"90°" is a minimalist bike stand designed to display your bike in a unique way.
Reader Submitted: This Minimal Bike Stand Lets You Store Your Bike Indoors or Outdoors in Style
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DIY Gear-Driven Plywood Panel Lift
Here's a great piece of practical prototyping. Frank Howarth is finishing his ceiling with plywood panels, meaning a lift would be handy. Why buy when you can DIY?
We know Howarth as an architect and designer, and here he pulls out the mechanical engineering muscles too.
Here he walks us through the design and execution of this project:
I now want to build one, even though I have zero use for it. There's a name for this disease, yeah?
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Raymond Loewy's Illustrative Chart Showing the Evolution of Form Factors
Raymond Loewy, the father of industrial design, once drew up this nifty chart showing how from factors evolved into the early 20th century:
We know it's hard to see, so let's blow it up a bit:
What I wouldn't give to see him still alive and completing the chart up to the modern day.
Are any of you game to try? And/or do you have ideas for different objects you'd show? If you draw something up, post it in the comments and we'll make you famiss.
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Yo! C77 Sketch: How to Choose the Right Perspective
Beyond having accurate perspective, choosing the right perspective angle can make or break a sketch. In this video I'l show you how you can use perspective to give a convincing sense of scale to the object you are designing.
As always, if you have any questions or comments on the techniques shown, leave them in the comments below. What other techniques would you like to see?
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Reader Submitted: The UKB Chair is LA Inspired but Made Using Traditional Japanese Hand-Cut Joinery
The UKB chair brings traditional Japanese craftsmanship to a relaxed and refined contemporary lifestyle. Its minimalist silhouette and precise alignments are made possible only through the intricacy of hand-cut joinery. The broad radius and clean lines pay homage to Streamline architecture and the sweeping horizontal landscapes of LA, the home of Base 10 Furniture.
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The Resulting Products of MakerBot's NYCxDesign Challenge
To celebrate this year's NYCxDesign, MakerBot hand-picked 17 New York City designers and put them to the test of designing and prototyping an object to improve daily life. The 13 individual designers and 2 design duos were each given a MakerBot Replicator and a few rolls of filament to bring their objects to life in about five weeks. Needless to say, the broad brief yielded extremely diverse results.
The resulting products were put on display at the MakerBot headquarters in downtown Brooklyn. The exhibit and party drew a large crowd, including a panel of esteemed judges (ed. note: Core77 editors were part of the panel) who reviewed the projects and voted on their favorites.
We particularly enjoyed this challenge because in a sea of shiny, completed furniture and home object exhibitions during design week, this showcase instead put emphasis on makers and their varying design processes. Below are images of every product that came out of the competition, accompanied by descriptions written by each designer themselves. We've indicated before the description if the project received an award.
Best Overall Design (Grand Prize): The oVo Clip-on Wheels by Juhi Solanki is a durable clip and wheel assembly that makes moving and displaying big foam-core boards easy. The clip is designed to use the high tension PLA offers, while printed perpendicular to the force vector so that layer lines support maximum durability. The wheels feature print-in-place mechanics and are printed as a single piece. 
Best Design for 3D Printing: The MUJI pen holder by James Connors takes excess hex wrenches and a 3D printed base, ring, and pen-caps to create a simple storage system for the ever popular sketch and design tool. The pen cap fits neatly around a finger for fidget-spinning when deep in a brainstorm, and different colored caps make it easier to identify colors. 
Most Original Design: The Dusptpan & Brush Reimagined by Logan Good and Alyssa Burris is an ergonomic tool that uses a unique 3D printed geometry to create bristles fixed directly to the brush. Both pieces snap neatly into one another, and the combination of the rethought geometry and mechanics leave less "dirt lines" behind than traditional versions. 
Best Iterative Design Story: The BLADESNAP by Yuval Philipson is a fully functional 3D printed safety utility knife. It combines a clamshell assembly, bolt, and safety guard with a common blade and spring from a clicking pen. The result is a simple, mass producable ergonomic knife that can dramatically reduce jobsite injuries and increase the efficiency of its users. 
