This year's Core77 Conference, "Now What?", was the first conference we've hosted dedicated to one loaded question: "what does it take to start or maintain a creative business?" With engaging talks by industry leaders, small workshops that allowed attendees to receive more focused advice related to their business mission, and of course, some fun surprises along the way, the day proved to answer many attendees questions and much more. 

Are you a creative entrepreneur yourself looking for answers, but didn't get a chance to attend this year's conference to ask your questions? We've rounded up a just a few key takeaways from the day that may help you out: 

Understand manufacturing before finalizing your design

In his talk, founder of home accessories studio Good Thing Jamie Wolfond discussed his process for designing new items, which often starts with manufacturing instead of deciding what product to design. Using his terracotta Arid Umbrella Stand as a case study, Wolfond demonstrated how understanding a material first, followed by function and finally, form, is how a design's consideration of a material and its manufacturing process can better the quality of a product.

Jamie Wolfond of Good Thing

Know how big you want your company to scale and approximately how much money you're going to need to do it

According to financier & CEO of Hardware Club Alexis Houssou, these are essential things to think about it if you want to a.) have your business survive and b.) figure out what type of funding is right for you. While VC funding can be good for companies that want to make a huge impact on the world and turn a profit quickly, out of pocket or crowdfunding can be more sound routes for steady yet slow-building businesses.

Alexis Houssou of Hardware Club

Save up to 3 months salary before taking the leap

Carly Ayres and Pedro Sanches of HAWRAF reinforced that if you're thinking you want to start something on your own, you have to make sure you have at least a little cushion to back you up; 3 months is a solid minimum. While you're working on taking the big leap, dip a toe in freelancing to be sure you can handle a load of work independently.

Pedro Sanches and Carly Ayres of HAWRAF

For product and company ideas, tune into common pain points no one else is looking at

Clare CEO & Core77 Conference Speaker Nicole Gibbons started her company looking at a consumer problem very few have thought to look at: buying home paint colors. In her talk, Gibbons pointed out to attendees that sometimes the best business ideas stem from issues everyone has, but no one has thought to design a solution for.

Remember: you get the work you do

A message reiterated by both HAWRAF and Sina Sohrab and Joseph Guerra of Visibility was the idea that as tight as money can be at times, you should be critical about which projects you take on and how much money you request for doing it (once you can afford to). Make sure the bad projects sent your way don't deter you from your ultimate mission, otherwise you'll get stuck doing those things over and over again. 

HAWRAF's "Should We Do This Project?" interactive guide

Looking for business? Reach out to 3-5 new people per week

Business consultant Emily Cohen's workshop "Best Practices Any Design Firm Should Know" covered a lot of ground when it comes to facilitating business and client relationships, and it included a challenge for all attendees: make an effort to reach out to a few next people each week. The worst thing that can come of new connections is someone who simply enjoyed your company over coffee! And in the long term, all those friends you meet over coffee mean potential future clients. 

Emily Cohen in her workshop, "Best Practices Any Design Firm Should Know"

Anyone can manufacture products if they know the rules and etiquette

The Making It (In China) workshop led by Crave co-founder Ti Chang reminded conference attendees that manufacturing can be as easy as having an idea of what you want to make, just as long as you know the red flags to look out for and the knowledge of etiquette required to impress the manufacturers you're looking to work with. A few red flags worth mentioning? High sample fees, clarity of communication, or even a manufacturer's choice of conducting a meeting in your hotel lobby as opposed to the factory itself.

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In addition to great tips for starting something of your own, you know we had to add a few things in there to make it a party: 

Saxophonist Ming really brought the house down in the morning with his smooth renditions of songs by Queen Latifah and Kendrick Lamar.

And then fast forwarding to the end of the day, after giving attendees an idea of how to create a successful business out of a crazy idea, Harry Parr of Bompas & Parr got the cocktail party started with a vapor cloud of gin! It was a truly intoxicating end to an insightful day of presentations.

And finally, we ended the day with a chance for attendees and presenters to mingle, using the skills they acquired over the day to meet new friends and possible clients, and talk through what they learned over the course of the day. 

 Thanks to everyone who attended this year's conference! And stay tuned for videos to be released of the morning presentations.

