Do you think the below image depicts a living room hang-sesh or a business meeting?

Image via Steelcase

If you guessed living room hang-sesh, you're wrong.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Steelcase's Munich-based Learning + Innovation Center, which is a counterpart to the office furniture company's Grand Rapids HQ. As someone used to working in a traditional office setting and who spent many hours learning in dimly lit classrooms, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw how bright and casual the Learning + Innovation Center's set-up was. As I walked through each open concept floor filled with plush seating, standing desks, orange magnetic chalkboards, and a few scattered glass cubicles amidst glamorous courtyards, I found myself wondering if this environment can truly harness innovation or if it just encourages a little too much relaxation.

I began to understand and appreciate Steelcase's office culture vision, though, after hearing Senior Industrial Designer Alban Moriniere explain how the Learning + Innovation Center is successful not only in its comfortable design, but in how teams are formed to work within it. Below, Moriniere explains Steelcase's "Pod" team building system:

"At the moment, we are experimenting with a new way of working, which no longer involves being divided by departments or floors. Instead, we are now by grouped by what we call "pods". Pods are groups of different people all working on the same goals, tackling multiple projects at once. When we have a new project coming in, instead of addressing it to specific departments separately, we put together two designers, four or five engineers, two marketing people, one person from quality, one person from sustainability, a project manager, etc. This group has to learn how to work with each other, build trust, set up their own meetings and meet together in a space of their choice within the building.

We have been using the pod method for about a year and a half now. What is really interesting about this way of working is that I get to know people that don't have the same job as me. My buddies at work are now from other departments rather than just designers. All of the designers still meet together and share what we are doing sometimes, but I am no longer sitting in a specific design area surrounded by just designers. I am surrounded by people that have various backgrounds and expertise. It challenges my thinking everyday."

Moriniere's description of the pod system has started to change my thinking on the Learning + Innovation Center's 'working not working' environment for a few reasons. As we all know, personal relationships typically result in higher quality work. Besides having different job backgrounds, the center brings together over 230 employees representing 25 different nationalities from groups previously dispersed throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. So, wouldn't it be nice to sit on a couch instead of in a cubicle when working with new groups of people from different disciplines and backgrounds? Or to grab a coffee at a cafe instead of fill paper cups at the communal water jug? Soft textures and warm colors seen throughout the space, along with meeting spaces like the full-sized cafe, encourage getting to know one another instead of skipping to office small talk.

A beautiful courtyard is the centerpiece of the office. Photo Emily Engle

There also tends to often be some distance between different departments in large office seating, so forcing them to work together in small teams is a natural way to bridge that gap (as long as the different personalities and skillsets mesh well). On a similar note, when working for big organizations like Steelcase, employees can easily feel like their decisions have no impact on the bigger picture. Pulling various departments together works as a strategy to scale down the overwhelming feeling of a massive organization.

While the space does cater towards small group meetings, Steelcase made sure to carefully place nooks and crannies that encourage individual work, like emails or phone calls. Photo Emily Engle

"The LINC design is based on this principle—that rapid learning, creative work and agile teams are the building blocks of innovation, and the physical workplace can promote and nurture these kinds of activities." —Steelcase

Would your office/studio benefit from a change in team and/or structure like Steelcase's pod system? Give us your thoughts in the comments section. 

Have a great design project from 2018? Submit it to this year's Core77 Design Awards program.

White River Marine Group is one of the largest marine manufactures in North America. Our six unique brands of recreational marine products include kayaks, fiberglass and aluminum fishing, sport, utility and pontoon boats. We are looking for a creative Industrial Designer to support the aesthetic and ergonomic

The idea to make an updating weather poster first came to Oli Woods, the Melbourne-based designer behind product design company Typified, when he was having lunch with his parents. "We were all in the kitchen, chatting and enjoying the company when the topic of 'the weather' came up," he says. "Seconds later, we were all on our phones, and the moment had gone, our attention had shifted from the real world to our screens and then stayed there."

Determined to find a way of integrating connected products into our lives in a simpler, less intrusive way, Woods created the Weather Poster, a screen printed, framed poster that looks like an art print but works behind the scenes via a small computer and smart ink to reflect changes in the day's weather. Simply put: As the weather forecast changes, so does the ink on the paper.

The poster has a tiny computer that connects to a home's Wi-Fi network to pull in information about the current weather. Smart ink is any ink that's been engineered at a chemical level to change color in response to a certain stimulus. "Our new technology allows the tiny computer to interface with the smart ink, explains Woods. "We don't think the internet has ever been expressed through paper and ink in this way."

The icons show the weather at 8am, 12pm, 4pm and 8pm only for one day. The different weather types are represented by three symbols: rainy, cloudy or sunny—just what you need to pick the right outfit for the day. If the forecast for the afternoon changes, the poster will update as necessary. (The icons take anywhere from five to 15 minutes to update.)

Sure, your weather app would provide a lot more nuanced information, but the Weather Poster employs a simple approach on purpose. "We think there is a place for less attention-demanding products which just take care of one important task in an ultra convenient way, whilst also adding to the look and feel of your home or workplace," Woods notes.

The Poster was conceived to be equal parts art and technology. The screenprinting process gives it rich colors and tiny imperfections that make each print unique. For people who suffer from the opposite problem of forgetting to check the weather, having a gorgeous print by your front door might be just the thing that makes you look.

The first edition and future designs will all be limited print runs of only 500 editions. "We will have 5 very similar designs per series, before changing the visual theme entirely for the subsequent series," Woods explains.

After a successful 143% funded Kickstarter campaign, Typified is still taking pre-orders on Indiegogo.

Two well-known specialties in exterior car design are sketching and clay modeling. These two skills are so longstanding in human history that you could pull Leonardo da Vinci out of a time machine, drop him into a car studio and he could do the work. But he'd have been baffled by what James Robbins does.

The Digital Modeler is the newest specialty in exterior car design, and in the past few decades it's become a crucial third leg that holds the tripod steady. The digital modeler not only helps shape both the early and final design of a car, but is responsible for coordinating with a dizzying array of departments, from design to engineering to marketing, to ensure that what comes out of the factory is exactly what the design team intended.

Digital modelers provide a level of speed, precision and support that any stylist or clay modeler from the Harley Earl days would have killed to have access to. Here in Part 3 of this series, we chat with Acura Senior Designer James Robbins, who describes his work with the Digital Modeling and Visualization Group. If you think of your average Autodesk user as a CAD jockey, Robbins is more like the guy who oversees the entire raceway.

Core77: Can you describe your position?

James Robbins: I'm a senior designer with the Digital Modeling and Visualization group here at Acura. Over the last seven years I've been very fortunate to work on cars like the NSX, both the 2012 concept car and the 2016 production car. I worked on headlight details and a lot of the surfacing for the Precision Concept. I was data project lead for the early design data of the 2019 RDX, and also worked on the RDX's production data.

What led you to become a car designer?

I grew up in New York on Long Island, in a really old house. My dad was always working on it, fixing things, tinkering with things. He was very fortunate to have my twin brother and myself his helping hands. He taught us about woodworking, how to replace doors and windows, install bath tubs, all that fun stuff. I think that developed my desire to tinker and make things. It also gave me an insight into how things work from a mechanical standpoint. That's a very much-needed skill, especially when designing something that's going to be made, something as physical as a car.

I got my car education from my grandfather; when I was growing up we'd go visit him in Scotland a couple times a year. He was into car racing, doing autocross in abandoned airfields and taking spirited trips around the Scottish countryside. As a 14-year-old that was extremely inspirational for me. He taught me how to drive manual on a right-hand drive car. When I was 16, I had to relearn it on the other side here, which is fun. That nurtured my joy for the automobile, and when I was 17 I started to autocross my CRX.

I think that everything combined helped guide my passions for design creation. And personally I'm interested in sketching, 3D modeling, 3D printing, VR technology. I'm very lucky that a lot of the hobbies I have overlap with my job. So it's very easy to come to work and do those things that I enjoy, and I'm always inspired by the designers around me and the creativity that they bring to their work. It helps us create these amazing designs.

Where did you go to school?

I went to the University of Cincinnati, where I studied industrial design with a focus on transportation design. There I excelled at 3D modeling and understanding forms and volumes. More importantly I learned, through class projects and internships, about design aesthetics and not only how to do 2D sketches, but how to translate them into tangible 3D models, whether clay or digital.

Robbins has owned multiple CRX's. Here he's modeled one just for fun.

Were your internships all automotive-based?

No, I was fortunate enough to have internships in packaging design, consumer electronics, soft goods and I worked on some body armor for a bit. It was a very broad spectrum of the industrial design field. I'm able to pull from a lot of those experiences and apply them to the work we do here at Acura.

What does your job here entail? From talking to [clay modeler] Matt Mantz we know that you and Matt go back-and-forth with stuff, but I'm not clear on exactly where the hand-offs occur.

[There are roughly] two different types of digital modeling we do. The first one is for early concept creation. This process typically happens alongside the clay modeling process while we're in development.

One of the first models we made for the RDX was capturing [Randall Smock's] sketch. Then we used the file to play with the proportions and the volumes here and there. Then that was given to Matt and he was able to use it as an underlayer base*.

[*Editor's Note: Robbins means that his digital file was sent to a milling machine, which carves a rough shape into a clay buck at 1/4 scale. Clay modeler Matt Mantz then begins shaping the form in clay. To understand more about this process, read Part 2.]

What kinds of software do you guys use?

