Some of us are members of the upright brigade, some of us slouch, some of us slump, some of us go all out and sprawl. When you think about it, the act of sitting isn't a one-way-fits-all kind of thing. Success is like that too. We experience it and achieve it and recognize it differently.

These past couple of weeks, you all shared your #secret2success with such great tweets and tips that help you achieve success in your workday that it was hard to select only one winner.

We heard some great thoughts about inspiration...

@kewlrats I always start my day with inspiration, checking my RSS feed for tech & media news each morning

Pets—

@greg_whipsaw Playing with my dog everyday at lunch provides great perspective & empathy.

Sleep—

@MissAlixandra Being strategically (1 hr) sleep deprived. It's the key to maintaining "on point" creative & cognitive equilibrium!

And lots of thoughts about coffee...

@MichaelBosch adding a coffee maker within arm's length of my desk...

@RealizeDesign #secret2success - Using my Presso espresso machine. It is more interacting with the product than the coffee which motivates me.

@Ohmygog Nice hair and good coffee

A few really stood out for us—

@johnstonwade Surround yourself with brilliant talented people, collaborate, share the credit, and no fear of failure.

@jasonbanks Work smarter, not longer, be empathetic, and never sweat the small things.

But, after a sleepless night, coffee-filled morning with our dogs, we were able to select the first winning tweet for the Secret to Your Success campaign:

@ID_Johnathan Realize that you don't know everything and surround yourself with amazing people to fill those gaps

John Turner, a student currently working on a B.S. in Industrial Design at Arizona State University, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts supplied this tweet, which not only crystallized our thinking around success, but also expressed a terrific perspective for a young designer on his way to a bright future. And, now he'll be able to sit how he wants with his new Generation Chair from the Knoll family of work chairs that promotes comfort and freedom of movement, supporting the range of postures that address a variety of workstyles like his!

Congratulations, John!

And, keep those new ideas and insights coming for our next selection on October 4!

Reporting by Carly Ayres, RISD Industrial Design ’13; photos by Sarah Pease, RISD Furniture Design ’13.

With the premise, "you have to start somewhere," t=0 marked the beginning of a new tradition at MIT and the starting point for students to come together and create new technological ventures. A two-day festival aimed at bringing together everyone from engineers and designers to hackers and makers, t=0 was a celebration of entrepreneurship and innovation in a learning environment.

Entering the Johnson Ice Rink where the event was held, participants were instantly greeted by an enormous bouncy castle as well as modern white furniture emitting blue light. "We wanted the layout to feel like a festival. Not like a conference," Elliot Cohen (MIT MBA ’15) explained, relating how he, along with a small staff from the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, chose to plan the event. "So we were really careful, all the terminology we used was like that of a festival." Hence the 'lineup' of Mitch Kapor, Brad Feld, Rich Miner, and other 'artists.' The terminology and decor, combined with an endless supply of complimentary Red Bull, worked to create a room of high energy that would act as a catalyst for entrepreneurship amongst attendees.

A group of eager entrepreneurs in the Startup Lab

Speaker Drew
Volpe, co-founder & CTO at Locately

The energy was palpable in the Startup Lab, which was full of groups that had broken off following the presentations Friday night where each student pitched his or her idea. Depending on what the group needed—designers, coders, etc.—participants would join up and start hacking at the various steps needed to bring the project to fruition. MIT Mentors floated from table to table, discussing business plans and various obstacles the groups might face further down the road.

The Startup Lab ran throughout the day in that format, while various 'artists' took the stage to speak on their experiences. Workshops ran simultaneously in another corner of the rink, which included everything from sequencing your own DNA to sketching to communicate thoughts and ideas. The "Creating an Instrument" workshop run by Jason Sanford and Zach Katz showed participants how to design instruments to produce music via hobby electronics and a hex-inverter chip.

Speaker Andrew Cove, founder of Quirk.

The premise of the 1984 cult classic The Last Starfighter was that an alien race used an arcade game to locate the planet's best starship fighter pilot. Top-scoring teenager Alex Rogan is whisked away to fight interstellar battles based on his superior hand-eye coordination. Sounds ridiculous...until you see today's teenagers playing X-Boxes, then see them sitting in trailers in Nevada and remotely manipulating drones in Afghanistan.

In the UK, Kingston University design student Lee Wei Chen found himself playing a lot of videogames; but absent any ambition to become a drone pilot (or the Post-Last Starfighter), he came to the conclusion that "the skills I had developed in the virtual world were useless in the real world. I wanted to make them useful."