Instead if asking designers to design eyewear, which is what they're known for, Warby Parker recently prompted eight designers to design a complimentary object to their well-known product line—handheld mirrors. Handheld mirrors are something we rarely think about during the eyewear purchasing experience, but they're what we reach for when we need a helping hand in deciding what looks best (because you can't always trust your friends to tell you like it is). After years of use, we thought it was time to hand this ubiquitous and indispensable tool over to some fresh, creative eyes for a complete makeover, so as mentioned. The designers selected to reimagine Warby Parker's handheld mirrors were Brendan Ravenhill Studio, Chen Chen & Kai Williams, Egg Collective, Eric Trine, Fort Standard, Fredericks & Mae, LAUN and Tom Fruin. Each designer created two mirrors—one for Warby Parker's Greene St. store right down the street from Core77's office in NYC and one for their Abbot Kinney store in LA. 

"We wanted to create a sculptural, kinetic object made from a solid material that expressed movement and playfulness, remained functional while at rest, and felt good in the hand." —EGG Collective

The mirrors are currently on display and available for customer use in the aforementioned stores until November 11th. If you're interested in purchasing one of the mirrors, they are up on Paddle8. All proceeds of the auction are going to Free Arts, so it'd be a rather vain purchase for a good cause *insert winking face emoji*.

"I've always been interested in pushing materials to their limits, so I decided to limit myself to using just one singular material. I chose brass for its ability to provide structure as well and to be polished to a mirror finish." —Fort Standard

Designed by Brendan Ravenhill

"This design was inspired by Japanese ping pong paddles—but makes it possible to try on glasses and play a game at the same time." —Fredricks and Mae

Designed by Chen Chen & Kai Williams

"The design is derived from unaesthetic mechanically reproduced patterns like logos on steps and repeat walls." —Tom Fruin

Designed by Eric Trine

"A good mirror shouldn't just be a tool to use; it should have a presence in the room and be an object of interest in its own right. Turning to nature for inspiration, we created a Monstera leaf handle, juxtaposing the organic form of the leaf with the bright polished surface of the mirror which it holds at attention." — LAUN

Product Engineer, Toy Invention Division The Opportunity JMP Creative, a company unlike any other, is seeking a full-time Product Engineer for our Toys Invention Division with the experience, attributes and vision to bring toy concepts to life through on-target and effective engineering processes.

Since moving to the farm I've had a 7,000-square-foot, securely fenced outdoor enclosure built for my dogs. It is a grassy, tree-featuring paradise. Yet my white dog has been sneaking into my shop and peeing on the floor instead of outside.

The room I've converted into my shop was the living room for the previous tenants; they removed the door from the hinges and I like it that way. Since I'm unwilling to reattach the door, I needed to build some kind of dog-blocking gate.

The previous tenant's head-of-the-household worked in a custom cabinetry shop. He often bought scraps and oddly-shaped cut-offs home with him. I located his abandoned cache up at the stables and humped the pieces back to the farmhouse.

All cut-offs from a custom cabinetry shop, except for the painted pieces of 8/4 stuff. That's a rotted windowsill, made circa 1700s, that I had to pull out of the main farmhouse to replace.

A bunch of the cut-offs were in this odd half-moon shape you see below. At first I thought they were the negative space cut out of some arch, but studying the surface revealed the curved top had been smoothed by a router, probably in some sort of sled that rode on an arched track. In any case these pieces were of no use to me in that configuration…

…so I resawed them flat using my trusty 15" Shark saw. (I don't own a jigsaw, nor do I have the floorspace for one.)

The wood was free, and the resawing just took patience and elbow grease. The resultant surface wasn't pretty…

…but I'd cut it oversized, and then smoothed the face with a jack plane.

Working these otherwise useless pieces yielded me enough to create two rails, a stile and four spindles. A piece of beefier cherry served as the hinged stile, and I knocked these together into a simple gate to keep the dog out.

The gate is joined with pocket screws and Dominos (because after you've spent the money on a Domino and run out of projects, well, you start looking for things to Domino). 

The dog is still allowed inside the shop as long as I'm in there.

By the bye, wood mavens among you: I absolutely cannot figure out what this wood species is, the one that makes up the majority of the gate. It feels like a hardwood, yet it is extraordinarily light and soft. It machines easily, and it dents easily. The shavings it gives off, even with a sharp blade, are dusty/sandy.