We use a few different software packages here, but for the first part we use a polygon modeling/subdivision modeling software. It's mainly used in the video game industry and special effects for the movie industry. But I've been able to incorporate some of its workflows into our design process because it's very flexible in its approach to surface creation and modification. That's just one example of the software used; we have many that we use in the studio. We're very software agnostic, so whatever gets the job done.

Can you talk about when it's beneficial to do something digitally versus doing it in clay?

Whether we do something in clay or digitally--or both together at the same time--depends on everything from manpower to time to the scope of the project.

[With digital] it's very easy to make big proportional changes. I can grab a bunch of surfaces at once, and start manipulating them to, say, change the "speed" of the roof; I can change a tension point so that it's a little slower, a little higher, more aggressive, further back, whatever. Or we can change the wheelbase--even a 20 to 30 millimeter change to the wheelbase can really change the packaging of the car.

The software keeps the surfaces all combined and connected, so you don't have to worry about high-end surface continuity, tangency breaks and all that mathematical stuff--it's not important at this early stage in the process. It just lets us quickly test out all those things.

All of the mesh details and smaller things that require many iterations, we don't have the clay modelers do that. We can very easily do it using our modeling tools. We can make one spoke of a wheel and duplicate that 5, 7, 10 times, whatever wheel style you want, and we can do that really easily.

And obviously with digital, I have the ability to undo or [quickly return to an older version of the design]. That's great. This allows us to create more on the process so we can choose the best design.

Can you give us a concrete example of a time when working digitally made the difference?

One particular story I remember: Early on, they were considering a variation on the front end of the RDX. The variation required moving the front end about 30 or 40 millimeters. We were easily able to do that just by grabbing this data and moving it. A change like that really does affect the relationship of the hood to the windshield and the front volume of the vehicle, and even the cross-car feel. In this case we ultimately decided not to do it, and being able to look at that early on, and decide if [it's viable or not] is extremely beneficial.

And obviously, the benefit is being able to share this data with our clay team. We can implement the digital changes directly in the clay with the milling machine. So our clay modelers don't have to waste the time doing that by hand. Then they can spend the time really refining the highlights and the surfaces to move upstream in the process. They don't have to make the changes over and over again.

You'd mentioned there's at least two types of modeling. What's the second?

The next type is what I consider mock-up level or hard model quality data. We have an engineering team that does further refinements down the line, but our team does the design modeling. This is typically used to create internal mock-ups that are reviewed in the courtyard or even the concept cars. It's typically created a little later in the design modeling process, as the clay models refine. So we'll actually work with Matt and we'll get the scan data that he has, which is created by scanning his physical clay model. So then you can compare the two and make sure that the surface that you're creating captures the design that was refined in clay.

As one example, late in the process on the RDX, we needed to move that line on the hood quite a bit for some additional pedestrian safety and engineering requirements. So that was done in data and then verified on the clay later on.

Another thing we'll do is evaluate the surfaces by covering the digital model with what we call zebra stripes. This is when you're coming in and checking the continuity of the surfaces. The stripes help you see if there's a break in the surface, or really track how the highlights are going to flow across the body. This is also done in the clay modeling process, and all the way though the final stamped sheet metal, where they'll put a big panel with bar lights to replicate the check on the body side.

We also have other kinds of chrome metallic shaders that we can put on the digital model, that really shows the horizon line and how that's going to flow across the surface. You can use the shaders to look across the hood, making sure you've got nice, clean geometry that creates those nice highlights.

And this is always a back and forth process. We'll have our data checks weekly, as we decide to change and fine-tune things.

I'm assuming you guys go back and forth with the Spocks, the engineers, too?

Yeah so, for aerodynamics, we work a lot with our computational fluid dynamics team. Sometimes design changes are introduced that will affect the aero, and we're able to look at multiple iterations of the changes and see which one still looks good but meets the numbers. We work with our engineering team in Ohio to do that, it's a very collaborative experience.

Your group is called the Digital Modeling and Visualization group. What's the Visualization part?

So, we also use this software to break up the model into its components. We'll have the hood here, the fender, all the glass, tires, the mesh details all separated. As we get into the final part of our evaluation stage, which is the visualization, we can input that data that is broken up accordingly into its color chart, which we work with our CMF team to do.

The room that we're sitting in [the Digital Design Room] is where Dave [Marek] and all of our executives evaluate the model. We'll spin the model around on our turntable [virtually, on the wall-sized screen]. That way people can get a good sense of the vehicle with its actual color and material breakup. We can change colors on the fly, change the color of the cladding et cetera, and they can make sure the graphics look correct. They can go through all the different trim and color options to verify everything.

We can also change the environment that the car is in, for instance a studio background or a sunny tree-laden environment. We'll do completely different atmospheres for the vehicle. That way they can verify how the car would look in studio lighting, or parked on the side of the road under trees for a magazine shoot or something. We can do the pre-visualizations here before that gets all the way through to production.

It's interesting how many different facets of the process your group plugs into.

Yeah, I think that the biggest takeaway for the digital modeling side is we support the design team, the clay modeling team, and color and material (CMF). The clay modeling and digital modeling has a lot of overlap as far as surface creation and volume creation throughout the design process, but each has their strengths and weaknesses. So we try to leverage that throughout the whole process to make sure that we're using the right one when beneficial, so that we don't waste time. We want to create more designs faster, so we can choose the best design to represent our Precision Crafted Performance mission.

Although you're a "3D guy," do you still do any 2D sketching?

Oh yeah, we'll sketch as well. We can sketch with the other designers to explain how some things are not gonna work, or will work.

You mentioned that in school you covered the full gamut of ID skills, from 2D to 3D. What drew you to the digital modeling aspect of the design process? As opposed to being the clay guy or the sketching guy.

In design school I would draw all the time, but I was always more fascinated with the 3D side of it. I feel the 3D side, whether clay or digital, is where a lot of the design is done; I'm sure Matt mentioned it in his presentation. Because with the sculpting, creating those forms and translating that sketch is what makes the design, the design.

There are times when you can draw a great sketch and it looks cool, but the highlights aren't going to do [what they do in the 2D drawing]; that surface isn't possible or that corner won't work. So a lot of that has to be developed in 3D, whether it's clay or digital. They both complement each other. And my mind works in 3D, I see things in 3D when I'm drawing them. So I think that's what drew me to it. It's more tangible to me.

Obviously there's a place for the 2D sketch and for clay modeling. But you can offset a lot of the workload in 3D digital modeling, and that's great. It's very much a collaborative effort between everybody in the design studio.

___________________

Up Next: Thus far we've covered the three aspects of exterior design. But a car isn't much good without a fully-functioning interior and a cockpit that allows you to drive it, so stick around as we chat with the interior designers.

Bould Design is growing and we are looking for an exceptional designer to join our award winning San Mateo studio on a full-time basis. As a part of our team, you will collaborate on all phases of the design process from conceptualization to production. We offer an intense, yet informal environment for focused, highly motivated designers. Our client list includes the most successful design-centric companies in Silicon Valley including Nest Labs, Rylo, Light.co, Eero, and Roku. Our projects move at the forefront of design, technology and manufacturing.

Back in 2008, I was an architecture student in England living a blissful student life of beans on toast, late nights in the studio and keeping myself awake with Red Bull. Okay, in retrospect "blissful" is probably not the right word for this. Perhaps "responsibility free"? I remember experiencing my final year as a student: the anxiety, fear, and dread for the future. I was about to graduate into a world that had collapsed on itself economically, and anything connected to the construction industry is typically fast to get hurt and last to recover during economic downturn. At the time, I had dismissed the housing market crash as nothing more than overblown sensationalist news. How wrong I was...

When I graduated, reality hit me so hard that I literally landed in another country. The job opportunities in the UK were so scarce that I upped sticks and moved to Paris where I managed to find work as an architectural designer.

The ROCO co-working space in Sheffield UK / Image via Roco

But then, something magical happened. The millennial generation, pulled themselves up by the bootstraps. Instead of rolling over, those who could drew the line in the sand and picked the economy back up by simply making their own jobs.

From 2008-2016 an explosion of start-ups came onto the scene and managed to created an entire slew of satellite industries to cater to their needs. In this time, the makerspace as we know it came to life, and it was a glorious time to be a creative who needed and wanted to make physical things.

Makerspaces, incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces—whatever you want to call them—encouraged a culture of "me too!" With legions of professional designers and those not formally educated in any kind of design process joining these spaces. Differing points of view, unique perspectives and collaboration flourished. We flirted with sharing economies, pushing prototyping tools to make final products, and we came so close to making a dent in capitalism.

Fab Lab London introductory video

I myself owe nearly everything to one co-working space, Makerversity. At that time in my life, I had returned to the UK, and was suffering from a deep depression. My friend suggested that I use design as therapy, so I channeled my issues into creating things. This eventually led me to join the group of people at Makerversity who had grand ambitions and who infected me with their unwavering positivity, love, and encouragement. I joined Makerversity in 2013 with $0 to my name and was granted a desk in exchange for managing the digital shop. I went modeled ideas for fun and payed my rent by making props for cosplayers. Cut to nearly three years later, and the company I had grown caught the attention of Autodesk. And here I am now!

My story here is not unique by a long shot. Makerspaces across the globe have done miracles for demystifying manufacturing and process, enabling the curious to explore ideas and massively increasing the popularity of making with an entire new generation.