Chen subsequently devised a concept for a combination washing machine/arcade game:

The machine looks like an arcade style video console - but the bottom half of the unit is a washing machine, with the components' circuitry linked together. Therefore, the washing cycle is dependent on the success of the person playing the game, meaning that if they struggle, extra coins are needed to make sure the washing cycle is completed.

You could argue the concept is a bit more contrived than actually useful, but it does raise the question: Is it possible to convert the countless hours spent by youth playing videogames into actual skills besides flying drones? And if so, don't we have a potentially exciting and addictive training tool on our hands?

"Take it from me, 'Call of Duty' is a waste of time."

The Oregon Manifest kicks off tomorrow night—Friday, September 23—and we're on the ground in Portland to cover all of the proceedings. We'll be on the scene for the entire thing, but the weekend is also packed with plenty of events for fans, followers and cycle enthusiasts of all stripes, so if you're in or near Portland this weekend, be sure to stop by and say hi.

The festivities start with the unveiling of the field test route and the bikes themselves—including the three well-documented creative collaborations—at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (at 1241 Northwest Johnson Street) from 7–10 PM.

Join us in the PNCA Commons as we grandly unveil the entries in the Constructor's Design Challenge to design and cycling fans. Each entry and its builder and/or team will be here, showing off their final design. Come admire the entries, meet the makers, and perhaps discover the next-wave utility bike!

In fact, each of the three design/build teams gave us a sneak peek at the final results of their collaboration, pictured below, in yesterday's final diary entries...

Fuseproject × SyCip

As for the most important question: there will indeed be free beer, courtesy of Hopworks Urban Brewery... though the teams themselves would be wise to save the celebration until after the race, not least because they're expected to start the field test at 8AM on Saturday.

The moment of truth! 40 entry bikes and the three Creative Collaboration bikes and riders will be whisked off to the field test start point 50+ miles from Portland, and make their way back to the finish line at Chris King Components Headquarters. Each bike and rider must complete the on-road/off-road course and pass through checkpoints where we'll test mandatory features outlined in the design criteria. The Field Test requires riders to keep a brisk pace that will stress their bikes, and demands a well-crafted, expertly assembled rig in order to complete the route in good time. Our judges will be on the course, sizing up true functionality on the road.

Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Designer: aruliden, Bernhardt Design, The School at Columbia University
Location: New York, New York, USA
Category: Notable for Design Education Initiatives
Award: Notable

Tools At Schools

Tools at Schools was an initiative to teach eighth graders the value of design as a problem solving tool at The School at Columbia University. The students were immersed in the entire design process, from research to ideation to 3D modeling and ultimately launch.

The brief we created was to demonstrate to 14 year-olds that everything around us is designed, and allow them to understand the value of design by merging math, science and art to create valuable end products that solve for something. Our main focus when approaching the curriculum for this class was to emphasize the PROCESS of design and the methodology of design thinking, rather than the end product. We were fully immersed with the students on a weekly basis over the course of six months to ensure that for every problem they identified they also fully though-out a design solution. The students were also engaged with us, and each other, out of the classroom via their social network to maintain a continuously collaborative dialogue throughout the experience.

To be successful, the class needed to be as applicable to the real world as possible. So we started with something familiar. We asked the students to look to their everyday classroom environment as a launching pad for their ideas, and to conceive the classroom of the future. Furthermore, we asked American manufacturing company, Bernhardt Design, to partner with us in this effort and actually create prototypes to make the process real.

As a result, the students were fully immersed in the entire product development process, from research and ideation to 3D modeling and final prototypes. In the end, they utilized their thought process and problem-solving skills to create valuable and functional classroom products while clearly articulating the problems they were solving.

Core77: How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

aruliden: We received an email from Core77 to tune in, and were like "HOLY SH#%@%#T! We gotta tell the kids!" Then we watched the results live as an office.

What's the latest news or development with your project?

We're doing the whole process over again, but this time with the faculty. We will be injecting innovation into The School at Columbia University's professional development program by asking them to rethink how they do EVERYTHING in the classroom. From snacks to homework to recess, we will re-imagine the school of today.

What is 1 quick anecdote about your project?

We often dismiss the importance of the locker in a school environment. We learned that instead "the locker is like your bedroom for the year."

Read on for full details on the project and jury comments.

The Prouvé RAW collection by G-Star for Vitra made it's US debut during New York Fashion Week at Vitra's showroom in the Meatpacking District. Looking something like a designer skate park, the pieces are presented museum-style mounted to angled surfaces which elevate the furniture to eye height allowing visitors to get up close and appreciate construction details that would otherwise easily be missed.