The grain is unusual to me, too. I'm used to working poplar, pine, Doug fir, cherry and walnut. This is neither of these woods. Can anyone identify it?

Anyways, hearing about my anti-dog-pee gate isn't going to do anything for you. The takeaway from this post should be: If you want free wood that you can build small projects from, locate a local custom cabinetry shop, and politely ask them if you can haul their cut-offs away for them. The previous tenant said that his workplace burns all of theirs just to get rid of them. They might as well wind up in your shop instead, where you can put them to good use.

Speaking of making things out of cut-offs:

For many of us, the ideal material for a bed frame is solid wood. But solid wood beds, with their long rails and headboards, are expensive, requiring long, wide, defect-free pieces of wood to build them out of.

Hence Tuft & Needle creates their Wood Frame Bed largely from walnut cut-offs salvaged from furniture businesses. 

They're able to laminate the cut-offs together and still see a cost savings, passing that on to the consumer (the beds run $995 to $1,195). Here's what the beds look like:

The aesthetic takes some getting used to, but I'd vastly prefer one of these to a bed made from particle board and veneer. It is interesting that fingerjoints are only visible on the legs, and that the pieces comprising the rails are butt-jointed; how do you reckon they achieved the requisite beam strength, perhaps there's one long solid piece on the unseen insides?

In any case, here the company explains what they're going for:

We always consider sustainability in the materials we choose. When we learned that typically 40-60% of lumber is discarded in hardwood manufacturing, we saw an opportunity to repurpose this cast-off lumber.

This extra walnut is perfectly fine in quality, but is too short to be useful in most furniture. We worked with our manufacturer to rejoin the discarded material to make new board lengths of patchwork lumber then used it wherever we could. We supplemented the rest of the needed materials with new hardwood, so each individual frame is truly unique.

Here's a video highlighting the design and materials choice:

After seeing the video: Is it just me, or does Tuft & Needle designer Levi Christiansen…

…look like Captain America and Thor had a baby?

I can't be the only one who's seeing this.

"We know you want a solid walnut bed, son, but it's a little too expensive for us to afford right now….You'll understand when you're older."

Part of the reason I left New York City is because it's not New York City anymore; it's been invaded by a bunch of trend-following people walking around and staring into their phones, joggers stopping in the middle of the street to Instagram sweatie selfies, people yapping into Bluetooth earpieces on line at the deli.

I'm not the only one irritated by these practices, which obviously spread far beyond NYC. "We've entered the age of digital overwhelm and tech fatigue," says Susan MacTavish Best, the founder of lifestyle brand Living MacTavish. "We're tiring of the constant distraction and intrusion of technology in our relationships and daily lives."

To quantify this, Living MacTavish commissioned pollster organization YouGov to conduct a survey on what the most annoying "common features of the modern digital age" are. Here are the results:

12. Not being able to get a seat in cafes because of people on laptops (19%)

11. People posting 'perfect' holiday and/ or party snaps on social media (23%)

10. Parents boasting about their family on social media (29%)

9. 'Perfect selfies' on Instagram or other social media, where the person is always 'beautiful'/ airbrushed/ smiling etc. (38%)

8. People constantly photographing their food/drinks in restaurants and bars (41%)

7. Social media "mobs" acting as "the moral police" (i.e., in online discussions/ debates about controversial issues) (48%)

5. (Tie) Having to compete for attention with people's phones during meals and/ or other face-to-face conversations (53%)

5. (Tie) Endless requests to "rate" or give feedback on a company or service you've contacted (53%)

4. "Phone Zombies"/"distracted walkers" bumping into you and/ or lampposts or each other on the pavement (55%)

3. People playing music or videos on their phones at full volume on in public places (59%)

1. (Tie) People having loud and endless phone conversations in public places (63%)

1. (Tie) Online ads for something you once clicked on, that then keep following you around (63%)

Methodology: All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 5,029 adults, of which 2,201 were UK adults and 2,822 were US adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 12th - 16th October 2018. The survey was carried out online. The figures for each country have been weighted and are representative of all UK adults and all US adults (aged 18+) respectively.