So what happened? In the last few years, I have received email after email from various spaces across the globe informing that they are closing their doors, including The ROCO in Sheffield UK, Fab Lab London and the Hacktory. Of course, a big contributor is just the natural beat of the drum—people lose interest, move on, or just grow tired of what the have. Then there is the other side of the coin too—spaces that got greedy and tried to expand too fast or just failed as businesses, but that doesn't need to be retreaded here.

via GIPHY

I hate to admit it, but one way or another, makerspaces are dying out, with today's biggest challenges being finding spaces large enough to keep all of the equipment, affording rent, and drumming up demand from prospective members.

So why then, aren't designers flocking to these spaces? I always hear from freelance designers or early stage startups that they can't afford an office and equipment for prototyping or that they they simply don't like their home office anymore. Every single time I recommend a makerspace, I am met with apprehension, "aren't those spaces kind of crap?". Well, they can't be worse than your IKEA desk at home, mate.

A learning program being held at Makerversity

Designers and creatives all over seem to have forgotten that these spaces exist and offer relatively affordable membership, hot desks and sometimes even permanent desks, not to mention the easily accessible internal networking opportunities. We need spaces like this more than ever to help the next generation flourish in the same way we have, and we even have the opportunity to future-proof them to our needs. With the weakened state these spaces are in, designers could come in and not only help them stay open by using them, but also improve the spaces with their input, crafting them into what they themselves specifically desire.

"But how?" The answer is actually quite easy. All it takes is a group of people to band together and pool their collective resources to get a space up and running, and frankly where your makerspace is situated is not as important as how much demand you can generate for it. The principles for creating a makerspace are so well documented at this point that very little unique work would need to be done to make it happen. Imagine then, if we could reignite that brief and wonderful moment in time and make it last? What would that look like? Can we design a future of affordable, desirable space to work and collaborate together, or are we going to resign ourselves to a future of home offices and dependency on others to deliver on our ideas?

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:

The Twist Press Coffee Maker employs a patent-pending corkscrew top design that allows you to control your press speed and brew a cup of coffee in as little as 30 seconds.

The simple but cleverly-designed SSD chair can be assembled in minutes using only one screw. Available in three wood finishes—ashwood, oakwood, walnut—and 4 leg colors—graphite black, cloudy white, ash pink and sage green—it can easily fit into any interior.

Even though design is still a male-dominant field, 63% of design students are women. Make Your Mark is a book of interviews with women working in design and tech, intended to inspire students who may not have access to many female voices where they live.

With its futuristic look, the Stingray non-stick frying pan will definitely stand out in your kitchen. The faceted design makes it easy to pour sauces without any spills, while rounded corners keep cleanup easy.

We're here for anything that makes sweeping a little less of a chore. The aptly-titled Vabroom is a cordless broom-vacuum hybrid that eliminates the need for a dustpan.

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.

Rightware is a Finnish software product company providing tools and services for the development of advanced digital user interfaces. The Kanzi® philosophy is based on designer empowerment, prioritizing ease of use, rapid prototyping, workflow efficiency, high performance, and cross-platform support. Our Kanzi product family includes a visual design studio which delights designers, a highly optimized 3D runtime for superior graphics performance, and an innovative connectivity platform.

As we saw in the introduction to this series, in 2015 Acura's dashboards and interior controls were poorly regarded by the automotive press. "Busy," "redundant," "illogical," and "confusing" were popular criticisms; this wasn't a good look for a company that was trying to re-kickstart their original mantra of "precision crafted performance."

At the 2016 L.A. Auto Show, the company took the unusual step of unveiling not a concept car--they'd already done that with the Precision Concept earlier that year--but a standalone concept interior,replete with a futuristic, next-generation HMI (Human-Machine Interface).

While it borrowed some styling cues from the NSX, the Precision Cockpit's controls were boiled down to a minimum; the center console contained a single knob and, below that, what the company would call their True Touchpad Interface, a position-mapped way of interacting with the dashboard screen. This screen, by the way, had been placed atop the dashboard--the better to keep drivers' eyes on the road--and intentionally placed far back and out of physical reach.

"The system we conceived has been created with the driver in mind," Acura Executive Creative Director Dave Marek explains. "A traditional touchscreen approach is intuitive, what you see is what you press. But it also forces a compromised placement of the screen – close to the driver and out of the driver's natural line-of-sight. A traditional remote interface – found in many luxury cars – solves these problems, but creates a new one: the interaction between the remote and the display is indirect and clumsy.

"The Acura Precision Cockpit's touchpad overcomes these issues by using absolute position mapping for the first time in the driving environment, combining the flexibility and usability of a touchscreen with the comfort and reduced driver distraction of a remote."

The Precision Cockpit also featured Acura's "Digital Meter," a screen located behind the steering wheel that rendered difficult-to-see obstacles ahead. This system would also, using AI, predict and illustrate potential paths of moving obstacles, communicating this back to the driver--or an autonomous system, in a driver-less future.

These new sorts of interfaces and technologies didn't design themselves, of course. Nor are they the purview of the stylist, clay modeler and digital modeler that we looked at previously, nor the interior designer we'll look at next. Instead they are the domain of a dedicated HMI Designer, which in this case is an antiques-loving, design and media arts graduate named Shaun Westbrook. Here we chat with Westbrook on his unusual profession and how it's executed.

Core77: Can you describe your position?

Shaun Westbrook: I'm a Principal HMI Lead. HMI is Human-Machine Interface, dealing with the human interaction between the car, both hardware and software. And in the future, with AI. I've been at Acura for about three years, so I'm fairly new blood.

We'll go out on a limb and guess that few kids say "I want to be an HMI designer when I grow up." What led you towards this aspect of design?

I grew up building computers with my father as a hobby. I had Tandy computers and 486s all over my bedroom and played games on floppy disks. Also, my father worked in aerospace and brought home a lot of blueprints; I'd go over them and memorize bombers and jets, and started drawing them first in CorelDRAW, then AutoCAD.

I had a PlayStation too, but that [old-school] era of computer graphics really got my attention. Gaming was really PC-oriented back then, so I experimented with a variety of joysticks and steering wheels. I found that some worked well, others were awkward and didn't.

I had been engaged with this stuff at an early age, but yeah, I never said "I want to be an HMI person when I grow up." I think people today don't even know about HMI; it's an emerging field.

Are there even HMI degree programs? What did you study?

I graduated from UCLA's Design Media Arts program, which I'd merged with computer science. I took advantage of the school's research department, so I was hanging around with neuroscience majors and taking classes all around the campus. I was very research-oriented.

I knew how to code from an early age and pursued that career at an early time. Merged with design, that really became the early days of computer graphics. HMI, when it comes to interaction, I'd say a lot of that background really helped put me in the right direction.

How did that bring you into car design?

My job progression started with what I consider the first smart apps, which were smart ads. This was before HTML5. A lot of the Internet ads were focused around building interactions, so I got a lot of experience developing things for agencies and large movie brands. Ironically, a lot of you probably have come across a lot of my ads in previous years. That was my fault.

Then the Smart TV era hit. I was very excited about that, helping to build and develop user experience for the living room. Doing that, I learned a lot about how people engage with entertainment content, how people want to make purchases and how people define what a luxury experience is for infotainment and entertainment.

Then smartphones, the iPhone, iOS and Android all kicked in, so I applied my background to some major brands for interaction with those apps and user experiences.

All of this playing around with gadgets and exploring different things triggered something in my mind. I realized that there is a career path out there, and I didn't know about it. People look at, say, Tony Stark's character in the Marvel movies and go "Hey, that's cool, but it's so make believe. It doesn't exist." The reality is, it does. It's HMI and it gives you the ability to look into a heads-up display. Not to mention Tony Stark drives an NSX in the Avengers movie--that helped me say "I want to work for Acura."

What does your work here consist of?Our priorities are the user experience and how to minimize driver distraction. I'm trying to bring a lot of the experiences from consumer electronics to help create easy-to-use, intuitive interfaces. My goal is to apply my interactive background and my love for computers and graphic design with something that can help society.

Automotive technology is much better today, yet if you look at [car accident] stats over the years, you'll see there's actually more crashes. With the current youth culture, we're too busy looking at our phones, being distracted. There's a lot of the things we ought to look out for, especially when it comes to hitting pedestrians. That's a big theme that I think we projected and put forward in the Precision Cockpit.

In a way I feel like I'm redeeming myself--my first career out of college with the smart ads, my job was to create distraction, and I did feel guilty for that. Now, with the Precision Cockpit we showed how you can reduce driver distraction. That's Acura's new direction and something that felt very rewarding to be able to work on.

How does the Precision Cockpit reduce driver distraction?

For one thing, we have an interface that uses what we call absolute-position mapping. It's this touchpad in the lower middle, which corresponds with the screen higher up in the center of the dashboard. You'll notice the position of the center screen is really high up, keeping the driver's eyes in the direction of the road, and it's also out of reach. How it works is, you [control items on the screen] by placing your finger on the touchpad; but it's not like a laptop--the actual coordinates are mapped. Meaning if you touch the top left or the bottom right of the touchpad, that registers on the top left or bottom right of the screen.

A lot of the different crashes that are occurring these days are due to bad peripheral vision. If we could have our driver's [eyes aimed in the] direction to have their peripheral vision in the road ahead, we really feel that that's the best user experience. You saw our RDX today, and it has the touchpad and the high center screen. With the RDX we've implemented a lot of the features that we showed from the Precision Cockpit itself.