G-Star's contemporary update to seventeen Jean Prouvé classics launched earlier this year at Art Basel and while we're the first to be skeptical when a fashion company takes on furniture, this collection plays to the strengths of both brands and is an extremely well executed tribute the French designer's legacy. Nine pieces from the collection are available for pre-order in the States, and will go on sale late October.

At this year's IDSA International conference we not only got to enjoy the lineup of speakers, but we also engaged with the great community of beautiful New Orleans. On our way back from a muffuletta lunch at Central Grocery, we came across something that was "more than meets the eye."

Check out some more highlights of our trip including pics from the Core77 + 3dvia party after the jump.

Live music from the Glen David Andrews Band at the Core77 + 3dvia party!

I was just looking through Emma's Designblogg at some photos of her recent Helsinki trip, and came across the photo above, which appears to be a bathroom in the designey Hotel Klaus K's nightclub.

I love the forced perspective of the multilevel fluorescent bulbs and their contrast against the blackness of the space. And while I can't speak with authority on what the exact design inspiration was, the room will undoubtedly remind Star Wars fans of something....

We couldn't resist stopping by CutLaserCut to check out a small exhibition of new laser cut projects. Clearly trying to get in on the LDF'11 action to show of their skills to prospective designerly clients, the small laser cutting outfit have put on a rather impressive display in their little foyer.

These dangerous looking heels are by London-based fashion design Char Har Lee, laser cut from acrylic, stainless steel and leather.

Food design outfit Astarism have been using the services at CutLaserCut to burn exceedingly delicate patterns into food and garnish, including poppadoms and banana leaves.

An international technology development firm called Pegasus Global Holdings has announced they'll build an entire city, which may occupy up to 20 square miles in the New Mexico desert, that will have everything a city does—except actual people living there. It will be known as The Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation, and will be constructed purely to conduct infrastructure experiments that would be too disruptive to pull off in an actual city.

The Center will resemble a mid-sized American city, including urban canyons, suburban neighborhoods, rural communities and distant localities. It will offer the only of its kind opportunity to replicate the real-world challenges of upgrading existing city infrastructure to that of a 21st Century smart city, operating within a green economy.

...The Center will allow private companies, not for profits, educational institutions and government agencies to test in a unique facility with real world infrastructure, allowing them to better understand the cost and potential limitations of new technologies prior to introduction."

Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Designer: Brooklyn Workshop - Alon Karpman
Location: Brooklyn, New York, USA
Category: Transportation
Award: Professional Notable

Skatecycle

Skatecycle - a hubless self-propelled urban riding machine. Constructed with a solid aluminum frame, ABS composite body parts and polyurethane wheels, the Skatecycle combines snake-like movements with the carving action of a snowboard - all on a flat surface.

As a kid, I started sketching out this concept. I was always fascinated with hubless wheel technology, I just didn't see anything that actually made real use of it. When I began working on the Skatecycle, I wanted to make sure that the final product would be what I envisioned over 20 years ago as a kid making sketches in my notebook.

The idea for the Skatecycle took concrete shape when I moved to New York from Los Angeles and immediately missed the easy access to ski resorts that he enjoyed out west. I wasn't happy working at my job at the time, and was excited enough about it to leave my job to pursue its production. With the Skatecycle, you don't need a hill, you don't need a half pipe, you don't need anything. You can just swerve and carve, and get that same thrill from the slopes all year round. The Skatecycle's 9" donut-hole wheels enable rides with power, quickness, and a small (2') turning radius. The rider stands sideways, while maneuvering his or her feet and upper body to propel forward and "carve" deeply over flat surfaces, much like a snowboarder on a slope.

Core77: How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

By checking the website every 2 seconds. The "Notify Me" option was simply not good enough. But all that hard work paid off. Winning notable entry is a real honor considering the amazing entry that won the category. Viewing distinguished judges discussing and analyzing the merits of the winning products is an amazing and novel aspect to the award. On a personal level it was great to be recognized by Core77, a site that I have been a loyal reader of for many years and draw inspiration from often.

Core77: What's the latest news or development with your project?

Finalized deals with several international distributors. Germany, Australia, Benelux region, Poland, Czech and Slovak Republic, and Russia. So hopefully we will see world domination shortly and I will be able to afford to pay for the subway and stop riding this stupid thing.

What is 1 quick anecdote about your project?