So what's the solution? "The more digital that the world becomes," says MacTavish Best, "the more people are realizing that all real relationships and business deals happen offline, in an analog world."

For many contemporary furniture makers, Instagram may serve the twin needs of inspiration and self-promotion.

Whatever did the talented and ambitious do before #instafurniture, #interiordesign, #maker, #furnituregallery, and the like? I had occasion to mull over this topic at the current Metropolitan Museum exhibit, "Chippendale's Director: The Designs and Legacy of a Furniture Maker."

Thomas Chippendale (1718–1779) is often hailed as Britain's greatest furniture maker. As someone who often cherishes the great work of craftsmen who have fallen into obscurity, I am impressed that Chippendale continues to be well known by the general public. Perhaps the biggest reason is the lasting influence of The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, Chippendale's book of furniture designs. As the Met's program noted, "the unprecedented publication cemented Chippendale's name as England's most famous cabinetmaker and also endured to inspire furniture design up to the present day."

In 1754 - six years after moving to London from West Yorkshire to start his workshop - Chippendale published The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director. There's no way around it: he was a marketing genius who understood how to create a taste for the kind of furniture a gentleman should want, and concurrently tout his own ability to meet this need. Chippendale was of course not the only game in town, but his design book was the most comprehensive. The book featured 160 designs for many kinds of furniture and in many different styles (Rococo, Gothic-Revival, etc.) Chippendale's taste-making extended to the American Colonies, where eager readers sought to emulate the best British fashions and found in Chippendale a masterly guide. The book was a huge expensive undertaking - all those engravings cost money - but it was a major success, went through many reprints, and is still available.

The Met's exhibit contains only a few actual Chippendale pieces. Most of the pieces in the show are by other furniture makers. American makers who took his designs and adapted them to American tastes and materials. The importance of the show is in showing Chippendale's influence via examples such as Chippendale-style chairs made by Philadelphia craftsmen for General John Cadwalader, a Revolutionary War hero. The influence continues in another chair in the show, one designed in the 1980s by the starchitects Denise Scott Brown & Robert Venturi.

And of course there's a first edition of Chippendale's Director to continue the legacy of promotion and inspiration. Other ephererma which I found really interesting were trade cards from the eighteen century, and some original drawings by Chippendale for the book.

"Chippendale's Director: The Designs and Legacy of a Furniture Maker" runs through January 2019 and is part of many celebrations in honor of the 300th anniversary of Chippendale's birth.

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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.

SCAD industrial design students create memorable experiences by directly influencing the aesthetic language, performance and value of products and services. Their identification of design opportunities, engagement in scenario planning and proposed solutions to real-world challenges have been recognized by international organizations, such as the European Product Design Awards, Core77 Design

"Bar talk prototypes" are our term for when a design project sounds like it was conceived by folks sitting on bar stools, several beers deep. The most recent example: "Dude…what if a customer orders a pizza, and the delivery vehicle could make the pizza on the way to the customer's house?"

Those conversations go nowhere when held by two losers like you and me. But when it's Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz and Pizza Hutt CEO David Gibbs saying these things, well, both men have the juice to actually get it done. Toyota's Motorsports Technical Center was tasked with creating the vehicle, with a few more directives: It would be zero-emissions and ought employ robot arms of the sort used on Toyota's production line.

The result of this mad assignment is the Toyota Tundra PIE Pro:

Ridiculous, we know, but it was interesting to see that they went with a sort of radial arm saw to cut the pie slices.

Here's how the project came together, including how they developed the cutter idea:

Some friends of mine in NYC have a high-school-aged daughter whose backpack keeps ripping. They've purchased a high-quality Patagonia backpack, but even that could not survive her daily regimen--carrying 40 pounds of books from their home in one borough to her school in another borough. I asked them why she doesn't use a rolling carry-on bag, and they explained that those are impractical for going up and down subway station stairs.

That got me thinking about how people carry heavy things over long distances. While this item below wouldn't work for my urban-dwelling friends' daughter, I did find it a novel solution for hauling things over uneven terrain. The Monowalker Fatmate gets the weight off of your back using physics and a wheel.