Every design discipline has to ask themselves different sorts of questions in order to achieve their goals. What are the things that HMI designers ask themselves?

"How do you create a visual language around autonomous?" "How do you sketch out these concepts of looking for pedestrians?" "How do you maintain performance?" And how to put all of that together, while creating both a simplicity and a luxury feel. These are very exciting areas that I'm happy to work on.

What does an HMI designer use in terms of research?

We're constantly working with new tools, things related to detecting cognitive load, looking at biometrics, doing user testing, finding new approaches that technology offers to make sure our customers can really have the best experience. We have engineering and studies done in our Ohio R&D center. We've partnered with the Ohio State University and they have a drive-distraction simulator where, for longer than the RDX was in development, we were developing the Human-Machine Interfaces to support the car. We simulate all kinds of things. We've put actual people in the driver-simulation lab. We monitor their behavior and simulated scenarios and try to measure things like distraction.

Speaking of Honda's R&D center, Acura is a relatively small company, but parent company Honda is obviously massive. What kinds of resources does that put at your disposal?

Part of my process in the research phase is trying to look at existing solutions that might not be obvious to most people. And one example of how being at this company helped: We not only manufacture cars, motorcycles and all sorts of other power tools and equipment, but we also make a jet plane. So I traveled to Honda's jet factory and R&D studio in North Carolina to learn from the aviation industry's HMI. I asked them "What's the most important thing you've designed for pilots, who are already flying autonomously?"

The answer was what's called Synthetic Vision Mode. That's the mode that they monitor on screen that's almost like a video game graphic, but it's showing that, say, there's a hill in front of you because it could be cloudy that day and you wouldn't see it. So the pilots monitor the Synthetic Vision Mode while the plane is essentially driving itself, you could say, in the air.

I took that inspiration and applied it to the Precision Cockpit's Digital Meter concept [which renders hard-to-see obstacles on a screen]. That's an advanced vision mode meant to show the importance of preparing for autonomous.

Things like the Synthetic Vision Mode and preparing for autonomous are pretty hi-tech or futuristic, but in your presentation you also showed slides of antique objects for inspiration. Can you talk about that?

When it comes to inspiration for HMI, most people might think it's just the far future that can inspire you. But looking back at the Age of Antiquity, I feel there's actually a lot you can learn for HMI. While there weren't any computers, laptops or anything like that, they had technology. Any kind of human experience or user experience was there.

If you look at the astrolabe that I have, it's an antique. That's kind of the original Google Maps or the first smartphone. You put this on a ship, and it took a skilled person to decipher it, but you could use it to navigate by the stars. That was a luxury of sorts, and it also provided performance. How can we emulate that today? How can we evolve it into simplicity?

Luckily here in Torrance, where the Design Studio is, we have a lot of antique shops. I spend a lot of my lunch breaks going through them, trying to discover different treasure troves that I find very fascinating. Studying the craftsmanship and figuring out how users interacted with them back then. Because my theory is that all users have the same problems, the same user needs, and we're just fulfilling them in different eras.

Up Next: The HMI cannot exist in a vacuum, but must be integrated into the car by the interior designer, who also needs to consider passenger comfort, ingress/egress, driving position and more. Stay tuned for our chat with the interior designer.

"I think a lot of people have lost confidence in the recycling system," Emily Packer says. "I often hear people say things like, 'It probably just ends up in a landfill anyway.'"

The British/American videographer was disheartened to discover that as little as 9 percent of all plastics actually get recycled in America, and to see the pileup of waste in her adopted hometown of Kigali, Rwanda. "Plastic is one of the most durable materials in the world," says Packer, "and yet we're using it for throwaway items—it makes no sense. Rather than just saying 'plastic is bad,' we need to reshape our entire relationship with plastic, and begin using it in a different way."

One alternative use she's landed on, with her cofounder Jake Calhoun, is Coldharbour Tiles, live on Kickstarter now. They melt down Rwanda's waste plastic into durable, stylish home decor supplies, and guide backers through some simple ways to use them. The team hopes that as they expand their facilities to ramp up production, they'll soon be able to upcycle as much as two tons of otherwise landfill-bound plastic every day.

Coldharbour Tiles are made with the equivalent of dozens of bottlecaps.

A globe-trotting documentarian starts exploring how she can make a positive local impact in Rwanda

After an internship with the United Nations Environmental Program opened her eyes to the power of environmental documentaries, Packer started traveling the world making her own. She interviewed more than 200 people in 23 countries about global environmental solutions.

The work also brought her face to face with the realities of recycling. "Traveling on assignment to developing countries, I saw that the lack of good waste management systems meant that trash wasn't hidden away like it is in Europe and the U.S.," she says. "It's right in front of you—in the streets, in the water, on the coast, everywhere. I was guilty of being one of those people who never gave a second thought to trash once it was thrown 'away,' but travel opened my eyes to how big the problem is, and [the fact] that 'away' really means oceans, landfills, or other countries."

When she moved to Rwanda with her family, she felt motivated to shift her focus from storytelling to making a tangible, local impact.

She opened a café that focused on environmental issues and tried to eliminate plastic waste. She produced her own biodegradable takeaway containers, made soap from scratch, and opted for bamboo instead of plastic straws, but she also saw firsthand how much plastic the average business could go through. "A lot of plastic use is just unavoidable," she says. "I think once you become aware of the pervasiveness of single-use plastic in your life, and our reliance on it, it's a big wake-up call." She wanted to do more to fight what felt like avoidable waste.

This is howColdharbour Tiles was born, she explains. "I wanted to recycle plastic waste into something that had longevity." It takes almost 50 plastic bottle caps to create one tile; covering an entire kitchen or bathroom with them takes a sizable volume of plastic out of landfills and waterways.

Packer taps her skilled community, from a social enterprise leader to local students

Packer went to her friend Jake Calhoun, the CFO of a large social enterprise in East Africa and founder of an online food delivery company, for help building her business. He quickly became a cofounder, and the pair started talking to Kigali's IPRC engineering school about partnering to set up a production facility for recycling plastics into reusable tiles.

Packer sorting plastic with engineer collaborators.

"They have a nice big warehouse where we set up our production facility," Calhoun explains. "Two of their professors provide technical support and some of the students worked with us as part of a school project."

Coldharbour Tiles get a long, slow roast at an engineering school facility in Kigali.

Still, it was a lot of work. "At the beginning, I was going to the waste management site myself, handpicking the HDPE [high-density polyethylene, used in many plastic products] we wanted to use, and driving it to the warehouse in giant garbage bags—it was one smelly ride," Packer says. "After doing this a few times, the warehouse quickly filled up with plastic trash. It was cool to see how we could dramatically reduce the volume of plastic by transforming empty jugs and bottles into these beautiful, condensed tiles."

Neither Packer or Calhoun had any engineering experience and their funding was limited. "We had to stay flexible and keep pivoting," Packer says. They experimented with color combinations, temperatures, cooking times, and mold designs, eventually landing on the ones they're offering on Kickstarter now.

Not everyone's a designer, and that's OK

"Luxury eco-tiles are not the kind of product you really see that often," Calhoun concedes. "It's not the type of thing you just get up and buy one day. So we had to get creative with the types of products we offer, like the DIY tabletop that can be used by anyone, anywhere, even if you rent an apartment and have no interest in tiling a wall."

"We'll be offering a free tile information brochure with every purchase to provide design ideas, DIY tips and tricks, and installation advice, allowing customers to insert their own creativity into the tiling process," Packer adds.

Collaborating with their community has also opened their eyes to more creative uses.

"We've been overwhelmed by people's reactions," Packer says. "We have had a lot of people reaching out—from architects to interior design firms to handbag designers—asking about our tiles and sharing the different ways they plan to use them." A popular interior designer in Kigali used the tiles when she remodeled her garage into a spare apartment, and because of her influence, the team heard from a number of other interested buyers.

The Coldharbour Tiles team wants to help those who might not consider themselves designers feel comfortable trying some small projects at home.

But the small team is caught in a frustrating chicken-and-egg situation."We are simply in a place at the moment where we don't have the capacity to manufacture large-scale orders," Packer says. Their scrappy facility in the engineering school isn't ready to grow as fast as creatives' interests, "and we can't increase production until we raise enough money to upgrade our facilities," Calhoun explains, "but raising money from traditional investors before we can really increase our sales is tough as well."

The team hopes to up their impact with a facility remodel, and maybe even relocation

The team hopes their Kickstarter campaign will help them purchase the equipment that can scale up their production and bring more waste-clearing tiles to homes around the world. Machines like a plastic-waste washing machine and commercial shredder will allow them to get there. And the team is considering bringing their process to facilities in Europe and the U.S., too.

"The biggest challenge of being based in Rwanda is that you don't have access to a lot of the equipment and technology that you would simply take for granted in the West," Packer says. "This forced us to get really creative and keep trying different ways of doing things until we got it right. For example, the molds were a particular challenge at the beginning because, rather than using a laser cutter to create the shapes, we were cutting and welding everything by hand. The plastic was getting stuck inside of the molds, so we had to redesign each one in a way that allowed us to more easily pop the tile out at the end. We also weren't able to afford stainless steel to create the physical molds, which meant that our iron molds rusted easily and we needed to thoroughly scrub them down at the beginning of each day.

"Ultimately, we would like to become the leader of the eco-tile industry, cleaning up thousands of tons of plastic waste every year," says Packer. "By eventually opening manufacturing sites in Asia, Europe, the U.S., and Africa, we will be able to process locally while connecting with new consumers."