The Cup With a Hole Through It by Kyle Laidlaw is a scalable home storage system that neatly segments tools that are stored upright, while giving a horizontal slot for objects in use that may need time to dry. Perfect for the kitchen or bathroom, this system features a clever texture optomized for 3D printing that hides defects and is easy to clean and grip while wet. 
The Flyer Birdhouse by Nicholas Baker is designed to fit the standard wooden utility poles that host equipment in urban environments, and it gives birds a safe place to nest while brightening the day of neighbors and passers-by. It can attached with screws, nails, or zip ties and can easily be shared with makers to install in cities around the world. 
The Trouble Light by Dan Grossman is a modular work lamp that uses uniquely 3D printable geometries for the shade and is modular to either hang or stand directly on your workspace. It features snap fits and different shades and is sized to receive standard light sockets.
The Portable Photobooth by Deren Guler makes use of the common popsocket phone accessory to give users a perfect stand for taking top-down pictures. The frame lightweight and portable, and stable enough for different mobile phones, making it easy to capture the sketches and projects that are happening right on your desktop. 
The Fire Escape Bird House by James Krause creates ideal conditions for nesting birds, dissuading them from creating fire hazards under AC units or along fire escapes. It features a universal railing hook, a perch, and a removable base with a drain hole for easy cleaning. 
The Hndle by Pedro Mendez is a portable subway handle that allows users to grip poles at various heights and positions without touching them, and makes accessing rarely used ceiling rails even easier. It snaps neatly into itself for portable storage, and dramatically reduces the risk of infection from some of the most contagious objects in the city. 
The Great American Clip Hanger (GACH) by Rama Chorpash uses seven parts that snap together to combine standard wire hangers into durable, reusable goods that can accommodate heavier jackets or pants and even strap dresses. The GACH addresses the 3.5 billion hangers a year that go into landfills, and provides a recycling solution where typical community and commercial programs reject them because of problems the risk they pose to machinery or workers. 
The Primitive Keychains by JungSoo Park and Adam Wrigley are embedded with magents during the 3D printing process to create easily storable keychains. They're especially useful in NYC where most apartments have metal doors, and cleverly conceal the magnets with no seams or assembly required. 
The Pixel Light by Joseph Morris is a small networked LED meant to replace the age-old reminder technique of a string tied around the finger. It works in series with other Pixel Lights, so that by touching one off or on, you control the entire group. 
The Super Hooks Adapter and Socket by Lizz Hill takes the universally available "super hook" and converts it into a decorative, functional, weight-bearing hook; the perfect design hack for NYC apartment dwellers — no tools required. The adaptor gives stability and tension against the wall, while the universal socket can be modified to fit any decorative or functional wall-mounted device. 
The 3DBK Wall Organizer by Will Haude is a universal hold-it-all storage system to keep all of your pocket stuff in one place. It features an easily installable cleat, an acoustic amplifier for your phone, slots to hold the classic 3DBK bungee carabiners, and is modular to support hooks or trays. Which product is your favorite? Do you agree or disagree with the results?
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Explaining the Design of the Commemorative Trump/Kim Coin
Now that talking about Meghan Markle's dress has run out of steam, the news is focusing on the commemorative coin produced by the White House Communications Agency in anticipation of peace talks between the U.S. and North Korean leaders. Critics say the coin is both premature and in bad taste. We're not interested in the politics, but we're very interested in the design of this coin, so here we'll break it down.
For the numismatically challenged, the coin might simply appear to be two equal men with great haircuts looking at each other. But by looking deeper we can uncover the hidden design elements.
There are obvious nods here to some of these fellows' favorite things.
*Scallops: This represents the President's favorite dish at Red Lobster, the Scallops Scampi. You may be wondering why there are 26 scallops around the perimeter of the coin, when everyone knows you only get seven scallops per order. The President's favorite tactic is to ask for three orders, finish the first two orders, eat five scallops from the third order, then send the rest of the third order back, saying it tastes funny and that he wants a fresh replacement. Then they bring out a whole new third order, so he gets another seven scallops on top of the five he already ate. That's 26 scallops!