Here's how it's used in the field, in both forward and aft positions, carrying about 90 pounds of gear :

The fact that it's connected to a harness means I wouldn't use it on a steep trail, or anyplace where I might fall and have the rig pull me or tangle me up; I could see that ending badly. Perhaps that could be remedied with some kind of breakaway connection points, though there is still the issue of the handles binding you up.

That being said, I could see this being useful for hauling things around the farm, when you require the free hands that a wheelbarrow wouldn't allow. One thing that prevents me from picking one up to experiment is the price: The German-designed Fatmate runs €836, about USD $953.

Before buying one, how do you determine if any given FDM (fused deposition modeling) 3D printer will be able to do what you need it to? Shouldn't there be some universal test print, like those printer test pages that you can use to determine if your printer's up to snuff?

Kickstarter thinks so. As the host for over 200 successfully-crowdfunded 3D printers, most famously Formlabs', the company realizes it would be beneficial if all developers of 3D printers could demonstrate their machines' capabilities by all producing the same complicated object. Hence they've partnered with Autodesk to develop the following file:

Autodesk research scientist Andreas Bastian has developed a test procedure designed to help creators better calibrate their machines and showcase their printers' capabilities to backers on Kickstarter. He developed a single, consolidated STL file that tests a printer's dimensional accuracy, resolution, and alignment. For example, poor execution of the "bridging" feature shown [above] will lead to a saggy and stringy print. A well-calibrated printer will make the horizontal feature with fewer of those issues.

Prints of the test file from Cubibot and Robo printers.

…As Braydon Moreno of Robo explains, with the new procedure "customers know exactly what to expect with the product. This also holds manufacturers accountable for the quality of the machines they are producing and gives them a benchmark to strive for… Other torture tests cover a variety of things, but this print seemed all-encompassing."

If you want to try the print out on your own 3D printer, or if you work in an office with multiple brands of 3D printer and you want to compare them, you can download the file and instructions on GitHub.

Brought to you by MAKO Design + Invent, North America's leading design firm for taking your product idea from a sketch on a napkin to store shelves. Download Mako's Invention Guide for free here.

Navigating the world of crowdfunding can be overwhelming, to put it lightly. Which projects are worth backing? Where's the filter to weed out the hundreds of useless smart devices? To make the process less frustrating, we scour the various online crowdfunding platforms to put together a weekly roundup of our favorite campaigns for your viewing (and spending!) pleasure. Go ahead, free your disposable income:

mui is a beautiful (and straightforward) interactive digital wood panel that aims to make digital living a more peaceful, subtle experience. Judging by our recent article on the top 12 most irritating things about technology, this philosophy is becoming more and more relevant as companies continue to enter the smart home space.

Bored with your current fine china? Can't stop dreaming about the East River as a flowing pool of soy sauce? Well, City Plates are 3D printed porcelain plates that feature architectural and geographical landmarks from cities around the world. The New York City plate includes the option to flood the East River with the sauce of your dreams, so there's that dilemma solved.

There are only five days left to support Jollylook on the Japanese crowdfunding platform Green Funding! The cardboard camera strips photography back to its essentials, while still allowing the full experience of adjusting the shutter speed, aperture, and even looking through a pop-up viewfinder. A need item for photography enthusiasts and collectors alike.

The creators of the Fidget Cube are back on Kickstarter with PIXL, a set of tiny magnetic cubes that essentially allow you to create physical versions of your MineCraft creations. We're into it.

IAMRUNBOX has also re-entered the crowdfunding scene, this time with a bag that reaches a wider active audience instead of just runners and commuters—travelers. The Spin Bag features an easy-access laptop compartment right underneath the straps, the option for a waterproof TPU double coated polyester material, and an optional packing kit and camera bag to make life on-the-go a smoother experience.

Do you need help designing, developing, patenting, manufacturing, and/or selling YOUR product idea? MAKO Design + Invent is a one-stop-shop specifically for inventors / startups / small businesses. Click HERE for a free confidential product consultation.

In partnership with LivingHomes, the design Studio of Plant Prefab, industrial designer Yves Béhar designed a customizable system for tiny homes that will be officially unveiled tomorrow at the Summit Festival in Los Angeles. So far, only renderings are available, but essentially the following images are what a few different combinations will look like:

The YB1 system is customizable to accommodate different roofs, window layouts and climate conditions, but there are three main options for floor plans to choose from, which can all be seen on Plant Prefab's website.