Coldharbour Tiles is live on Kickstarter through April 11, 2019.

— Katheryn Thayer

When I make tool chests for customers, the price starts at $4,000. But the only way to find this out is to ask me (or to read this caption).

I don't publish a price list for the one-off furniture pieces I make for customers. Here's why.

A few years ago a potential customer emailed me to inquire about one of the pieces shown on my website. It was listed for $2,000, but he was wondering if he could get it in walnut instead of black cherry, built a bit larger and covered with a more durable catalyzed finish.

Of course, I replied, and I quoted a price of $2,500.

His reply made me sit down: "Thanks. I'm building this piece for a customer, and now I know exactly what to charge them."

Pricing your work is one of the hardest aspects of running a business where you make things for people. A close second is deciding how and when to disclose your prices to the public, your potential customers and your competitors.

I make a lot of stuff, from books and simple tools that start at $20 on up to custom workbenches built with 18th-century oak imported from France that can cost $10,000. So I use a variety of strategies to decide when – and how – to tip my hand about my price sheet. I don't pretend to have all the answers to this dilemma, but I have found a strategy that keeps me in business and avoids ticking off too many people. Here it is for you to chew on.

We produce hundreds of tools every year using a local foundry. We are happy to disclose the price of these mass-manufactured tools – how else can we compete?

Commodity Pricing

If you sell something that you make hundreds or thousands of, then (obviously) you should be upfront about your prices. If you make customers inquire about the price of a $30 widget, then they are going to wonder if all your customers are treated the same, even though they are all getting the same widget. Many potential customers won't even bother asking.

In fact, I think that publishing a consistent price for a commodity product – such as a book, jacket or manufactured tool – is a key to building trust. At my company, we sell books and tools all over the world, and we insist that our retailers offer the same price (with some slight flexibility for local currency exchange rates) than we offer. Treat everyone the same – that's our motto.

Because we do this, we've been accused of racketeering and subverting the free market. But it's a perfectly legal strategy called Minimum Advertised Price (aka MAP – thank you, U.S. Supreme Court). MAP allows you to set a price with your retailers and to cut them off if they violate the terms of your agreement.

Of course, you have to be willing to slap down your retailers if they sell your goods below your MAP. And that's difficult. After two warnings, we cut ties with a retailer who violated our MAP on several occasions. It cost us about $20,000 in business per year. But once we did that (which made us poop our pants a bit), none of our other retailers since have violated our MAP.

Here's a new batch of cabinet scrapers we're working on – we make these in batches of 1,000. Their retail price – about $20 – sends a clear message to the buyer about where they fit in the marketplace. Message: We charge a little more for this because we take great care to get it right.

I hate to say it, but it's like making an example of someone and putting their head on a stick as a warning. Call it a "Game of Thrones" season 1 strategy.

But MAP is easy. You set your price. You publish your price. Everyone can see it, and you have a strategy for making sure your prices are consistent all over the country and world. But what about publishing the price of expensive goods that are custom or nearly custom?

My first commercial piece. In 1999, I sold these chairs for $500 (upholstery not included). I can't believe how many of these I made for so little. And yet, here I am.

Are You a Disruptor?

If you are just getting started as someone who makes custom things with a serious price tag, I think you should disclose your prices. And they should be a bargain compared to the old dogs in the marketplace. That's what disruptors do.

As a beginner, your biggest asset is that you're willing to work for less money. Some customers will take a chance on you because they are cheapskates, broke or simply like the underdog. If you're savvy, you will produce an excellent product and earn their loyalty. Then, over the long term, you can raise your prices to be in line with established competitors.

(That's the theory, anyway. Sometimes it's hard to get cheapskates to play along.)

As someone who has sold custom furniture since the 1990s, I have been on both sides of this equation. I sold my first Morris chair for $500, which was one-fourth the price of the competition. I got my foot in the door, and I now charge market rate for that same Morris chair.

Now I have people undercutting my prices.

So if you are new to the market, definitely disclose your prices. You don't have much else going for you (except for a pretty website and some photos) until you build your reputation.

This piece – an improved copy of a bookcase at Monticello – was custom all the way, from the selection of the wood to the arrangement of the dovetails. And the price reflected all that work.

Established Businesses

If you've been in business for a while and you do custom or semi-custom work at a high level, I would avoid publishing your prices. First off, you want to make it difficult for the disruptors to disrupt you. Force them to do some research and make mistakes.

If you've done a good job of building your business, then you shouldn't be desperate for new business. That said, you absolutely should be open to taking on some new business.

Honestly, I'd be happy if I never had another customer ask me to build them an English campaign secretary. But those new customers represent my next generation of customers. No matter how well I treat my existing customers, I might lose a good one to bankruptcy, divorce or worse ("worse" is not death – what's worse is if they embrace the "tiny home" movement and get rid of all their furniture).

I know that all this raises a huge question: If I don't publish my prices, won't I lose potential customers who are too shy to ask? You might. But if you have a stable business, this shouldn't worry you. If it does worry you, you might not have a stable business….

There are ways to communicate to potential customers that you don't charge $20,000 for a turned shot glass. Here's how I deal with this issue on the website where I sell my custom furniture (christophermschwarz.com): "You'll find my prices are quite fair compared to high-end gallery work on the coasts. Plus, many times purchasing a new custom piece can be less expensive than the cost of a rare original or antique. I work with a wide range of customers, from long-time collectors to new families who need a chair for the nursery."

This sort of language happens to attract exactly that sort of clientele. I do ridiculous work for people who want the ridiculous, and I do down-to-earth work for people who are buying their first piece of custom-made anything.

Most of all, the statement on my website gets people to ask me: How much is that bookcase in the browser window? What you do next is important.

The wrong thing to do is simply send them the price. Instead, I reply with a list of qualities of the object and conclude with the price. In many ways, I try to make the case that what I do is actually quite inexpensive for what you get.

I've made Welsh stick chairs for sale for 16 years. My price has slowly risen from $700 apiece to $1,000. Chairmakers are doomed to poverty (which is why I also make casework).

For example, when someone asks me how much a Welsh Stick Chair costs, here's how I reply:

Thanks for your inquiry. I'm passionate about building these chairs and have devoted more than 20 years to researching and building them. Here are some of their particulars:

-All my chairs are built from sustainable local hardwoods from sawmills I've come to trust in the Midwest and Appalachian regions. You can choose from a variety of beautiful woods. The basic chair is made in red oak, but you can spend a little more to get one in black walnut, cherry, hard maple or curly white oak.

- My chairs are built and finished entirely by me – no subcontractors – in my workshop in a converted 1896 barroom in Covington, Ky.

- All my chairs are made with hide glue, an ancient, responsible and repairable adhesive that ensures your chair will easily last 200 years.

- Like custom clothing, your chair can be sized to fit you in particular. Or it can be made to suit a more general audience for dining, keyboarding or lounging.

- The basic finish is 100-percent organic linseed oil and beeswax. It's safe enough to eat and requires little maintenance. Synthetic and other natural film finishes are also available.

- My chairs are guaranteed for life.

- The chairs start at $1,000, which includes delivery within a 100-mile radius of Cincinnati, Ohio. Reasonable trucking rates are available for further locales.

Let me know if you have any questions about the chair, the materials or how I work.

This approach works. You might think my price is low or exorbitant – that's besides the point. What's important is that customers who ask about the price receive a gentle argument that justifies it.

This is what the customer is paying for. It's a bit romantic – one guy building a chair just for them – but it's the truth and it keeps the lights on.

The Truth

I know it seems snobby to keep your price sheet under wraps. And honestly, if you've been in business for a while, then word will get out on social media or internet forums as to what you charge. A customer who does her homework can usually figure out what you have charged for an item in the past. People talk.

But even though I know the above is true, I stick to my guns. Why? Because it forces the customer to reach out to me and talk. They can't just click the "buy" button and get a set of dining room chairs. What I sell – aside from custom work – is an experience you cannot get at IKEA or Ethan Allen furniture. I'm a guy who builds stuff. If you talk to me about what you want, I can make you happier about a chair, dresser or bookcase/coffin than you ever imagined possible.

And that experience is something you can't put a price on.

Christopher Schwarz is the editor atLost Art Press and one of the founders ofCrucible Tool. He works from a restored 1896 German barroom in Covington, Ky. You can see his furniture atchristophermschwarz.com.

"Together, the Precision Concept and the Precision Cockpit are the fundamental building blocks for Acura's future. To us, interiors are critical for communicating performance." --Dave Marek, unveiling the Precision Cockpit at the L.A. Auto Show

The exterior design of a car plays a major role in its identity; few of us will purchase a car if we don't connect with its outward appearance. Yet the bulk of our experience with any car comes from within its interior. The materials, shapes, controls, gauges and screens we interface with, whether at high speed or whilst stuck in stop-and-go traffic, will occupy a far greater quantity of our attention than time spent staring at the car's exterior will.

Designing and executing that interior is a very difficult job, not least of which is because the exterior it fits within has already, to a large part, been determined. The interior designer must execute his or her vision within both design and engineering constraints by using a combination of artistry and science. To walk you through this process, we chatted with design veteran Simon Yu at the Acura Design Studio.

Core77: Can you describe your position?

Simon Yu: I'm a Senior Interior Designer at the Acura Design Studio. I've been with this company for about 17 years. I've worked on numerous projects, including the last two generations of MDX's as well as the NSX. I was the project leader for the Acura RDX.