There are also some nods to business matters:
There's also one typesetting error.
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Design Job: Develop Global Home & Health Products as an Industrial Designer at Helen of Troy
This is a global position supporting all regions of the organization. Industrial Design plays a key role in strategic pipeline definition, consumer insight research and creative direction, management and execution of all new product launch initiatives.
View the full design job here↧
The CLiP System for Carrying Small Objects and Keeping Them Organized
This is one of those "not for me, but I can see how this is useful" products. The CLiP System, designed by South-Carolina-based design/engineering firm Lever Gear, was created for those who need to carry small items around--flash drives, meds, SD cards, et cetera--and compensates for the inherently poor UX that comes with trying to access tiny objects. Take a look:
The flat form factor seems so much more user-friendly than the standard cylinder. I also like the carabiner functionality, the removable belt clip and particularly the flashlight on the BitLight version. Mike Scully, the industrial designer and mechanical engineer behind Lever Gear, appears to have really thought this object through.
I'm often interested in where people's ideas come from, and the genesis of this project is printed on its Kickstarter page:
A few years ago, Lever Gear founder, Mike Scully, injured his back. It was not good. Around that time he also had his teeth straightened, which was good, except he now got spinach stuck in his teeth at every meal. (And he doesn't eat much spinach.) Those two problems meant he was carrying around small pills and toothpicks all day. Not a big deal except the toothpicks ended up covered in pocket lint and the pills sometimes went through the wash.
As fate would have it, he had been working on an idea for an EDC pocket screwdriver that stored bits in a slide out drawer. It dawned on him that he could store any small items in his pocket driver. Or was it that he could add a hex bit socket to his pillbox? Either way, anytime he can combine tools to carry less, he's all for it.
That's when the real work began. Now that we had a product concept, we had even more questions. How could we add even more functionality? How could we make it easy to carry? What other tools could we create using the same form and even the same parts? What accessories can we create to enhance the design?
We spent nearly two years in development because we were designing a system of tools. In fact, the BitVault and BitLight are just the beginning of the story. With your help, we can write the rest.
The campaign has already been successfully funded, with $24,967 in pledges on a $16,000 goal. At press time there were still 36 days left to pledge.
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Steven M. Johnson's Bizarre Invention #108: New Vista Bikes
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Tools & Craft # 96: Plumier, Crankshaft Design, And How We Waste Time at TFWW
I got called to the back of the shop a few days ago where some of my colleagues were having a heated discussion about crankshafts. They were perusing a copy of Charles Plumier's 1701 L'Art De Tourner, Ou De Faire En Perfection Toutes Sortes d'Ouvrages Au Tour and one wag noticed that all the crankshafts in the pictures weren't connected to either a flywheel or a screw by a straight rod, like in a steam engine, but a "U" shaped arm instead. The question that they were asking me was why, I had no idea, and we spent most of the afternoon tossing theories around and making cryptic drawings on the whiteboard to explain what we were talking about.
The following theories were proposed:
- It looks more elegant - maybe.
- It makes for a stronger casting - not in 1703 - the arms were forged - "S" casting spokes came later.
- It was easier to turn because the U protected your arm - maybe but isn't a wood disk easier to make and cheaper?
- The spring action made the handle more forgiving - I'll buy that.
- The spring action in the "U" shape acts like a mini transmission making for smoother and easier starts and stops and in the case of a screw allows for smoother action if there are variable amounts of resistance when turning the screw. This is the reason I like the best - solid engineering.
Tim said it best, "It's a sweeter action," and he's right. That a vast number of foot and hand powered crankshafts are shaped this way means that the "U" design was an accepted standard form of construction. Individual craftsman might not have understood the engineering of springs and inertia, or the nuances of ergonomics, but taken as a package, as a group, the design must have been thought "sweeter" or they would have not wasted the extra material.
I am not aware of any historical information on why cranks should look like this, but I haven't looked yet either - it might be out there staring me in the face. I am curious if you can think of any other reasons to make a crankshaft in this form, or if you know of any documentation. But for now at least - fun is over - it's time to get back to work.
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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.