Sizes will range from 250 square feet to 1,200 square feet. Square footage of a typical tiny home varies, but they're generally between 400 and 1,000 square feet, so YB1's options extend that a bit on both ends.  

In terms of materials, Béhar and LivingHomes kept things environmentally friendly with the use of materials like Forest Stewardship Council certified wood for the siding and cement panels. One of the two roof options allows for solar panels or a green roof, which further extends the environmental initiative. 

For around $280,000, YB1 can be yours. If that amount is too much to encourage you to get on the tiny home bandwagon, LivingHomes says that future models designed by Yves Béhar will be available for less than $100,000.

The Crossword and Puzzles team is seeking a talented Product Designer to help us create a best-in-class digital solving experience and grow our audience with fun, new puzzles and games. As part of the New Products and Ventures group, we’re always looking for ways to grow and

As designers we need to expose ourselves to outstanding physical creations, both for general inspiration and background education. So I prize any website that can show me a lot of beautiful things at once, particularly when they vary greatly in design yet all belong to the same category. One such website is Bring a Trailer, an online auctioneer with an eclectically curated selection of vehicles.

The stock rotates rapidly, so you'll see different vehicles every single day. They've got everything from exotics to classics, from mass-produced to quirky small-run vehicles, spanning multiple eras and hailing from America, Europe and Japan. To give you an idea of the breadth and taste, here's a sampling of what was on offer at press time:

1968 BMW 2002 5-Speed

1958 BMW Isetta 600

1957 Ford Ranchero

1960 MG MGA 5-Speed

1957 Chevrolet Suburban NAPCO 4×4

1999 Ferrari 550 Maranello

2001 Audi S4 Avant 6-Speed

1968 Pontiac LeMans

1975 Mercedes-Benz 450SL

1992 Subaru SVX

1992 Land Rover Defender 110

1972 Triumph TR6

1964 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible L84 327 4-Speed

2007 Porsche 911 GT3

1998 Morgan Plus 8

1985 Land Rover 90 Pickup Turbodiesel

1965 Volvo 1800S 4-Speed w/Overdrive

Each entry contains multiple interior and exterior photos of the car, as well as video. It's well worth a look, and part of the fun are the surprising vehicles you'll encounter while scrolling through. Check it out here.

As I browse through Kickstarter, I'm less impressed by the Bluetooth-enabled this-and-that and more impressed by small improvements to everyday objects.

At least once a week I'll reach for a ballpoint pen--and draw or write some ghost lines as the pen's gone dry, then will scribble on the back of an envelope to get the pen going. A minor annoyance, but a consistent one. So this new Allbutton Airless Pen, which uses a vacuum-sealed tube and a tiny little hatch to prevent the ink from drying out, looks pretty darned good to me:

Here's how it works:

At $9 for 3 pens, they're pretty affordable, and backers apparently agree: At press time the Airless had $26,735 in pledges on a $10,000 goal. They're also selling sets of multiple colors that come in a handsome canvas roll, and those run a little over a buck per pen. If you'd like to get in on it, there's still a few days left to pledge.

I actually liked being a CAD jockey, despite the fact that I spent the best hours of the day peering into a monitor. Due to poor corporate planning I accidentally wound up with my own office and later, office with a window. I worked alone and was free to solve drafting problems in peace.

What I can't imagine is if I'd had to work in one of the drafting pools that antedated CAD. Back in the day they instructed you on how to work at tilted drafting tables, as you can see in this shot of a classroom from decades past. The student at right has demonstrably absorbed one of the crucial lessons for office life, which is how to embody bad posture.

Some companies liked to ruin their workers' posture even more by dispensing with tilted worksurfaces, as you see here. This company also adopted an earlier practice where only people in blue shirts were allowed to touch the compasses. Oh how I hated those azure-wearing, arc-drawing jerks, who thought they were so superior.

I like this shot (of what I'm guessing is a European drafting pool) as select members of the staff have been given Drafting Coats that seem to have some kind of waist belt.