What led you down this career path?

As a kid I always liked to draw robots and spaceships. I was a kid in the '80s and '90s, so the biggest influence I had was RoboTech. When I came home from school that was always the first thing I watched, I loved it. I had a lot of manga influence, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, I love the drawings and intricate details of Masamune Shiro. These things were huge influences both as a person and a designer.

I'm originally from South Korea, my parents immigrated here when I was 10 years old. When I was 11, my cousin here in California bought a red Chevy Camaro Z/28, which was amazing at that time. It was red and silver and it made quite an impression on me. From that point on, I was drawing cars all the time.

California upbringing, liked to draw, car lover, let me guess: You went to ArtCenter?

Well before I went to ArtCenter, I actually went to actually UCLA for a couple of years, because my parents are Asian; they didn't believe in art as a career. But eventually I was able to convince them that it's a good career.

After getting into ArtCenter, I was able to get an internship with one of the Big Three in Detroit. It was a great experience and I learned quite a bit, but I was there in Detroit from December to April, and coming from California it was very shocking--I didn't see the sun for four months.

Spending time there made me realize that living in L.A. gives you a lot of different opportunities, resources and influences that you don't get from anywhere else. Not just sunshine but also different cultures, backgrounds and cars. When I was in Detroit, all I'd see were cars from the Big Three. And here in L.A., I see all kinds of different cars. I realized that diversity is fuel for creativity, and L.A. provides that visual influence.

By chatting with the stylist, the clay modeler and the digital modeler we learned about the workflow for the exterior designers. What is the process for the interior design?

As Dave [Marek, Acura Executive Creative Director] mentioned earlier, any project here always starts with a concept. That's the most important part of the project because it combines everybody's [mission] from the executives to the engineers to the designers. Once you have that set, you can begin.

For the RDX interior, we came up with a concept called the Penthouse Control Center. We wanted to capture the premium aspect of a modern, open-space penthouse. Kind of a futuristic penthouse in the clouds with a commanding view, being able to see everything outside.

[One element of this] would be focused on the personal, with the control center being the new HMI system, where we're introducing the all new True Touchpad interface.

Another aspect was that we wanted to make innovative use of materials--real materials, not just stickers. We really wanted the material to be an intricate, integrated part of the design itself, built with exceptional quality and craftsmanship.

So those were the concepts. With those established, we started sketching the overall look of the interior.

We developed an overall dual personal structure concept for the interior, with a symmetrical space for both driver and passenger. To integrate the Penthouse Control Center concept we applied this bold and wide "penthouse" space underneath the instrument panel. It's long, elongated, to create this open, light feeling. The wood trim structure is an intricate part of the interior, not just decoration. The elevated control structure celebrates the new HMI system with the True Touchpad interface. So those are the key elements for the actual structure.

The center console not only features the True Touchpad interface, but shows the further functionality of the console with the cup holder goes, a place for a phone, and the creation of a new space underneath the shift bar wire for the customers to use.

One of my favorite things about the IP (instrument panel] is the wood trim structure that goes underneath. We're only using three small pieces [see numbers on images below] for the panel, but by creating that one space, your eyes [fill in the blanks to] create this whole gigantic space underneath it, giving this IP a light, woody, layered, floating appearance.

We maintained the floating console from the PCC concept. It creates a very light, airy feel for the interior, and we can achieve that because we're using shift-by-wire. It's not a regular shifter, it's now floating on the floor. So by creating new technology, we're creating new space for the customers to use.

We really wanted to celebrate the True Touch interface and make sure it's going to be easy for the customer to use. So it's on the high center point of the console. Both the driver and passenger can use it.

The seat is new, and the concept for it was a tuxedo. We really wanted to make the seat more formal and premium from the previous generations, and of course it has to be comfortable as well, and the rear seats must match.

This is the only steering wheel we've done yet that incorporates the all-new HMI system, so the customers never have to reach out from the steering wheel if they don't want to. They can control the whole HMI system from the wheel.

Lastly, the material usage of this interior is very crucial. If it looks like wood, it's real wood. If it looks like metal, it's real metal. And the craftsmanship on the stitching, the personal touch, is very crucial for the premium market.

How do you go from these airy concepts into hard production?

So in our process, those [desired elements I just described] are what we present to our executive for approval. Once they approve our direction, then we go into more of a feasibility level. So it goes from more of an artistic representation of the interior to more of an industrial design aspect of the interior.

We have to create a very accurate drawing with a grid system so that engineers understand what the shapes look like, and where we can fit all of the stuff that we need to fit. Where the cup holders go, where the shift-by-wire system goes. The plan view is very important, that's where you work out if you have enough space to put a cup holder and still have accessibility to the touchpad. Then we do [an elevation] drawing showing the door interior from inside--something that you'd never see in real life, but we need to do it for our modelers and engineers to understand, to make sure the layout fits with the speakers, inner handles, storage spaces. These drawings have to be very accurate.

How granular do you guys get with the design, versus having access to off-the-internal-shelf parts?

This is a production studio, so we design everything from the needles to the meter graphics. Every single detail has to be designed and validated, and we work with engineers to ensure feasibility.

So with all of these detail drawings done, we're now able to create a 3D mock-up out of foam. It's hard, but it's covered in the materials that we wanted to apply in the production car. So, while parts of it don't actually function, the executive can sit inside the mock-up and make sure everything is reachable, there's enough knee room, you can touch this and grab that. So you can validate all of the design functions, not just the style.

Once you get approval, then you work with the engineers in Ohio to make it real. Essentially that's where the fun begins, as we work towards maturation. And [with this project] we didn't really lose [much] to be honest. If anything, the design maturation really helped. The wraparound, floating IP, the console, the True-Touchpad interface, the sleek design, all of these things had been kept from the initial concept sketch to the production, which is a very rare thing.

It's a pretty difficult process, because when you're sketching a lot of the stuff, you don't know if it's possible or not. But we try to push as much as possible. And having the Precision Concept interior as a North Star, we tried to achieve that image in the production. And that's what we did in RDX.

You mentioned it's rare to have so many design elements survive the maturation phase. Was there something different about the process with this project?

I think we worked really well with engineers and we had really strong concepts, with both the Precision and the PCC that everybody loved. That helped keep the sense of styling intact. I think the concepts generated a lot of momentum, and everybody wanted to push to achieve that dream. It was definitely a challenge but I think the reward is overwhelming.

Can you give us an example of anything that did change during the maturation phase?

Yeah, so we added this area by the touchpad:

With the mock-up, we noticed that when you're driving, your hands start moving around, right? So you want some sort of anchor for your palms so that your hand doesn't move around when the car starts driving. So that was something we added at the maturation phase, and I think it worked out very well.

The floating IP in particular looks difficult-to-engineer and presumably not cheap to produce. Were you afraid that would get axed?

Absolutely correct on that. When I showed this sketch to our engineers, they were like "How do we make this?" They had no idea, they'd never done it before. So that was really challenging for them.

From initial sketches to finished product, what was the most challenging thing to retain in the design?

Obviously the floating console, and the authentic use of materials. Authentic materials are very expensive. It's much cheaper to do a plastic part that looks like metal. But we really wanted to keep that authenticity for this premium market. So that was one of the big challenges, [the bean counters] always want to cut costs. But we were able to keep both of those, and I think that [the success] speaks for itself in the sales numbers. People love this car.

Was there anything in the initial design that you had to give up, and were sad to see go?

There were many things. As a designer, you want to keep everything. But you have to be realistic and realize that we have to sell and make money on these cars. So in the face of compromise, you have to prioritize what is important to you as far as design goes. We kept all of the good stuff that we could.

_____________________

Up Next: As Yu mentioned, the materials choices for the RDX interior were a crucial element. In the final installment of the series, we'll look at the CMF (Color, Material, Finish) designers responsible for creating the interior surfaces.

Have a great project from 2018? Submit to to this year's awards program.

Rapt Studio—the interdisciplinary firm known for designing the office spaces of some of the world's biggest brands, from HBO to Dropbox—makes their Salone debut with "Tell Me More," an immersive two-part installation at Ventura Centrale.

The installation guides visitors through two spaces, an "arrival chamber" (which looks more inviting than it sounds) and a lounge area. The first offers a moment of introspective reflection, which is then followed by a collective gathering. The experience is intended to elicit the "the emotion of arriving as individuals and leaving as part of something larger."

Visitors first enter the "arrival chamber"—a cool-toned, ethereal setting within the vaults of Milan's Central Station—where they step inside one of a series of circular, drapery-clad "stages or personal theaters," as the designers refer to them. Once inside, visitors will be asked to contemplate a question posed by the person who was last there. After taking a moment to reflect, visitors will leave behind a question of their own before stepping into the next phase of the experience.

Next, a wall of mirrors leads into a warm lounge space with various seating clusters. The change of color signals a change of mood—from the reflective blue to an inviting amber. Threads hanging from the ceiling are attached to cards containing more questions and conversation starters, all designed to spur connections between strangers.

"We envision 'Tell Me More' as a living embodiment of human interaction," says Rapt Studio's CEO and Chief Creative Officer, David Galullo. "An exercise in placemaking built on and celebrating connection and conversation. A place for storytelling, with a memory all its own."

The luxurious lounge is furnished by a global roster of designers, including: drapery by Erik Bruce, decorative lighting by Brooklyn-based studio Rich Brilliant Willing, Moooi Carpets by Mae Engelgeer from their new collaboration, custom terrazzo platforms and handmade bar tables by California-based Concrete Collaborative, custom sofas, tables and chairs by Swedish furniture brand Blå Station, and others.