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Reader Submitted: The Paradiddle Drumming Prosthetic Gives Drum Roll Control Back to Amputees
Paradiddle, named for an essential rudiment of drum beats, is an open-source 3D-printed upper-extremity prosthetic designed specifically for an amputee drummer. The designer, Dominic Siguang Ma, worked with renowned amputee drummer, Greg Anton, to develop unique features that allow the drummer to play more intuitively and comfortably.
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Dressing Up Wooden Objects with Pyrography
Pyrography is the art of "drawing" on wood using a stylus with an electrically-heated tip. For those that have mastered drawing in ink and are seeking another way to make indelible marks, pyrography is a good way to add visual interest to plain surfaces. It's something like creating tattoos on wood rather than flesh.
It's a little less convenient than working on paper in that it must be done in a ventilated area and requires power, but the aesthetic effect, properly done, seems well worth the effort. I also like the natural imprecision conferred by handwork, as opposed to the machine-based perfection of laser burning.
By Woodewytch
By Woodewytch
By Woodewytch
If you're interested in learning more, there's some great info on how to get started with pyrography on the website of artist Lora S. Irish. She covers the different types of woodburning implements, how different tips yield different patterns, simple practice patterns and more.
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Design Job: Join Medline Industries' Dynamic In-House Creative Team as a Senior Packaging Designer
Medline is looking for a standout Senior Designer to add to our dynamic and high functioning in-house creative team. As a Senior Designer on our team, you will be asked to serve many product divisions within the organization to build and promote brands in both the B2B and B2C markets.
View the full design job here↧
Custom Battery Charging Station Design/Build
Never mind what you can do for clients--the biggest perk of having an ID background is that you can design and build cool stuff for yourself, customized to your idiosyncrasies. Here industrial designer Eric Strebel needs a charging station to fit his specific workflow. With a little sci-fi inspiration, he turns to a variety of power tools and reaches into his bag of efficiency tricks to craft exactly what he needs.
"It helps me organize all my batteries for my cameras, scales, mice, keyboards, gimbals, and miscellaneous chargers in one spot," Strebel writes. "It also is a cell phone and tablet holder/charger. Follow the journey from sketch through build where I use MDF, hardboard, existing Decora outlets and an old server power connector to build a Sci-Fi-spaceship-inspired battery station complete with vinyl graphics for my shop."
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Kiefer's DIY "Parallelgo" Clamp Design
A Canadian craftsman named Kiefer, now retired, reports that he spends his days having "a great time in my little shop building boxes and all kinds of tools of my own invention." One such tool he came up with is this unusual benchtop clamp:
"I can use this for bringing a box corner or mitre joint to square, or bring a frame with odd angles into the proper angle alignment, and also flatten out a panel made from several boards by manipulating the screws," he writes.
The headstock has a foot that can swivel to give the clamp more stability and I also made some adaptor pads that slide onto the clamping pads which can be used to install other attachments.
The screw handles are wood wrapped with leather strips, [providing a] good and soft grip, and the screws are threaded and glued into the handle and counterlocked with a brass fitting.
The raster mechanism is very simple and to close the clamp the tail stock slides making a clacking sound like a toy and to open it the little lever releases the lock and it slides open.
"Here is a pic of how I made the raster bars. I cut a bunch of pieces and glued them onto 1/4" MDF backer aligning them with a straight piece of hardwood and checking for square as I went." It will even hold my wife's tablet or iPhone, and is gentle enough to hold an ornament with the leather faced clamping pads. There are already other uses that I will explore when I have a set of these built.
You can check out more of Kiefer's projects here.
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On the Floor with Core: Sight Unseen Offsite 2018's 201 Mulberry Location
Sight Unseen Offsite's main location at 201 Mulberry may have downsized compared to last year, but the quality of works shown at the crowd favorite show remained high. This year's show was heavily focused on unexpected collaborations, including the mini show-within-a-show Field Studies, which paired celebrities with designers to create surprising results. Think a mirror designed by Bower and Seth Rogan and a piano designed Wall for Apricots and Jason Schwartzman. Other collaborations shown include furniture by Kim Markel and Glossier, a room designed by Levi's Made and Crafted in partnership with various designers, Norway x New York and Hotel Tonight x Steven Bukowski and Hannah Bigeleisen.