After the first prototype a large and famous design firm licensed the product for further development. I didn't realize that a dream come true could make me so miserable. There was a lot to do and they were taking it in a different direction than I envisioned. Being that they were the professionals, and I was just the guy with the idea, they didn't even take my calls. After three years of holding the license for development and not coming up with anything viable, they gave up on it. I think that without passion, excitement and a clear vision, any project can die. It taught me a valuable lesson. Many large companies quantify ideas by setting a monetary value to the project and lose focus of the initial vision. Money is not what is unique. There are many companies and people with money. It is the idea and the willingness to innovate that ultimately has value and leads to a better chance for success.

Read on for full details on the project and jury comments.

Planner
Vitsoe
New York, NY

We meet fascinating people, visit interesting spaces and help improve the quality of their lives. We do this by planning their furniture intelligently.

If this appeals to you, please read on.

We wish to recruit a creative, problem-solving, articulate and good-humored person to join our planning team at our shop in New York City.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

Last year we showed you Urbancase's nifty Ledge, and this morning I came across another nice piece from the Seattle-based furniture maker with a talent for the simple-and-beautiful: Their sweet Sidebar, designed by founder Darin Montgomery and designer Trey Jones.

The leftmost part of the hand-built cabinet slides to the side, revealing glassware shelves and a bin for booze bottles. Additional storage is found on the right side, behind the drop-front door and pull-out drawer below it.

Alas, I'm apparently not the only one digging this walnut beauty; the darn thing is currently sold out.

The New Museum and MakerBot are joining forces for a competition to "showcase the endless possibilities" of the latter company's flagship open-source 3D printer, the Thing-O-Matic. They're inviting "the entire creative community" to come up with a design within the broad theme of "derivation":

Embodying the New Museum's mission of "New Art, New Ideas," this interactive and experiential Challenge aims to push the concept of the "derivative," by improving on or personalizing established design conventions. From the banal toothbrush to complex bicycle gears, how can 3D printing help to develop the world around us?

The winning designer will score a New Museum Deluxe membership ($400 value) and a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic Kit ($1299 value). The deadline for submissions is October 31; more details available here.

From left to right: Yancey Strickler, Tad Toulis (moderator), Scott Wilson, Tom Gerhardt and Ben Kaufman

The second day of keynotes at the 2011 IDSA International conference in New Orleans was framed up as "Methods and Means" but the real theme of the day is the power of storytelling. With inspirational presentations from Core77 friends Scott Wilson (MINIMAL) on the Tik Tok+Luna Tik and Tom Gerhardt (Studio Neat) on the Glif, the real star of the day was Kickstarter. The crowd-funding site shared headlines in these design Cinderella-stories—the success of the Tik Tok+Luna Tik came on the heels of an unfortunate business venture for Wilson and Gerhardt and his Studio Neat partner were able to quit their dayjobs to dedicate their energies to a dream of innovative product launches. Luckily, Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickland was on hand to share his own unconventional success story surrounding the unique platform.

Founded by Strickland, a former music writer, and Perry Chen, a former gallerist, musician and jack-of-all-trades, in the two years since it's launch, Kickstarter has funded 12,000 projects—about 44% of the projects featured on their platform. In a few weeks, the team projects that they'll hit an impressive crowd-funded number: the $100 million-mark. The number is not only a powerful testament of the platform's ability to connect people in a real and very human way, but it's also a lens onto a new type of crowd-sourced economy. Although the Kickstarter team intentionally provides no guidance to users on how to build a project, typical projects feature some sort of pitch video, what Strickland calls an anti-commercial, and a scale of pledge rewards for backers.

"Working with the Kickstarter model, having 6000 backers is like having 6000 clients," jokes Tom Gerhardt from Studio Neat. A great example of the "every project is a story" idea, one of the most powerful tools for driving the success of the Glif on Kickstarter was their use of video. I loved learning that Wes Anderson's offbeat, helvetica style was the creative inspiration for Studio Neat's video productions. Throughout the creation process—from pitch, to manufacturing, to assembly—Studio Neat documented and shared the story of the Glif in a lighthearted and personal way with their backers aka cheerleaders aka clients.

Seattle-based design consultancy Artefact feels the printer hasn't evolved apace with the computers they're connected to, and their SWYP concept is designed to address that. The See What You Print machine would boast a full-length touchscreen on its top surface, asking the user to interact with the printer rather than the computer. This is more easily explained via video, so have a look:

2.5 Weeks + 1000 Miles + 4 States + Countless Encounters. Follow Cindy Gilbert, program director for the Sustainable Design program at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, as she bikes from Montana to Minneapolis to raise awareness about sustainability challenges and opportunities in the region while raising need-based scholarship money for students.

Sustainability: the ability to sustain. The capacity to endure. To maintain, regenerate, energize, restore, recoup, go on, last, make it, survive.

