports bras. The knit material is more sustainable than many materials used in footwear and fashion, mainly due to its minimal waste production. But since Flyknit's conception in 2012, Nike has been more focused on silhouette than material development, providing a hole for competitors to fill with a plethora of sustainable options. 

It seems as though a fire has been lit under Nike's butt, as the company just announced its latest sustainable effort, Flyleather. The name Flyleather may sound like a sick biker jacket worn in Grease, but the material is actually a valid alternative to real leather, as it's still made from at least 50% of the real thing.

Nike Flyleather Tennis Classic

Instead of reinventing the wheel entirely, Nike is taking resources they already have access to and putting them to better use through a more sustainable production process. To create Flyleather, Nike collects real leather scraps discarded from regular sneaker production, turns the scraps into fiber and then combines the scraps with a polyester blend using a high-pressure hydro process.

Even though leather is only the 10th most used material by Nike, has the second highest environmental impact for both carbon and water. According to Nike's research, the hybrid material will use 90% less water and the carbon footprint will be 80% lower than traditional full-grain leather. Flyleather will be produced on a roll, which will improve cutting efficiency and further reduce waste. In terms of performance, sneakers made with Flyleather prove to be 40% lighter and five times more durable.

Nike Flyleather Tennis Classic

The first product to feature Flyleather is the Nike Flyleather Tennis Classic. Keeping it simple, the sneaker is all white and steers clear of any crazy design additions. 

In the coming months, Nike will also release Flyleather versions of the Air Force 1, Air Max 90, Cortez, Jordan 1 and an updated Tennis Classic. If you're in the US, you can sign up to win one of the new pairs here.

When looking at the sneakers mentioned above, you can really see what Flyleather is capable of:

Nike Flyleather Jordan 1

Nike Flyleather Jordan 1 toe box detail 

The slight perforated detail of the Flyleather proves that this is a material easily manipulated either digitally or manually with the hydro process. If Flyleather becomes a regularly used material, at the very least, Nike will be able to significantly lower their carbon footprint.

Mattel, Inc. is seeking an experienced and self motivated Project Designer to join its Toy Box product design team. The Toybox Vehicles team focuses on delivering exciting innovative product for a wide range of brands such as Matchbox, Fast and the Furious and Jurassic World. The group is focused on creating new product opportunities for the boy’s division; by understanding the consumer, trends and technology that are then translated into successful product. This involves creating and communicating toy concepts in 2D and/or 3D models to design and marketing management.

For decades we've seen the military develop expensive technology—radar, GPS, microwaves—that trickled down to the consumer sector and became affordable. Now the consumer sector is apparently returning the favor.

The U.S. Navy's Virginia-class submarines are $2.7 billion nuclear-powered fast attack vessels bristling with the latest technology. Old-school periscopes have been ditched in favor of two photonics masts that provide a 360-degree view. To control these masts, a sailor uses a joystick similar to what you'd find in a helicopter.

Note: This is an example of a helicopter control stick, not the actual incumbent design. [Image credit]

A Navy survey seeking pain points turned up complaints about "the controls for the scope," Lt. J.G Kyle Leonard, an assistant weapons officer, told the Virginian-Pilot newspaper. "It's kind of clunky in your hand; it's real heavy."

Lockheed Martin and the Navy put their heads together and came up with an interesting solution: Use off-the-shelf Xbox controllers instead. 

This not only saves money, but vastly reduces the training time:

The Xbox controller is no different than the ones a lot of crew members grew up playing with. Lockheed Martin says the sailors who tested the controller at its lab were intuitively able to figure out how to use it on their own within minutes, compared to hours of training required for the joystick.

The Xbox controller also is significantly cheaper. The company says the photonic mast handgrip and imaging control panel that cost about $38,000 can be replaced with an Xbox controller that typically costs less than $30.

"That joystick is by no means cheap, and it is only designed to fit on a Virginia-class submarine," said Senior Chief Mark Eichenlaub, the John Warner's assistant navigator. "I can go to any video game store and procure an Xbox controller anywhere in the world, so it makes a very easy replacement."