Field Studies - Harry Nuriev x Liam Gillick
Field Studies brings together the minds of designers with well-known figures of various creative fields, some of whom have never designed objects before. Liquid Collusion is a series of milti-colored floor lamps by Harry Nuriev and artist Liam Gillick who is known for his glass panels.
Photo credit: Dave Pinter
Field Studies - Jason Schwartzman x Wall for Apricots
Wall for Apricots and Schwartzman took a 1970s Hohner Clavinet Pianer keyboard and built a console around it accompanied by a matching stool to create Marzipan Pianette. Apparently moments before we arrived at the show, Schwartzman was tuning the instrument himself!
Photo credit: Dave Pinter
Field Studies - Kelly Behun x Narciso Rodriguez
pnKRck Armchair is a lounge chair meant to position the sitter in an unusual, unfamiliar position.
Photo credit: Dave Pinter
Field Studies - Christopher Stuart x Julia Dault
Talk about sculptural lighting. The Oracle's peeled-back inner circle emits a slight glow, bringing warmth even to the big hall it was placed in.
Field Studies - Aimee Song x Kelly Wearstler
This little guy is named Rebelle Ottoman.
Photo credit: Charlie Schuck
Field Studies - Home Studios x Natasha Royt
HW10 Valet is a modern take on the traditional suit valet. We dig the hanger.
Photo credit: Charlie Schuck
Field Studies - Ladies & Gentlemen Studio x Kaarem
SAP Tall Vase No. 1 and SAP Ikebana Vase No. 1 are more complicated than they appear.
Photo credit: Dave Pinter
Field Studies - Ladies & Gentlemen Studio x Kaarem
The vases get their color from swatches of Kaarem fabrics , which have been encapsulated in resin by Ladies & Gentlemen Studio.
Photo credit: Dave Pinter
Field Studies - Thaddeus Wolfe x Ignacio Mattos
The Kita Cake Stand is made from hand-blown glass.
Photo credit: Dave Pinter
Field Studies - Tyler Hays x Andrew Kuo
This wall hanging, titled 4 Minutes Less Than An Hour, is actually a handmade puzzle by BDDW. The artwork was provided by Andrew Kuo.
Photo credit: Dave Pinter
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This Engineer Commutes From NJ to Manhattan by Self-Built, Self-Powered Folding Boat and Folding Bicycle
The most dashing thing I'd ever read about Raymond Loewy is that he used to commute, from his manse in Long Island to Manhattan, via speedboat. "…Often with a stiff cocktail in one hand," if memory serves.
Tom Lutz isn't Raymond Loewy, but the Google engineer also commutes to Manhattan by rather unusual means. Lutz lives in Leonia, New Jersey, and works at Google's Manhattan offices in Chelsea. To connect the two dots, Lutz leaves his driveway in Leonia on a Brompton bicycle--towing a folding boat that he built with his son.
Watch the procedure:
I was curious about the boat and looked it up. It's called the Fliptail Collapsible Dinghy, and building one is not for the faint of heart; the plans, which can be purchased here, contain some 100 pages.
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Check Out These Demonstrations of LeapMotion's AR-Based "Virtual Wearables"
What will AR interfaces look like? Well, if you're willing to wear Leap Motion's "Project North Star" headset, which looks like this…
…the interfaces might look like this:
The big floppy buttons are interesting. It's still early days, but it seems smaller, more precise buttons probably aren't in the offing for AR just yet. Which is fine by me; after ten years of using an iPhone, I still can't type well on the damn thing. Last year a client texted me a thank-you. Responding, I meant to type "anytime" and my clumsy button-presses autocorrected as "snuggles." True story.
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Design Job: Be Curious, Confident and Creatively Bold as This Way Up's Design Director
If you are passionate about design, determined to make a real difference, extremely talented and bursting with great ideas, then come and join our rapidly growing design agency. We are looking for senior creatives who can lead projects, strive for that big ideas.
View the full design job here↧
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