This company encouraged their workers to lie right on top of the desks. As per the "lava" rule, once on the desk, you were not allowed to touch the floor until the end of the day. So workers often had to roll down the length of the worksurface to retrieve pencils, coffee and documents. If you happened to roll off of the desk, you were fired on the spot.

In any case, here are some more photos of old-school drafting pools. Happy Friday!

via Bored Panda

Images by Lincoln

When car companies introduce new vehicles, they typically host media drives for journalists as a way to generate buzz and reviews in advance of dealership sales to the public. The majority of the time spent on these drive programs is experimental, mostly driving and eating (a lot of eating). Additionally, there's important informative talks by brand marketing representatives, engineers and designers which must be assimilated and committed to memory while being in a perpetual state of food coma. I particularly enjoy the vehicle walk-around talks done by the designers because I get to ask hyper-nerdy car design questions that generate glazed over looks on the rest of the journalists faces.

Lincoln recently hosted a launch program for the new 2019 Nautilus, their candidate in the extremely competitive and popular mid-size SUV category. One item on the agenda jumped out as being interesting from a design angle and uncharacteristic for an automotive media drive. It was a discussion between an artist Ruth Pastine and Marcia Salzberg, Senior Color and Materials Designer at Lincoln about how each other's work crosses over. The talk was held at the Porch Gallery in Ojai, California and included an exhibition of Pastine's work.

Photo by Dave Pinter

Ruth Pastine is an American color field painter based in Ojai. She describes the majority of her work as the exploration of color systems based on red/green, blue/orange and yellow/violet hue combinations. The pieces she creates are in two formats and mediums. Smaller works are created by "finger painting" ground pastels. Larger paintings are done by building up many layers of oil paint by hand with brushes.

Photo by Porch Gallery

Pastine says the self imposed restrictions on colors, materials and scale introduce an element of scientific research and problem solving into her process. Using only two colors at a time might seem very limiting, but she's found that there's an infinite range of shades available to explore. She strives to achieve a chromatic glow from her work that often looks self illuminated. This is achieved with a critical focus on color saturation, value and complimentary pairings.

Photo by Porch Gallery

Paintings are typically created in a kind of production run process(not unlike the stages of vehicle design). Pastine said she works on multiple paintings at the same time and it can take between 4-12 months to arrived at a resolved state. While her paintings look simplistic at first glance, she said that each one is a "journey into the unknown" and the end result is sometimes completely different from where she started. To get the right emphasis of chromatic light means balancing that with a complimentary color in an interesting composition. This creates a kind of chromatic energy and tension and gives some pieces the illusion of being three dimensional.

Photo by Porch Gallery

The way light interacts with Pastine's paintings and projects color into a space has influenced the way collectors are buying her work. She said these days, some people buying a new house or updating a room will begin with placing her painting in the space as a starting point for further furnishing selection. The color of the painting and its chromatic energy can bring a dramatic mood shift to a room.

Marcia Salzberg, Senior Color and Materials Designer at Lincoln commented on another spacial element of Pastine's work and her decision to present her paintings frameless. "I think the space you give the work to breathe is very important Salzberg said, keeping it modern and simple has a very long timeless aspect that really gives it the legs to stand the test of time." The sensitivity Pastine gives to space around her pieces is a similar characteristic Salzberg noted in the design of current Lincoln vehicles. "We consider our Lincoln environments a sanctuary. Even though we incorporate a lot of technology, it's really about enhancing your experience, evoking a positive feeling and making your journey as comfortable as possible without being cluttered."

Although Marcia Salzberg has worked at Lincoln (and parent company Ford) for 14+ years, she's an automotive outsider. Her background and prior career was as a fashion designer for 15 years in Los Angeles. Salzberg was used to the fast paced rigors of creating multiple fashion collections each year. Transitioning to automotive design meant adjusting to projects that took years to go into production. Much like Pastine's painting process, Salzburg described there's typically a color and materials concept for a vehicle followed by long periods of refinement. "It takes about 3-4 years for a vehicle to reach production. Ruth talked about her series paintings which she evolves over a span of time. It's similar with the color and materials on a vehicle. You'll start out with something and it'll have to go through testing. You might have to switch or you might not."