I know that I couldn't have even considered sustaining the planning and pedaling required to Ride the Talk without the unwavering support of my unsung heroes. But what I didn't realize is how much of my ability to endure, motivate, inspire and engage would be undeniably linked to my growing community of new supporters. Most of these folks don't know me from a hole in the ground, they may have never even heard of MCAD, or sustainable design for that matter, but somehow they want to "ride the talk" right along with me.

These people have done more than open their wallets to help the future students of MCAD's sustainable design program, they open their hearts and minds to the cause, to the potential, to the dream. Together we have created a positive feedback loop: one that energizes and inspires the other. We immediately bond and create another connection in the web of the expanding community. We need each other in an un-needy way. We help each other by sharing and caring.

These everyday heroes are unassuming and come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, ethnicities, job descriptions and vehicular choices but they are cut from the same cloth in a few defining ways: 1) they are give spontaneously, generously and unconditionally, 2) they are unflaggingly positive and 3) they're magnetic. Number three might seem a tad hokey but what I mean is that there is a sense that they drew me to find them—like they were waiting for me to show up so that they could lend me their support.

Here is an all-star lineup in order of appearance:

Early photography was used for one thing: To freeze time. You've probably heard the story of how in 1872, California Governor Leland Stanford hired early photographer Eadweard Muybridge to capture still shots of a galloping horse to settle the bet of whether all four feet would ever be simultaneously in the air.

Nowadays we increasingly blend photography into time-lapse footage, with a goal opposite to freezing time: We try to blend discrete moments into fast-forwarded video, greatly increasing the speeds at which an event appears to unfold. In 30 YouTube seconds puppies turn five years older, dieters get skinnier, you go through a season's worth of outfits. As it once titillated 19th-Century folk to see something in motion frozen still, we now get a kick of seeing frozen moments advanced into rapid motion.

Here are three of the most recent time-lapse vids to catch my eye, in order of grandeur:

These videos are about twice as long as they need to be in terms of conveying the relevant data, but these looks inside General Motors' Rapid Prototyping Labs are worth a gander. Anyone who's worked in an ID firm where you had to e-mail the CADs out to the modelshop and sit on your hands for two days can't help but feel envious at seeing their onsite stereolithography and selective laser sintering machines.

The editors have blurred out some of what's on the designers' monitors and some of the larger physical parts, as GM has apparently worked out a proprietary method for joining RP parts together, like when they need to produce something too big for the machine and have to bang it out in sections. Still, you at least get a good look at the process:

Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Designer: Teal Triggs, Instructor
Location: London, United Kingdom
Category: Design Education initiatives
Award: Notable

Seeing Voices: Inside BT Archives

A unique collaboration between BT Heritage staff and students from MA Design Writing Criticism, LCC, in the use of specialist archives as an integrated teaching method for design writing and curation. Students selected an object from the communications archive to research and interpret resulting in a publication and exhibition.

BT is the world's oldest communication company, with a direct line of descent from the first electric telegraph to present day digital technologies. The challenge was to provide a fresh perspective on BT's extensive collection ranging from products (e.g. telephones, merchandising products, buildings, phone boxes), to print (e.g. advertising and poster campaigns, in-house magazines) and photographs. The collaboration was intended to show that: 1) MA Design Writing Criticism students could bring the collection to the attention of a new kind of audience, 2) the seven students could develop their skills via written and visual interpretation of the material, thereby bringing new perspectives to the interpretation of the archive, and 3) by fostering a shared learning experience there was a knowledge exchange unique to those involved. The students and staff operated as a 'team', contributing their skills, knowledge and critical understanding to the group discourse. As a result, a continually evolving dynamism was ensured.

The collaboration was embedded within the class entitled 'Design Histories of Practice' - which required students to reconsider the context of critical spaces drawing upon historical precedents, whilst at the same time giving due consideration to the role of the curator as critic and critic as curator, addressing issues of interpretation and audience reception.

What was exciting about this project was two things: First, by going back into history we learned that narratives lie in every archive and in every object and, second, that this was a collaboration about learning and making visible an often-invisible research process.

What is the latest news on your project?
The latest news is that we will be running the project again with BT Heritage and with a new group of students who begin the MA Design Writing Criticism course in October. We hope to do something different with the final publication. So watch this space!

What is 1 quick anecdote about your project?
The eureka moment for the project was when one of the students located a small book on the reference shelf of the BT Archive collection - it was a book from the 1920s about the magic of communication. We knew at that point this collaborative project was certainly on the right track.

Read on for full details on the project and jury comments.