For its third edition, Ventura Centrale once again takes over the massive industrial vaults of Milan's Central Station. Building on past success, the show will expand this year to include sixteen exhibitors.

"Tell Me More" will be on view from April 9-14 at Ventura Centrale, Via Ferrante Aporti 15bis, 20125, Milan.

Love motorcycles? Icon Motosports, located in Portland Oregon, is looking for a Print Designer to join our industry leading motorcycle equipment design team. We are seeking an individual who will work with the design and development groups producing printed materials for packaging, catalog, and advertising. The ideal candidate will be

This project is dedicated to reclaiming prosthetic care for amputee's that live in rural communities within developing countries. Amputees in these communities often cannot afford professional prosthetic care or live too far away from existing services. While new technologies and services are currently being integrated into prosthetic services in developing countries, these developments often don't reach those most in need, with up to 95% of amputees going without access to care. Compounding this problem, devices produced with advanced technologies such as 3D printing are often difficult to repair and not always suited to rural environments. Faced with these limitations, amputees find innovative D.I.Y. responses which are tailored to local materials and traditional practices.

The aim for this project is to evaluate the technologies, materials and processes currently accessible in specific locations within Africa (Sudan, South Sudan and Cameroon), India (West Bengaland Jharkhand) and Cambodia (Ratanakiri and Battambang) and use this information to develop D.I.Y. prosthetic designs that are informed by current medical 'best practice'. The resulting designs seek to give amputees independence and control over the construction of their own prosthetics, without dependence on health care practitioners and NGO organisations for ongoing prosthetic care.

The project uses visual ethnography to gain an in-depth understanding of practices of re-purposing, repairing and crafting within these rural communities and builds on this understanding through extensive prototyping. Project outcomes include the design of a new D.I.Y. lower-limb prosthetic and an associated D.I.Y manual that proposes an alternative process for providing best practice prosthetic care to rural communities within Africa, India and Cambodia.

Final Design Outcome

Each D.I.Y prosthetic has several key features that differentiate from each other. Each prosthetic provides alternative levels of prosthetic practices, which are adaptable and appropriate for the implementation within various communities such as Africa , Cambodia, and India. .

Credit: Desiree Riny

Design Process

Throughout the design process of the final design outcome, i was able to co-design with various expert within the field of prosthetics to develop a design that could provide ' the best practice ' of prosthetic care within developing countries through a D.I.Y solution.

Credit: Desiree Riny

D.I.Y Prosthetic 1

Requires a very basic level of skills and materials to craft, without sacrificing various levels of comfort and basic requirement for adjustability. It has two levels of adjustment the first is height adjustment that is integrated with the pylon and furthermore pivotal rotation of fewer than 16 degrees within the foot joinery. It provides a high level of stability and a basic level of mobility.

Credit: Desiree Riny

D.I.Y Prosthetic 2

The second D.I.Y prosthetic builds onto existing practices of the first D.I.Y prosthetic, however the foot joinery comprises three level of adjustments that provide over 30 degrees in movement .It also builds from a basic level of skill required to fabricate the foot joinery but remains beneficial to provide two more degrees of movement within the (x & y-axis).

Credit: Desiree Riny

Final Design Outcome

The third prosthetic also uses similar practices and craftsmanship as the second prosthetic, however, it comprises of completely new adjustable process through the foot joinery, using ballpoint and bike seat rail that allows for a dynamic range of motion .

Credit: Desiree Riny

D.I.Y Prosthetic Design Manual

The D.I.Y design manual is a manifestation of illustrations of prosthetic practices and process to fabricate all three prosthetic outcomes. Its design language is comprised of visual illustrations and small descriptive steps which help guide an amputee through the beginning process of fabrication to end process of alignment .

Credit: Desiree Riny

D.I.Y Prosthetic Design Manual

Credit: Desiree Riny

Final Design Outcome in Context

Credit: Desiree Riny

We've all had the experience of submitting something to our boss and finding s/he doesn't like it. In a conventional job they send you back to your desk to get it right. But in the case of these designers we're chatting with here, you might be sent to go wandering through a jungle on a different continent for two weeks, in search of a color no one's ever seen before.

Welcome to the CMF (Color Material Finish) group at the Acura Design Studio, where designers Gypsy Modina and Violet Park are tasked with devising surfaces, textures and colors, both interior and exterior, that form a subtle but large proportion of the vehicle's identity. Out of all of the automotive design specialities we've covered yet, this one might be the most far-reaching--and, as Modina explains, the most unexpectedly familiar.

Core77: Can you describe your positions?

Gypsy Modina:I'm a Principal Color Material Designer. As a project leader, some of the programs that I've launched were the 2007 TL Type S, 2011 MDX and the Precision Concept, just to name a few. My primary role is to be a group leader for global color material strategy for Acura. All really fun stuff.

Violet Park: I'm a Color Trim Designer here at Acura. I've been with Acura for six years and I was color and trim styling Project Lead of the '19 model RDX. And currently I'm working on some upcoming Acura projects.

What does the CMF department do?

Gypsy: We incorporate the brand and product identity through the use of color, material and finish. People's relationship with that makes a really strong connection emotionally. The second thing that we do is help performance by material choices. We refine that aesthetic of interior and exterior design, bringing up the level. We also delve into material innovation and cutting edge technology.

What led you guys down this career path?

Violet: I was born and raised in South Korea and always wanted to be a designer. I went to art school and I was lucky to have had a great opportunity to come to the U.S. I interned for Volkswagen's design studio here in California, and that experience led me to join the Acura design team.

Gypsy: I've always been interested in art. I was one of those kids that drew all over my notebook; even before school started everything was already sketched up on top of. I was determined to go into automotive--

Hang on--that's a huge leap to go from doodling student to auto design! You knew from childhood that you wanted to do CMF?

Gypsy: No, I wasn't even aware of CMF as a field. In high school I was interested in fashion and thought I might [go that route], but I was also interested in engineering. Then I met a friend, she was at CCS (College for Creative Studies) and she was studying automotive color and trim. She showed me some projects she was working on, which were a lot of textile projects and fibers, and I thought that married my interest in engineering and textiles. Then CCS sent a recruiter to my high school and that's how I ended up there.

My parents are really practical--my father did chemical engineering, my mother's a nurse. They knew I was interested in the artistic field, but they were really worried about "Can this make money? School is so expensive." But when I found out about CMF, I was like "That's perfect for me."

Violet, you mentioned going from Volkswagen to Acura. Gypsy, did you start off at another automaker too?

Gypsy: No, I had an internship at Lear in Michigan, and they hired me full time. While I was working there, my now-husband/then-boyfriend and I wanted to go to California. I looked at some car design studios in California but never dreamt--I had been in love with Acura since I was really young. I grew up in Detroit, and every car you see there is from the Big Three. But I had two friends that had Integras and an ex-boyfriend that had a Legend, and they were such exotic cars to us.

I had Acura as the highest studio I could be at, and I didn't think it would even be possible. But I applied. I remember going through several rounds of interviews, and towards the end of the day had just one more to go. It was with our Lead Principle Designer and Dave Marek was in the room. Dave asked me one question I'll always remember:

[Joking sing-song-y voice] "What's your favorite color?"

I answered, "Clear."

He said "What?"

I said "Clear. Clear changes everything, just like a lens. I love all colors, but clear is my favorite color."

He said "Okay, hire this girl!" I couldn't believe it. It was like I won the lottery.

As CMF designers, what kinds of things do you draw inspiration from?

Violet: I love mid-century furniture and miniatures. I like seeing them, collecting them, using them. I love these historical and amazing designs, it really inspires me to design timeless products that people can appreciate for a long time.

I'm also a huge sneakerhead. I see a lot of similarity between cars and sneakers when it comes to CMF design approaches. Sneakers are the most functional product in fashion, so looking into the sneaker industry really helps me in implementing the most up-to-date design into the product I'm working on.

We also take trips to many international design fairs and auto shows, and we come back and create reports from our own design perspective. That's one of the biggest inspirations for the color group. These trips allow us to experience really good hand feel and really good products in person; seeing and touching these things first-hand is really helpful in designing a premium quality vehicle.

Of all the design disciplines we've covered so far, CMF seems the most nebulous to me. I realize it's not just going to design fairs and coming back with mood boards, so what is the nitty-gritty of it?

Gypsy: At least here, what makes us really different from other studios is we're really directed about what we want to make. With all of our products we're trying to create an extraordinary experience, so we have to think outside the box a lot. You can't just get inspiration from sitting at your desk and looking at Pinterest or Instagram.

Can you give us a concrete example?

Gypsy: So when we were working on the Precision Concept, I had gone to Milan Design Week with an exterior designer and an interior designer. We got these really cool insights about future technologies and design aesthetics, were hit with a flash of inspiration, and came up with what we thought was this really amazing concept.

When we came back and showed the Precision Concept to Frank [Paluch, Honda R&D Americas President], he looked at the car and said, "Tell me about the color and materials."

We told him "Well, we did this, we did that, here's our process, there's 3D printing, there's this technology, that technology."

And he said "That's not far enough, I need something more unique." So he sent us to go hiking in Africa.

Whoa.

Gypsy: Yeah. The Africa trip was around 15 days. We went to five different locations, starting at the Cape. The landscapes there are amazing and they change as you travel through the countryside. We talked to a lot of really cool people and had some amazing insights, just having these exclusive experiences that you don't have daily.