Photo by Lincoln

It seem's like a pretty simple task to select a few colors for a car interior, it's not as straight forward as Salzberg explains. "We have a full team that works on color and materials and we rely on rooms with special Macbeth lights. Whenever we say to a leather supplier for instance, this is the color we want, they'll bring in several submissions. We'll take the samples into the Macbeth rooms and we can review them under simulated daylight, twilight, which is a whole other cast, and sunrise. All our glass is tinted, that's another element we have to consider. So we have to deal with all these external factors for deciding on colors."

Photo by Lincoln

The new Nautilus, similar to all the other Lincoln models is available as a premium Black Label edition that includes special materials, features and services. To further separate the Black Label vehicles, they're designed around distinctive themes. "There's a story behind everything we choose. It's not as simple as this is a nice color of leather, we'll put it with that. Everything has to have such deep meaning and purpose as to why," Salzberg said. "That's how the Lincoln Black Label themes are curated. We have to develop a real moving, powerful story."

Photo by Dave Pinter

The Nautilus we test drove was trimmed in the newest Black Label theme called Chalet. "The Chalet theme is high contrast, we have the alpine white and we have the rich dark espresso", Salzberg described. We specifically chose that combination to reflect the idea of an alpine skiing vacation. You might be staying at a luxury ski resort and during the day you're out skiiing, it's white, pristine, cold and sparkling. Afterwards you're in the lodge enjoying the warm blankets and fireplace and sipping warm brandy or cognac or hot cocoa. So it was that contrast that really interested us."

Photo by Lincoln

Deciding where to apply specific materials is often a balance of realizing the designer's vision with functional realities as Salzberg explains. "There's the Alcantara suede for the headliner which has a velvety soft feeling and also helps with noise and vibration reduction so the whole interior becomes this quiet sanctuary. As for the other finishes we like to use real wood veneer, those should be complimentary. We don't want anything to look dipped and flat so it's got to have movement and balance. As Ruth explained the importance of scale and proportion in her work, we also have to decide how much of a material to use and where. Are the seats in solid leather or do you treat bolsters and framing differently? For us there's lots of different degrees and combinations to create material breakups."

Photo by Dave Pinter

Once those material decisions are made, testing comes next and ironically for Salzberg, it's the fashion industry she's sometimes working against to get materials to pass. "Automotive has very strong regulations for dye transfer for example. People love light color interiors, they tend to perceive that as the most luxurious. But it's also the most challenging because of potential dye transfer from blue jeans for instance. We have robotic tests fitted with canvas butt forms that will do something like 75,000 passes taking two weeks to check for wear and color transfer on leather seats. So we go to great lengths to solve that issue without trying to change the feel and appearance of the leather."

Photo by Dave Pinter

With all the added complexities associated with automotive design and manufacturing Salzberg said she's still able to rely on design fundamentals she's used since beginning her fashion career. "Coming out of the fashion industry, I could never imagine working in automotive. However, the similarities are amazing because they both involve personal style and expression choices. I think color is one of the main things that will attract you and contributes to what makes people buy one vehicle over another. It's relatable to artwork, it's a personal choice, it's what speaks to you and what you can identify with."

Disclaimer: Lincoln paid for all expenses for this trip including flights, hotels and meals.

The day has finally come: Americans who seek a wider variety of HAY products for our homes no longer have to flock to the HAY Kitchen Market in the basement of SoHo's MoMA Design Store (although no complaints about that selection either...). The point is, now a majority of HAY's products are available online through HAY's first dedicated website for North American consumers. Go crazy.

In addition to the online excitement, HAY announced they will be opening their first North American retail location in Portland's Pearl District in mid-November at 825 NW 13th Ave. The new store will feature 3,400 square feet of retail space and promises to hold a series of programming in conjunction with its opening. The store will showcase a wide selection HAY products across all home categories, and the store itself will be divided into areas that represent each room in the home (IKEA, but make it nice). According to HAY, the store will be divided using New Order, HAY's shelving system made in collaboration with Stefan Diez. We'll add images of the space to this article once they're available.

One lsat piece of good news from the Danish brand: Remember that colorful collection of Sonos speakers HAY unveiled during this year's Milan Design Week? Well, they will finally be released on Monday, November 5th. The collaboration doesn't feature any updated speaker features besides color, but considering the popular speakers have only ever been available in black and white, that's not too shabby.