At one point we were hiking through Kruger National Park. Through this one area where they'd burned thousands of hectares in ecological wildfires. When it's burnt like that, these chemicals start coming out of the ground. Everything that had been alive was now burned and dead, but after a while things start growing and regenerating. It was an alluring contrast and made us think of contrasting surfacing with exterior, [as designers] we always have that in mind.

So when we were hitting the peak of this mountain, at the crest there was this cloud that was moving through and it was picking up soot from the environment. The cloud was this super dynamic color and we got that "Aha" moment: "Let's make this color. This is truly extraordinary. This is an alluring contrast. Let's make it." And that's how we got this.

[Editor's Note: Here Gypsy holds up a piece of material that is a dark, rich grey with a subtle hint of green, depending on how you hold it in the light.]

You can see here the color's quite dynamic. Even though it's a sophisticated shade, there's other things going on. It's like a fresh new growth contrasting with these smoky elements.

So that's what we want to bring to the table. We developed a lot of colors and materials based on that trip, and at least three colors specifically from that moment, that experience of encountering that cloud. Then they go into proposals.

The other facet of Acura that we convey in the color development is that we use advanced, cutting-edge technology. A lot of this pigmentation didn't exist before.

And one principle that we work towards, is a Japanese word called omotenashi. One possible translation of this word is, it means to have your back scratched before you knew it was itching.

And how does omotenashi come into play?

Violet: So talking about that, I can show you my contribution on the RDX. Our color group conducted extensive studies in China and North America, with the objective of understanding what the customer wants. We develop a palette based on the customer's preferences, but then improve, intensify the hues and characters of these colors. Getting into those details is the approach of omotenashi.

We increased the lineup of our genuine materials, and a key design point was to pick the patterns, finishes and colors that represent the authentic property of materials the most. So we [upgraded] the construction of the leather by applying full grain Milano leather, which has enhanced hand feel and grain, and created a sturdier construction compared to our previous leather application. The metal [in the interior] has a brushed finish--it's minimal, clean and shows the luster of the aluminum the most, enhancing its authenticity. And little details like increasing the thickness of the stitches on the seating for more solidity of finish, and applying a contrast perforation on the seating surfaces for a more crafted feel.

How much of the process are you guys involved with? Is it just the ideation phase, or are you guys following along with the execution as well?

Gypsy: A CMF job is really varied. While the actual thing we're working on daily can change day-to-day, with a project we're right there in the beginning, conceptualizing the product and [determining the needs of] our next buyer. All the way through to the end, when we're right there at the plant, planning out parts. It's a really, really a broad span of work that we cover.

Aside from talking to customers and disappearing into jungles, what kinds of say, lab-based material research do you guys do?

Gypsy: We do a ton of research--we have an advanced products group here in the building that we can't talk about too much. But I can tell you that we experiment with 3D printing, bio-plastics and aspects of color and material development that aren't just for decoration, but have some additional functional facets. That's addressing the future and [what will exist in the] next wave of automotive production: Sustainability, electrification, connectivity, automation. We think about "What experience is the customer going to have in [a vehicle with those things?]". And we develop proposals for materials that will support those different modes that we don't currently have now.

Is there anything you can tell us about how, say, 3D printing is currently integrated into your processes?

Gypsy: So 3D printing is something we used when we were developing proposals for grilles. That actually started out with napkin sketches when we were in Italy. Then we came back and grabbed James [Robbins, Senior Digital Modeler] and said "Hey, want to make something cool for us?" We work pretty seamlessly with each other as a team.

I feel like CMF is probably the least understood out of all of the auto design specialties. What would you describe as the most challenging aspect of it?

Gypsy: I would disagree, I think CMF is actually the most familiar. When people are growing up, one of the first things a lot of them will associate themselves with is their fashion. That's going to be their image, so they push the outer part of their personality. What they're going to wear has a lot to do with their character. I have a five year old daughter, and she's already choosing the colors that she likes to wear.

That's kind of what we do with CMF, and because people [form those associations] from really early on, our challenge is that a lot of people are familiar with it and know what's good, but can't really articulate it. They have a really close connection with the CMF and it has to be perfect for them--if one thing is off, "I like the color but I don't like the material," they won't buy it.

But if they see something they like they'll say "Yeah, that's my character" and demand will be high. So we really need to be on point with that. And I think we accomplished that with the RDX, which is the beginning of this generation of our CMF.

Was there one thing you were happiest with on the RDX, in terms of the CMF?

Gypsy: I feel so proud of that car, and really connected to it, because I was there in the beginning as a project leader with Violet. I think what I'm really proud of is that it was successful from the beginning, of what we wanted to do, all the way through to the end. Everything Violet did on it, from the harmony to the quality to the finish.

Sometimes I'll take one on a long drive to check on suppliers, and afterwards I'll tell Violet "I just got out of the RDX, and wow." We set a really high goal for the CMF, and I think that Violet achieved it. When you look at what our plans were, you'll see that she didn't miss a beat. She hit every point that we wanted to do.

Creative geniuses are sometimes scatterbrained, which is why your team needs to establish some sort of organization to be successful. Organize your files and choose the right platform to ensure you combat unsafe practices. Sharing files should be easy and convenient, but lacking an organization process can create a security risk. We'll help you in choosing a secure platform, how to develop an organization system, and bad sharing habits to break right now.

Make sure you choose the right file sharing platform

As far as file sharing goes, we have nearly endless options to choose from ranging from basic services to security-conscious and enterprise-level services. One key factor to pay attention to is whether or not the platform you go with is constantly evolving (in positive ways). You'll need one that updates not only your files after syncing, but stays up to date with the current trends to ensure the safety of your most precious files. For your company, we recommend choosing a platform that makes team work, sharing, and collaboration seamless.

Staying organized with the right creative technology platforms keeps your team's process running smoothly.

Keep your shared files organized by developing an organization system

In order to stay 100% organized, everyone on your team needs to adopt the same organizational system. It's critical that all members are active in setting up a process for new tasks and understanding what the hierarchy is. Here are some tips for starting the organization process:

1. Store documents in a shared location

This seems like a given but you'd be surprised by how many people save everything to "My Documents." This creates problems for everyone else in your company because they do not have access to those documents without the owner's permission. You need to make sure you're saving files on a shared location not only for this reason but in case something were to happen to your personal device as well.

2. Group by category

Think of your files as food at the grocery store. You know exactly where to locate produce, dairy, frozen foods, etc. Group your files into categories that make sense for your business. You may consider categories such as departments, clients, products, and users. The last category could get tricky especially if you want to keep some user information private, so you may want to create separate groups for each.

3. Group by date

Various reports or events are reoccurring so organizing by year or month helps you identify current or past files quickly. For example, you may already have a folder for "invoices" and several subfolders under it for "2015", "2016", and so on. Which leads me to my next point...

4. Befriend subfolders

Narrow down your files even more by creating subfolders. For instance, in a larger client folder, you may create a separate subfolder for each project. Take it one step further and create subfolders to organize correspondence and contracts within the project subfolder. Make sure you don't go overboard though! If you're dumping 50 or more files into a single folder, it's time to add a subfolder, but you probably don't need one for just a handful of files.

5. Folder templates

Keep your folder structure consistent by creating folder templates. Continue to organize your files based on client name if you've done so in the past. In order to keep up with this organization, communication with your team members is key. Sharing a template with others also allows them to organize their files without placing the responsibility elsewhere.

There's no magical formula for the perfect folder structure, as long as everyone's on the same page you really can't go wrong. Overall, keep your organization system easy to use so all members can intuitively find what they need.

New technologies are always evolving—make sure your team takes advantage of them and optimize your creative process today.

Avoid these common file sharing mistakes

Nobody's perfect. There are a number of common mistakes made when attempting to file share. Not implementing proper file sharing systems and policies often puts the privacy of businesses and clients in jeopardy. Understanding these mistakes upfront will save you some time and money in the long run.

1. Accidental sharing outsize of your organization

Accidentally sharing files with unauthorized individuals happens more than you realize. 62% of individuals have accidentally sent files outside of their organization and 60% have received files not intended for them. This can be a pretty big hiccup for your company depending on the information being shared. Secure your devices by creating a password to connect devices and use private folders to prevent unauthorized access to files.

2. Sharing unsecure files via email

Sending design files via emails happens regularly amongst employees. Email is not designed to be secure and anyone with access to an intermediate mail server can get their hands on all network activity if they want. Figure out an adoptable sharing and collaboration solution that meets security requirements to ensure the safety of your files.

3. Branching out on your own

Engaging in a file sharing service on your own brings about a number of potential dangers. Data may be at risk as control and auditability is taken away from those who need to monitor it. Employees that use a solution on their own places them at risk of mixing personal data with organizational data.

File sharing—when done properly—makes it easier to communicate ideas with your creative team than ever before.

Reduce the risk of unsafe file sharing by making sure you choose the right platform with the best security practices. Follow our organization tips and have clear policies around the office that ensures an efficient sharing process.

This is a sponsored post for Dropbox. All opinions are my own. Dropbox is not affiliated with nor endorses any other products or services mentioned.

At 3M, we apply science in collaborative ways to improve lives. With $33 billion in sales, our 93,000 employees connect with customers all around the world. 3M has a long-standing reputation as a company committed to innovation. We provide the freedom to explore and encourage curiosity and